Sister Assassin

by Kiersten White

  Those of us who are on shaky ground are kept here, in the massive school building, but away from the new students. They find what they need to threaten us with so we have no option but to work for Keane. Readers and Feelers are more common and seem to do better. Seers he doesn’t trust. None have as much power or as high a place as Clarice did.

  No one is like Fia, who can’t do what we can but somehow is even more interesting to him than the rest of us. I know Fia’s special, but I still can’t understand why they care so much about her. Why they forced her to stay. Why they didn’t do anything to her after she killed Clarice.

  All the girls are found through rumor or odd news articles, occasionally through visions, then approached the same way I was—a scholarship, a prestigious school, specially tailored instruction for specially gifted girls. Then gradually the girls figure it out, learn they aren’t alone, that they’re surrounded by others who have the same gifts (or curses, depending on how you view it), given instruction and help and a home.

  It’s brilliant, really. The applications for espionage, both in business and in politics, are endless. Nearly all the girls start here so young and are treated so well that of course they want the power and money that is offered.

  But knowing this all is not enough. It’s not enough for me to keep Fia safe, for me to get her out of here. So I work on the only advantage I have, and that’s seeing.

  Clarice didn’t teach me much. She told me to focus, but she always had me focus on Fia. I don’t need to see Fia right now, though I want to, so much. If only to see whether or not she’s happy. Her letters make her feel even farther away. They have no soul.

  I’ve occasionally been able to get tiny flashes, glimpses of things I’ve thought very hard about, like the mountains where we used to live but that I don’t remember from before I lost my sight. They had fewer trees than I imagined, more rocks. Beautiful. And then there are the strange ones, jumbles of images I can’t sort through or make sense of.

  So now I am fasting and staying awake as long as I can. Maybe if I push my body to the brink, push it as far as I can, my brain will take over and I’ll be able to see more.

  It works—sort of. I sit, so tired I can’t think straight and so hungry my whole body is trembling. And then I see things.

  Fia, on a balcony, with haunted eyes as she stares out at a city filled with stone buildings and winding streets. She looks healthy, if not happy. Healthy is something, at least. James is taking care of her like he said he would.

  And then Fia dancing in the dark, the whole vision so filled with noise and movement I can barely figure out what is happening, but the way Fia moves I know in that moment she is free and it makes my heart ache.

  A guy, so handsome my breath catches, with warm eyes and broad shoulders, sitting at a polished wood desk, staring at a picture of an older woman who has his same eyes. His whole face is a mask of anguish, and I wonder who he is, who she is. I don’t see guys very often. Then I hear a voice—Fia’s!—call out, “James? Are we doing this or not? The sooner we steal your crap, the sooner I get to dance.”

  James.

  His face immediately resets itself into a calculatedly careless smile as he sets the picture facedown and stands.

  It shifts and I see Eden, reading a book by a pool, looking up with an inscrutable expression as Fia walks by with James.

  It shifts again and I see a guy, dark hair, his back to me as he stares at some sort of image of—what? It’s black and white, seethrough with light behind it—and traces his finger along it. I wonder who he is, but then my vision twists and I see a woman in an office. She mutters something to herself and I recognize Ms. Robertson’s voice. It’s evening, almost dark outside the window, and there is a half-empty bottle of something in front of her. She pours another tiny cup full, splashing some over the side, and drinks the whole thing in one shot. Then she puts the bottle back into the bottom drawer of her desk.

  There is a small rolling suitcase on the floor next to her desk, unzipped, with unfolded clothes half spilling out.

  And then my world is black again. What can I do with that? What can I do with any of that? At least now I understand why so many of the women here fall all over themselves for James. But he’s much more than he lets them see. Fia seems . . . stable. Not happy but stable and healthy looking.

  I miss Eden fiercely. I wish I were with her. No idea who the guy was or what he was looking at.

  Ms. Robertson will at some point in the near future drink herself into a stupor. Not very professional, and I don’t see any advantage there.

  Unless . . . she’s gone right now. On a recruitment trip. I stand, almost fall as my head spins, and stumble to the hall. “Darren?”

