Mirror Image: Shattered Mirror Prophecies Book 1

by Bailey James

  “Well, I can read and listen to thoughts. Sometimes, I can even…persuade people to do things.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jackson doesn’t look at me. I have a distinct feeling there’s more to it than that. “So, you are a mind reader?”

  “Yes,” he says. “In a way. It is more complicated than that, but that’s the general idea.”

  I lick my lips and then swallow at the sudden lump in my throat. “Can you read my mind?”

  He shakes his head. “No, but I haven’t tried to, either.”

  I let out a relieved breath. “What else can you do?”

  “Uh, well, not only can I read thoughts, but I can also place them.”

  What? Place them? I frown. “What do you mean?” Then it dawns on me. “The persuading thing?”

  He nods, his face turning red.

  “How often have you ‘persuaded’ me?” I demand. My blood boils just thinking of someone else controlling me like that.

  He finally meets my eyes, his hand flexing against the glass. “I didn’t want to use it to get home, but I was desperate. But I’ve never done that to you, Lily. Nor will I. I will never do anything to hurt you or force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “Even if you’re desperate?”

  “Even if I’m desperate.”

  Relief blows a cool breeze over my hot temper, but… “What makes me different?” I ask, fighting the urge to move my suddenly warm hand from the glass.

  He doesn’t answer right away, and I’m about to ask again when he says, “You just are.”

  “What—”

  “You really do look exhausted. You need to sleep.”

  I shake my head, even as I yawn. “Answer my question, Jackson. What makes me different?”

  He groans, but what he says next has my stomach fluttering. “Because you’re special. You mean a lot…to me.”

  The warmness in my cheeks returns as I realize what he means. And I have to bite my tongue because there’s an answering echo in me that wants me to acknowledge that he means a lot to me, too—more than he should.

  After a few minutes of silence, awkward silence because I know he wants me to say it back, but I can’t. I won’t. Not when I have Tyler. No matter what this weird portal mirror thing wants us to feel.

  Finally, disappointment darkening his eyes, he says, “Well, at least sit down, before you fall down. You look like a good wind will blow you over.”

  Knowing he’s right, I sit, crossing my legs, and then wait for him to do the same before I dive in with my next question. ”How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  I keep asking questions, barely giving him time to answer before I move onto another. I’ll stop, of course, if I think I’m annoying him, but he only looks amused and answers every question I have just as fast as I can ask them.

  He’s an only child, something that’s normal for his world. Their society believes in negative population growth, so most families have only one child per couple—excluding twins and other multiples. He’s top of his class and is preparing for a college-type institution, but the way he explains it is more like a graduate degree instead of an undergraduate. Their version of high school seems like our version of the undergraduate degree. They’re even specialized.

  What we consider the years of kindergarten through eighth are the primary school, and then nine through twelve are the specialized secondary school years. You have to already know your ‘major’ by the time you’re twelve, so you can start applying to the appropriate secondary schools and pass the testing required for admission.

  Then in eleventh grade, they test you again to get into the institutions. I can only imagine what kids in our world would come up with if they had to choose a major at twelve. I probably would have said I wanted to be a part of some girl band or something.

  Jackson has no pets, except the creepy flower thing. And is the captain of his school’s swim team. I wait for him to brag about it, but he never does.

  “Well, are you any good?” I finally ask when he doesn’t.

  He gives me a lopsided grin, and my heart flip-flops in my chest.

  Uh, oh.

  “I’m not going to tell you,” he says, those damned dimples popping out.

  I laugh. ”What? Why not?”

  “Because then you’ll just be another groupie.” His face turns serious as he meets my eyes. “You’re too important to be just another groupie.”

  I lean closer to the mirror. ”I won’t. Promise.”

  He sighs and runs his hands through his hair. “Yes, you will. That’s how it always goes.”

  Wanting to see his smile again, I lean back and lift my eyebrow in a saucy move. ”Well, I promise that even if you’ve won the Olympics, I won’t be impressed.”

