Struck

She tapped her fingernail on the card with the naked people. “The Lovers.”

  She tapped her fingernail on the card she had revealed, which showed a tower on the edge of a cliff. A lightning bolt cleaving it in two. People falling from it, on their way toward the jagged rocks below.

  “The Tower,” she said.

  I shook my head, finding my breath. “It’s a mistake, right? The Lovers … that’s my future.”

  “Or the Tower. You must choose one or the other, but you cannot have both.”

  “I have a choice?”

  “You always have a choice.”

  I looked at the Tower card. The falling people with their accusing eyes. “What does it mean?” I asked. “The Tower.”

  “For you?” Madam Lupescu studied my face, as though the answer were advertised there. “Letting go,” she said with a sharp nod. “Exposing what is hidden. Seeing the way of things in a sudden flash. And letting go. Letting everything go.”

  I nodded. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Donation only.”

  I took my wallet out of my bag. “That’s a nice crystal,” I said, pointing at the glass case behind Madam Lupescu. When she turned her head, I snatched the Lovers card and stuck it in my wallet, then laid a ten-dollar bill on the table.

  “Thanks,” I said, and I meant it. Madam Lupescu didn’t know it, but she’d set me free.

  Once outside, I took the Lovers card and stuck it into my back pocket, next to Jeremy’s note.

  I had a choice, Madam Lupescu had said.

  I took out Katrina’s Tower card and tossed it onto the sidewalk. Let someone else pick up the Tower.

  I had made my choice. I could see him across the street, waiting for me on the porch.

  And I realized something … my skin had stopped tingling.

  The storm, if it had ever existed, was gone.

  31

  JEREMY RAN INTO the street to meet me halfway. His blue eyes searched me as though looking for some sign that I’d been accosted.

  “What took you so long?” he demanded. “I told you to meet me after school. That was hours ago. I was worried.”

  My hand rested on the tarot card hidden in my pocket. The Lovers.

  The tingling storm warning on my skin remained as silent as if it had never been.

  I smiled and shook my head. “There’s nothing to worry about anymore.”

  There is no storm.

  Jeremy’s eyes narrowed, a divot forming between them. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I assured him. “The streets are completely jammed, that’s why I’m late. It’s like everyone left in the city is trying to get out.” Everyone who wasn’t a Follower or a Seeker or a rover.

  Jeremy’s shoulders sagged, as though he’d deflated. His hair hung over his eyes.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” I touched his arm, felt the heat radiating through his shirt. He’d said I could touch him, but he couldn’t trust himself to touch me without dragging me into one of his visions. But even this gesture made heat dance in my stomach and my knees go soft.

  Jeremy shook his head, not meeting my eyes. “I screwed up,” he said. “I shouldn’t have waited so long. Now it’s too late.”

  My feeling that everything was going to be okay began to dissipate, but I fought to maintain it.

  There is no storm.

  “Let’s go inside,” Jeremy said. “We’ll talk there.”

  I tried the light switch on the wall inside, but nothing happened. The electricity was off and the sun had set, leaving behind nothing but shadows.

  Jeremy navigated his way through the dark house easily, and a moment later I heard the scrape of a match. He ran the flame along a row of candles on the fireplace mantel. Then he placed a few logs on the hearth, crumpled newspaper, and within minutes had a fire going.

  I watched him in silence until he was finished. Once there was light, I moved farther into the living room, turning in a circle to take it in. There wasn’t much to see. The only furniture was a lumpy couch with a tattered slipcover facing the fireplace. No TV or bookshelves or pictures on the walls. The only item in the room that stood out was a black leather satchel, the kind that looked like it hung on the side of a motorcycle. I guessed this belonged to Jeremy, who was still crouched by the fire, staring into the flames. Orange light flickered in his eyes.

  “Is this where you live?” I asked, trying not to sound disbelieving. But it was such a sad, empty little house.

  “No.” Jeremy blew on the fire, and the flames grew. He shifted the glowing logs with a wrought-iron poker. “The people who lived here left after the quake.”

