Книга - Sister Assassin

Sister Assassin
Kiersten White


She never chose her deadly gift but now she’s forced to use it. How far would you go to protect the only family you have left?Annie is beset by fleeting strange visions and a guilty conscience. Blind and orphaned, she struggles to care for her feisty younger sister Fia, but things look up when both sisters are offered a place at Kessler School for Exceptional Girls.Born with flawless intuition, Fia immediately knows that something’s wrong, but bites her tongue… until it’s too late. For Fia is the perfect weapon to carry out criminal plans and there are those at Kessler who will do anything to ensure her co-operation.With Annie trapped in Kessler’s sinister clutches, instincts keep Fia from killing an innocent guy and everything unravels. Is manipulative James the key to the sisters’ freedom or an even darker prison? And how can Fia atone for the blood on her hands?













To Erin, Lindsey, Lauren, and Matthew—siblings, friends, partners in crime


Contents

Dedication (#ue00abaae-a0a8-5d6f-9731-94b302ffc7c6)



FIA - Seven Years Ago (#ulink_0248c46e-db4e-5662-86d6-500ebc703df0)

FIA - Monday Morning (#ulink_2ebe7e9c-2ed5-5dd4-add2-5b1f56d1075b)

ANNIE - Monday Morning (#ulink_7204f50b-e7f5-5ff9-b00e-8fb88d11d44f)

ANNIE - Five Years Ago (#ulink_2f83e4b8-2f91-5068-a865-d77b9290405a)

FIA - Monday Morning (#ulink_9c957962-9e2a-5e68-89bc-00fe516597db)

FIA - Four Years Ago (#ulink_90728782-b383-55d7-b4a2-2e6e49e8b019)

ANNIE - Monday Afternoon (#ulink_6ef82d92-cd74-5d8b-957c-cf90f998a078)

ANNIE - Three Years Ago (#litres_trial_promo)

FIA - Monday Evening (#litres_trial_promo)

FIA - Two-and-a-Half Years Ago (#litres_trial_promo)

ANNIE - Monday Evening (#litres_trial_promo)

ANNIE - Two Years Ago (#litres_trial_promo)

FIA - Monday Evening (#litres_trial_promo)

FIA - Two Years Ago (#litres_trial_promo)

ANNIE - Monday Evening (#litres_trial_promo)

ANNIE - Eighteen Months Ago (#litres_trial_promo)

FIA - Tuesday Morning (#litres_trial_promo)

FIA - Sixteen Months Ago (#litres_trial_promo)

ANNIE - Tuesday Afternoon (#litres_trial_promo)

ANNIE - Six Months Ago (#litres_trial_promo)

FIA - Tuesday Afternoon (#litres_trial_promo)

FIA - Six Months Ago (#litres_trial_promo)

ANNIE - Tuesday Afternoon (#litres_trial_promo)

FIA - Late Wednesday Morning (#litres_trial_promo)

ANNIE - Ten Years Ago (#litres_trial_promo)



Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher





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MY DRESS IS BLACK AND ITCHY AND I HATE IT. I WANT to peel it off and I want to kick Aunt Ellen for making me wear it. And it’s short, my legs in white tights stretching out too long under the hem. I haven’t worn this dress in two years, not since I was nine, and I hated it then, too.

Annie’s dress is just as stupid as mine, but at least she can’t see how dumb we look. I can. I don’t want to be embarrassed today. Today is for being sad. But I am sad and embarrassed and uncomfortable, too.

It should be raining. It’s supposed to rain at funerals. I want it to rain, but the sun bakes down and it hurts my eyes and everything is sharp and bright like the world doesn’t know the earth is swallowing up my parents.

My parents. My parents. Mom and Dad.

Annie cries softly next to me, her head bent so low we’re nearly the same height. I’m glad she can’t see any of this, can’t see the caskets, can’t see the mats of fake green grass around them. Just show us the dirt. They are going in the dirt. I would rather see the dirt.

I reach out and take Annie’s hand in mine. I squeeze it and squeeze it because she is my responsibility now, and no one else’s. I’ll take care of her, I promise my parents. I’ll take care of her.





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THE MOMENT HE BENDS OVER TO HELP THE SORROW-EYED spaniel puppy, I know I won’t be able to kill him.

This, of course, ruins my entire day.

I tap my fingers (tap tap tap them) nervously against my jeans. He’s still helping the puppy, untangling the leash from a tree outside the bar. And he’s not only setting it free, he’s talking to it. I can’t hear the words but I can see in the puppy’s tail that, however he’s talking, he’s talking just right, all tender sweet cheerful comfort as his long fingers deftly untwist and unwind and undo my entire day, my entire life. Because if he doesn’t die today, Annie will, and that is one death I cannot have on my conscience.

Why did he have to help the puppy? If he had walked by like he was supposed to, I could have crossed the street, followed him into the alley, and ended his life as anonymously as possible.

Now he is more than a photo and a location. He is panting-puppy salvation. He is legs that stick out at grasshopper angles as he gives the spaniel one last ear rub. He is shoes scuffed up and jeans worn thin and dark hair accidentally mussed. He is eyes squinting because of forgotten sunglasses and heavy backpack throwing off his balance. He is too-big ears and too-big smile and too-big eyes and (too-big too-big too-big) too real for me to end.

I stay in the shadowed recesses across the street. Why did they send me on this one? Why couldn’t it have been stealing bank account information from a CEO or blackmailing a judge? I could have done those. I do those. All the time.

I haven’t messed up this bad in two years. I’ve done everything James asked me to, everything Keane wanted me to. I’ve kept Annie safe, and so what if how we’re living is no way to live, at least it’s alive. James let me come alone on this trip, and I know it’s a test to see if I’m really theirs, if they can trust that my need to protect Annie cements me to them forever, no matter what horrors I’m doing. I can’t mess up.

Technically I haven’t yet, I could still do it, I could still keep Annie safe and sound in her room where she sees nothing but fractured visions of life. Maybe she’s already seen this, maybe she knows it ended for us the moment this boy helped that puppy and became a person to me.

That dumb dog has killed us all.

But the decision is made and I have to cross the street and finish what I’ve begun. Now. I can’t plan it. Planning isn’t safe—it begs for Seers to spy on you. I have to just go.

My feet step onto the asphalt, carry me across, and I don’t know what to do. For so long my brain has been trained to ignore the wrong pulsing constantly, trained to work in spite of knowing everything I’m doing is always bad. Now I am thinking only for myself, using my instincts for my own good.

Which, for whatever reason, means this guy needs to come with me now, somewhere I don’t know yet, but I feel like north is the right direction. I am about to become the grateful owner of the silky-eared engineer of my destruction.

“You found my puppy!” A voice that is not my own but what he needs to hear slips out of my mouth, and the instant his eyes meet mine (gray, he has gray eyes, I would have closed his gray eyes forever), I know I have him for as far north as I need to go, and after that I will figure it out.

Planning is not my friend. Impulse is.

“This is your dog?” he asks, and his voice is deeper than I thought it would be and as kind and warm and untainted by violence as I knew it would be. He takes me in, my wide blue eyes, china doll lips, long brown hair: I am the picture of teenage innocence.

I lean down and pull the dog toward me. No tag on the collar, I get to name it. “Yes! Thank you. My dad—” I hesitate and look toward the bar. His gaze follows mine and then snaps back, sympathetic color flooding his face on my behalf.

Guys are so easy.

I stand, keeping my eyes on the dog as though I can’t bear to meet the boy’s instead. “Well, uh, he was supposed to be back two hours ago. I got worried. Chloe needs to eat.”

