The blood drains from her face. She looks terrified, and then she looks sad, and then she looks the type of bone-deep, soul-weary tired I see reflected back at me from mirrors. There’s a swelling of something I didn’t know I could feel for anyone other than Annie. Compassion. I want to help her. I want to protect her, not because I like her, like how it is with Pixie. I want to protect Sadie simply because she needs protecting. She nods at me, a sort of resigned gesture, and then turns and walks toward home.
I let Pixie come back to me. Her eyes are wide. “Well?” I ask.
“She looked at my hand and thought, ‘No way I want to see what this girl’s future is like.’ But when she saw you—when she saw you, she thought, ‘I’m dead. I thought I’d have more time. Oh well.’ Why would she think that, Fia?” Pixie looks at me imploringly, begging me to explain to her why a girl I’d never met would equate me with her own death.
“I don’t know,” I say, and I’m falling apart because I don’t know. Anything.
What has she seen? What does she know?
What do I do?
ANNIE
Five Weeks Before
I CRINGE AS SOMETHING SMASHES AGAINST THE WALL. Shattering glass rains down onto the tile floor.
“Stop defending her!” Sarah screams. “Five for five! Five times I’ve tried to get to these girls, and five times Fia has already been there!”
“I don’t understand why—”
“No! You don’t! Because you keep trying to figure out why she’d do that, what her plan is, but the thing is, she doesn’t have one! She never has! She’s doing whatever James tells her, because she’s in love with him. Do you have any idea how much more effective their recruitment has gotten since Fia ditched you and went back to them?”
“Sarah,” Rafael says, his voice flat with warning. “You need to calm down.”
“You see what I’m seeing and then tell me if you can calm down!”
“Why don’t you go for a walk?”
“Why don’t you go to hell!” She takes a few deep, unsteady breaths, and when she talks again, it’s restrained. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I need to . . . I’ll be back in a while.”
The front door slams.
“I’m sorry about that,” Rafael says. “The last few weeks have been hard on her.”
I lean against the counter glumly. “I understand.” Ever since Sarah called confirming that Amanda was a real person—a twelve-year-old girl now whisked away to the Keane Foundation—I’ve been fighting the cold dread creeping in my bones. There’s a reason. There has to be a reason Fia would do this. Sarah’s wrong, I know she is. Fia wouldn’t do this otherwise.
I wish I could talk to her, call her, let her explain. But another part of me is terrified that if I did talk to her, she wouldn’t be able to explain anything, and I’d know once and for all that I was wrong about her.
I can’t be wrong about her. She’s my baby sister. She’s not evil.
Rafael’s hands come down on either side of my neck, thumbs rubbing slow circles in the muscles there. “You have a lot of tension,” he says.
I laugh. “Can’t imagine why.” His fingers feel heavenly, though. I close my eyes and barely hold back a sigh. “How long are you two here for?” They got in this morning, but Rafael has been with Adam the whole time in the makeshift office. Adam didn’t go back when he was supposed to a few days ago. Something about a more “peaceful environment” here, but I have a sneaking suspicion he stuck around to keep an eye on me.
Sarah came with Rafael. I was looking forward to spending time with her again, but . . . well.
“We’re leaving. I won’t risk being in the same place as you for long, not after what happened before. Though I would rather keep you with me.”
He sounds like honey, thick and sweet and earthy. I know he’s flirting with me, and I can’t help but be pleased. Who knows, maybe I don’t meet the guy from my visions until I’m fifty. What’s wrong with a little flirtation?
Rafael’s hands guide me around until I’m facing him. I can feel the lines of him, leaning in close, brushing against me. He pushes a strand of hair off my face, tracing his fingers down my cheek and lingering on my earlobe as he tucks the hair back.
And then, so suddenly I startle, his lips are against mine. I feel like time has slowed down, but not in a dreamy, romantic way. Though I’ve idly daydreamed kissing him a few times, I can’t seem to figure this out. I wonder what I should be doing—whether I ought to move my lips, or use my tongue, what I ought to do with my hands—and then I realize that if I’m standing here with his lips against mine, wondering these things, I am probably not feeling the way a girl should during her first kiss.
