“How?”
“You start with your friends. One of the girls that I touched this morning. You tell me what you see, I’ll tell you what I saw. We decide if they’re going to die on this mission.”
“I was going to touch one person from each group anyway. Just to make sure.” I pause, thinking it through a little more. “But I’m not telling any of them what I see. Only if we’re going to be okay in Russia.”
“Fair enough.” She tosses off the blanket and stands, stretching her arms. “Are you ready?”
Chapter Seventeen
Everyone’s waiting in the living room when I step back into the house, and I take a moment to revel in the warmth. Madeline’s footsteps pause behind me, the sound of her breath tickling my ears as my friends watch us, an array of expectant expressions on their faces.
Even Pollyanna doesn’t snap at me to shit or get off the pot, or ask why in the heck I disturbed her research party, though her cocked head says she’s not holding off for long.
A smile tugs at my lips. She’s so Polly, and even though most of the time her attitude makes my hands want to reach for her scrawny neck, the world wouldn’t seem right without her just as she is. Each of them is special. I don’t want to see any of them die.
Now that I’m facing them, all of the old fears return. I’m about to see the moment Pollyanna dies. It might be violent. She might be terrified.
It might be tomorrow.
I take a deep breath and remember Maya. I survived touching her, and Jude last semester, and Savannah and the people on the street today. Even though the fallout leaves me a little battered, I’m still alive. The strength to know things they don’t and to keep putting one foot in front of the other is inside me. I have to bring that power outside me, too, or it means less than the nothing the Philosopher always believed.
That the CIA still believes. Even Dane.
“I know we’re all scared about the next couple of days. The truth is, while we might know a little more than the rest of the world about this virus, we don’t know very much. We could be walking into a trap. It might be a whole army behind the attacks, not one whackadoo cackling to himself in an underground lab.” I swallow. “If I can use my ability to make us feel a tiny bit better, or more prepared, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
“You’re going to touch us?” Athena asks, his eyes wide. “What if we don’t want you to?”
“Yeah, Gypsy. I mean, no means no, right?” Goose situates his face in a serious expression, but his brown eyes sparkle.
I roll my eyes. “I’ll make sure and get your verbal consent, Goosie.”
That busts him up, but it’s half-hearted.
“In all seriousness, I only need one person from the other groups to let me try. And I’m not telling you the outcome. Only if we should go or not.”
“What if we want to know?” Haint asks, her chin jutted out as though she’s ready for a fight. “The whole story?”
“I’m not telling you. Any of you. It’s not something anyone needs to know.”
“But what if it is?” Haint insists.
“I’m not going to keep something to myself that could make a difference in your life, or in our…mission. You’ll just have to trust me.” It’s below the belt maybe, to put a decision like this on whether or not they trust me. None of them, not even Pollyanna or Geoff, are going to say no.
“I’ll do it,” Pollyanna offers with a curt nod.
Gratitude sluices through me, hot and fast, and I give her a smile. She returns it but hers is tight. Nervous.
“Me, too,” Goose volunteers, jumping up.
Relief runs through me, a cool salve to the gratitude, and together they wash away my biggest fear—having to see Mole die. Haint would have been bad enough.
Heck, Polly and Goose are bad enough.
“Why not your group? Shouldn’t you check Geoff?” Mole asks, staring my direction with a thoughtful expression.
Trust him to hit on the one thing I don’t want to talk about. I know they won’t understand or approve of my going to see Maya today, but we can’t have secrets from each other. It’s how we lost Flicker. How the Olders lost Madeline.
How Reaper left us.
“I’ve seen myself when I touched my friend Maya. We’re both old ladies.”
They explode into questions, which range from, When did you touch Maya to What do you look like old to I can’t believe you can see all of that now.
I wait, overwhelmed by their sudden interest in me and what I can do, until they quiet down. No one confronts me about going to Maya’s. They’re all watching me with wide-open eyes, like they’re seeing me in a new way, which is silly. Even though the drug has been expanding my talent, it’s still nothing like what they can do. It might be helpful, but it’s still not terribly impressive.
“Y’all stop staring at me like that. All I can do is tell you whether or not we’re going to die in Russia. I can’t save us. I can’t protect any of you once we’re there. I can’t sneak in and spy on the people responsible or listen through a concrete wall.” I shake my head before any of them can protest. “Don’t make a big deal.”
“Thank you,” Goose says when no one else replies. “We all know it’s asking a lot, but it will help to know that we’re not going to die soon.”
The lump in my throat lets me nod, nothing else, and Madeline comes to my rescue. She steps to my elbow, close enough to lend support, and puts her hands on her hips. “All right, enough mush. It’s late and we’ve still got to put this mess of a house back together and then get some sleep. It’s going to be a long few days. For you.”
That last comment reminds me that no one asked her to come along. Maybe she’s planning to figure out the rest of her life while we’re away. I’m glad someone will be with Flicker, at least, when she finally wakes up for good.