“I didn’t find her,” he says, his voice soft and bright to try and compensate for my embarrassment. “Just untangled her. She’s a great dog.”

My cue to look up and recover. “She is, isn’t she? She’s my best friend in the whole world. Oh, gosh, that makes me sound like a loser.” I giggle just like I should. He smiles. (His gray eyes, they will haunt me forever with what I would have done—what I still could do—what I still should do—oh, Annie, have you already seen this? Did you know when I left that I’d kill us both?)

“No, not at all. I love dogs. I had a German shepherd growing up; I still miss him.”

I twist the leash around my hand, drawing his attention there. Small hands, safe hands, hands he probably thinks he might like to hold once he figures out whether or not I’m too young for him. It makes me sick to look at my hands. “There’s a deli a few blocks away where I can get something for Chloe. Do you—I mean, if you aren’t doing anything, I’d love to say thank you for helping my puppy, and if you wanted to come along, I could—it’d be my treat?”

I know he’s going to say yes before it comes tumbling out of his lips and I smile in shy delight. He wants to get away from the bar of my pretended shame, and he wants to get to know me better and figure out whether or not I’m old enough for him to be interested in.

What on earth can this stuttering-arms-and-legs-and-nervous-hands guy have done to get on Keane’s hit list? I’ll have to find out. Because I’m going against Keane (oh no, oh no, they will kill us both) and I need to know as much as I can to try and fix it. When they give me things to do, they never tell me why. Just what. They want me operating on as little information as possible. I’m not like the other girls, the ones who choose to help them, who like money and power.

They know I have no choice, but if I did, they’d all be dead.

“It’s this way.” I walk in the direction we need to go. It feels right, in the same way you feel a drop coming up on a roller coaster before you go over the edge. I’m falling, but I’m falling exactly how I’m supposed to.

“I’m Adam, by the way.”

“Oh,” I say, with another giggle. “Yeah. I’m Sofia.” I almost miss a step. I told him my name—my real name. Why did it come out like that? I always lie. “My friends call me Fia, though. Or, well, I guess my dog does, since I already told you she’s my only friend.”

He laughs again. He likes me so much and he wants to know how old I am—I can read it in every line of his body. “Do you live around here?” he asks.

“Just visiting. Kind of a field trip, I guess.” I see his eyebrows rise involuntarily and even though I am a dead girl walking I smile, really smile. He’s scared now, but not of what he should be. “I’m seventeen.”

A relieved exhalation. “Oh, good. No offense, but you look young.”

“They always tell me I’ll like it when I’m older.”

“They said the same thing when I was the awkward, horrible, six-foot two-inch wonder at thirteen.” He smiles, remembering, and I wonder what he was like then. I wonder what he is like now. “I’m nineteen, by the way, just in case maybe I look a lot older or younger than I really am.”

“No, you look exactly like what you really are.” He does not lie, this nineteen-year-old boy. With his body or his face or his mouth. My finger taps out the why-why-why of his death. “Do you live around here?”

“Studying, actually. At the university hospital.”

“Are you going to be a doctor?” My voice is tinged with a bit of awe. I think it’s right for what he thinks of me, but my eyes are tracing the lines of the empty sidewalks stretching out in front of us. I still don’t know where we are going; I let the dog trot to the end of the leash.

I wonder if Keane has a Seer (other than Annie) talented enough to see me yet. I wonder how I am going to hide this from the Readers and the Feelers. I wonder how bad it will hurt to die, and if I will mind so terribly much after all.

“In a way. I’m really more on the research side than treating people. When do you graduate?”

I turn with my smile, ready to make something up, and I see them.

Three men. Dark clothes, thin jackets, nothing notable about any of them. They are not looking at us as they approach from the next street over. They are coming for him or for me or for both of us.

Dear, dear intuition: Why did you lead me in this direction? Because being ambushed by three men is not my idea of a good plan. At least they aren’t women; my thoughts and emotions are still safe. Men can’t get in my head.

“Come on,” I say, tugging the leash and hurrying down the sidewalk.

“What kind of field trip are you on? Will you be in town for a while?”

“I have no idea. My plans changed about five minutes ago.” I look over my shoulder to see the men, three (tap tap tap—I hate the number three), thick shoulders, one gun between them based on the way the guy in the middle is walking (that was a mistake, they should all have guns—guess they’ll find out), matching our pace and getting closer.

Maybe I don’t remember what it’s like to not feel wrong all the time. Maybe without the constant low hum of pain in my head, the twist of my stomach, that feeling you get just before something bad happens that you can’t know is going to happen but you know anyway, the feeling that has been my constant companion these last five years—maybe without it I’m nothing. Maybe I can only choose right when I’m choosing on someone else’s orders. Maybe I am about to die even sooner than I thought.

I lean over and scoop up Chloe, burying my face in her silky fur. Okay. I can die today. If I die, they’ll never know I didn’t do what they told me to, and Annie will be safe. Keane can’t use her to punish me if I’m dead. But I’m going to get Adam out, because otherwise this whole thing was pointless.

“In here.” I veer into a narrow alleyway between looming brick buildings. It’s open on both ends, good, no recessed doorways, not as good, but it’ll do.

“Is this a shortcut?” he asks, looking back over his shoulder to see what I keep looking at.

I set Chloe down and unhook her leash. “Shoo,” I say. She looks up at me with her sorrow eyes, and I let out a low growl from the back of my throat. “SHOO!” Tail between her legs, she scampers out of the alley and to safety.

That’s one of us.

“What did you—why did you let your dog go?”

“Not my dog.” I put my hands on my hips and look up into Adam’s confused face. “Listen carefully. I was here today to kill you.”

An unsure smile twists his lips as he shifts his weight, trying to figure out how to tell me my joke isn’t funny. “Uh, that’s—”

“If I were going to kill you, you’d already be dead. I don’t know why you’re supposed to die, I’m hoping you can tell me, but right now we don’t have time because three men are about to come in the alley and either they want to kill you or me or both of us. Which sucks. So stay out of my way and I’ll try to get us out.”

He opens his mouth to ask what I’m talking about when the three men turn into the alley and slow down, approaching us with wary eyes and tight smiles. Their smiles are lies.

Most smiles are.

“There you are,” I say. I stand in front of Adam, casually putting myself between him and the three men. Dark hair on the right—movements tight, too much muscle mass, won’t be quick. Sandy blond in the middle, packing the gun, will try not to engage in hand-to-hand because he’s psychologically dependent on his weapon. Stubble on the left—lean, fluid movements, my biggest problem.

They stop right in front of me, and I still haven’t figured out which one of us they are here for.

“James didn’t tell me I’d have backup,” I say. Their eyes flicker to each other, only a split second, but it’s enough. They aren’t with Keane. “He really needs to warn me about these things. Would’ve saved me the trouble of pretending to flirt with Lurpy.” I jerk a thumb toward Adam, deliberately not saying his name. “You guys got it from here?”

Sandy blond with the gun smiles, his teeth wide and white and even. “Yeah, of course. We’ll take Adam with us.” Bingo. They know who he is.

“What?” Adam says, his voice breaking a little on the word, like it’s sharp in his throat.

Keane didn’t send them, and I’m not their target, but now they probably know I’m with Keane. Well, thank you again, north. I really must be broken if trapping us in an alley with people who want Adam was the best I could do. “He’s all yours. As soon as you tell me the password.”

“The password?” Dark hair too-thick muscles answers, and I wish it were only him because he is slow.

I laugh. “Kidding. I keep asking them to set us up with code words, you know? Cooler. Oh well.”

