Three days after accidentally attacking Serena and her friends, I dared to open up the curtains by the dining room table. The soft morning sunlight urged me to sleep, but I needed it to do the opposite. In my peripheral vision, I saw Michele watching me the entire time.
“We can talk about this tomorrow,” she started, but I shook my head. We didn’t have time to reschedule conversations to another day. “Did Cal—”
“He wouldn’t give me the address.”
Michele knew about my plans. In fact, it was her idea. Recruiting Serena was our top priority. Michele’s premonitions promised that the Southern Flock member would be important, and her powerful abilities seconded the notion. I couldn’t trust Robert with her. I couldn’t trust anyone with her. But I did trust her. Her warning about the technology might have only been the beginning.
“Did you explain everything to him?” Michele’s eyes threatened to flash yellow with the spike of her emotions. “Did you tell him about my vision?”
“He won’t budge, Michele.”
She grabbed my arm. “Why not? What can we do?”
I uncurled Michele’s hand from my jacket. “I’ll figure it out,” I promised without looking at her.
The front door swung open and slammed against the wall. Three kids ran by in a blur, a sign of Adam running with two others, and Michele snapped up from her seat. “Shut the door next time,” she yelled as her wispy hair flew behind her. She crossed the room and slammed the door louder than when the kids had opened it. Her palms landed on the wood, and her eyes were frozen yellow. Her fingers shook. “Something bad—” Her gaze was normal by the time she looked at me. Her face had aged in a matter of seconds.
“I know,” I whispered back. I wasn’t psychic—not like Michele—but my shoulder hurt anytime something bad happened, and it hadn’t stopped aching since meeting Serena.
I touched my scar, and Michele’s eyes moved over my grip. “Again?”
My gaze dropped to the table. “Maybe she’s the danger,” I started, hearing the lie in my voice. “Maybe we’re reading this wrong and we should stay away and Cal’s right and—”
“Daniel.” Michele slid into the chair in front of me. She didn’t speak as she grabbed my hand and pulled it away from my shoulder. While holding one hand, she touched my forehead. “I knew it.”
I was caught.
I ducked away. “I’m fine.”
“You need to rest.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped as I stood up. Her eyes widened at my tone, and I blew air out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“I know.” Her smile was as small as the rest of her features, but then her raised eyebrows took over her expression. “Hey, Blake.” She stood up as I turned around to face the kitchen.
The little blond boy barely took up half of the doorway as he watched us from a distance. He glanced between us as if he thought he was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, but he wasn’t—not that he should’ve known about anyway. Michele and I were trying to talk in private, and Blake’s telepathy allowed him to understand that, even though he shouldn’t have.
“Come here,” I said, trying to coax him over.
He raised his hands up to his chest, exposing the teddy bear Ryne got him, and squeezed it. “I didn’t mean to interpret.”
Michele laughed. “I think you mean interrupt.”
“Interrupt,” he repeated, his cheeks glowing pink. “That.”
He was quiet—something Blake never was—and I stood up. I didn’t take two steps before Blake was focused on me. “What’s up, kiddo?” I asked, hearing Calhoun in my own voice. I picked the boy up before he spoke.
“Want to play checkers?” he asked, leaning back to stare at me. “Ryne taught me.”
I put him on the couch. “Checkers? Where’d Ryne get checkers?”
“He stole them,” Blake said it in a tone I recognized. When he didn’t actually understand what he was saying, he said everything like a cheer. Blake had read Ryne’s mind.
I inhaled a deep breath as I thought about the day before. I was so out of it, I hadn’t even thought of why Ryne was studying the checkers players. I turned away from Blake to face Michele. “I’ll go talk to him.”
“Don’t bother,” Kally interrupted, appearing from the kitchen. “He’s out with Maggie.” She fiddled with the ragged edges of her dirty blonde hair. Last time I had seen her, she had long locks.
Michele squeaked. “What happened to your hair?”
The fourteen-year-old flinched, but she didn’t speak. The stairs were creaking instead, and Kally’s bright green eyes locked on the cause of the noise. Her flinch squeezed into a scowl, and the living room burst into chaos.
Kally sprinted toward the stairs, screaming, and I tried to grab her, but she slipped out of my grip. I spun around, trying to follow her, but Kally left ice in her shadow. I slipped, and my face smacked the wood floor.