  “So you just took over and made yourself at home?” I would have been pissed if someone did that at my house.

  “I lived here once. Long time ago, with my mom.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling, as though he could see something there that I couldn’t. “This was our house before she died. I came back to check on it after the quake, make sure it was still standing. It was empty, so I started coming here. To get away.”

  I sat down on the lumpy couch. “What are you trying to get away from?” I asked.

  Jeremy’s neck tensed until I could see the cords of muscle flexing under his skin. “My family,” he said. “Especially my father. I hate him. I hate all of them.” He spoke through clenched teeth, and with such bitterness I thought he might punctuate his words by spitting into the flames. He gripped the poker so hard his knuckles turned white, and I worried he might start stabbing the fire with it. But then he glanced at me and must have realized from my expression that his reaction had alarmed me. My mom and Parker had pushed me over the edge more than once lately, but not like this. I had never for a moment hated either of them.

  “I’m sorry.” Jeremy dropped the poker and came to sit by me on the couch, close enough that I could feel the heat of him, as though I were sitting next to the fire. My body wanted to melt into his.

  “You don’t have to be sorry,” I told him. “Every family has its issues.”

  “We definitely have plenty of ‘issues,’ but that’s not what I brought you here to talk about.” He was quiet for a minute. I could almost see his brain working, trying to figure out how to say whatever it was he wanted to say. Whatever he’d waited too long to say.

  “There’s something I want to ask you.” He turned toward me. Our faces were close. For a split second I thought he was going to try to kiss me. I stiffened, wanting him to, not wanting him to. As long as he didn’t put his hands on me, I wouldn’t see the Tower, would I? Or maybe I would never see the Tower again, now that I had chosen the Lovers. Madam Lupescu said I had a choice, and I had made mine. I had stolen it.

  “Ask me,” I said, leaning in until my lips were a breath away from Jeremy’s. I waited for him to close the gap.

  “I want you to …” I felt the air of his words on my lips. A shiver ran through me.

  “You want me to …” I repeated, breathing him in. The Lovers, I thought. This is my choice. This is my future.

  “I want you—” I didn’t let him finish. That was all I wanted to hear. I want you.

  I moved forward a little, and my lips were on his. Warm. So warm. For a moment we stayed like that, unmoving, our lips simply touching. Then his mouth parted, and so did mine, and he moaned softly into me, with something like relief. I let my tongue do what it wanted, taste his, and then something in me, in both of us, broke, and we were kissing with ravenous desperation.

  Jeremy’s hands found the sides of my face, and his fingers disappeared into my hair, pulling my mouth harder against his. His lips were hot enough to burn. I wanted to tell him to take his hands off me, not to drag me into one of his visions, but I was afraid he would stop kissing me. And I wanted to know …

  I wanted to know if my future still held the Tower.

  I didn’t tell him to stop, even when my vision started to fog, like warm breath on a cold window.

  I was filled with an explosion of heat. My
vision went white, and then cleared.

  The wind rushed at me, seemingly from everywhere, as though it couldn’t decide which direction to blow. I could barely see through the hair whipping my cheeks.

  There was music, a hammer blow baseline, a driving, chaotic symphony of electronic sound. But the music disappeared when thunder rumbled in the sky. It was the sound of hunger, deep and ravenous. Overhead, thunderclouds roiled and bunched, like the fists of an army of angry gods, ready to pummel the world. Those clouds were so close; I could almost reach up and touch them.

  The Tower. Again. Always. Standing on the roof of the Tower, surrounded on all sides by bodies, grinding and shaking and throwing their arms in the air to the thunder music.

  A piece of paper sailed through the night and slapped against me. I grabbed it before it could blow away and held it up to read.

  BEGINNING OF THE END PARTY

  APRIL 17

  AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD

  HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME

  Thunder cracked, jarring my bones. The air was electric, and my blood sang in harmony with its vibration. My skin danced, like every cell was in the process of trading places. It burned, but at the same time I had never felt so alive, like the storm was inside me.