Stubble doesn’t smile. He hasn’t stopped studying me this whole time, and even though I know they’re here for Adam (why, you stupid sweet boy, what is it about you?), I know Stubble wants me just as much now, if only to figure me out the way I’m desperate to figure out Adam.

Stubble gestures. “We’ve got a ride for you. One block back, on the corner of Fourth, black sedan.”

“Great.” I stretch my arms up like I’m exhausted and ready for a nap.

“What’s going on here?” Adam asks, his voice tight with nerves behind me. He’s still hoping this is some sort of elaborate joke. “I’m not going with anyone.”

“Nice meeting you guys,” I say, pulling my purse over my head. I throw it at Sandy blond with the gun, then drop to the ground and pull the knife out of my boot.

Dark hair is hamstrung before he realizes what’s happening, on the ground screaming, clutching at his forever-ruined right leg. Out of the game. Sandy blond fumbles my purse, finally dropping it and going for his gun. I slash his right forearm—he won’t aim as well with his left hand—but where is Stubble? I don’t have a position on him.

Drop flat on the ground, now! I feel the whisper of a fist’s breeze, then flip onto my back, kick up with both feet, and catch Stubble under the jaw. Stunned, not enough to keep him down; Sandy blond is swearing but about to pull out his gun. I flip back onto my feet, kick his hand (gun is on the ground, keep track of the gun), then a downward slam kick onto Sandy’s bent knee. It cracks at the wrong angle. Now two of them can’t chase us, only one left.

Arms circle me from behind, around my waist pinning my arms, and my knife is useless (bad bad bad—I am not big enough for this, I knew Stubble would be a problem). Slam my head back into his? No, he’ll expect it. I go limp and slip down a few inches, freeing my elbow, no leverage but it’s something. I jam my knife into his thigh but, curse him, he doesn’t drop me, just tightens his arm and I lose the knife.

Someone yells—Adam, Adam is still here, I’d forgotten about him—and I turn my head to see him grab the gun from the ground. Sandy blond was reaching for it, but now Adam has it and I don’t know if this is good or bad because his hand is shaking so much he could kill any of us and I lied, I don’t want to die, I really don’t. I’m not ready for it.

Sandy blond tries to stand, pushing himself up against the wall, but Adam screams, “Stay down! And you!” He points the gun at us and he is trembling—oh please, soft gray eyes don’t shoot me. “Drop her! Now!”

Stubble backs up a step but doesn’t let me go—he is squeezing so tight can’t breathe—spots in front of my eyes. Please don’t shoot me, Adam. I want to get to know you, figure out why you are in this mess, get you out of it. I want to see Annie again. James will be so pissed if I die. I’ll never get to dance with James.

“Calm down,” Stubble says. “My name is Cole. We’re not here to hurt you.”

“Put her down!”

“Adam, lower the gun. She’s the only one here who will hurt you.”

“Then why did you attack her?” Adam’s voice is shrill, tight with panic. My ribs, oh my ribs, they hurt.

“You’re not thinking straight,” Stubble—Cole—says. “She attacked us. We came in the alley to help you and she attacked us.”

“But you had a gun!” He waves it wildly.

“And she had a knife. She probably has more weapons in her purse. I need you to help me. Put the gun down carefully, and then reach into my jacket pocket. There’s a stun gun in there. It’s nonlethal, and I’ll use it only once to make sure this girl can’t hurt any of us, and then we’ll talk and no one else will get hurt. You have my word.”

I hate stun guns, I hate them so much. LET GO OF MY RIBS. I push my feet against the ground and slam my head up into his chin because he isn’t focused on me anymore. His arms loosen and it’s all I need. I throw myself back and twist and I’m free, my hand slipping into his pocket as I stumble away from him (oh my ribs, my ribs hurt).

But Cole doesn’t come for me; he rushes Adam and the gun. Cole has the gun now. I drop to the ground as the crack echoes through the alley and I roll toward him, stun gun out into his leg with a sound as bright as the charge, and then he is down but he won’t be for long, so I stand and jam the stun gun into his chest and he convulses and I don’t stop until his eyes roll back.

Adam—where is Adam—the gun went off! Where is Adam? He has to be okay. I look and he’s there, leaning against the wall, face white with horror. My eyes sweep his body. There is no blood, no blood anywhere, oh thank heavens he didn’t get shot.

“You’re okay,” I say, my shoulders slumping with relief. No, not relief yet, I turn and Sandy blond has a phone out, so I use the stun gun on him, too. He goes down faster than Cole. Dark hair is pale and vacant with shock, holding his leg, totally unaware of anything around him. He needs better training.

I pick my purse off the ground and drop the stun gun inside, then turn back to Adam. He’s staring at me funny. Well, why wouldn’t he be? I’ve shown him what my hands can do, and a small, worn-down part of me mourns that he won’t think he wants to hold them anymore. I feel like I’ve lost something, but that’s stupid. I lost it all a long time ago.

“I thought he shot you,” I say.

“Fia,” he says, his voice strangled. He’s not meeting my eyes, looking down instead. “He shot you.”

I look down, too, and he’s wrong, there are no holes in my body, but then I look to the left and my blue sleeve is soaked dark with blood and then burning (horrible ripping tearing burning) comes, focused where the bullet went through my upper arm but radiating out through my whole left side.

Well, crap.





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EDEN PUTS HER HAND ON MY BACK TO LET ME KNOW where she is as she moves around me in the tiny kitchen. “Thanks for letting me crash last night. The paint smell should be better by now. Speaking of, we should do your place next. The walls are a shade I like to call blindingly depressing white.”

“Pick something pretty for me.”

“Of course. Also, how long are you going to stand there, smelling tea packets?”

“As long as it takes.”

“Oh!” She snaps her fingers. “We need to go to the Art Institute. Fia’s out of town, right? That means we can go today!”

I force a smile. I’d rather know where Fia is than be free to go on outings with Eden. But if it means getting out of this place . . . “I’ve been studying up on modernism. I think I have a lot to say.”

“I just wish you could see people’s faces when you finish waxing eloquent about the force of anger evident in the brushstrokes and then use your cane to walk away.”

“Ah, but if I could see their faces, it wouldn’t be funny. Stay for tea?”

“Nah, I’ve gotta go sit in on an interview for a new security guard. His name is Liam. That sounds potentially hot, right?”

“He’s forty, pockmarked, and pudgy, and will instantly fill the room with so much lust you won’t be able to breathe the whole time you’re in there.”

“Pessimist. Wait—did you actually see him?” She hesitates, then sees my grin and slaps me lightly on the arm. “Jerk. I’ll come over when I’m done and tell you how blisteringly sexy he turns out to be. Love you. Bye.” The door shuts softly behind her.

I hum, halfheartedly trying to force myself to see a vision of the guy, just on the off chance it’ll work. Now that Eden’s gone I don’t have to worry about hiding my emotions so that she doesn’t know how scared I am, but I’d rather think about something else anyway.

I hear the door and almost ask Eden if she forgot something, but no. It’s not her.

“Hello, James,” I say, taking the kettle off the stove as its shrill song pierces the air. I don’t want him here today. I’ve woken up every day this week with a stress headache. Now my own personal stress headache is here to visit.

“How do you always know it’s me?” The couch springs creak as he sits, and he’ll mess up my pillows, as usual. He always puts them back wrong.

“You walk like an elephant.”

“I do not.”

“A cocky elephant. And you smell like a boy. You’re filling up my whole room with boy smell, and just when I was about to enjoy my tea, too.” That’s not true. He smells like oranges and midnight. He could be a flavor of tea.