“Goose? You want to go first?” He’s going to be harder than Polly in some ways, easier in others. I just want to get started so it can be over, and I can start dealing with the consequences.
He nods and gets up, coming over to stand in front of me. Within touching distance. My palms start to sweat as the moment arrives, the one I’ve avoided for the whole of my life.
Goose’s eyes brim with encouragement and acceptance as they meet mine. He holds out a steady hand and I latch on to his confidence, reaching out to grab it.
The number 38 flashes in my line of vision, bold and throbbing. As it shifts to the corner of my eye, I’m standing atop a cliff on the edge of a winding road. Below, the ocean crashes against jagged rocks, the sound roaring in my ears and the taste of saltwater on my tongue. A bright-yellow sports car screams around the curve and I jump back instinctively. The tires screech as it flies past me. I catch a glimpse of the familiar shock of red hair and lanky frame in the driver’s seat before it flips twice, disappearing over the guardrail.
I run to the edge, my heart hammering against my ribs and a shriek building in my throat. The car hits the ground with a squealing smash, then continues to flip side over side until it smashes on rocks closest to the ocean. Where it explodes into flames.
My eyes fly open, desperate to drink in Goose’s face, alive. His brown eyes are searching my face for clues as to what I saw, and there’s no way he doesn’t glimpse at least a slice of the horror I witnessed in his future.
He purses his lips, acceptance in his posture. “Not good, huh?”
I punch his arm lightly, and the number 38 blinks at the periphery of my field of vision. The numbers are getting easier to ignore now that I see so much more. If it means I get to not be so worried about brushing the Cavies in the slightest manner, this concept gets shinier every moment.
“It’s not like I get to not see you die, Goose. That’s the way it works. But it’s not anytime soon.” My smile wobbles, but it seems to make him feel better. Inside, my heart breaks a little. Goose’s number might not be up anytime soon, but it’s not far enough away, either.
I eye Madel
ine, thinking about what she said earlier. This seems as though it might be something easy to change. Can’t I just tell Goose to never, ever get behind the wheel of a yellow sports car? Or will fate intervene and change the color to red? Make him trip and smash his head before he turns thirty-nine?
“Fair enough.” He snatches me into a hug, a real one where he’s not worried about freaking me out, and I squeeze him back and try to ignore his number as it grows blacker and the same scene starts to replay behind my eyes. “Thanks, Gyp.”
“Okay.” I rub my hands together like an evil dictator in the movies and crook a finger at Pollyanna. “Next victim.”
She doesn’t move from her spot on the couch, looking more worried now that Goose went through with it—probably because of my face. I should have thought about keeping my reactions hidden. I didn’t have to worry about that with Maya since she didn’t die a horrible death. And she didn’t know what I was seeing.
I take the dozen steps necessary and sit down beside her, mentally preparing myself the whole time, then hold my hand out, palm up. She closes her eyes and slides her hand against mine, and then I’m there.
Her number isn’t strong like Goose’s or draped with lights like Maya’s. It’s pale like Jude’s, and just as disturbing—19. She’s on the roof of a building in the middle of a city but I can’t see enough of the surrounding landscape to guess which one. Pollyanna’s not alone. There are tears streaming down her cheeks but no clues as to what has her so upset—and a line of people standing on the edge of the building.
They’re all wavering, tipping forward then pulling themselves back, as though they’re all thinking about jumping. There’s nothing stopping them that I can see, but the twisted horror, desperation, and despair on Pollyanna’s face makes me think it’s her.
She’s doing this. Whatever’s set her off is making all these people suicidal.
Pollyanna breaks down, falling to her knees, and one of the people leaps over the edge. A door bangs open behind Polly, the one leading from a set of stairs onto the roof. I turn to see who it is, a bitter cold wind—colder than anything I’ve ever felt in South Carolina—whipping my long brown hair into my face and it takes a moment to pull it away. When I do, my jaw falls open. My stomach clenches so hard I almost fall down next to my devastated friend.
It’s Jude.
Jude Greene, in black dress pants and a jacket and tie, a cream-colored scarf hanging around his neck as he shrugs into a matching black overcoat. Panic tightens the skin on his strong cheeks and around his soft, familiar eyes.
“Tate, stop.” His gaze flicks from her to the eight people still teetering on the edge of life and death. “This isn’t you. You can control it.”
She’s sobbing now. “Help me.”
I can barely hear her tortured whisper over the howl of the wind, but one thing sticks in my mind—she’s not surprised to see Jude. And she’s asking him for help like she trusts him to give it.
He shakes his head, the panic in his voice pitching it higher. “You know you’re the only one strong enough to let them go.”
“No.” Her tears increase, eyes so bright red it’s hard to look at her. “You save them.”
“I’m trying to save you.”
“You can’t.” She gets to her feet, biting hard on her bottom lip, gaze on the horizon. Then she turns it back on Jude, imploring. “Save them.”
Then she runs and leaps over the edge.