  Maroon light pulsed on and off in the blue-black clouds, and my singing blood began to cry out, calling for the lightning. Lightning as red as the scars that branched over my skin. I felt my arms lifting. Reaching. I let the wind take the flyer as I turned my chin up to face the clouds.

  “Mia.”

  Through the veil of hair covering my eyes, I saw Jeremy cutting through the crush of bodies, coming toward me.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” he said, and even though his voice was low I heard him just fine. “You’re the missing element. You’re what he’s been waiting for.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Him.” Jeremy’s eyes focused on something behind me.

  Someone.

  I turned and found myself inches from a pair of milky white eyes.

  “Hurry up please it’s time.”

  “No!” I whirled back to Jeremy. “Show me something else! I don’t want the Tower.”

  Lightning split the sky above us. I saw it reflected in Jeremy’s tortured eyes, and the thunder that followed shook my bones so hard I thought they might shatter.

  “Hurry up please it’s time.” The voice whispered in my ear.

  I grabbed Jeremy’s face and pulled it within an inch of mine. “I won’t leave here until you show me a different future. Show me what I chose!”

  “I don’t know how,” he said miserably. “This is all there is.”

  “No. The Lovers. I chose the Lovers. I choose you.”

  I crushed my mouth to his in a violent kiss, a demand.

  Show me something else. Show me something else. Show me something else.

  Then we were falling. Jeremy and I were falling from the Tower, rushing toward the ground, faster and faster, plummeting into one of the chasms, so deep, so unfathomably deep, and then—

  The wind rushed at me, seemingly from all sides, as though it couldn’t decide which direction to blow. I could barely see through the hair whipping my cheeks.

  It began again. And ended. And began.

  And ended.

  And—

  My eyes flashed open to find a dark shape looming over me in a lightless room. I drew breath to scream.

  “You’re awake! Mia, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have touched you like that. I wasn’t thinking.”

  Jeremy. The dark shape was Jeremy, and we were no longer in the Waste, and I didn’t need to scream.

  I exhaled hard and sat up, maybe a little too fast, because my head began to spin. I felt like my brain was being sucked down into a whirlpool. I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. “What happened? Why is it so dark in here?”

  “The fire went out.”

  I looked toward the fireplace. A single candle still burned on the mantel, but the roaring fire Jeremy built had gone cold. Not even the embers glowed.

  “You were out for hours,” Jeremy said. “I kept trying to wake you up, but I couldn’t get to you. Mia, I’m so sorry. I’ve trapped people in visions before, but never for so long, and never without meaning to.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I told him, remembering my refusal to leave the vision until I got the future I wanted. But I never did. It was the same loop, again and again.

  The Tower and the storm. The Tower and the storm.

  The Tower and the storm … and Prophet.

  There is no storm!

  I climbed dizzily to my feet. Jeremy looked furious with himself that he couldn’t help me up. His hands clenched at his sides, useless.

  “Where are you going?”

  I stumbled through the dark toward the door and threw it open. The air hit my skin and my weather sense began to thrum with new intensity, making my skin vibrate like I was some kind of human tuning fork.

  The storm … it was back, and it was so close.

  But the sky was still clear.

  As I stood there a breeze picked up, and the pins and needles stabbing my skin multiplied. A piece of red paper fluttered along the sidewalk. I raced down the steps and grabbed it before it could blow away.

  “Mia?”

  Startled, my hands jerked and tore the flyer nearly in half. I handed it to Jeremy and watched the color disappear from his face and his jaw tighten as he read.

  “Hurry up please it’s time,” I said under my breath. “Time for what?”

  “It’s a line from a poem,” Jeremy said. “The Waste Land. T. S. Eliot.”

  And then I understood.

  I raised my eyes to Jeremy’s. “We have to get out of L.A.”

  32

  I SHOOK THE flyer at Jeremy. “Beginning of the End at the Top of the World. That’s the Tower, isn’t it?”