He laughs, and in his laugh I understand why he works so well with the rest of the women around here. I’m the only one immune to him; being literally blind to his charms comes in handy. Probably why he doesn’t like me. That and he knows I’m more important to Fia than he’ll ever be. Which makes him hate me and want her all the more.

“Why are you here?” I reach for my mug and set it on the table, then pull a packet out from the tea jar and bring it to my nose. Hmmm, oolong, sweet and green, with a dollop of honey. Still won’t combat the James smell. It’ll linger in here all day, making the muscles at the back of my neck tense up. Eden will rub it for me, but not as well as Fia used to. I’ll ask James if she can visit when she gets back.

And I’ll hate him because Fia can only come if he says so.

“Do you need any help?” he asks. I roll my eyes. I practiced for months when we were younger, Fia coaching me so I could get it just right. She was my mirror back then. Anyway, James isn’t here to help me. I won’t ask him again why he’s come. I’ll ignore it until he bursts.

I sit at the table with my hands wrapped around the mug as the tea steeps, calmly pretending that it doesn’t bother me that he’s here, that I’m not terrified they’ve figured out I lied to Keane.

“Did you know?” His voice is rough with barely concealed anger.

My stomach flutters with fear. He could be talking about something else. “Did I know what? You forget I’m not a Reader, James. Your thoughts, thankfully, are a complete mystery to me.”

“Did you know Fia would get sent on the hit?”

I let out a breath, lean back heavily into my chair. Oh, Fia, Fia, what have they done with you this time? “I never know anything,” I snarl. “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know. I see. And the seeing with Fia is never, ever accurate, because she’s constantly shifting things in her own favor and everything changes around her all the time.”

“So you had no idea she’d get picked for this job.”

They don’t know that I lied. Which means I’m safe, but Fia isn’t. “Why would you send her? What purpose can it possibly serve? You know how fragile she is!”

One of the chairs smashes to the ground and I flinch. I didn’t hear him get up. He can move silently when he wants to, and it frightens me.

“You’re the one who said this Adam needed to be taken out.”

“And you sent Fia? How could you do that? I never said Fia needed to do it! I watch for threats to your father’s best interests, like you told me to. Adam was a threat. A huge, massive, all-consuming threat. Don’t you think that merits more than a seventeen-year-old girl?” How could they? How could they send Fia? After what it did to her last time . . .”

“My father thought it was the perfect real-world test for Fia. You had to have seen this coming. Can you see how she’s going to be when she gets back? Do you have any idea whether or not she’s in danger?”

I can feel him leaning in, too close to my bubble. He is heat and energy and anger. This is what I understand about him that the other girls don’t. Everything about James underneath his looks is anger. Fia says you can lie with your thoughts and emotions, but only the surface ones. And I never see surface.

“Well, I know she doesn’t die.” I narrow my eyes, daring him to challenge me on that. Death was my first vision. My own death was the vision that nearly destroyed Fia before. It’s the reason we’re here, the reason Fia is Keane’s puppet. The reason she isn’t safe.

I will see a world in which she is safe if it’s the last thing I do. “You tell me the second you see something with Fia. If anything happens to her . . .”

I take a sip of my tea, pray he can’t see my hand trembling, and raise an eyebrow. “If anything happens to her, I’ll never have to see for you again because there will be nothing left in the world I care about.”

“You’re not the only one who cares about her.”

“Do your lies really work with the Readers and the Feelers? Because I’m just a lowly Seer, and I know you’re not even fooling yourself.”

His phone rings, and the elephant feet are back, stomping to the door. “Screw you, Annabelle.”

“No, but thank you for offering.” I smile darkly as he slams the door behind him. And then I lean my head on the table next to my mug and cry. Why did they send her? What did she do? How can I watch out for her on paths I can’t see?





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FIA’S MAD. I CAN FEEL IT IN THE WAY HER FINGERS squeeze mine. She doesn’t usually take my hand unless I hold it out to her first; she knows it annoys me, that I can find my way well enough. Besides which, we’re sitting down. I don’t know what she’s freaking out about.

The school representative continues in his fluid voice. It sounds cultured and smart. It sounds like a future. “Annabelle will, of course, be on full scholarship. The Keane Foundation provides a generous living for all our students in world-class dormitories, everything on-site that they could need, and each girl gets one-on-one curriculum consulting to ensure the best possible education and secure the brightest career path imaginable. We believe that there are no disabilities, merely different abilities, and that our students have a core of strength untapped by traditional education.”

Aunt Ellen coos, flipping through brochures that sound thick and expensive. In truth, she’s probably just as relieved as I am that I’ll be out from under her roof. Inheriting two sad, strange girls from her half sister was never in her life plan. But . . . I can’t leave Fia. How could I leave Fia?

No. This is too good an opportunity to pass up. Maybe Fia’s life will be easier if I’m not around. If she doesn’t have to worry about all the things I don’t see—and, worse, the things I do. Maybe a life without me is exactly what Fia needs.

And I could use a fresh start. I haven’t had a vision in months. Maybe it’s over. If I move away from people who know about me, maybe I can really be done with the seeing.

I don’t know if I want to be, though. Because without the visions, I don’t see anything at all. I still haven’t figured out if they make the darkness better or worse, but that doesn’t stop me from craving them.

The first one, the worst one, runs through my mind. Two years ago now. I was twelve, sitting on the couch. And then I was in a car somehow, my parents in the front seats, the radio on softly in the background with too much static—how was I in the car? What was going on? How could I see? I tried to open my mouth, to tell my parents I was there, I could see, I was seeing for the first time in eight years! But nothing happened. And then everything happened—there was a horrible noise of metal twisting and groaning, glass flying everywhere, the whole world turning and spinning and smashing the car.

And my parents.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in the darkness, screaming. My parents were gone, out on a date. Fia tried to calm me down, figure out what I was talking about. I freaked the babysitter out so much she called my parent’s cell for them to come right home. They never made it.

And the worst part of all, the part that haunts me the most, is wondering if seeing what I saw caused the accident.

Since then it’s happened a few more times—sight suddenly flooding my midnight world. Broken snatches of the future, the present, or I don’t even know. I don’t want to know. My eyes are worthless.

“Annie,” Fia whispers, startling me as our aunt talks with the man—John? Daniel? I’ve forgotten his name already. She whispers low enough that she knows only I’ll hear. “There’s something wrong with this. Something bad.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s not—I can’t explain it. Don’t do it. This is wrong.”

“Excuse me, girls? Do you have a question?” I can hear his smile. It sounds like confidence. I wonder if he’s handsome. I think he is. I wonder if I’m beautiful. Fia says I am, but she is the best liar in the world.

“Yes, actually.” Fia answers him, her voice filled with fists. “I have a lot of questions. Aunt Ellen, can you wait outside?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” she says, her voice pinched with disapproval. She’s worried Fia will mess this up for her, that the school will realize I’m not just blind, I’m also crazy, and then they won’t want me.

“No, it’s no problem,” Daniel/John answers. “I’m more than happy to answer Sofia’s questions privately. Why don’t you go meet with my assistant and get some of the preliminary forms filled out? That’s the one downside to all this—so much paperwork!” He laughs and my aunt pads out of the room, closing the door with a soft snick.

“So.” He sounds less professional and more amused. “What is it you have questions about?”

“This is a load of crap.”

“Fia!” I hiss.

“Why would you say that?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” She sounds angry, frustrated with herself. “If I knew why, I’d tell you. Annie, please, listen to me. This is a bad idea. I feel sick. We should leave. We’ll be fine. The school can bring in more braille texts, and we’re doing okay, right? Together? We need to stay together. Please.”

