“But you can’t. How can you—”

I didn’t know how I did it, because my heart was beating its way out of my chest, but I managed a smile. “It’s okay. I can see the future, remember?”

She bit her lip. She started to leave but then ran toward me, pushing her lips against mine. When she pulled away, her eyes didn’t meet mine. Maybe because she was ashamed, or maybe because they were so filled with tears she couldn’t see straight. Her voice was barely a whisper when she spoke. “I love you, you know.”

Before I had a chance to tell her that I loved her, too, she was gone.

The gutters flooded and the puddles in the streets grew to rivers, so that I sloshed through ankle-deep water, the soles of my Vans squishing with every step. Though rain fell in waves, lightning lit the sky like daytime, and the thunder rumbled and boomed continuously overhead, I walked my bicycle home slowly, as if I had all the time in the world.

What could I do? People were going to die. And I had no way to fix it.

For some reason, I found myself thinking of Jocelyn. If I had just let her get the Touch she wanted, Taryn would be okay. Taryn wouldn’t need to perform the Touch tonight, and we would all be safe. Instead, I’d messed everything up. Just like my mom had. Funny how one decision can mean so much.

But the thing was, I’d envisioned us dying in Taryn’s Jeep before that. So maybe I’d always been meant to mess with Jocelyn’s Touch. It was almost as if my screwing everything up was beyond my control, destined, written in the stars.

And maybe my dying was, too. Maybe all the iterations of my life, all the people I was destined to be before this, were just preparing me for this one ending. It was only fitting that I’d find the perfect girl and the most tragic death in the same future.

The rain poured down on my face, obscuring my vision as I walked along the boardwalk ramp to Seventh Avenue. If only I could get that Touch, that Flight of Song. Then I could tell Bryce to call back the curse, and he would have to obey. But Taryn had said a person couldn’t be Touched twice.

There really was no way out of this.

A car horn blared at me as I tried to cross the street, and I jumped back in time to be hit by a wave of cold water kicked up from one of the enormous puddles in the road. I thought of Nan, and how she used to dress me in my duck outfit—galoshes and matching raincoat—when I was a kid. How she always did so much for me.

She’d do anything to make sure I was okay. And look what I gave her in return. It wasn’t fair to her. It wasn’t right.

Suddenly, something came to me. She’d do anything to make sure I was okay. Anything. I was sure of that.

All at once, I knew what had to happen. It was our only chance. I climbed on my bicycle and pedaled furiously down Seventh. I tossed my bike on the gravel in the front yard and stormed inside, bolting the door behind me. “Nan!”

She was, of course, sleeping in her recliner. Some reality-show host was talking about the voting process on television. I started to go into the living room, but my mom called to me. “Nick! Come up here!”

I didn’t want to. Her voice sounded strange. No doubt she was going to scold me for being out when I was grounded. But as I neared the foot of the staircase, I realized she wasn’t angry. She was excited about something, no doubt something she’d seen in a vision. I tried ignoring her, but she kept speaking. “I was wrong! I was wrong!” she said, over and over again. I didn’t want to know what it was, though. I could see fragments of the scene in the Jeep clearly now, almost as if the accident was due to happen soon, and that was all I needed to know.

“Ma, I’ll be up in a sec,” I said, and Nan started to stir at the sound of my voice.

She looked at me, still dazed. “What? What’s going on?”

“Nan,” I said, kneeling beside her. “Listen. We’re in trouble. I need you to do something for me.”

She kicked the recliner upright. “Of course. What?”

“Someone took out a Touch. And they’re going to use it on us. I need you to take out another Touch to stop him. We can go there tonight, and I’ll—”

She held out a hand. “Wait. Slow down.”

“I can’t,” I said, the words falling on top of one another. “They’re going to kill us.”

She stared at me. “You need to start from the beginning.”

I took a breath. “Bryce Reese. He’s the brother of the girl who died. Right now he’s at the boardwalk getting his own Touch. And his Touch is going to give him the ability to kill me and my family. Because he hates me. And so what I want you to do is—”

“He hates you? Why?”

“Long story. Basically, he wants me to get what I gave him. So what I need you to do is—”

“I am not dealing in that nonsense,” she said. “It’s all about people wanting to play God. Your mother thought she could play God, and she learned she was wrong. There’s only one God, and I know I’m not him. You need to talk it out with this Reese person.”

“No, Nan. It’s not nonsense. Bryce Reese won’t listen to reason. And we are going to die. You have to.”

She stood up. “I don’t have to do anything,” she said softly, turning her back on me and walking into the kitchen. “And I won’t.”

I just stared at her.

“And it is nonsense,” she whispered. “It ruined both of you. And I’ll have no part in it. Not ever.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but her tone was so cold, so final, I knew it would do no good. “Then we’ve got to go. We’ve got to get out of here. Hide, or something.”

She snorted and jutted her chin upward, towards my mom’s bedroom. “Good luck getting that one to go anywhere.” She picked up a tray with a half-eaten sandwich on it, then placed it on the kitchen counter. “You hungry?”

I clenched my fists to keep from latching on to something hard and throwing it at her, then walked up into the stairwell. My mom was standing on the landing, in the doorway. “What?” I asked her.

She narrowed her eyes. “What were you saying to your grandmother?”

I shook my head. After all, Nan was right. If my mom wouldn’t go anywhere for her son’s own funeral, she wouldn’t go if I told her she needed to get away, even if it meant her life. Not that running would make any difference.

“I was wrong,” she said, her tone light. “It wasn’t yours.”

I stared at her for a minute, annoyed that everything she said always had to be so cryptic. “My what?”

“Your funeral.”

I’d already started to head back downstairs, since I was so sure I didn’t want to hear what she had to say. But I stopped in midstep. “What? Whose was it, then?”

The thing was, I didn’t have to ask that. It didn’t really matter. There would be more funerals. Many more. And eventually, mine would be one of them.

I said, “I’m going to die, too. Because I don’t remember anything after—” My voice hitched when I was suddenly struck blind by two strong beams of light, streaming in through the sidelights at the front door. A car was here.

I didn’t need to be able to see the future to know that Taryn had successfully performed her first Touch. And that something terrible had begun.

As I peered out the window, the headlights flickered off. A You Will was just coming through when images began to play in my head, hot and rapid, making me dizzy.

Flashing lights and rain on glass. A horrible squealing tore through my eardrums.

I strained to see the automobile in the darkness, but the rain made patterns on the pane, distorting everything beyond. Something moved in the darkness and suddenly someone rapped on the door.

“Nick?” a voice called out. Taryn.