That stupid, stupid vision has ruined me. I really won’t be able to enjoy kissing someone for fun, not knowing there’s another someone out there who will make me feel the way I do in that vision by something as simple as holding my hand.
Rafael’s lips are soft and warm and perfectly pleasant, though, so when he pulls back after a few seconds I try to smile. I’m sure it looks more goofy than alluring, because that’s how I feel. I wish that kiss had been more than just two lips connecting. I could use a little magic in my life right now.
He laughs, a silent, soft exhalation. “You Rosen sisters. So beautiful and strange. I wish I could collect a dozen of you.”
I slap his shoulder. “That is not a compliment.”
He strokes my cheek again, leaving his fingers a few seconds longer than strictly necessary as someone else comes into the room.
“Your car is here,” Cole growls.
“Focus on your sister,” Rafael says. “And call me as soon as you see anything else.” His cologne lingers in his wake and I sit on a bar stool, bemused and unsure what to make of this development. If it even was a development. He’s Italian. Maybe they kiss a lot. It wasn’t terrible. It was nice. But I don’t think I’ll care if it never happens again with him.
Huh. Kind of anticlimactic for having waited nineteen years.
“Are you okay?” Cole asks.
“Hmm? Oh, I’m fine.”
I can feel him pacing in front of me. “Are you and Rafael—”
“Did you see that?” My cheeks burn.
“I—no, I mean, it’s none of my business, but—be careful, okay? You’re too honest for him.”
“I’m too honest? What does that mean?”
“You have no guile. Everything you feel is written on your face.” He sits on a stool next to me, drumming his fingers on the counter. “Like smiling. People smile all the time when they don’t mean it. If they’re nervous, if they’re lying, if they don’t know how to react to something. You never smile unless you mean it.”
“Your laugh is the same way.” I bite my lip, embarrassed at having admitted I notice things about him. There’s a line there that feels too weird to cross. “Besides, I wasn’t aware my smile made me unqualified to date Rafael.”
He lets out an exasperated breath. “That’s not what I mean.”
I elbow his side, flashing a smile that is apparently more honest than most. “I’m kidding. I’ll be careful. We’re not—I’m not dating him or anything.” The silence between us now feels heavy, laden with the awkwardness of Cole giving me romantic advice. Subject change. “Did you see Sarah?”
“Yes.”
“I’m worried about her.”
“She should be here with us. I don’t like it.”
“I wish I could see something that would help us, help her.” I scowl, kicking my toes against the floor in frustration. “Maybe if I took a lower dosage.”
“That’s a stupid idea.”
“Don’t call me stupid!”
“I didn’t call you stupid, I called the idea stupid. Quit trying to mess up your brain. If you really want to see more, you should take better care of it, not worse.”
“What would you know about it?”
“Apparently more than you or Sarah!” He paces back and forth in front of me,
footsteps louder than normal. “This is all pointless.”
“Look, obviously you’re miserable, so why don’t you leave? Find something more important to do than babysitting stupid, pathetic me!”
He stops. “Annie, that’s not—”
“Don’t pretend like that’s not how you feel. I’ve heard you say as much. You wanted me gone from the beginning. That’s fine. Whatever. Go with Sarah and Rafael and then you won’t have to deal with me and my stupid ideas.”
He puts a hand on my arm but I jerk it away, then leave the room. I lock my bedroom door behind me, so frustrated I don’t know what to do with myself. Sarah hates me. Cole hates me. Rafael obviously likes me but I can’t be with him, and I don’t know if I’d want to even if I could. Not if it meant we’d be more than flirty colleagues.
An hour later there’s a timid knock.
“What?”
“Can we come in?” Adam asks.
I unlock the door, but stand in the doorway with my arms crossed. “Well?”
“We have presents,” Adam says with a smile in his voice.