I open my mouth to answer her—because now I feel sick, too, only I feel sick because I want to go to this school more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I have nothing here. I will only ever be the blind sister, the poor blind orphan. At a school like this, I could be Annie. I could figure out who Annie is besides the blindness. But I can’t leave Fia behind. Ever.

Before I say anything, John/Daniel speaks. “You feel sick about this? Can you describe the feeling?”

“No, I can’t describe the feeling,” she snaps. “All I know is that this is a bad idea and you’re a liar and I should keep Annie far, far away from you and your stupid school.”

He stands, and I can hear the smile slide back into his voice. “You’re twelve, correct? You know, Sofia, we like girls with independent spirits. I can see that you two are a package deal. How would you feel about joining your sister? And I should tell you that the Keane Foundation has a lot of ties in the medical community; we would immediately start researching to see if there is a way to reverse Annabelle’s retinopathy—the condition that caused her blindness.”

I squeeze Fia’s hand, my heart stopped. A school. A new chance. And maybe, just maybe, new eyes that would see only what they were supposed to. “Please, please, oh please, come with me. Please come with me. You felt sick about it because we were going to be separated, but now we won’t! It’s perfect.”

“It’s still wrong,” she whispers, but I don’t let go of her hand. I won’t. I already know I’ll win this, because she always lets me win, and we’ll go together, and our lives will really start.





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I CHECK THE THREE MEN—ALL ARE DOWN. WE NEED to go now. “Come on.”

I walk toward the other end of the alley, but Adam doesn’t follow. “What just happened?” he asks.

“Please,” I say through gritted teeth. “We need to get out of here. One of those guys was calling someone and I can’t fight anyone else.”

Adam still hesitates. He looks at the men and then at me, over and over again, like he is trying to put together a complicated puzzle.

“Please,” I say again. “They’re going to kill you. They already shot me. Please.”

And then, his eyes wide with shock, he runs to catch up with me. He doesn’t walk right next to me, but rather a few feet away and behind, wary. He’s decided I’m his best option. I hope he’s right.

“We need to call the cops.”

“No, we can’t. You need to be dead, Adam.”

“I—what?”

“I don’t know what those guys wanted with you. But the guys I work for want you dead. And if you aren’t dead, they’ll keep coming after you, and they’ll kill the only person I love in the whole world to punish me for not doing what they told me to. So as far as anyone is concerned, you are dead.”

He stops again. Please stop stopping, Adam, we don’t have time for this. “So you really were going to kill me?” He’s reacting calmly—too calmly, he’s probably in shock. He regards me with a strange sort of analytical intelligence in his face. I am still a puzzle. A violent puzzle.

I want to grab my arm, I know I need to slow the bleeding, but it will hurt so much more if I touch it. “Yes. Well, no. I was sent here to kill you. But I wouldn’t have. Couldn’t have. Obviously. Which is why we are both in this mess now.” I take a deep breath (it hurts, even breathing hurts, I wish I would pass out but I don’t have time to) and look straight up into his eyes. “I work for very, very bad people. And I am going to do whatever I can to keep you safe from them. I need you to help me keep you alive, okay?”

He looks back to the alley and I can see in the lines of his body that he is still completely torn. Then his shoulders settle and angle toward me and I’ve won him, at least for now and now is where I do my best work.

“Okay,” he says. “But you’ll have to answer some questions.”

“Believe me, I have more than you do. We need a car.”

“I have a car—”

“You’re dead, remember? This means no car, no ATM, no using anything that can be traced back to you.” My head is spinning. I can’t hear my instincts if my head’s not clear. I’m already so scared that I don’t know how to listen to just myself. “The other guys. They have a car waiting. We can use that.”

There are so many problems. There will be no body because Adam isn’t dead. But no! Cole in the alley! A whole new avenue is opening up to save me and Annie and Adam, too. North really was the right choice. Maybe my instincts aren’t totally broken.

I pull out my phone with my good hand and lean heavily against the wall of the building we’re in front of.

“Someone’s going to see us.” Adam looks around nervously. “You’re bleeding. A lot.” He stares at my arm, not blinking, like he’s entranced. Then he shakes his head, closes his eyes, and opens them. I can see in his face he’s made a decision, decided not to be freaked out. It’s not what most people would do right now. I kind of love him for it. “Let me take care of your arm.” He drops to a knee and pulls his backpack off his shoulder. “I have a kit in here.”

“It has to look like something I could have done myself.”

He nods and opens a compact first aid kit (why does he have that in his backpack? I should have one of those), pulls out scissors, and cuts away my sleeve above the wound. I don’t look. I hate blood.

“I’m going to call someone. Be totally silent. He can’t hear you.” I push the 1 on my phone and it rings twice before James answers.

“Fia, beautiful, are you done? Do you need me to arrange a flight home?” His voice is light and easy, but there are questions there. He’s worried about me; he didn’t want me to do this job in the first place. I want to read into it, but I can’t let myself.

“Ambushed,” I say, gasping in pain at something Adam does. “I got shot.”

“Where? How bad?” James tries to sound like he is all business, but I hear an undercurrent of genuine concern. Maybe I’m just pretending I do. I don’t know.

“In the shoulder.” I grit my teeth, then swear loudly. Adam’s hands are steady and sure, and I wonder why he can be this calm over something a gun did when he was so terrified by the gun itself. “I’ll live. Three guys, don’t know who they were with. They weren’t ours.”

“Of course they weren’t ours!”

“You never know. I left all three down but alive.”

“And the mark?” He asks this more carefully. He knows what this will do to me. He knows, but he still couldn’t stop his father from sending me.

The mark is carefully applying tape and gauze to keep me from bleeding too much. The mark has gentle hands that are stained with blood now, though not in the same way mine will always be. The mark is a person, and he has beautiful eyes and he helps puppies and he trusts girls he really, really shouldn’t. The mark is breathing very deeply and evenly, deliberately. The mark is silently mouthing something to himself and I want to know what it is. I want to know what this boy who has to be scared out of his mind is mouthing to keep himself calm while he patches up my arm.

“Dead. Body in an alley with the three guys. I’m guessing they’ll do cleanup duty since there’s a lot of their own blood there and they don’t want to get fingered.”

“Can you get back?”

“I’ll manage.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

I almost hang up when he talks again. “Fia?”

“What?”

“I’m glad you’re okay. I’m sorry this happened.”

I want to believe him. So much. “Sure you are.” I end the call. Adam puts the finishing touches on my bandage, then looks up into my face. “Congratulations,” I say, smiling weakly. “You’re officially dead.”

He frowns, then unbuttons his black shirt and puts it around my shoulders so it covers up the bandage. He’s wearing just his thin white tee now. “Can we talk?”

“Just as soon as we steal their car.” I stand, wobble slightly, which is humiliating because I do not wobble, then walk quickly in the direction Cole said the car was. Adam follows, a half step behind. There’s a car idling, a black sedan, with a driver. No one else. I wish I hadn’t been shot, because this would be much easier.

I should go for stealth or something, anything, but I’m too tired. I walk straight up, reach down and open the driver’s door (should have locked it, that was phenomenally stupid of them), and am surprised to see a woman, midtwenties, behind the wheel. She has brown hair and brown eyes and a kind face that is frozen in shock.

“You,” she says, like she knows me.

I answer by grabbing the stun gun out of my purse and using it on her.

“Pull her out,” I say. Adam doesn’t move, so I say it again. “Pull her out.”

He does, gently setting her on the sidewalk. She isn’t unconscious, but she’s curled up against the pain and I almost feel sorry for her.

