“Michelle,” I say simply, not that I expect Sierra to actually remember who that is.
“She was supposed to die tonight, wasn’t she?”
I nod and my eyes fill with tears again, not because I’m sad or scared, or even because Sierra makes me feel like an awkward little kid again, although she does. It’s simply that even though everything has turned out okay, I know now that I screwed up royally. I went against everything I’ve been taught. I let a murderer into my head and he went on a killing spree. If I had fought every single vision—and ignored the ones that got through—fewer people would have died.
Even the fact that I’ve discovered Sierra’s secret, my anger at her for not telling me, not warning me, can’t overpower the fact that people in this town are dead because of me.
“You switched places with her, didn’t you?”
I nod again and now tears are running down my face and I feel like I’m about two inches tall.
“And what did you expect to accomplish? Getting yourself killed?”
“I called the cops before I left,” I burst out.
“And if they had arrived two minutes later? You’d have been dead. And then what?”
I bury my face in my hands and hear Sierra sigh, and then feel the dip of her weight on the end of my bed. “Charlotte, I know how hard it is to do nothing. But you need to understand that what you did tonight was wrong, even though the killer was caught.”
“Like you wouldn’t have done the same thing when you were my age,” I snap back.
“Why didn’t you come to me when you were having problems?” she asks softly.
“Maybe because you’ve been lying to me my entire life!” I explode in a sharp whisper. “You expect me to be this perfect Oracle; you tell me I can do it, that I’m strong enough. But you did all sorts of things that you won’t let me do.”
Her face is absolutely still now, though her eyes dance with fear. “Who have you been talking to?” she whispers.
It’s time. Now that Smith is behind bars, it’s time to come clean. I’m surprised by how much I want to tell her, consequences be damned. I open my mouth, but the words get stuck in my throat. I suddenly don’t want to tell her. Don’t want her to know anything else about Smith.
No! That’s not what I want! But something . . . something is telling my brain that it is what it wants. I’m so tired and can’t even think straight anymore.
“Charlotte, this isn’t funny. You have no idea what’s at stake here.” Sierra grabs my shoulders, gripping them so hard they hurt. I don’t think she’s even aware that she’s doing it. “Has a man been talking to you? You have to tell me!”
“No,” I say, the lie bursting from me against my own will. “I . . . I . . .” The half-truth forms without thought. “I went through your room while you were gone.”
Her entire body slumps in relief. “My stupid journals,” she says under her breath. She shakes her head back and forth a few times, then sits up straight. “We can discuss this tomorrow,” she says, her voice weak. “After we’ve both gotten a little sleep.”
I’m silent, even though I’m desperate to say something. I don’t know why my mouth won’t form the words. But I’m suddenly so tired. So very, very tired. My eyes are closing on their own.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Sierra says, then slips out the door.
The moment before she disappears from view, a dark stain blooms on her back and maroon-dark blood starts trickling down between her shoulder blades, staining her pink shirt. With a gasp I throw the covers back and run to the door and pull it open.
But all I see is my aunt’s back—whole and unscathed—traversing the final few steps to her room where she closes the door behind her.
The sound of the lock sliding into place fills the entire silent hallway.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
THIRTY
The Feds pound on our door at eight the next morning. It’s utter hell as they ask the same questions over and over, in slightly different words, and all I can do is repeat again and again, “I don’t remember anything.”
They don’t need me, I tell myself. Don’t need my testimony. The forensic evidence will link Smith—whose real name I imagine I’ll find out soon—to the crimes and one teenage girl’s shaky testimony probably won’t even be necessary. But I still hate lying.
It’s noon before they leave us alone and Mom has sat in on every session, so she seems to be out of questions for me, too. Sierra hovers, but she’s silent. I want to talk to her, but now she’s the one avoiding me—stepping away whenever I try to approach her. Finally she just leaves the house entirely.
Tonight. I’ll tell her tonight. I’ll try. I must have just been too scared last night. Too tired. Too keyed up. Tonight we’ll talk. For sure.
We obviously had to cancel our travel plans so I have yet another endless afternoon stretching out before me. I’m contemplating going back to bed, crying myself to sleep, and taking a long nap, when my phone pings and my heart races to see a text from Linden.
Think your mom will let you come over now?
He’s my hero.
But what will I tell him? Part of me—the biggest part—doesn’t care. I just want to be with him. I’ll figure it out later.
It takes a bit of pleading to convince her, but finally my mom decides I deserve a few hours out . . . as long as I’m back before the sun even thinks about setting. Apparently it will take some time for the paranoia to wear off.
I stop in the front entryway and my stomach sinks when I realize Michelle still has my coat. And the only one I have is hers. But the need to see Linden overcomes any sense of guilt or hesitation and I dig the beautiful coat out from under my bed where I hid it last night and head out the door. It feels strange to be free again. To go somewhere, anywhere, without an adult hovering. I did this; I made it happen.
