Emily shrugs. “At least we know the rest of us are safe on the trip—Skyla’s only predicting doom for girls who go near Gage. I’d watch your back, if I were you, Kate.”
Okay, so I may have walked into that one. And it’s not Kate’s back she needs to worry about, it’s her head.
Before I can respond, Coach blows his whistle from across the field, signaling the end of football practice and more or less our practice, too. The girls start gathering their gear, the ski conversation dissolving into the usual post-practice chatter about homework and weekend plans, which include sex with Dudley for most of these dingbats.
I watch them disperse through the thickening fog, andeverything feels surreal and wrong, like I’m seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.
“Skyla.”
I turn to find Gage standing behind me, and my heart jumps the way it always does when he appears unexpectedly. His dark hair is damp from the fog, and there’s something in his expression that makes my insides clench with dread.
“We need to talk,” he says quietly.
“If this is about yesterday?—”
“It’s not.” His voice is tight, controlled. “I had a vision.”
Those four words hit me like a brick to the forehead. Gage’s visions are rarely good news, and the way he’s looking at me suggests this one is particularly terrible.
“What kind of vision?”
He glances around to make sure we’re alone, then steps closer. “I saw Bree getting her head blown off with a ski. And I think the ski was attached to you.”
The world tilts sideways. “What? Did you sayBree?”
He nods. “On the ski trip. Something goes wrong, and you’re somehow involved, and Bree gets hurt. Badly hurt—as in meets her maker.” He shakes his head emphatically. “I can’t let that happen.”
I stare at him with my mind racing every which way. Another change. Another consequence of my presence here that could destroy someone I care about.
But that can’t really happen, can it? It’s never happened before. Why would it start now?
All the times Logan and I have done a little light driving, the times we went back to L.A. again and again to try to stop my father from dying. Nothing worked. Maybe I should worry less about Bree and worry far more for Kate.
“I wasn’t planning to go anyway,” I say weakly. I can see the writing on the wall from here—my mother takes Logan and me back to the time and place where we belong, and the old version of me jumps at the chance to jump Gage Oliver’s bones up in themountains. Face it, the decapitation train left the station a long time ago.
But then, why does it feel as if the anchor Candace wanted me to set isn’t holding me in place—it’s dragging everyone I love into danger.
I need to get back to my own time before I accidentally figure out a way to destroy everything that matters.
I get the feeling some anchors aren’t meant to keep you safe—they’re meant to pull you under until you drown. And maybe drown the ones you love, too.
22
Skyla
The large neon sign for the Paragon Bowling Alley blinks in all its retro glory, casting pink and blue light across the main thoroughfare that overlooks the jagged cliffsides like some vintage postcard come to life.
From the outside, the place looks as if it’s seen better decades, but that’s part of its charm—or so Logan keeps telling himself. And you know what? The rest of us have always bought it.
I’ve heard Chloe say it looks more like some D-list joint off the Sunset Strip, casting garish pink and blue lights across the mean streets of Paragon. And even though she may not be wrong, it’s the exact charm that makes this OG version of the place so lovable. I know for a fact it undergoes one hell of a facelift soon, but this version will always be special to me.
I push through the front doors and immediately get assaulted by a violent seizure of light. The entry through the arcade is a dark, cloistered room lined with video games that blink on and off in aspastic stream of chaos, creating enough sensory overload to give anyone with epilepsy a very bad day.
Beyond this technological torture chamber lies the well-lit expanse of the actual bowling alley, sans the arcade’s aggressive assault on the senses.
Bowling lanes line the two opposing walls of the colossal structure, and the familiar crash of pins mixing with the rumble of balls creates a backbeat that’s oddly soothing, followed by the inevitable knocking over of pins—and then maybe a whoop or an expletive to punctuate it.
The heavenly scent of buttered popcorn drifts through the air, competing with industrial cleaning products and that distinctive smell that only comes from decades of rental shoes and teenage dreams being crushed one gutter ball at a time.