“I should drive,” Adam says, looking at my arm.

“You don’t know where to go.”

“Do you?”

“No, but my guess is always better than yours.” My guess is always better than anyone’s.

He gets in and I do, too. The seat is leather and still warm. I pull out, calmly, driving exactly the speed limit as I head east—no more north for me, thank you very much—out of the city. We’re lucky. I flew here, but it’s only a five-hour drive back to Chicago.

I look for OnStar, but I don’t see anything. And I don’t feel like the car will be traced. I don’t think they’ll call the police, either. I have a good feeling about this car.

“Fia.” His voice is flat and I glance over to see him staring intently at me. I wish we were at a deli, eating and laughing and feeding Chloe. I miss Chloe. I wish she were my dog and I had an alcoholic father and I were the type of girl that Adam could date and rescue and fall in love with. I wish my left arm didn’t hurt so much I wanted to die, because it also means I can’t tap tap tap my leg, and without that fidget I don’t know how to stop the thoughts and feelings flooding through me.

So much blood today.

“What do you do?” I ask, scanning the road. “You’re just a student, right? I can’t figure out why they want you dead. Do you have important parents?”

He leans back and rubs his forehead. “My dad is a dentist and my mom runs a day care.” He swears softly. “They’re going to think I’m dead, aren’t they?”

“You can’t contact them.”

“This will kill them.”

“You’ll probably get listed as missing. They’ll have hope. And you aren’t really dead, which is the best part of their hope. It’ll be okay.” I want to reach over and take his hand. But I can’t.

“How exactly do you define okay?”

I laugh, my real laugh, or at least the only real laugh I have anymore. It is short and harsh and it scrapes my throat.

He sighs. “I’m not a student. I’m a doctor.”

“How old are you?” I shouldn’t be hurt that he lied about his age, but I am. And also bothered that I hadn’t been able to tell he was lying. That’s bad.

“I’m nineteen.” (Ha! I was right. He’s not a liar.) “I just did everything faster. I moved here to finish up a research project on tracking and diagnosing brain disorders through a combination of chemical analysis and MRI mapping.”

I make a noncommittal noise. I have no idea what any of that means or why it makes him need to die. I need to focus on driving.

I almost pass out on the freeway on-ramp.

We pull over and I let Adam drive. I’ll figure out a place for him to hide in Chicago. I have to go home so they don’t suspect something is wrong. I don’t know the rest of what to do yet, but it consists of kidnapping Annie and then all of us running away together. (Stop thinking about it. No thinking.) Assuming they don’t already know what I am planning. I could be dead as soon as I get back. I hope Annie doesn’t see it, hasn’t seen it, won’t see it. I don’t want her to see it.

But if they kill her first, I will kill as many of them as I possibly can before I go down.

“Who are you?” Adam asks after a few minutes’ calm. I don’t usually like riding in the passenger seat, but today it feels nice. Adam gave me something from his first aid kit that has dulled the pain enough for me to handle it. It feels nice to be dulled. Dull, dull, dull. Usually I am sharp. Being sharp all the time is exhausting. I want to take all the rest of the pills from his case.

“I’m Fia. I told you.”

“I saw you back in that alley. You were crazy. You took out three guys, and you’re this small girl. You look so nice and so pretty”—he blushes and I smile, oh he is adorable I wish, I wish, I am not nice—“and I don’t understand what you were—what you are—any of this.”

He doesn’t understand. He can’t. “I have to do what they tell me to. I have no choices. As far as the alley, I happen to have very good instincts.” I yawn, pulling my legs up and resting my head against the seat. I am safe with Adam, for now.

“Three big guys with weapons. That’s more than very good instincts.”

“Okay,” I say, closing my eyelids because they are heavy, heavy, heavy. “I have perfect instincts. And my sister can see the future. And my boss’s secretary can read minds. And my ex-roommate can feel other people’s emotions.”

“Please don’t lie to me.” He sounds sad. I don’t ever want to make him sad.

I feel heavy and light at the same time and I just want to sleep. I’ll sleep. “Who said I was lying?” I mumble before letting go.



Everything hurts. I can’t tap tap tap my fingers because something happened to my left arm and it is nothing but pain now, bright, swimming pain. I crack my eyes open and—

Oh no. Oh no, oh no. I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill Adam. He’s sitting next to me, driving (I let him drive? Why did I let him drive?) and very much alive.

Annie, please be okay. I’ll figure this out and I’ll save Annie and Adam can be safe, too, because now that I remember I didn’t kill him, I also remember that I’m glad I didn’t kill him. It was the right choice. I’m not sure how it’ll end up being the right choice, just like north getting me shot was the right choice, but I know it’s the right choice.

I giggle. I can’t help it. My arm hurts so bad and I got shot and I’m riding toward James in a car with the boy I was supposed to kill but didn’t and my entire world is shot and I’m going to have to figure it out really fast or we’ll all be dead.

“You’re awake,” Adam, says, looking over at me with surprise in his soft gray eyes.

“You have pretty eyes. I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Uh, yeah, me too.”

“I feel fuzzy.”

He shifts uncomfortably, eyes on the road. “I might have overdosed you. Just a little. I needed to think.”

Hmm. He drugged me. That’s interesting. I felt like I was safe with him. I still do. My instincts are totally cracked from years of misuse. Maybe I’m trying to kill myself? I’m not brave enough to try again in real life, but maybe my subconscious is braver than I am and it’s trying to do me in.

Oh! Adam has long eyelashes. Long arms. Long legs. Long fingers. Everything about him is long. Eden would make a dirty joke. I giggle imagining it.

Focus, focus, focus. “You drugged me.”

“I almost pulled over at three different hospitals. You’re bleeding through the bandaging.”

I look down at the black sleeve of his shirt; it’s wet. “Ruined your shirt. Sorry.” I giggle again. I haven’t giggled in years. Maybe I should let Adam overdose me more often. It’s nice.

“I’ll get a new one.”

“Why didn’t you pull over? Or call the cops?”

He’s quiet for a while, knuckles tight on the steering wheel. “Because I’ve been trying to figure it out. I believe you—about the hit—I probably wouldn’t if those other guys hadn’t showed up, but it’s all too weird to be fake. Plus I, uh, looked through your purse. Another knife in the lining, along with a few thousand dollars. Four different IDs. Is that picture of you and Annie?”

I sigh. “Yes.”

“She’s the one they’ll hurt if you mess up.”

“I already messed up. She’s the one they’ll hurt if I don’t fix this. Wait, how do you know her name?”

“You talked. I mean, when you were out. I asked you questions, and you answered them.”

I glare suspiciously at him. “You should know I lie all the time.” Most people lie with words; I lie with my whole body. I lie with my thoughts and my emotions; I lie with everything that makes me who I am. I’m the best liar in the whole entire world. I hope I lied to him, whatever he asked. “What did I say?”

“Have you really killed three people?”

Tap tap tap I need to tap tap tap I need to get out of this car. I can’t breathe. “Why didn’t you stop at a hospital?”

“I know why I’m in the middle of this.”

Why is he still talking to me? He should be scared, he should get away from me. “Oh?”

“My research. What I’ve been working on. I told you it was with MRI and tracking chemicals in the body to examine brain disorders, right? What I didn’t tell you is there’s a very specific focus. I’m mapping the brain functions of people who claim to have psychic abilities. It started as a focus inspired by this crazy aunt on my mom’s side, more to disprove it than anything else, but, well, there were patterns. Specific areas of the brain more active than others, certain chemical markers present. Only in women. So I was going to expand it—start gathering information on huge segments of the population to see if I could find the same patterns in women who don’t claim to be psychic.”