  “Yes, Miss Annabelle. What do you need?”

  “I need to talk to Ms. Robertson. When does she get back?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  I go back into my apartment, a smile on my face. Between my mattresses, hidden where Fia couldn’t find them, I have an emergency stash of her old pills. The prescription was strange—it would knock her out, but you could wake her up and she’d be almost lucid. It was the only time I could get her to talk to me.

  I didn’t like what she said, but I heard things she’d never tell me otherwise. It’s how I finally found out what Clarice made her do that day on the beach.

  I tap out four pills into my hand. My security-free route to my daily walk around the interior courtyard of the building goes right past Ms. Robertson’s office . . . and her desk with a drawer hiding a bottle of alcohol she’ll be drinking out of tomorrow.

  I knock on the door. No answer. Please, please let it be today that I saw. I push the door open.

  “Ms. Robertson? Are you in here?”

  A soft snore greets me. I smile and close the door behind me. “Doris, wake up.”

  No response.

  “Doris!”

  Her breathing changes and I hear her chair creak; a bottle or glass shatters against the floor.

  “Whoopsie,” she slurs. “Annabelle? ’Zat you?”

  “Yes. I wanted to talk to you. About Sofia.”

  “Sof-ya. Glad she’s gone. Hated her thoughts. Bad things. Always bad things.”

  “Why does Keane want her? Shouldn’t he have gotten rid of her after she killed Clarice?”

  Ms. Robertson snorts loudly. “Clarice got what she had coming. Told her, I told her, but she was always right. Going to be the first Seer that Keane promoted to his personal aide. Nobody was sad to see her gone. She was brutal.”

  “Was she going to kill me?” I ask. My heart is in my throat. I’ve wondered, for so long. Was Clarice the one who was going to kill me? If she was, all Fia did was kill a killer. It would change everything.

  “Who knows? You wouldn’t’ve been the first. She hated you, too.”

  I frown, hurt. I always thought Clarice liked me. She was kind to me, helped me figure out my visions. “She did?”

  “Hated any other Seers. Satota—satoba—sabotaged them. Didn’t want anyone else Keane could depend on. I say the lot of you are pointless. Everything’s always changing, can’t see what you’re supposed to, blah, blah, blah. Now reading, that’s different. That’s a real skill. But do I go anywhere besides this school with thoughts floating all around me, battering me, pounding in my skull? No. Do I get sent to a CEO or a senator? No. I have to live with teen whining all day every day. If I weren’t putting three of my own ungrateful kids through school, I’d leave in a heartbeat. A heartbeat, I’m telling you. I’d leave. Leave.”

  She trails off, and I hear a soft thud against wood. Her head on the desk, I think. CEOs and senators. Is that where the other girls are going? Working for important people, stealing the very thoughts out of their heads?

  “But what about Sofia? Why is she so special?”

  “’Snothing. She can’t make a wrong choice. Perfect instincts or intuition or whatever. Stocks, fighting, picking out liars, trick
ing people. Almost invisible to Seers, too, ’cause she’s always changing and switching around.” She snorts a harsh laugh. “Whole thing’s silly. What good’re perfect instincts on a crazy girl?”

  “She’s not crazy,” I hiss.

  “She’s—wait, what’re you doing in here? I can’t hear you so well. Mebbe I had too much this time.” Or mebbe the pills I added to your bottle yesterday were a bad combination.

  “Go to sleep, you old bat.” I turn and walk out of her office. Tracing my hand over the wall, I’m troubled. So what if Fia has perfect instincts or intuition? Why does that make her so valuable?

  Then again, if you had someone who could make the best choice in any given situation, turn anything to her favor—if every gut feeling you had, every reaction you gave was always exactly right—the possibilities were even more intriguing than a Reader or a Feeler or Seer could offer.

  But what Ms. Robertson had said still bothered me. Fia wasn’t crazy, she wasn’t, but she had been pushed so far. What would that do to her instincts, to whatever it was in her that was so attuned to everything? How would it twist her intuition?

  Clarice, dead on the floor, a snap decision on Fia’s part.

