“She’s not yours to take care of.” I walk to my room without tracing the wall and slam the door shut. “Fia? Where are you?”
A muffled sob comes from the couch. I trip on the corner of it and swear. I haven’t tripped on my furniture in years. Then I nearly sit on her legs as I try to sit next to her. “Shh, it’ll be okay.”
“It won’t be okay. Annie, what I did…what I did…I’m so sorry. I’ll fix it, I promise.”
I find her hair and stroke it; it’s soft but at the end it’s hard and crusted with something. Blood. I want to throw up. My baby sister is on my couch and she has blood in her hair and I don’t know if it’s hers or his.
“Did you see anything?” she whispers. “Are they going to kill us? Are we still okay?”
“We’re fine, we’re fine, I promise, we’re fine.” I wish I could see her arm, see how bad it is. Look in her face to see how much pain she is in. Maybe I don’t wish it, actually. I’d rather see her dancing.
Which reminds me. “Don’t go dancing.”
She laughs. “Why?”
“Someone watches you.”
She laughs again. It’s harsh and low and nothing like the way she laughed when we were little. “When I dance, everyone watches me.”
I sigh, lean my head against hers. “And don’t let James stay at your place tonight.”
“Did you see something? Is something bad going to happen?” She sounds terrified.
“I’m your big sister. I don’t have to see anything to know James is always something bad.”
Fia snorts. “You wouldn’t think so if you could look at him.” Then her voice is muffled as she moves the pillow back, brushing my face with it. She screams into it, then sobs, then throws it with a thud across the room. “My arm really hurts,” she whimpers. I hear her finger tapping on the couch cushion, the three-then-pause-then-three in an unending loop. Oh, Fia.
“I know. But it’s okay. You’re done. I won’t let them make you do that ever again.”
“Annie,” she says, hooking one hand behind my neck and pulling my head down to her lips. “I didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t do what?”
“I’ll fix it, I promise. You’ll be proud of me, I’ll make you proud, and I’ll get you out. I didn’t do it. I couldn’t. I didn’t kill Adam.”
My heart freezes, and I grab her by the shoulders. She yelps with pain. “You didn’t?”
“No, I couldn’t! I’m sorry. I know I screwed up. But I thought…I hoped…you wouldn’t have wanted me to kill him. He’s nice, Annie. I made the right choice. I listened to myself for the first time in years. I was so scared I’d come back and you’d be—that they’d know, and they’d hurt you. But they don’t know. I got away with it. And I’m going to keep listening to myself. I can do this.” She waits for me to answer, but I don’t, I can’t. Her voice is even more pained when she talks again. “I thought you’d be proud that I saved someone Keane wanted dead.”
I let her go and sink back onto the couch. A sharp knock raps on the door. “Keane didn’t want him dead,” I say.
The doorknob clicks; our talk is over. At least Dr. Grant is a man and therefore our minds are safe for now.
“Who then?” Fia asks, her voice slipping. She is in so much pain it hurts me to hear her, but I can’t go to her, I can’t help her. “Who wanted him dead?”
I stand and move away from the couch. “I did.”
ANNIE
Three Years Ago
“I SAW THE LAKE! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT. DOES IT ALWAYS look that amazing? I can’t wait to go!”
“But you won’t actually be able to see it,” Fia says, slamming a drawer shut.
“No, but I’ll be able to remember seeing it in my vision! I can pull it all up and play it out in my mind, and I can match what I remember seeing with how it all smells and feels and sounds.” I throw a pillow, jumping on her bed. I feel like I could fly. I feel like I am flying. I saw something because I thought about it hard enough, and it wasn’t horrible or confusing. I still don’t have many visions, and can’t usually figure out what they are anyway—people I don’t know, places I can’t recognize. None as bad as the one with my parents but none particularly awesome.
But this one! It was the beach, a beautiful narrow stretch of pale sand on the shore of the lake, a lake so wide—melting off into the horizon—it might as well be the ocean. My classmates—I saw some of them, too, but the only one I recognized was Eden because of her wild curly hair that I play with when we’re hanging out. And Clarice! I saw Clarice; I knew it was her because I heard her voice and I’d know her voice anywhere. Her hair is long and her eyes are blue, the same color as the sky. I had forgotten to miss blue. Blue!
I flop down onto my back, tracing my stomach happily. “I didn’t tell you the best part.”
“Oh?” Another drawer slams. “I can’t find my bra,” she mutters.
“The best part is, I saw you.”