  He draws his eyebrows together. ”What are the Olympics?”

  I explain with a little laugh, and his face lights up, causing my breath to catch. I know he’s hot, but damn, he’s really fucking sexy when he’s excited.

  “Oh, we have something similar. It’s called the Coubertin.”

  For a moment, I can only blink, but I quickly gather myself together and smirk. “Okay, so even if you’ve won the Coubertin, I won’t be impressed.”

  He returns my smirk. “Promise?”

  I cross my finger over my heart. ”Cross my heart. I’d do the pinky swear, too, but I can’t reach through the mirror.”

  He snickers. ”Okay, well, I’ve placed in the Coubertin. Twice.” He looks smug as hell, and I have to fight the urge to grin.

  Instead, I stare at him, keeping my expression as bland as I can. ”Okay.”

  His face falls. ”Okay?”

  My lip quivers with the effort to hide my smile. ”Well, yeah. I told you I wouldn’t be impressed.”

  He purses his lips and then leans forward. ”I’m not enhanced,” he says as if it were a dirty secret.

  I shake my head and shrug. ”Okay. I’ll play. What does that mean?”

  “I won against all of my competitors, but I’m only human. I don’t have any biomechanical parts, I’m not genetically engineered in any way, and I was conceived in the normal way. I am one hundred percent human.”

  “Okay…” So?

  “You can be impressed now, you know,” he tells me with a wink that sends those froggerflies scattering again.

  I have to laugh. ”Okay. Who were you competing against that not being enhanced is impressive? That sounds normal to me.”

  He nods in acknowledgment. ”Yeah, I guess so. I keep forgetting. I have to compete against cyborgs, GEC’s—the humanoid ones—and other normal humans. Ever since they let in the cyborgs and humanoid GECs, a lot of morpos don’t stand a chance. Except for some reason, I’ve been beating them.”

  Well, that’s clear as mud. “What’s a morpo?”

  “Normal human.”

  “Oh.”

  He lifts a brow, a twinkle in his eyes. ”Not impressed yet?”

  “Oh, I’m impressed. I’m just not supposed to let you know it.”

  He crinkles his nose with his grin. ”It’s okay. I want you to be impressed. I just don’t want you to be a groupie.”

  “Well, how about if I’m the lead groupie?” I wiggle my eyebrows.

  He laughs, and we smile at each other. Then it dawns on me; he’s told me almost everything about himself, but I haven’t missed the one thing he’s left out—his parents.

  “So, you didn’t say anything about your parents. What’s the matter? Don’t you like them?” I tease.

  He peers down at the carpet and starts plucking at a few of the fibers. ”My dad died when I was ten. My mom’s awesome, she picked up the pieces, and although I miss him still, I’ve never felt like I was missing anything.”

  “Oh.” Geez, Lily, why don’t you open
your mouth a little wider next time so you can stick your whole foot in it? “Sorry.”

  He moves his eyes back to mine. The pain is clear as day in them, and that just compounds the guilt I’m feeling, but he says, ”It’s okay. Why haven’t you asked about my scar?”

  I stare over his shoulder and tell him the truth. ”Well, two reasons. At first, I didn’t want to ask you about it, because you didn’t seem to want to talk about it. But, now? I don’t really see it.”

  Both of his eyebrows jump to his hairline. ”You don’t see it?”

  “I mean, I see it now that I’m thinking about it, but when I’m talking to you,” Or thinking about you, “it’s just not important, so I don’t notice it.” I shrug.

  He grins. ”Thanks. Most girls try to tell me it adds to the mystery behind me, but,” he rolls his eyes, “I know they’re only saying it to get me to talk to them about what happened.”

  “What did happen?” I blurt, then immediately facepalm with my good hand. “I mean, if you want to tell me, that is.”