  Clarice! Clarice, evil Clarice, who would have killed me. I have to tell Fia. This will change things, I know it will. She’ll feel better, she won’t have to be consumed with guilt. I run down the hall, up the stairs, wait impatiently for the guard outside the residence wing to open the door for me.

  In my room I feel the list of numbers by my phone. James gave me his before they left. I tried calling a few times, but Fia didn’t talk, not really. It was too depressing to try and keep up a conversation all by myself.

  I dial and it rings and rings and I’m so nervous it’ll go to voice mail I almost shout, then I hear James’s voice. “Hello.”

  “James! I need to talk to Fia!”

  “Annabelle? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing! I need to talk to her.”

  “About what?”

  I let out an exasperated breath. “About Clarice. She needs to know what I know.”

  “And what do you know?”

  I’m too excited to lie. “Clarice was evil! We never knew if Clarice would have been the one to kill me, but I’m pretty sure it would have been her. And besides that, she did all sorts of other things. Even Ms. Robertson thought she was evil, and that’s saying something. Where’s Fia?”

  There’s a long pause, and I wait, buzzing, to tell Fia. But then it’s still James on the line. “What do you think knowing this will change?”

  “Everything! Fia doesn’t have to feel guilty, she doesn’t have to let it eat her alive!”

  “I don’t think you understand your sister. She didn’t kill Clarice because Clarice was evil. She killed Clarice to protect you. Clarice could have been Mother Teresa and Fia would have done the exact same thing.”

  “But . . . if she knew—”

  “It wouldn’t change anything. Fia made her choices based entirely on you, and it didn’t matter who was on the receiving end of the death sentence. She chose you, Annabelle. Over Clarice. Over anyone. Even over herself. Nothing will change her feelings about what she did, because she knows she’d do it again. That’s what she can’t live with.”

  I drop onto the couch. “But she should know.” It makes it better. It does.

  “I think you’re the only one whose guilt is eased by knowing about Clarice. Don’t pretend it will help Fia. Now, she’s sleeping and I hate to wake her. Is there a message you want me to deliver?”

  “No,” I whisper, and hang up the phone.

  I’M SITTING IN A LOBBY LIKE ROOM (FIRST FLOOR, two exits—one we came through, the other probably leads outside faster—five windows, freestanding chairs that can break a window or a head) on a couch with Adam. Sarah—brown hair brown eyes is named Sarah—brought me a cup of coffee, a muffin, and some aspirin. No one has a gun on me. No one is expecting me to run.

  And . . . I don’t feel like I should.

  “Well, I’m confused.” I lean back into the corner of the couch and tuck my feet up underneath me. I see Adam’s eyes flick to my legs and then away as his face reddens because he is embarrassed he looked, and it is adorable. Also it makes me wish I had a longer skirt on. Or pants. Then he wouldn’t have to be embarrassed. I want to be a girl he doesn’t have to be embarrassed around.

  I wonder what it would be like to be with a boy who blushes when he looks at my skin.

  “I was confused when they found me, too,” Adam says, grinning. He grins with his whole face. It’s kind of beautiful.

  “Yeah, about that. What happened to being dead?” I narrow my eyes and punch him lightly in the shoulder. “I want a refund. I gave you all my money.”

  “Oh!” He reddens further and stands up. “It’s in my bag, I’ll go—”

  I roll my eyes. He’s so sincere. “Kidding. Sit down. I didn’t want you dead. This works, too, I guess. I just want to know how you got here. You had very specific instructions.”

  “We found him yesterday afternoon. I was watching very closely for him, and I saw him going to the Chicago library constantly to check his email.”

  Dumb Fia. DUMB. I can’t believe I forgot to tell him not to plan anything and not to be predictable. Tap tap tap my finger on my bare leg, I am so glad he’s not dead.

  “So you guys weren’t trying to kill him in that alley.” I glance over at Cole (sitting in a chair—not close like Sarah but near one of the doors—watching the whole room like he isn’t watching it). “Sorry about that.”

  He smiles, but, unlike Adam’s, his is a lie and doesn’t touch his eyes. “You didn’t know. And you weren’t the only one who drew blood.” He looks pointedly at my bandaged shoulder, which still hurts but not as much as my head and my head is entirely my own fault.