I close my eyes, rest my head against the window. If they had that information, if they could access medical records and find women without depending on sketchy news reports or rumors or the muddled visions of their Seers, they could find all of them. No one would be safe.

“They shouldn’t want to kill you,” I whisper. “You’re their dream come true.” And now I know I have to keep him hidden no matter what, because if Keane knew, if Keane got him . . .

“I’d really like to look at your brain,” Adam says.

I snort. “That has got to be the weirdest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“I mean, in an MRI. I’d like to run some tests. On you and on Annie, if I can, if she’s really psychic like you say she is. What is it you can do, again? I wasn’t clear on it.” He runs a hand through his hair, and I see why it has that messy look. “I’m not really clear on any of this, honestly. I was still viewing it as a specific set of mental disorders that we could actually see in a scan. But if it’s all true . . .”

“It’s all true. Promise. And there’s nothing special about my brain. If you scanned it, you’d probably see a swirling black mass.” I close my eyes and imagine my brain. It’d be dark, all of it, black and red with bright shining spots you’d want to cling to, but all they’d do is illuminate things I never want to see again. My brain scan would give him nightmares.

“But you said you had perfect instincts.”

“I’m nobody. I’m collateral damage with a lot of training.” Chicago looms up ahead of us, old buildings and new buildings and cars and trees and lake, and I am so tired and my arm hurts so much and I have to go home and somehow keep my thoughts and emotions safely hidden.

No problem.

“As soon as we get into the city, pull over and get out. You can take the cash in my purse. Let me see your wallet and your phone.”

He pulls them out of his pocket and I check his phone. He hasn’t called or texted anyone. Good boy. I open the window and fling them both out as far as I can.

“Hey!”

“Hey nothing. Keeping you alive, remember? And if you want to stay that way, you have to do exactly what I tell you with zero deviation. Find the cheapest hotel you can. I don’t want to know where or which one. Set up an email account—chloethedog@freemail.com, password north1—and email yourself. I’ll check it and we’ll set up a meeting. I don’t know when I’ll respond, but I will. I can’t plan things too far in advance or the Seers watching me will pick up on it. If they haven’t already.”

“Do you do this often?” he asks, his brow furrowed. “Only for you. Don’t screw it up. Don’t forget you’re dead. I’m risking everything here. Do you understand that?”

He pulls over; we’re in an outlying neighborhood, the buildings old brick, the trees not quite blooming and budding yet. It’s windy. And cold.

Turning all the way toward me, he nods. His face is open and innocent, and I know he couldn’t lie if he tried. “You saved my life, Fia. Or spared it. Whichever. I’m not going to do anything that would risk yours.”

I smile tightly. “I’m glad you stopped to pet the dog.” Then I get out. The wind hits me and makes my arm hurt even more as we get out and pass around the front of the car. I peel off the shirt and hand it to him with an apologetic shrug. I can’t show up in it. I don’t look down at my arm (the blood, I hate the blood, at least it’s mine this time).

“So, I’ll talk to you soon, then?”

“If I’m not dead,” I answer brightly, then, on impulse, which is how I live my life, I go on my tiptoes and kiss him on the cheek. It feels . . . nice. Really nice. I wish I could keep that emotion, treasure it up inside, try to figure out what it means to me. But it’s not a safe emotion to bring home.

I get back in the car and drive toward the single most dangerous place in the world for me right now. I should be terrified. I should turn around and go anywhere else. I should curl up in a ball and cry. Instead, I think about everything in the whole entire world that makes me angry—there is a lot, oh, there is a lot—and I start singing Justin Bieber at the top of my lungs.

I can do this.





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“IT’S NOT FAIR.” I STAND, FEET PLANTED, ARMS crossed. I will not be scared of Ms. Robertson. I don’t care how broad her shoulders are, how tight her bun is, how many students whisper that she knows you’re cheating without even looking at you. She doesn’t scare me (she does, and I hate it).

“What’s not fair?” She raises a thin eyebrow at me.

“Why is my test all essays? Everyone else has multiple choice!”

She smiles; it doesn’t touch her eyes. It is a lie of a smile. She is a liar. Everyone here is a liar. I hate this place, I hate it, it’s wrong, every day it’s wrong and I feel sick all the time. I hate the two postcards Aunt Ellen has sent us in the three months since we came here, saying she’s in Egypt and isn’t it great that the school will do all holidays and summer breaks for us. I hate the beautiful dining room with the fancy food, I hate the laundry room with the spinning washing machines, I hate the classrooms with too few students and too much attention.

Annie loves it all. She has a private tutor. They’ve talked with a geneticist about her eyes. She is happy.

“Well, Sofia, part of our goal at this school is to challenge our students. And you have demonstrated that you excel at multiple choice. You never miss a question. Ever. On any test in any subject.”

“Are you accusing me of cheating?” I don’t break eye contact. I won’t. I have never cheated in my life.

“Of course not. I’m simply saying you have an uncanny knack for answering multiple-choice questions. If everything comes easily, how will you ever learn?”

I barely hold back my eye roll. Annie wouldn’t approve. She tells me to roll them as much as I possibly can and makes me tell her when I’m rolling them at her. But Annie doesn’t understand. She’s not sick all the time, doesn’t have these thoughts bouncing around in her skull making her crazy. She doesn’t feel like the bottom has just dropped out of the room, like she can’t quite get enough air to breathe. I do, ever since we came here. I’m crazy. But I am not a cheater.

“Fine. Whatever.” I stomp back to my seat, my stupid plaid skirt swishing. The girl I share a table with, Eden, scowls. There are only five of us in the thirteen-year-olds’ class. I don’t get to know them. I don’t want to. I wish I had classes with Annie.

“Stop being so angry all the time,” she whispers. “It’s distracting.”

“Why do you care?” I hiss. “I’m not mad at you!”

“No, but it’s . . . I don’t like feeling that way. Just calm down.”

Everyone here is insane. I am the insanest of the insane. I’m going to run away tonight. I’m sick of the way the staff stares at me like they’re seeing straight into my head, and I’m sick of the bizarre classes they’ve “designed” specially for me that have me picking stocks instead of learning math, and practicing self-defense instead of gym. And I am so sick of feeling sick all the time.

But Annie is happy. She loves her staff mentor, Clarice, and the loads of braille texts and the pamphlets of information from the doctor I have to read out loud to her over and over again. She’s bonded with Eden and they hang out constantly; you’d think they were sisters. She’ll be happier here without me dragging her down. Maybe Eden is right—maybe I am so angry that other people can actually feel it.

I’m going to leave. I have no money. Whatever. I’ll figure it out. Just planning to leave tonight I feel better already, lighter, not as jittery in my own head. There’s a camera and an alarm and a security guard at the main entrance to the huge school building. But a window on the second floor has a balcony under it. Ten-foot drop. I can do a ten-foot drop. Then I’ll climb the rest of the way down. The brick is old and uneven. I can do it.

I know I can.

I’m going to get out of here tonight, and I’ll never come back. I’ll walk back to my aunt’s house if I have to. I’ll live there by myself. I’ll send Annie stupid postcards, and maybe they’ll fix her eyes and she’ll even be able to read them by herself. I don’t want to be without her—that idea makes it even harder to breathe—but I can’t stay here.

I look up to see Ms. Robertson smiling at me, and this time the smile isn’t a lie. It’s a challenge. Like she knows what I’m planning.

But she can’t know.