Peyton was screaming before I even realized who Kally had attacked. Michele was shouting over the both of them.
“Put the scissors down, Kally,” Michele screeched, yanking and pulling at the two girls who were half of her size.
“She did it to me!” Kally was cursing and wiggling on top of Peyton.
Peyton fought back.
It started to rain—only a little bit—but it started to rain inside the house. A gift from Peyton. I scrambled to my feet. I barely made it to the stairs as all three girls started screaming at one another, Michele’s voice above Peyton and Kally’s. The two preteens didn’t stand a chance, but that didn’t stop them from trying.
The rain turned to hail as Kally’s anger rose, and Peyton added to the mix with a fury of wind. I looped both of my arms beneath Kally’s and yanked her back, nearly falling down the stairs. Michele stopped Peyton from following, but Peyton had the scissors now, and she was flailing her arms around.
“Put those down,” I shouted, but it was too late.
The rain was something Peyton created, but she never got used to it. The scissors slipped out of her grip, shot over the landing, and stuck straight into the couch—less than a foot away from Blake.
The boy stared at the homemade weapon stabbing into the cushion, and another boy stood next to him. Ron. The deaf boy that attached himself to the baby of the house was normally the most peaceful one, but his face turned bright red as his eyes scrunched up in a glare.
Ron lifted his hand, and the scissors lifted with the motion. The metal pointed straight toward Peyton.
“Don’t,” I shouted, even though it was useless. Ron was deaf. Still, the scissors didn’t move. They simply floated in the air, twitching like an animal.
Michele slid in front of eleven-year-old Peyton, and the usually pale preteen paled even more behind the psychic woman protecting her. Kally didn’t move either. I took one step toward them, and Ron met my eyes. I made a gesture to put the scissors down, but Ron looked at Blake.
“It’s okay, Ron,” he said. “I’m fine.”
Ron looked at Blake like he could, in fact, hear, but the scissors shattered into pieces. One piece stuck into the step by Peyton’s feet. She squeaked.
Ron patted the top of Blake’s head before turning to leave. I started after him, even though I wasn’t sure how I would talk to him without Blake. I didn’t get two feet before Michele stuck her arm through the stairway’s polls and grabbed my arm.
“I’ll do it.”
I glanced over at Blake. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, perfectly calm despite the situation. He didn’t know peace. This was home to him.
I had to turn my back to the boy before my anger rose. I glared at Peyton and Kally; neither had moved. “What the hell were you two thinking?”
Peyton’s round face gained color again. “She stole my shirt.”
“So you cut her hair off?” I had to hold back from screaming. “We share clothes around here.”
“It was mine,” she said, her voice tearing against her
throat.
Michele sat down and grabbed Peyton’s arm. “What shirt?”
The preteen glared at the wall.
“What shirt?” Michele repeated.
“It was my mom’s.”
A sharp breath escaped me. The only rule we had about possessions was simple. Any possessions members brought with them from their original home stayed with that kid. Peyton had a pink shirt from her mother. Why she wanted to keep it was beyond me. Her mother had ditched her without even something to eat. The oversized shirt was the only thing she was wearing.
I looked at Kally, and she raised her hands. “I didn’t take it. Swear.” The fourteen-year-old dared to shoot a glare at Peyton. “And I’m still cutting off your hair.”
“No one,” I shouted over her, “is cutting anyone’s hair off.”
“But—”
“You are going to help Peyton find her shirt,” I ordered, “and before you do that, you’re both going to apologize to Blake.”
Peyton’s face scrunched up, but she was the first one to say, “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” Kally mumbled, folding her arms.
Neither of the girls actually looked at one another or at Blake, but when I glanced at Blake, he stroked the top of his teddy bear. “I think your shirt is in the upstairs bathroom.”
“What?” Peyton barely breathed the word.
“Floyd put it there while cleaning yesterday,” Blake said every word slowly, as if he were getting the information from somewhere.
I glanced at the basement door as it clicked closed. Someone had been eavesdropping, and I had to bet it was Floyd himself.
I pressed my forehead into my hand. “Go get your shirt, Peyton.”
“Sorry,” she said as she ran up the stairs, practically crawling as she went.
Kally just leaned her back against the wall. “Want me to go talk to psycho?”
“His name is Ron,” I muttered.
“Whatever.” She pushed herself off the wall. “Where’d he go, Blake?”
