“What do you mean ‘balance’?”
His brow furrowed. “The balance in Nature I mentioned to you before. I don’t know how, but I can sense a misalignment. When the air charged and the pressure changed tonight, I felt that all the way to my bones.”
“Welcome to my world. It’s been like that since the day I called in the bombing.”
“I knew you felt cold pressure, but the electric current…has that always been there, too?”
“Unfortunately.” I started to push my hair over my shoulder, but the crackling static of my hair dragging across my sweater caused me to pause mid-swipe. I gaped at Ethan. “I can’t believe it. All this time I thought my crazy static issue was due to the fall weather and cheap dryer sheets, yet even the more expensive brands didn’t work. But what you’re asking made me think it might’ve been Fate’s constant presence.”
“Like it’s stalking you.” Ethan said in a low tone, balling his hands into fists.
Witchy Woman started playing on my cell. I sighed. “She’s checking on me since Mom’s out of town.” I slid my phone open. “Hey, Aunt Sage.”
“Inara, I’m so glad you’re okay.”
My aunt sounded worried. I pressed the phone to my ear. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“There was a news flash just now about a car accident involving a student from your school.”
I glanced at Ethan and my heart started to pound. “I’m fine, Aunt Sage, but thanks for telling me. I’ll find out who it was tomorrow.”
“I got concerned when you didn’t answer the house phone. That’s why I called your cell.”
“Ethan and I are out having pizza. I’ll be heading home soon.”
“Okay, sweetie. Drive safe and call me tomorrow.”
“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked as I immediately dialed Lainey’s cell.
When her cell went to voicemail, I tensed. Hanging up, I dialed her parents’ house. My hand began to tremble when the phone rang and rang. “Someone from our school’s been in a car accident.”
“It’s not Lainey, Nara.”
“We don’t know anything about the rest of her night since I altered its course,” I said, punching the End button.
“You kept Lainey’s keys, right?”
Her keys were currently digging into my thigh in my jean pocket. Nodding, I slid my phone closed and relaxed.
When my phone began to ring again, I jumped, then glanced at the Caller ID. It was Miranda. She never called me. My chest ached as I answered. “Hey, Miranda.”
“Nara, ohmigod! Did you hear? Lainey’s been in a car accident.”
***
I’d just walked into the Emergency Room entrance when Lainey’s dad jumped up from his chair and rushed over to us, his round face an angry, mottled mass of bulging veins. “You’re supposed to be her friend, Nara. How could you let her drive?”
I shrank under her father’s tirade, tears trickling down my cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Mr. O’Neal.”
Lainey’s petite mom was by her husband’s side, tugging on his thick arm, her brown eyes sad, but apologetic. “Joe, Nara didn’t make Lainey drink and drive.”
Mr. O’Neal raked his hand though his graying short hair. “Still, she’s her friend.”
Ethan stepped in front of me. “You’ve got it wrong, sir. I followed Nara in her car when she drove your daughter home over an hour ago. She made sure Lainey got home safely.”
“Who are you?” Mr. O’Neal lost some of his bluster as he scowled at Ethan.
“Ethan Harris. A friend of Nara and Lainey’s.”
While fleeting recognition, then grudging respect cycled through Lainey’s dad’s face, Mrs. O’Neal put a trembling hand over her lips and focused on me. “You drove her home?”
I pulled Lainey’s keys out of my pocket, then set them in her mother’s hand. “She must’ve used a spare key to drive herself back to Jared’s after I left her. I wish…I wish I’d stayed with her now.”
Mr. O’Neal put his thick hand on my shoulder. “Julia’s right. It’s not your fault, Nara. I apologize for coming down on you. That’s just my baby girl in there, ya know?” he said, his eyes turning red.
As Mrs. O’Neal walked her husband back over to the waiting room area, I followed them. “How bad is it?”
Mrs. O’Neal shook her head, a piece of her strawberry blond hair falling from the clip holding the rest back. “We don’t know. She was unconscious when they brought her in.”