I’m not far from my house when I feel the tingling start in my temples. Instinct kicks in and I pull over to the side of the road. But in the mere ten seconds I have to make the decision, I sit paralyzed by indecision. Do I go back to how my life used to be? Fight the vision? Follow my aunt’s counsel? The Sisters’ rules?
When the pressure rises in my head and makes me want to scream in sudden pain, I know I don’t have a choice. Every murder vision I’ve had has seemed stronger than the last, but this one is so intense I don’t think I could scream if I wanted to; it’s exponentially stronger and all I can do is let it overwhelm me. Shatter through my body. The last sensation I have of the physical world is feeling myself slump forward over the steering wheel. Then blackness.
I hear laughter before I see anything but once the world finally brightens, I’m surprised to discover it’s coming from me. Like the vision with Charisse, I’m not seeing the vision, I am the vision. I feel everything to a degree that’s one step beyond real life; the snow is ultra white, the crisp air extra cold, and the hand in mine soft and warm beyond anything I’ve ever actually felt.
Linden. I’m walking with Linden through the snow and we’re laughing. I look down at our twined fingers and realize I’m wearing the green coat. Weird. Maybe Michelle won’t want it back.
I turn my attention back to Linden and the conversation fades in like someone turning the volume up on a television. It’s nothing exciting; we discuss school, which is starting back up soon. We both grow somber as we talk about the classmates who’ll be missing. But there’s nothing out of the ordinary and I can’t figure out why a vision of a casual conversation like this would create such a fever-pitch pressure in my head. And then Linden turns to me and takes both of my hands in his.
“I can face it with you,” he says, and his eyes are so serious, so intent, I squeeze his hands as hard as I can. “It is hard. I think it’s going to be hard for a long time.” He leans down slightly, and rests his forehead against mine. “But you m
ake me feel strong and I don’t know what I would be doing right now without you.” He laughs, the sound colored with self-deprecation. “I’d probably be scared and holed up in my room, to be honest. Instead, I’m here, in the beautiful snow, with a beautiful girl, and despite everything, I’m okay. And I’m so grateful.”
Then he lifts his hand to my face where he tips my chin up toward him and kisses me. I lean into the kiss and pull him closer.
Closer.
There.
I jam the knife into his stomach and Linden chokes in pain and pulls away just in time for me to raise the already bloody blade and slash it across his throat. Blood pours down his chest and his wide, blue eyes meet mine as he staggers backward and falls into the snow.
It’s mere seconds before his pulse stops and his eyes grow sightless.
I open my mouth to scream but the vision is fading, pulling me back into the physical world where the guttural sound I’m making fills the car. This is worse than the vision with Charisse—so much worse. I can’t kill Linden—why the hell would I kill Linden?!
I don’t understand why this is happening. I know that Smith had some kind of hold on his victims, but there’s no way he could do anything like this. Not to me. Not without access to my supernatural plane. Right?
But he got in last night. I start to shiver at the possibility that he could access my plane on his own. From a cell.
Dear God.
I sit parked on the side of the road for ten minutes with the heater blasting warm air at me before my body stops shaking. I can’t go to Linden’s house. I’m not sure I can ever speak to Linden again, even though the thought make me want to sob. I just can’t risk that horrific vision coming true.
Sierra can talk about right and wrong all she wants, but I will fight this vision with every shred of will I have for the rest of my life. I would rather turn the knife on myself than kill someone I love. I remember the feeling of poisoning Sierra, of bashing Mom’s head against the bar. Never again. Never. Again.
I reach into my pocket to pull out my phone to text Linden and my hand curls around something else—something cold and hard, and I know what it is even before I pull it all the way out of the deep pocket to check. The knife. The green coat. I wanted to throw the knife in a Dumpster last night, but there wasn’t an opportunity—not without letting either the cops, or my mom, or Sierra see it.
I’ll do it now and then go right home. I’ll tell Linden I’m sick until I can figure out something else. I lay the knife on the seat beside me, shift into DRIVE, and pull out, thinking I’ll go to a corner a few blocks away where there are several fast-food places that all share a parking lot. Surely there will be a couple of Dumpsters in the back.
I reach the intersection where I’m supposed to turn right and my hands start steering the wheel left. “The hell?” I whisper under my breath as I try to force my hands to correct the mistake.
But they stay steady on the wheel.
With a flash of horror I realize where I’m going. I’m going to Linden’s house.
“No!” I yell at my hands. “No, no, no!” But they don’t stop, don’t release their hold on the wheel. My mind keeps repeating back the words that Smith spoke to me last night.
You think you’re in control? Even your powers are not your own anymore.
I beat him last night by getting him arrested—or at least I thought I did. But now I understand that smile he gave me. I won the fight, but Smith has every intention of winning this war.
I think about the way I couldn’t confront my aunt last night, even though I wanted to. Even then, he was controlling me; I was too tired to consider it. He made me too tired to consider it.
I’m nearly hyperventilating as my hands steer me up to Linden’s house and into his half-circle driveway. Now that I’m here, I stop trying to pull my hands off the wheel and start gripping them instead. Maybe I can stay here in the car. And never leave. Ever.