It takes pretty much all my self-control to not scream or run away when our break in contact dumps me back in the living room at my father’s house. I try to act normal, to breathe and smile and tell her everything’s okay, but all I want to do is escape. They’re all worried when I excuse myself and run upstairs, but there’s nothing to be done about that.
They know I saw something. I couldn’t hide it even if I wanted to. Not from the Cavies.
Pollyanna has always been more in control of her emotions than anyone I’ve ever met. Out of necessity, I’ve always assumed. She can’t lose control or people around her start to feel the same way. I’ve been on the receiving end of her emotional manipulation when she’s been playing around, and there’s no doubt in my mind she could convince half a city that they don’t have any option but to leap off a tall building.
But in my vision? She’s not doing it on purpose. It seemed to me as though she’s feeling suicidal and doesn’t have the strength to corral her ability so that it doesn’t extend beyond herself.
The appearance of Jude rattles my cage almost as hard as watching her struggle in a way she never has before now. The event obviously takes place soon. Pollyanna turns nineteen in a year and a few weeks—February. According to Jude’s number, he’ll die by April that same year.
Which means they both die between February and April.
But the Jude present at Polly’s death is not the Jude I know. He’s like…I don’t know, a Dane Lee clone in his black suit and tie. Too calm, too assured, at least until he sees he’s going to lose her.
That makes me sit up straighter, clutching my purple comforter in my fists. It’s that something again, the niggling questions about what happened with Jude after we left the warehouse last month. How the CIA let him go when they didn’t have to, and how Maya says he’s pulling away from everyone at school. How she’s always felt as though he’s had secrets.
What if the CIA recruited Jude? What if the Olders did, or one of the other people we know nothing about? What if they recruited him before I even met him and our whole relationship was nothing more than another attempt to get to the Cavies?
Just like it had been with Dane.
My heart jams in my throat, throbbing painfully at the thought, but no matter how hard I try, it won’t dislodge. It’s ridiculous. Jude is one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met. The life I’m living now, with enemies lurking in every shadow, is making me paranoid.
“You okay?”
This time there’s no knock announcing the end of my solitude, but I’m so close to giving in to a complete panic attack that Madeline’s intrusion isn’t unwelcome.
“Shut the door,” I say, struggling to focus. I can’t start thinking about crazy things, indulging conspiracy theories along with all the credible conspiracies we’re dealing with currently.
Madeline complies, sitting in the same desk chair that Haint chose earlier. “Well, are we good to go as far as you’re concerned?”
“For this mission? Yes.” I look her in the eye. “Neither one of them is going to die in Siberia.”
It’s the same thing I said downstairs before making my rapid escape. The fact that I can’t even say no one’s going to die this year causes me physical pain, but none of them seemed to notice the distinction I crafted so carefully.
“Yeah, that’s what you said, but you still look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I have.” I shudder. “You should understand that better than anyone.”
“Did you see anything we might be able to use? To test the theory on changing things?”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now. Maybe when we get back.” She frowns, and I amend my attitude. “There are a few things we can try. I just want some time to get used to all this before we start telling them how to avoid death.”
I want to talk to Jude, find out what’s going on and why he and Polly were so close in my vision, but how on earth would I even begin to ask?
“Fair enough.”
Now that I’m coming down off my freak-out over Jude’s involvement in Pollyanna’s demise, something occurs to me. “You said you would tell me what you saw earlier today after I checked their ages.”
“I didn’t see anything that would concern me about them surviving this mission,” she hedges. If the look on my face is full of half the impatience boiling in my blood, it should tell her that’s not going to do it. “I saw you all get into some trouble. I can’t say what for sure, or even how—sometimes I see trouble but it’s not like, physical injury. I don’
t know. I’m not explaining very well.”
Frustration slips toward anger, and my eyes narrow into a glare. “No, you’re not.”
“Like, I might have seen one of them worried, or saying This isn’t what we thought we would find, or How could they keep this from us, but it could mean, I don’t know, something as simple as someone being late for a check-in. The mission isn’t going to go off without a hitch, but everyone was alive at the end of it.”
“As of right now,” I prod. “You said things could change.”
“True, but what I saw combined with what you saw seems to indicate that you’re all coming home.” She squints, as though she’s still trying to make out the pictures in her mind. “Honestly, I don’t know what I saw. It was pretty dark, mostly shadows. It was more of a feeling of something being off, nothing specific.”
“Hmm.” Her explanations, along with the way she doesn’t want to meet my gaze, makes me sure that she’s not telling us everything. Again.
I’m not telling her everything, either, though. I’m going to have to face the reality of what I saw in Pollyanna’s death scene sooner or later, but for right now, we need to get through this mission in Russia. Attempt to find out who’s behind this killer computer virus, report to the CIA, and decide what we’re doing with our lives after that.
Then I’ll come back to Jude, who has now gotten tangled up with the bigger issues in my life. The desire to save him from his untimely death—one that I’m somehow involved in—could mean being able to change Polly’s sickening fate, too.
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