  Jeremy dug a hand through his hair. “It could be.”

  “It has to be! That T. S. Eliot line is a password to get into the Rove, and whoever made this flyer is just giving it away to everyone. The Rove doesn’t advertise. Exclusivity is part of the allure.” I tapped the words with my finger, thinking. “Katrina said some rich guy bought the Tower and offered to host the Rove. And on Schiz’s blog, he wrote something about how Prophet was buying property in the Waste. It has to be him! The twins … the Apostles … they said if the rovers didn’t repent, they’d be the first to die. Prophet,” I said, my throat tightening. “He planned this whole thing, the Rove in the Tower. The flyers.”

  I realized I was babbling, but I couldn’t slow to compose myself. I had to say it to see how it sounded. So far it sounded crazy … but possible. More than possible.

  “It’s going to start in the Tower,” I said. “Maybe Prophet has the whole place wired with explosives or something. The whole freaking city! Who knows what these fanatics are capable of! Or maybe …” I chewed my lip, not wanting to admit what I was considering. I took a breath and let it out. “Katrina told me there’s something about the Waste, an energy, like the Spark, only bigger. It was uncovered during the earthquake, and now it’s exposed.”

  “I felt it,” Jeremy said. “It’s strongest at the Tower.”

  I nodded. “Like that place is some kind of … I don’t know, like an energy nexus. If there’s another storm coming, that energy could draw even more lightning than last time. There could be another earthquake, a worse earthquake, and the rovers would be the first to go. They’re the only people in the city who’ve openly defied Prophet, and a lot of them have the Spark. Prophet’s opposition would be instantly eliminated.”

  Jeremy closed his eyes, as though it was too painful to keep them open. “So what do you want to do?”

  “Do?” I threw my hands up. “There’s nothing we can do. It’s too late.” I shook my head, feeling ashamed that I was giving up, but I didn’t see any other choice. “I’m getting my family out of L.A.,” I told him.

  “What about the
roads?” Jeremy asked so quietly I could barely hear him.

  Jeremy’s words echoed in my brain.

  I screwed up. I shouldn’t have waited so long. Now it’s too late.

  I stared at him. “That’s what you wanted to ask me, if I would leave the city … with you.”

  Jeremy nodded, eyes on the ground. “I didn’t think you’d say yes, but—”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, let’s get out of this city. Together. We’ll find a way.”

  Jeremy raised his eyes to mine. His hands were once again clenched at his sides, so I knew what he wanted to do with them, that he wanted to touch me. I remembered the heat of his lips on mine, and I wished I could let him.

  But we had run out of time for things like that.

  We left my car behind and took Jeremy’s bike, weaving in and out of traffic like we were on an obstacle course. I kept my eyes closed most of the way and clung to Jeremy’s back so tightly I was surprised he didn’t end up with a few cracked ribs.

  Even though we were able to avoid being stopped by the gridlock on the roads, it was past eleven by the time we reached my house.

  My heart was pounding against my rib cage as we ran to the door. What if Mom or Parker refused to come with us? How could I make them understand?

  As it turned out, I needn’t have worried.

  I knew as soon as I set foot in the house that it was empty. I didn’t have to check to see if Mom’s car was in the garage. I didn’t have to call out for her and Parker, or rush from room to room trying to find them. I did those things anyway, but sometimes you just know when you’ve been left behind, even before you find a note telling you why.

  Parker left his note in an envelope on his dresser, addressed to me. I opened the envelope with shaking fingers and pulled out a piece of notebook paper, jagged along the side where it’d been torn out.

  Mia,

  I know you’re going to be angry with me. I know you won’t understand why I’m doing this. I wish you did. I’ve joined the Seekers, and undergone their bonding ritual, so there’s no going back now, and that’s okay with me. It was the right thing to do. Please don’t come looking for me unless you intend to join our cause. I love you and Mom. I’m sorry things have to be this way. If we win, I’ll see you when this is over.