“Tea isn’t a present.” Though it does smell nice.
“Not just tea. We also have a yoga mat, and ginkgo biloba, and a CD called Soothing White Noise.”
“That was his idea,” Cole says. “And you’re going for long walks. And getting to bed at a decent hour.”
“Look, when I said you were babysitting me, I didn’t mean you should actually start. You know my parents are dead, right? Even when they were alive, they paid really crap rates for babysitters.”
“You want more visions?” Cole asks. “We’re going to help your brain, not damage it. Now drink your tea and put on your shoes. Three miles walking a day, minimum.”
I take the tea and sip at it, mumbling, “Taking drugs was a lot simpler.”
Only Adam laughs.
“You’re breathing wrong,” Adam says.
“Seriously? You’re critiquing my breathing?”
“No! I mean, the lady on the video, she’s doing it with her stomach, not her shoulders.”
I roll my eyes, but try to do what he says. The last few days have yielded no visions, but I’ll admit I have more energy. Cole’s been avoiding me, sending Adam on all the walks. Adam tries to talk about Fia. It’s not as “centering” as I think Cole thinks it ought to be.
I take a deep breath, then let it out, trying to clear my mind, to let all the stress and worry drain out of the hollow spaces between my bones. Fill the space with nothing, instead.
And then there’s a girl.
She’s tall and thin, baggy clothes covering every inch of skin, the hood of her gray sweatshirt pulled up over her head, with a few strands of brown hair escaping. She leans against a wall, eyes down, hands shoved in her pockets, as people—teenagers? in school? they have backpacks, but unlike her they’re all in shorts and short sleeves—swirl around her. A broadcast crackles through the hall. “Good morning, Hoover High Terriers! Don’t forget to buy your raffle tickets. Last day!”
As the crowd thins, a hand comes down on her shoulder and she jerks away as though burned. “Get to class, Sadie,” a woman says, not unkindly.
“Yeah,” the girl, Sadie, mutters. She walks away, shoulders hunched, and then—
A tired woman, frayed around the edges, looks over a stack of papers. “It’s been hard,” she says. “What with the criminal case against my husband—” She looks up, alarmed. “He’s innocent. We have no idea how he got implicated in this embezzlement scheme.”
James nods, all false sympathy.
“The lawyer fees are bleeding us dry. They’ve foreclosed on the house. When the school offered before, we thought it was best to keep her close to us. We tried to help her. I thought we could handle it, but she’s failing out. I don’t know what else to do. With everything going on, I can’t—we can’t—”
The front door opens and Sadie walks in, a heavy backpack dragging her shoulders down. She takes in the strangers with hooded eyes, then walks along the wall straight past everyone and out of the room.
Her mother’s shoulders shake and an arm comes around them. Eden offers her a tissue, her own eyes tearing up. She looks up at James and glares accusingly. He doesn’t react. Seeing her there breaks my heart a little. Because she doesn’t know—she can’t know that I’m alive. She has to think they let Fia kill me.
And she’s still helping them. Oh, Eden.
James continues. “This is the best thing for her, Mrs. Kavadellis. We have the resources to help her. Sadie is going to have a new life.”
The woman nods, wiping under her eyes.
There’s a knock at the door and the woman calls, “Come in.”
Fia walks in, dressed in the school uniform, looking young and sweet except for the tension in her eyes.
“Oh, here’s Sofia.” James smiles paternally at her. “She’s the girl I was telling you about. She was in Des Moines visiting relatives and so we thought she could stop by, talk with Sadie, answer any questions she has. It’ll be easier if Sadie has a familiar face at the school.”
“Sadie, can you come in here?”
Hands pulled into her sleeves, Sadie slouches in, immediately curling into a ball in the corner of the couch. Her mom signs the papers. James and Eden watch. Fia leans against the wall, staring out the window, then turns. Horror flashes across my sister’s face. Eden looks up sharply, but Fia smiles brightly, falsely, at the girl. She taps on her leg, tap tap taps, but no one notices. “You’re going to love the school,” Fia says.