Unconscious! I felt the color drain from my face. Please don’t let Lainey die.
“Maybe we should go sit down,” Ethan suggested evenly.
Forty minutes later, a doctor in a white coat came breezing out of the clinic double doors, his gaze scanning the waiting room crowd. “Mr. and Mrs. O’Neal?”
Lainey’s dad approached the doctor. “How is she?”
As we all stepped into place behind Mr. O’Neal, the dark-haired doctor flipped through the chart, then met Lainey’s parents’ expectant gazes. “Your daughter has a few contusions and her internal organs are fine, but she still hasn’t woken yet.”
“What does that mean?” Mr. O’Neal asked, sounding gruff and incredulous.
“We’ll be running a few more tests and I’ll fill you in as often as I can.”
Once the doctor walked away, we all sank to our seats, lost in our own worries. After a half hour of waiting, Mrs. O’Neal turned to me. “Thank you for coming, Nara, but you’ve got school in the morning, so you should go home and get some sleep. We’ll give you an update on Lainey’s progress tomorrow.”
Waves of guilt hammered at my chest, but I managed to rasp, “Please call me as soon as you know something.”
The ride home from the hospital was a blur. My head throbbed by the time Ethan pulled into my driveway and pressed the button for the garage door.
“Wait. I have to drive you home.”
“I’ll walk home.”
“It’s almost midnight. I’ll take you home.”
Ethan climbed out of the car and closed the door, leaving me no choice but to follow.
Closing the garage door, he used the only other key on my keychain to unlock the house. “I want to make sure you get inside safely, especially since you’re staying here by yourself.”
I was too tired and emotionally beat to argue, so I followed him inside. Ethan led the way through the kitchen and I walked with him to the foyer. Gazing into his face, which was only partially lit from the light in the kitchen, I said, “Thank you for being there tonight. I know you wished I’d stayed out of it. Maybe you were right.”
He started to speak, but I put my hand up, my chest tightening with emotion. “I don’t want to argue. Not tonight.”
Ethan watched my hand shaking like a leaf, his expression full of frustration. “I can’t stand to watch you blame yourself for this.”
“It might be nice to know my future…” I started to say. My lips trembled and my gaze pleaded for him to understand. “But I need you more right now—”
Before I could finish, Ethan grabbed my hand and gathered me into his warm embrace.
“You did everything you could,” he whispered into my hair.
I sank into his warmth and reveled in his strong arms holding me close, bands of steel keeping me from falling. I’d missed his touch so much. “I can’t help how I feel,” I wept against his neck. “It all seems so fruitless now. Like Fate made sure it had the last say-so with Lainey.”
Ethan grasped my face and made me look at him. “You made a difference, Nara. If Lainey had driven home from the party when she’d wanted to, at that hour the traffic was much heavier. She could’ve been killed and other people could’ve been hurt.”
“What if she doesn’t wake up, Ethan? That’s worse than death.”
His grip tightened around me. “Lainey will wake up.”
I tried to smile, but failed miserably. “Maybe I should call you Sunshine for trying to cheer me up.”
Ethan rolled his eyes, then kiss
ed my forehead.
Sniffing back tears, I closed my eyes and inhaled his wonderful smell. He was trying to make me feel better. Now would be a good time to tell him you love him, but the words jammed in my throat. They just wouldn’t come. So, I stood on my toes and kissed him.
Ethan’s arms tightened around my waist and his lips pressed against mine for a long simmering second, then he quickly stepped back and exhaled. “I need to get home before my brother thinks now might be a good time to start enforcing a curfew.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you—”
Ethan dropped another quick kiss on my lips, then opened the front door behind him. Before he stepped outside, he said, “This imbalance thing really bothers me. I think you should call your dad.”
When I slowly nodded my agreement, he pointed to the deadbolt. “Lock this behind me.” Then he was gone, leaving me leaning against the door and missing him already.