She knows. It’s a physical reaction in me, a certain quivering, empty feeling in my stomach, that tug of my gut. I know she knows. How does she know? I have to go now. NOW. I stand, knocking my chair over with a clatter into the table behind me. “I feel sick,” I say, leaving my stuff as I run out the door. Down the long hall, all tile and dark wood. Into the residence wing. Up the stairs that smell like lemon furniture polish. Straight to the window, the one I opened last week to see how far the drop was.

It’s nailed shut.

Screw this, I am gone. I sprint up another flight of stairs to the dorms with their warm yellow lights and plush red carpet. I will grab everything I own and I will run straight out the front doors. I will run into the sunshine and I will never come back here where everything is wrong for no reason. I burst in, and Annie’s there, on the couch, and she’s crying.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, out of breath. “What happened?”

She looks up, but she’s smiling. Why is she crying and smiling at the same time?

“I’m not the only one,” she says. “Fia, it’s not just me! Clarice can do it, too. Clarice sees things before they happen. And she’s going to help me learn to do it better, to control it. Oh, I knew this school was the right choice.” She stands and holds her hands out for a hug and I stumble forward, letting her wrap me up because I never stay away when she wants me close. “Think about it, Fia. If I had known how to control it before, I could have seen Mom and Dad earlier, I could have understood what I was seeing, I could have . . .” I know what she saw because she’s told me so many times, crying in the middle of the night.

She saw their lives smashed out of them. She still blames herself because she saw the accident and didn’t change it. (She didn’t change it. I am here because—no, stop.)

Maybe this school is the best thing that ever happened to her; she can figure out how to deal with what she sees. But why do I still feel so wrong when she’s so happy and hopeful? No. It’s my job to take care of her. If staying here is what she needs, I’ll stay.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickle and I turn to see what Annie’s eyes can’t. Ms. Robertson is standing, perfectly silent in the doorway, watching me.



It’s been two weeks since the window was nailed shut. Bars were installed on all the windows, on all the floors. The administration said it was because of an attempted break-in.

Every day Annie chatters to me about what she learned, how smart Clarice is, what an amazing coincidence it is that she’d end up with the one person in the world who could understand her. I do not smile because with Annie I don’t have to, but I lie when we are together.

Now I am sitting in class.

I am not doing any of my assignments.

I sit perfectly still and straight, and I do not work, and I do not answer questions, and they do not do anything to me. There is no detention. There are no threats. Except in self-defense, where my instructor hits me and hits me until I finally block and hit back.

I am riddled with bruises under my stiff white shirt that smells of bleach and makes me miss my mom with an ache I didn’t think I could feel anymore.

I do not tell Annie. I cannot tell Annie. Annie is happy, and I have to let her be happy. It is my job to make sure Annie is happy.

I glare at Ms. Robertson, standing in the front detailing the upcoming ski trip; I still blame her for the nailed-shut window, though I have no reason to.

Then I have an idea. Maybe Clarice isn’t a coincidence. This school is wrong, I know it is. I want to know why, because if I know why, then maybe it won’t make me feel sick all the time. If there’s a reason why it’s wrong, then I am not crazy for feeling this way. (I’m not crazy, I’m not.) I lean back in my chair, stare straight at Ms. Robertson’s forehead, and think, I have a knife in my shoe. I have a knife in my shoe. I have a knife in my shoe, and I am going to pull it out and stab Eden. I am going to stab her until she screams. I have a knife in my shoe. I’m going to stab Eden. Right now.

Ms. Robertson sprints down the row and rips me out of my chair, knocking me to the ground; my head slams against the floor. She pins me, it’s not hard—I am all elbows and knees and I am only thirteen. She yanks off one of my shoes and then the other, breathing hard. My face is smashed into the tile. I can’t see anything. I can’t move.

My teacher swears. “What—why would you—Eden! How is Sofia feeling right now?”

“I don’t know! How can I—”

“Just tell me how she’s feeling right now!”

“She’s—she was totally calm before you grabbed her. And now it’s like, I don’t know, like she’s laughing inside, but she’s also really scared.” Eden sounds scared, too, having to admit that she knows this.

Ms. Robertson stands up, and I roll over onto my back, tears streaming down my cheeks from the pain in my head, but Eden’s right—I’m laughing.

I laugh and laugh and laugh, and I think about stabbing Ms. Robertson with the knife I don’t have in my shoe. Lighting this whole room on fire with the matches I don’t have in my pocket. Hanging myself in my room with the rope I don’t have in my closet.

This place is wrong, I think at her, and I know.

“Very clever,” Ms. Robertson says, with that lie of a smile. “It would appear you’re ready for the advanced placement track.”





(#ulink_9764de08-b0c8-598f-9898-70d71578631b)

SHE SHOULD BE BACK BY NOW. WHY ISN’T SHE BACK? I need to hear her, to figure out if she’s okay. She’ll lie to me, of course, but I still need to hear her.

It’s my fault. Again. Either I see things and I can’t stop them, or I cause them because I see them wrong. I will be the death of my entire family. I’ve already destroyed Fia by dragging her to this school with me. I can’t kill her, too.

I walk to the door and out into the hall. Someone stands up immediately—Darren, by the sounds of it. He has a particular way of exhaling whenever he has to actually do something.

“Can I help you, Miss Annabelle?”

“Why yes, Darren, you can! There’s a window at the end of the hallway, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you open it?”

“Are you too warm? I can have the AC adjusted.”

“Oh, no, the window isn’t for me. It’s for you. So you can throw yourself out of it.”

A pause and then, “You have such a sense of humor, Miss Annabelle.”

“Well, I only have the four senses, so I’ve got to compensate somehow. You are welcome to keep sitting in your chair, reading your romance novels. I’m going to see Eden.”

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“So you can disappoint me yet again by never listening? Please, Darren.” I continue down the hall, tracing a hand along the smooth wood paneling, counting the seams. Skip an empty door. Skip another. Knock.

The door opens and she reaches out immediately for my hand. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“They sent Fia on a hit.”

Eden swears. “Is she okay?”

“I need you to get a feel for her when she gets back. She’ll lie to me.”

She sighs and her grip changes as she shifts to lean farther away from me. “I’m sorry she had to do that. Really. I think it’s wrong. But I can’t handle being around her. You have no idea what it’s like since we came back, getting sucked into all that anger. It gives me a headache. My whole mouth tastes like I’m chugging battery acid. She’s poison.”

“My sister is not poison.” I yank my hand back.

She swears again, her voice softer. “Sorry. Just—I can already tell you how she’ll feel. She’ll feel angry. It’s the only way she’s felt since we left Europe. I wish I could help her, but I can’t, and neither can you.”

“Why are you even still here?” I’m so furious I want to shake her, and I know she can feel it. “Why did you come back? Why didn’t you go out into the world to be Keane’s little spy?”

I don’t have to be a Feeler to hear the hurt in Eden’s voice. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“How can you work for them?” I whisper. “They keep me here, prisoner, to control Fia.”

“Did you ever think that maybe they keep you here to keep you safe from Fia?”

“That’s a lie.”

“You can’t feel her like I can. She’s dangerous, Annie, and it scares me every time she’s alone with you. She’s—” I hear her inhale sharply. “Good news, she’s here. I can feel her from the first floor. Guess Art Institute is out. Come over after she’s gone and we’ll do manicures, okay?” Eden starts to close the door, but hesitates. “I’m sorry.” Then it clicks shut.

I turn expectantly toward the elevator end of the hall. I wish I could go straight down to meet her, but unlike Eden who can come and go as she pleases, without Darren’s key card I’m not allowed off the floor.





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