Then the darkness is back. “. . . asleep?”
I shudder, the pain dull and familiar behind my eyes. “Get Cole. I need to go to Iowa. Right now.”
FIA
Eighteen Hours Before
WE SIT ON THE CURB A FEW LOTS DOWN FROM THE house where Sadie is staying. Pixie stretches her skinny legs out into the street. Good thing she’s so short she’s safe from having them run over.
She kicks at my boot. “Are the short jokes funny in your head? Because they aren’t funny in mine.”
“Shut it, Shortie.” I dial James and wait for him to pick up. I am spinning out of control, I know I am, everything is spinning out of control and I don’t know if I can do enough to hold on to everything, to twist everything in the way I do, but I have to try I will try.
I thought New York would change things, make me even more focused, put me directly in line with our goals. But I feel further away than ever from my flames, my beautiful flames.
I’m cold.
“Fia,” James says, and I love the way he always answers the phone with my name: a statement, not a question.
“So, here’s the thing about Sadie.”
“Sadie?”
I slap my forehead, swear. “Did your father not tell you? I’m in Florida with the brain leech. We found Sadie.”
“He didn’t tell me.” There’s a pause, and I can feel his worry seeping across the miles and miles and miles of empty air between us. “But I haven’t talked to him yet today. I’m sure he would have mentioned it.”
“Mmm.” I lie back, the concrete of the sidewalk hard and baking hot through my T-shirt, but it’s not hot enough. I squeeze my eyes shut against the sun, let it burn my eyes through my eyelids. I once stared at the sun as long as I could, trying to go blind like Annie. Maybe if it had worked, we would still be together, be safe, be worthless to evil men and therefore free to just be.
James prods me. “Are you still there?”
“There’s something wrong. Sadie’s only a Seer, but . . .” But why is she special? Why was she so important? Seers aren’t super useful in general. There’s no reason she should keep popping up on the radar like this.
“Is . . . anyone else with her?”
He doesn’t say the name. He doesn’t know that Pixie knows that Annie isn’t dead. The tightrope I walk keeps stretching, with no end in view. Farther and farther from my goal.
“No. I’d know if she were here again.” I would. I
would know that, I’d have to.
I tap tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap. What is so important about Sadie? There is something I’m not realizing, some huge piece I’m failing to put together, and that failure scares me. I can’t fail. Sadie shouldn’t be dangerous, shouldn’t set off my warning bells. I bring all sorts of girls in. Sure, she has a history of triggering bloodshed (four, four taps, I hate them), but she’s just a Seer. Seers are lame. They can’t control what they see or when they see it.
“Oh.” It’s an exhalation, a curse and a prayer and a eulogy. Because I understand now. What she is. What she means. Seers can’t see me, none except Annie. I’m too slippery, I slide right out of their visions.
Sadie looked at Pixie’s hand and thought she didn’t want to see that future. She knew she would. There was no question.
“She touches you,” I whisper, “and she sees. That’s all she needs. She touches you. She touches anyone. She can control what she sees.”
“What is—” He stops and I know he’s made the same connection, the connection I can’t think about with Pixie next to me, the great new kink to all our not planning. Because if someone could force a vision, if someone could grab hold of your future and force it into her brain with a simple brush of her finger across your skin, nothing would be secret.
Nothing would be safe.
Nothing.
I can already feel all my secrets, the secrets from James, the secrets from his father, the secrets from everyone, spilling out in a torrent, gushing past my skin and into someone else, and I wouldn’t be able to stop them. There would be no dam for the flood, no way around it, no place to hide.
Sadie is my death warrant. James’s, too.
“Is Mae with you?” James asks.
“Yes.”
“Get away from her. Now.”
I stand. Pixie looks up, but I jab a finger at her and think STAY as hard as I can, then run the opposite direction. I don’t know what her range is, so I give us a couple of blocks.
“Okay,” I say. “I can think now.”
“My father can’t get Sadie.”
Perfect Lies Page 10