  His hand bumps the glass again, and he hisses. ”Damn it. I keep forgetting,” he mutters and then sighs. ”I don’t mind. You’re different. I told you that already. Besides, it’s important anyway. My dad and I were driving and, out of nowhere, we were hit on the side. If that wasn’t strange enough, because, you know, self-driving cars, it damaged the propulsion system and every single safety mechanism. We crashed into the ground. We were about five hundred feet in the air when we were hit.”

  Oh, no. That must have been awful. I can’t imagine losing my father, especially like that. He’s the most important man in my life.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, tears pricking the backs of my eyes. That’s so awful, I think again.

  His gorgeous green eyes bore into mine, the torment clear as day behind those beautiful irises.

  “It was. It really was,” Jackson says, causing me to frown.

  Then I remember he can hear my thoughts. For some reason, although that should creep me the hell out, it doesn’t even bother me a little. I only wonder, vaguely, if it’s amplified now that we’re touching the glass or if it’s somehow the only thing that can cross the barrier between us without either of us touching the mirror.

  He continues, his voice making my heart break for him. “The car slammed into the ground, and I smashed my head onto the dashboard.” He touches the scar on his face. One that’s overshadowed by the much larger one that runs over his eye. One I hadn’t noticed until just now.

  “Didn’t you have airbags?”

  He knit his brows together. ”What are airbags?”

  Since talking to him is so easy, almost as if we’ve known each other for a long time, I forgot he isn’t part of my world. ”They’re bags filled with air and some kind of powder that, when a car hits something, inflate and protect the person from harm.”

  Understanding dawns on his face. “Oh, yeah, we have something similar. It’s a foam-type thing. It’s injected all around you and, as it hardens, it protects you from almost anything.”

  “Wouldn’t it suffocate you?”

  “No. The minute it hardens, it starts to disintegrate. All in all, the whole process takes only a minute or two.”

  Whoa. That sounds pretty cool. ”Does it actually work?”

  “Usually. Almost no one dies because of car accidents, and not just because humans no longer drive themselves.” He laughs.

  I frown, though. “So, what happened? Didn’t it work?”

  The light in his eyes dim. ”No, it didn’t. The mechanism was either deactivated or destroyed. Dad’s head hit the window, and he died on the way to the health center because of severe internal bleeding even the nanobots couldn’t stop in time.”

  “Deactivated? Destroyed? You mean like on purpose?” I ask.

  He peers up, his eyes filling with tears that make me ache to pull him into my arms and hug him until he’s all cried out. His voice is husky with those unshed tears when he says, “Yeah. On purpose.” He clenches his hands into fists. “The mechanism for that can’t fail. There’s no way. It had to have been done on purpose.” He says it in such a way that makes me think he’s repeated that exact sentiment over and over before.

  “Are you sure?” I ask, but he only gives me a look. I hold my palms up in surrender. “Okay, well then, why?”

  He glances back at his hands. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  Helpless tears shine in his eyes again, and, for some reason, they make it more realistic to me. If I hadn’t already believed him, this would have shoved me over the edge.

  “I’m sorry, Jackson. Truly.”

  He leans his head against the mirror, and my first instinct is still to reach out and hold him, to comfort him, but I know I can’t, and not just because the mirror is in the way.

  Instead, I trace over the scar across his eye through the glass. ”How did this happen?”

  He makes a face. ”A piece of metal from the frame of the car broke off and sliced down my face. I couldn’t see for almost a month until the nanobots fixed it.”

  “They couldn’t fix the scar?”

  “The material in the metal destroyed the cells. Even nanobots couldn’t repair it. The carbon nanotubes.” He looks up and, when he sees I understood, he continues. ”I chose not to have cosmetic surgery. I keep the scar as a reminder of my dad. When we find the assholes who did it, it’ll remind me not to forget what they did to my family.” His tone is harsh despite his tears, and I know there’s way more he isn’t telling me. Yet, as before, I can’t force myself to ask him.

