My Foster Parents' Fatal Mistake

An MIT acceptance letter lay on my desk, a full-ride scholarship, my ticket to a dazzling future far from my foster home.

But my foster father, Rufus, scoffed, his voice flat: "You're not going."

Instead, he' d arranged a "tech internship" out West, promising big money and opportunities, while my foster mother, Sylvia, faked a panicked "premonition" about a bus crash to dissuade me.

They were lying. I knew it. All of it.

Because I had lived this day before, died a horrific death on a cold metal table, betrayed by the very people who claimed to be my family.

This time, I was ready. I swallowed my fury, faked compliance, and prepared to rewrite my destiny.

The acceptance letter from MIT lay on my desk, a ticket to a new life, a full-ride scholarship. I'd spent my senior year coding, studying, and pushing myself to the absolute limit for this piece of paper.

My foster father, Rufus Morris, looked at it like it was a piece of trash.

"You're not going," he said, his voice flat. He was a long-haul truck driver, and his hands were thick and calloused from a life on the road.

I looked at him, then at my foster mother, Sylvia. She was wringing her hands, her face pale.

"What do you mean I'm not going?" I asked, keeping my voice steady.

"I got you something better," Rufus announced, a greasy smile spreading across his face. "A tech internship on the West Coast. A friend of mine, Barney, set it up. Pays big money, real-world experience. MIT will still be there when you're done."

He was lying. I knew it.

Because I had lived this day before.

Sylvia rushed forward, her eyes wide with a genuine panic that I knew was real, even if the reason she gave for it was fake.

"No, Rufus! He can't go! I had a dream, a premonition. A terrible accident, a bus crash on the highway. He can't go!"

Rufus shoved her aside, not hard, but with enough force to make her stumble. "Don't be stupid, Sylvia. You and your crazy feelings. You want him to be stuck here in Queens forever? This is his chance."

They were both lying. Sylvia's "premonition" was a script. Rufus's "opportunity" was a death sentence.

In my last life, I believed them. I argued, I fought, but they forced me. That "internship" was a front for an organ trafficking ring. They drugged me, held me captive in a warehouse, and I died on a cold metal table.

This time, I was ready.

I faked compliance. "Okay," I said quietly. "If it's that good of an opportunity, I'll go."

I locked myself in my room. I heard Rufus laughing downstairs, gloating about how he had me wrapped around his finger. I heard Sylvia crying.

An hour later, I came out with my bag packed.

Rufus was beaming. Sylvia looked horrified. "Ethan, please," she whispered, her voice trembling.

As a last, desperate attempt, she pointed to the new laptop on my desk, the one she'd bought me as a graduation gift. "You have to give that back. If you're going to this new job, they'll give you one. We need the money."

Her last-ditch effort. In my past life, I clung to that laptop. I fought for it. It was my only link to the world I was leaving behind.

This time, I just unplugged it and handed it to her without a word.

The look of shock on her face was worth more than any computer. She expected a fight, a tantrum. My easy compliance scared her more than my refusal.

Downstairs, a private shuttle van was waiting at the curb, just as I remembered. The driver, a man with a scarred eyebrow, and his partner in the passenger seat were the same men who'd driven me to my death.

Another kid was already in the van. Jennifer Chavez, another scholarship winner. I remembered her, too. Scared, trusting, and ultimately, a pawn.

She was sitting in the back, by the window. The worst seat. The one they could control.

I got in and immediately "tripped" over my own feet, stumbling hard into the boy sitting across from her.

"Hey, watch it!" he yelled, shoving me.

"Sorry, man, my bad," I said, grabbing the seat next to Jennifer. "I get motion sick if I'm not in the middle."

The driver's partner turned around, annoyed. "Just sit down and shut up."

I sat, now in a strategic position away from the window, away from their easy reach. Jennifer gave me a small, nervous smile.

I didn't smile back. The game had already begun.

We pulled onto the highway, heading west out of New York. The city skyline faded in the rearview mirror. For the other kids in the van, it was the start of an adventure. For me, it was a countdown.

I leaned forward, making my voice loud enough for the driver and his partner to hear clearly.

"You know, my foster mom is a real piece of work," I said to Jennifer, who looked startled by my sudden conversation. "She had this crazy dream that our bus was going to crash. A premonition, she called it. Can you believe that? Totally superstitious."

Up front, I saw the driver's eyes flick to the rearview mirror. He exchanged a tense, almost imperceptible look with his partner.

Bingo.

They had a script. An "accident" was part of their plan. My mentioning it threw a wrench in their timeline. They didn't know that I knew. They just thought it was a weird, unsettling coincidence.

An hour later, we were deep in the Appalachian Mountains. The sky had turned a dark, angry gray, and rain began to lash against the windows. It was the same storm. The same stretch of road.

"This weather is getting bad," Jennifer said, her voice tight with worry. "Look at those rocks up there."

She was pointing to a steep, unstable cliff face beside the road. I knew what was coming.

"Driver," I said, my voice calm. "You should slow down. That section of the road looks unstable. We should pull over for a minute."

The driver's partner turned around, his face a mask of irritation. "You the expert now, kid? Just sit back. We know what we're doing."

He was arrogant. He was dismissive. He was exactly the same.

Just as he finished speaking, a rumble echoed from above. A shower of small pebbles cascaded down the cliffside, followed by a larger boulder that crashed onto the road just yards behind our van.

The van swerved. The other kids screamed.

I just watched the driver's knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. He was shaken. My "lucky guess" had unnerved him. He looked at me in the mirror again, this time with a flicker of something new. Suspicion.

The tension in the van was thick enough to choke on. The other kids were whispering, glancing nervously between me and the two men up front. The storm, the rockslide, my "premonition"-it was all too much.

The driver's partner, clearly trying to regain control, unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for a crate of bottled water on the floor.

"Everyone calm down," he said, his voice forced and overly friendly. "Let's all have some water. Settle the nerves."

I knew that water was drugged. In my last life, I drank it without a second thought. I woke up in a cage.

Not this time.

As he offered a bottle to the boy I'd argued with earlier, I "accidentally" knocked my backpack off the seat. It hit the crate perfectly, sending the bottles skittering and rolling across the floor of the moving van. Most of them burst open, spilling the drugged water everywhere.

"What the hell is your problem?" the boy yelled at me, jumping up.

"It was an accident!" I shot back, getting in his face. "Maybe if you weren't taking up so much space!"

"You did that on purpose!" he shouted, shoving me hard.

I shoved him back. It escalated quickly into a clumsy, flailing fight in the cramped aisle. The driver was yelling at us to stop. His partner was trying to pull us apart.

It was the perfect diversion. No one was drinking the water. And in the chaos, I ended up on the floor, right behind the driver's seat. Exactly where I needed to be.