Twenty minutes later, I stepped into the shower and scrubbed myself clean, hoping the warm water would help me relax enough to fall asleep. Soaping my hair, I dunked my head under the spray until the suds were gone, then held my hands under the hot water for several minutes, waiting for my tense muscles to loosen.
All I could think about was Lainey lying unconscious in a hospital bed. Closing my eyes briefly, I sent a silent prayer for her full recovery. Please let someone hear it. I watched the water trickle through my fingers, but I barely felt it. I was numb all over. And angry. Angry at Fate. It’s not fair. “She’d better wake up,” I hissed into the steam.
Cold air brushed my exposed shoulders, making my skin pebble. Gasping, I glanced behind me, my heart knocking against my chest. Nothing but tufts of steam swirled in the empty space. It’s just your imagination, I told myself. As I turned to push my chilled shoulder under the warm water, something shoved me from behind. I slammed against the tile and pain exploded across my face.
Gripping my bloody nose, I moaned as I jammed my back against the cold tile and slid into the corner to better protect myself from the unseen force that’d attacked me. I stood there, shivering, while water sluiced crimson blood down my wrist, streaking it to a lighter red along my bare skin until it turned pink at my feet. I’d never felt more vulnerable…and it knew it. “Screw you!” I tried to scream, but the words came out in a hoarse rasp.
Movement along the bottom of the glass door drew my attention. A vertical line had formed at the base of the door, like an invisible finger was sliding through the fog. My legs wobbled, threatening to collapse as I followed its slow, meandering path upward. The line pointed to a message that had already been written on the glass.
You can’t save them all.
Shutting the water off with a shaky hand, I drew on the fear, anxiety and determination to protect the ones I loved. “Watch me,” I said in a surprisingly steady voice, which gave me the confidence to continue, “Go. Away.”
Instantly the room felt bigger, the air lighter. Exhaling a sharp breath, I grabbed the towel from the top of the shower door and wrapped its flimsy protection around myself. Chanting Laniey’ll wake up and Ethan will stay safe over and over in my head, I swiped my hand across the glass in furious, determined swipes, rubbing away Fate’s presence.
Chapter Twenty-One
The next morning, a booming clap of thunder and flash of lightning jerked me from a restless sleep. My heart pounded as I sat up in bed. Normally daylight would be glimmering in by now, but the storm clouds kept the sky dark and gloomy.
The phone rang and I quickly picked it up. “Hello?”
“Good morning,” Mom said at the same time thunder rumbled, followed by a zap of lightning. The phone’s reception buzzed in and out. “What was that?”
Mom always got up with the roosters. I blinked hard, trying to wake up. After my scary run in with Fate, I hadn’t been able to fall asleep last night, but among worrying for Lainey and Ethan, I must’ve finally dozed for a couple hours. “It’s storming here. How’s Texas?”
“Warm. I despise doing audits.”
I rubbed the achy tiredness from my eyes. “I thought you lived and breathed numbers.”
“Other numbers. Audits give me a migraine. Maybe I will call your Mr. Dixon.”
“You’re serious about learning Spanish?”
“It could be helpful to know the gist of what’s being said around me while I’m auditing.”
“I’ll get you his contact information,” I said on a big yawn. I wished I could feel excited that my match-making plan was in motion, but all I could think about was Lainey lying unconscious in the hospital and Fate lurking.
“Sounds good. It’s a good thing I called. From the amount of yawns I’m hearing, your alarm clock wouldn’t have woken you. Everything going okay there?”
I considered telling her about Lainey’s accident, but I didn’t want her to worry. I’d tell her when she got back. “Mmm-hmm.” The phone buzzed in and out again.
“Whew, I heard that pop, Inara. That’s a bad storm. I won’t keep you on the phone. I just wanted to remind you I’ll be home around noon tomorrow.”
“Okay, have a safe trip back.”
“Inara? Let’s plan to go to Williamsburg soon. Have some us time. Maybe do some early Christmas shopping? What do you think?”
Warmth spread through me, briefly overshadowing my concern over Lainey and worry for Ethan’s safety. It felt good to finally press Play and move forward. “Sounds great, Mom. See you tomorrow.”
