Our Future

We fell asleep side by side. But our sleeps were restless. We woke up multiple times throughout the night and would try to relax each other and fall back asleep.

I kept having the same dream over and over. Daniel being rolled through that mall entrance by Joey in a wheelchair. Maybe it was the future’s way of telling me that no matter how much power I had fate could not be changed. If life was supposed to throw you through a lope it would. Just like it threw me through a lope when Melody died and started realizing I was gay.

When morning finally came around we were both tired but were carried on with the plan even if, to me, it seemed hopeless.

I didn’t bother telling Gabriel about the dream, I wanted to attempt to save them and if we were distracted by the thought that it was impossible it might cloud our judgment more.

By the time we got to the bookstore in the mall, it was 9:00am. There was a line already a mile long of people (mostly girls), waiting.

We broke through the line, people behind us were shouting, telling us we were cutting in line. We ignored them and made a B-line for the back room of the bookstore.

There was one of those men in a black and white suit standing in front of the door.

“Stop,” he stated holding me back from the door.

Gabriel arrived behind me.

“You have to wait out here in the line,” he stated surprisingly calm.

“Joey and Daniel are in danger,” I growl shoving him out of the way.

I was desperate to prove the dreams wrong. To prove that I choose my fate and who I saved.

Gabriel catches the guard and steadies him; he seems surprised by my aggressiveness. I race inside and stop as soon as I spot Joey in a seat signing books. He looks up at me both confused and surprised.

“Nathan,” I hear Daniel say.

They both look a few years younger than I remember.

Joey gets up and quickly pokes his head out of the room. He pulls Gabriel and the guard inside and closes the door.

“Don’t worry they’re friends, ” states Daniel calming the guard down.

“What are you guys doing here? How did you even find us?” Daniel asks.

“That’s not important. You guys, specifically you, are in danger,” I state.

“What do you mean?” Daniel asks.

“Somebody, we don’t know who or how is going to harm you. Joey will be fine but you are going to get paralyzed and be in a wheelchair and who knows what’s going to happen to the crowd of people out there,” I exclaim.

“How do we know they won’t be putting you in further danger if you leave?” asks the guard.

“Because it happened after the book signing as they were leaving,” I growl annoyed.

The guard looks at me like I’m some kind of lunatic.

“If we leave now they may not be here yet or ready to act,” I reason again.

“What happens if we cancel the book signing and we stay here?” asks Joey.

“They might injure the fans if you do that, we don’t know what they’re cable of or willing to do to get to you,” Gabriel exclaims.

“And not all the fans will be willing to leave that easily,” I add.

“Won’t it be a sign if people start leaving that we’re on to them, too?” Asks Daniel.

“Well, unless you want to teleport them all home safely and leave, we don’t have much of a choice,” Gabriel remarks.

“Can’t you find them or something?” asks Joey.

My tracking skills didn’t work very well. I’d only ever found Gabriel and I at least knew him so I had a sense of what to look for.

Gabriel can hear my mind, I can sense when he’s connected now, when he’s a part of me, my thoughts, inside my head.

“You could try,” he whispers over the mind link.

I’d always had trouble accepting myself and pushing myself further but Gabriel made me want to try harder, succeed, attempt. If it helped saved them I was willing.

I closed my eyes and focused. The line of people around us was huge, many more than I was used to. I ran through the people. Mind by mind. Looking for the odd, out of the ordinary. But the crowd was overwhelming. It was hard to focus on each mind as an individual and not the group as a whole. It wasn’t working; if anything it was giving me a headache and making my mind spin.

I tried to focus more but it was impossible.

“I can’t do it,” I whispered panicked.

“We have to go,” Gabriel pleads. “It’s not safe. Please believe us.”

Daniel was standing near a window when I saw movement on a low roof above. I pulled him out of the way but not quickly enough...