  “Lucky shot.”

  This time his smile does touch his eyes.

  “So, what do you want with Adam?” I ask.

  “We’re very interested in his brain research. Why did the school want him dead? This seems like the exact thing they would be interested in, too. Right now they’re hit-and-miss with finding girls, but if what Adam is working on pans out, it will give us a direct link to women with psychic abilities. It doesn’t make sense for them to order a hit.”

  Because Keane wasn’t behind the hit. Annie was. “Keane’s going on advice from psychics. They aren’t exactly reliable.” I don’t mean it as a dig against Sarah and cringe after I say it, but she nods.

  “James Keane?”

  I frown. “No. His dad.”

  “His dad?”

  “Yeah, his dad. James isn’t in charge.”

  It’s Sarah’s turn to frown. “You mean James doesn’t run the school? He inherited it when his mother died, and we thought . . .”

  Oh, perfect. They have no idea just how far and deep Keane’s reach goes. They’re still focused on the school. What about the stealing, the spying, the blowing people up? I don’t have time for this. “I want to know who you are and why you’re following James and looking for me.”

  Sarah crosses her legs and clasps both her hands around her knee. She has pretty hands, safe hands. “As you already know, I’m a psychic, or a Seer. When I was fifteen, a woman named Dayna Keane found me and invited me to attend her school. That night I had a dream that horrible things would happen if I went, so I declined. But I kept seeing the school and the changes there in visions. I’ve made it my goal to disrupt their operations, to rescue girls from them, and to prevent new girls from being manipulated. I think Adam can help me with that. And I’d like you to, if you will.”

  “How much good do you do?” They don’t know nearly enough, but I want her to be real and honest and right. I want this to be true. But it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel wrong, not the way the school always felt wrong wrong wrong, but it doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel sick, my heart isn’t racing, I’m not falling. But I’m not . . . sure. If this was right, would
n’t I be sure? Wouldn’t I know in my core? Wouldn’t I feel that invisible something tugging me this direction?

  “As much as we can,” Sarah answers. “We’re still trying to figure out exactly how far the school’s reach extends. We don’t know what their agenda is; we’ve never been able to track a girl once she leaves the school, though we suspect high-level placement through money and networking. We’re focusing on prevention now, mostly. Keeping girls out to begin with.”

  “That’s nice.” I stand and walk to the window. It’s a beautiful day outside. Clear and blue, and the trees have almost finished budding with new green life. The street is wide and lined with other blank office buildings and the odd chain restaurant. “Can I leave?”

  “What?”

  “Right now. Can I leave? Can I walk out the door?”

  Sarah’s voice is soft. “Do you want to?”

  “I’d like a hot dog. Adam? Will you go for a walk with me?” I turn and look at him and hope. Hope that a boy like Adam will go for a walk with a girl like me.

  “Oh, uh, sure.” He stands, sticks his gentle hands in his pockets.

  “Would you like a jacket? And shoes?” Sarah asks. I smile and nod. She takes her own off and hands them to me. The jacket is black and warm. The shoes are too big but only just. She is really going to let me walk out. Free and clear. With her prize Adam, no less.

  I think it’s all true. Everything she said.

  Adam and I walk down the street; the breeze is cool but the sun is delicious. Adam tells me how he was so scared when Cole walked up behind him in the library that he tripped over his chair and fell in a huge heap and the librarian got mad at him.

  I laugh. It doesn’t feel like a lie bubbling out of my throat.

  We buy hot dogs and they are disgusting but it was our choice to buy them. Adam talks nervously and quickly about where they’re going. Sarah moves around a lot, but she said there’s a bigger, permanent house with lots of medical research equipment. I like the way he gestures, forgetting his hands are full and flinging relish from his hot dog onto the sidewalk. Other normal people doing normal things pass. I steal a phone out of someone’s pocket (I feel like I should have a phone), and we find a bench on the edge of the grassy area surrounding the arch. It’s huge and silver, dancing through the sky, and I cannot tell if it is taller than it is wide or wider than it is tall.