***
Once I pulled into a space in the school parking lot, I called Aunt Sage.
“Morning, Inara. You don’t usually call so early. Is everything okay?”
I tried to keep my voice even. “My friend Lainey was in the car accident last night.”
“Oh, no! Is she all right?”
“She hasn’t woken up yet.” My voice shook. “I’m so scared she won’t.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetie. Hopefully she’ll wake up soon.”
“Aunt Sage.”
“Yes?”
“What price did my dad pay?” When she didn’t answer right away, my chest started to squeeze. Long pauses were never a good sign. “Did you hear me?”
“Why are you asking?”
I gulped back a sob. “I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t. I even drove Lainey home. Since I’d changed what was supposed to happen last night, everything beyond that moment for her had changed. I had no idea she’d leave her house and drive back to the party.”
“Slow down, take a breath, and tell me what happened. You said you tried to stop something from happening. Did you get your dreams back?”
“Yes, I got my dreams back. I dreamed Lainey got into a car accident when she left the party last night.”
“And you tried to stop her from driving. Was she drinking?”
I wasn’t mentioning that she’d been drinking. “She—she was upset with her boyfriend, who turned out to be a cheating jerk, so I drove her home. I tried to help her, Aunt Sage.”
“Inara, I know you were just being her friend, but you also acted on precognizant knowledge. Changing the natural course can sometimes have consequences.”
I wiped the tears from my face and sniffed to calm down. “Is that what you meant when you said Dad paid for interfering? Did he try to help but it didn’t make a difference? What price did he pay, Aunt Sage?”
“He paid by losing something precious.”
She sounded so sad, worry gripped me. “What did he lose?”
“He—he’ll want to tell you himself. I’ll let him know that you have your dreams back. That should be enough for him to contact you.”
“Aunt Sage.” I couldn’t believe she wouldn’t tell me. I wanted her to help me connect with my dad. After last night, I needed to learn everything I could about my powers, but I wanted some answers now.
“I made a vow, Inara. I promised my brother.”
“What did he lose?” I said in a higher pitch.
“He lost you
and your mother,” she said quietly.
“He left us!” I screeched, my fingers forming claws around my cell.
“I’ve said too much.” Sage’s tone turned brisk. “He will contact you, even if I have to threaten him to make it happen.”
“Aunt Sage.”
“I’ll get back to you soon. And no more interfering, please.”
Before I could say another word, she hung up.
“Damn it!” I’d just tossed my cell phone into the passenger seat when someone knocked on my window. Jumping, I pressed my hand against my pounding heart.
“You coming?” Ethan stood outside my car, the stormy wind blowing his hair in every direction. “The first bell rang already,” he said through the glass.
Glancing quickly in the mirror, I was glad to see the makeup I’d used to cover the bruise on my nose held up in morning light. I grabbed my cell, then shoved it in my backpack before climbing out of the car.
“Did the storm wake you early this morning, too?” Ethan asked.
“Yeah.” We were almost to the main door when Ethan said, “You want to talk about it?”
I tensed, wondering if he was referring to Fate’s visit last night, but then I realized he hadn’t seen that in my dream or he would’ve warned me. “I can’t believe my aunt won’t tell me the price my dad paid for interfering. Now I have to wait for him to call me about it.”
He stopped and shifted his books from one hand to the other. “You’re still blaming yourself for what happened with Lainey, aren’t you?”
Halting, I stared at him, then bit my lip to keep it from trembling. I wanted to tell him about Fate, but I knew he’d be upset. Before we walked into school, I had to say something to let him know Fate had gone beyond lurking, so I said, “Please be extra careful, okay?”
Ethan held my gaze for a couple seconds, then nodded and headed off to class.
***
The moment I leaned into Lainey’s hospital room, the medicinal smells instantly made me think of death. Shoving my nose into the bouquet of flowers in my hand, I knocked lightly to let Mrs. O’Neal know I was there.
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