But my fingers are already loosening and my right hand is grabbing for the knife on the seat beside me. I can’t stop myself as I tuck the blade into my pocket. Then I’m pushing the car door open and rising to my feet.
I don’t even have to ring the doorbell; Linden is in the doorway waiting for me. I look up at him and stop cold as he stands there with blood pouring from the gaping gash in his neck just like in the vision.
Am I too late?
But I blink and the gruesome red is gone. Exactly like the weird visions of my mom and Sierra. Just . . . gone. Instead, my heart breaks at the reality of Linden. Tall and lanky, those perfect eyes, perfect hair, that smile that makes sparks ignite in my chest every time I see it. All of it seems so devastating today.
My puppet strings feel all too real as I’m dragged up the steps, and Linden—who doesn’t notice anything’s wrong—wraps me in his arms. I try to walk in the house but Linden stops me and I see his coat draped over his arm. “I know it’s a little cold, but can we walk? I am so sick of being cooped up indoors.”
“Of course,” my lips say as my head screams, No! “I’ve been sick of it too.”
In one fluid movement, he slips into his black coat and wraps my hand in his and we start walking down the newly snow-blown sidewalk.
“Pretty coat,” he says, his eyes taking me in with an appreciation I would have adored in any other circumstances. Now it just makes me want to cry. “Did you get it for Christmas?”
Something like that. “Yes,” I say brightly and flash him a winning smile, a cruel contrast with the way I feel inside. I know if I can’t fight Smith in this scenario, I will never win against him again. It will be over for me.
But nothing, nothing is working. I don’t even have the necklace with me—I didn’t think I would have any use for it. I remember what Smith said when I asked if he was an Oracle: I’m what Oracles dream of in the darkest of nights.
We walk silently for several minutes. “I can’t believe it’s over,” Linden says after a while, his words a puff that hangs in the air for a second.
It’s never going to be over for me. I begin to weep on the inside.
“The news is saying he attacked a girl and she fought him off long enough for the cops to come,” Linden says almost casually.
Well, that was kind of the way it happened.
“She totally fought him off. I wish . . . I wish . . . it doesn’t matter.” I hear the grief in his voice and it tears everything inside me in two. “You can’t change the past. I’m just glad someone stopped him. She must have been very brave.”
I can hear the faint echo of Smith chuckling in my head.
Don’t do this, I plead.
It’s what I do, an echoing voice replies.
I’ll do anything.
Yes, you will.
Please.
Silence.
“School starts in three days,” Linden says. The conversation from my vision is beginning.
My mouth forms the responses I heard in my vision even as I try to clamp my teeth shut against them. I’m dismayed at how light and joyful my laugh sounds. How carefree.
Then comes the moment I’ve been dreading. My muscles are aching from fighting the movements I’m forced to make, but still I throw everything I have into resisting Linden as he pulls me close. It’s not working.
“I can face it with you,” he says, and my eyes start to tear as I squeeze his hand tightly, trying to keep myself from grabbing the knife. “It is hard. I think it’s going to be hard for a long time.” Just like in my vision, he leans down and our foreheads touch. “But you make me feel strong and, I don’t know what I would be doing right now without you.”
He laughs, and my tears are coming in earnest now as I feel my right hand move to my pocket, grip the cold handle of the knife.
“I’d probably be scared and holed up in my room, to be honest. Instead, I’m here, in the beautiful snow, with a beautiful girl, and despite everything, I’m doing okay. And I’m so grateful.”
I’m choking on my sobs now, but Li
nden doesn’t seem to notice as I pull him closer, closer.
“No!” I manage to scream, but my hand still shoots out, stabbing the knife into his abdomen.
The thrust is off. I fought it enough that I can already see the cut is deep, but maybe not fatal. The vision isn’t done with me though, and neither is Smith. My arm swings out in a wide arc, but between me fighting it, and Linden just lucid enough to duck, the blade misses him entirely. He’s on his knees clutching at his side, staring at me in horror and confusion.
“Linden!” I cry, but my body is not my own. I circle around behind him, the blade of my knife already bloody, and I grab his hair and force his face to the sky. I reach my arm across his body and begin to pull back like a violinist on a bow, the knife sliding toward his bare throat.
“Charlotte, stop!”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
THIRTY-ONE
My arm hesitates and it’s the moment I need to grab a tiny sliver of control. I can’t release Linden; I can’t even move the knife from where it rests against his throat, but I can hold it still, though every muscle in my body is screaming in protest.
“Charlotte, you don’t have to do this.”
I almost lose my grip on that control when I see Sierra moving quickly toward me. She stops when she sees the knife against Linden’s throat. I want to speak, but it’s like trying to force your voice to work after having the wind knocked out of you. When the sound finally escapes, it’s at a scream, “Sierra, help me!”
“Charlotte, listen. I know you think he’s stronger than you, but it’s a lie. It’s his best lie. He’s the parasite—he’s feeding off of you. He’ll never be as strong as you are. You have to cut him off and you have the power to do that.”