  “Jackson, your father wouldn’t have wanted you to do that. I’m sure of it. He wouldn’t want you to be scarred forever. And I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to hold this animosity toward the people who did it. You have to let it go. You have to move on.” My hand bumps the glass, but I keep it there, my fingers outstretched as I yearn to touch him. To offer him comfort.

  “I know,” he whispers. He wipes a hand under his chin and then places his palm on the glass, over mine. The mirror wavers again as our eyes meet. I almost feel him, but before either of our hands can slip through, the glass goes back to the way it has been. But it has the effect of clearing the misery from his eyes.

  “You need to sleep, Tiger Lily,” he says softly.

  “Tiger Lily?” I ask with a smile, loving the new nickname.

  “It fits you. You’re just as beautiful as the flower, with your gorgeous black hair and the most amazing green eyes. And you’ve got a spirit about you that reminds me of a tiger. So, Tiger Lily.”

  A giddy sensation crawls over me at his description. And if I wasn’t crushing on this boy before, I totally am now, but I can’t seem to be bothered to care that I shouldn’t be crushing on anyone but Ty.

  “I’m okay,” I finally say, but a yawn escapes, and he laughs at me.

  He schools his face into a frown. ”I’m sure I’ll be here when you wake up. Just go and get some sleep, okay? Please?”

  The please almost does me in, but I shake my head. “I want to know more.”

  He heaves a sigh but starts talking about his childhood. It isn’t long before I start falling asleep. Only the occasional jerk of my head keeps me awake. His voice is soothing and, as a warm liquid-y sensation draws me further into sleep, I wonder if he’s speaking like that on purpose. I lean into the mirror, propping my hand on my knees to keep some contact with the glass. I want to hear every word he says. I can’t miss a single syllable.

  When I wake myself up with a snore, he chuckles and whispers, “Sleep tight, Tiger Lily.” I can’t tell if the words come from the other side of the mirror or inside my head.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Lily?” Tyler says, pulling me from sleep. ”Why are you sleeping against the mirror, beautiful?” When I don’t answer, his arms wrap around me, and he lifts me, carrying me
to my bed, his scent drifting over me. “It’s a good thing you’re so small. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to do this.” He chuckles, but I don’t join him.

  The mattress dips as he sits next to me after pulling the covers up over my body. ”I guess we won’t be going out tonight.”

  I mumble an apology, and he kisses the top of my head.

  “It’s okay. There’s always tomorrow.”

  Too tired to speak, I curl up next to him, and he plays with my hair. ”Did you see him again?” he asks after a minute.

  “Yes,” I reply, before I can stop myself.

  His hand tightens in my hair. ”Is that why you were by the mirror?”

  I hesitate, then nod. Ty already knows I saw Jackson again; what’s the harm in admitting more?

  He sighs and kisses the top of my head. ”Stay in bed, Lil. I’ll be back.”

  Damn it! ”Okay.”

  The bed squeaks as he scoots off, and then his footsteps thud out the door and down the hall. I’ve just started to drift again when I hear Mom and Ty in the hallway. ”She’s still seeing things?”

  Damn it, why did he have to go and tell Mom

  Anger and hurt churn in my stomach at the fact that he tattled on me. I usually love his need to take care of me, even if it tends toward overprotective, but now…

  “When I walked in, she was on the floor, dead asleep against the mirror.”

  “She could have just sleepwalked.”

  “I asked her. She said she saw him again.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  The door squeaks open, and the two of them crowd around my bedside.

  “Well…she was overtired. She could have packed enough clothes for a month-long vacation in the bags under her eyes,” Mom finally says, brushing the hair from my face. “She’ll probably be fine again after she sleeps longer, but maybe someone should stay with her.”

  “I can stay overnight. I’ll sleep on the floor. By the door.”

  Mom laughs. ”I’ll talk it over with her father and let you know,” she says.

  The door squeaks again, and Tyler crawls back onto the bed. He brushes my hair back from my face and then kisses my temple.