His nose scrunched up as he searched the psychic airways. “Tessa.”
Ron was in the garden by the side of the house. Tessa was always there, practicing her flower-growing abilities, even though we needed tomatoes more than pretty things.
Kally walked over to the shattered scissor pieces and picked up all the bits. “I’ll be back.”
I stopped her. “Why are you taking those?”
She cocked her head to the side. I could almost see the ghost of her long hair being flipped over her shoulder. “He likes to fix things he breaks,” she said it like it was an obvious thing. “It’ll cheer him up.”
I was speechless as the fourteen-year-old walked away. Blake even followed, only glancing back once. He wanted to help Ron just as much as Ron helped him. I imagined Ron didn’t feel like he existed without the little boy, but the anger he showed was beyond anything I had expected.
“When did they get so violent?” I asked as I found a place to sit on the stairs.
Michele scooted down each step until she was sitting next to me. “They’ve always been this way,” she said it like it was an apology. When I looked at her, her features softened. “It’s not your fault. It’s this stupid world.”
I followed her gaze to the front door and remembered the first time I had ever stepped through it. Adam was the only one with me, but we had already recruited Michele and Kally. Kally was six, and I wasn’t much older at eleven years old. The house belonged to an old friend of Calhoun’s, and Calhoun was positive we’d never get caught. He even lived with us for the first year to prove it. At the time, Vendona had bigger problems to focus on—like all the bad bloods running rampant on the streets. Being in a flock was unheard of. After all, Vendona had just massacred the main one. The government didn’t think bad bloods would recover, and I didn’t either until we saw Cal’s house.
Back then, the house had been big enough to run around in. I couldn’t imagine filling it up, but now, I never felt like I could breathe inside of the walls. The floors used to sparkle, but they were cracked and dusty now. The peach-colored wallpaper was stained or chipped away, and the windows held smudges of fingertips. All the doors creaked, and some of them were even cracked, but one thing had remained the same. The single, black lamp Cal bought us remained polished and untouched.
I kicked it like it didn’t belong. “I hate this thing.”
“You wouldn’t keep it if you did,” Michele retorted.
“You forced me to keep it.”
“Come on.” She pushed my arm with hers. “You wouldn’t have let me force you if you hated it.”
A chuckle escaped me, but it quickly died in the house’s silence. It had never been quieter. I didn’t like it.
“Relax,” Michele spoke up like she wanted to fill the silence too. “No one got hurt. Everyone’s fine—”
“I can’t protect them.”
Michele quieted.
I looked at her. “You know that, right?”
“I—” Her mouth closed, and the corners of her lips formed a frown. “I think I understand that more than you do.”
I stared at her, wondering exactly what she had seen and if she could interpret it or not. I trusted her to tell me if she could, but for as long as I had known her, she always held back. She knew something bad would happen. I knew that much. But I didn’t understand one thing. “Why don’t you run?”
A half-laugh escaped her as she prepared herself to speak, and for a brief moment, her irises were yellow as she remembered her previous vision. “Because that’s not my job.”
I waited, but she didn’t explain. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper as her forehead landed on my right shoulder. “That’s Serena’s job. She’s the one that has to run.”
My heart pounded, and my fever escalated from the spike of adrenaline. Serena was always the one to run. I met her while running. Michele saw her in a vision while running and I wanted her to run from the Southern Flock. It only seemed fitting for her purpose to involve running again. I just didn’t understand what kind of running it would be.
“What do you mean, Michele?” I managed to force the question out, even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“That’s all I know,” she promised, sitting up only to let her back fall against the wall. She stared up at the ceiling. “All I ever see is her running. I’ve never even met the girl.” She blew her bangs out of her face. “I normally only see people I know.” Her face stayed propped up, her chin lifted, but her irises met mine. “We need her.”
I stood up. “I’ll go talk to Calhoun again.”
She nodded without argument. It was her way of telling me that I should’ve never left Cal’s without information in the first place.
As I reached the front door, she called my name. “Are you going to be all right?”
I realized I had been coughing, and I nodded as I peeked outside, watching as the daylight lingered on. I had a couple of hours left before dusk, but Cal and I would be arguing all night.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said as I stepped outside. I shut the door behind me before she could ask anything else. I kept my focus on Calhoun and Serena and Robert and everything else that felt dangerously close to imploding the way my shoulder bone had years ago. And that never healed.
Nothing ever did.