“It is a big deal! It’s a huge deal. I can’t believe they’re letting you do this! I’m going to tell Clarice. I’ll complain. This is insane. They have to stop. Is Ms. Robertson behind it? I’ll have her fired!”
“Okay,” she says, and I can tell from the sound of her voice that her head is turned away from me and toward the window. “You talk to Clarice. I’m sure that’ll fix it.”
“Did you tell them you don’t want to do it?”
Her arm moves up as she shrugs. “Yeah. They said it wasn’t optional. Could come in handy someday. They always blabber on about how they tailor our educations to what we’ll need. Maybe I’ll need to be good in a knife fight.”
“You are never going to be in a knife fight,” I say. My head is spinning. I don’t know what’s going on or why she hid this from me. But I’ll tell Clarice, and Clarice will make sure whoever is responsible for this is in serious trouble.
I clutch Fia’s hand, feeling the sand beneath my toes. I thought today would be magical, but as I match up what I saw with what I feel and hear and smell, I just keep seeing the expression on Fia’s face from the vision.
She wasn’t happy.
Nothing about her was happy. I remember my parents’ faces, I remember what happy looks like, of course I do. The dozen other girls shout and laugh around us; I hear a few running through the shallow waves even though it’s far too cold to get in.
We spent the afternoon at the aquarium. Eden could tell I was distracted and kept telling me the names of the weirdest fish, but I couldn’t stop wondering about what’s going on with Fia. Still can’t. Fia pushes my hair aside where it’s blown into my face and I try to smile at her.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I ask, hopeful.
“Yeah.”
“Eden?” Clarice asks. “Could you take Annabelle’s hand? I need to borrow Sofia for a minute.”
I relax a little. I talked to Clarice yesterday and she was horrified. She said some of the trainers they brought on were new and overzealous, and what they were doing with Fia was completely inappropriate. She said she’d fix it immediately. I smile and let go of my sister’s hand. Clarice is going to tell her that she’ll never have to do that insane class again.
There’s so much noise here, so many different sounds to filter through. The water, constant, under and over everything. Birds. I didn’t notice the birds in my vision—I’ll have to pay closer attention next time. Traffic. We must still be near a road. Conversations around me. I can pick out Clarice and Fia.
“Why?” Fia asks.
“We want to see if you can do it. Think of it as a game.”
“It’s stupid. I won’t do it.”
“You want out of Ms. Roberston’s sessions?”
Pause. “Yes.”
“Then show me you can do this. Focus. Go on instinct. All you need to do is figure out a way to get this into that woman’s bag without anyone around her noticing.”
Pause. “That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“It doesn’t feel right.”
“Make it feel right then. You can focus it. I know you can.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
Then the conversation is over and I’m confused. That wasn’t what Clarice was going to talk to her about. Maybe Ms. Robertson is in charge of the self-defense classes. But what was that about a woman and a bag?
I let go of Eden’s hand and sit where I am, sifting sand between my fingers, wondering if this is the part where Fia turns back with that look on her face.
“I’m gonna go down to the water; wanna come?” Eden asks, but I shake my head, lost in what I saw. She puts her hand on top of my hair. “You worry too much. Shout if you want me.”
A few minutes later someone flops to the sand next to me, and I can tell from the scent and feel of her nearby that it’s Fia.
“What did Clarice want?”
“Nothing. Just a stupid game.”
“But you’re out of the classes, right?”
“Right.”
“Good.” I smile and lean my head onto her shoulder. “I like how it smells out here.”
“It smells like rotten things. You’re crazy.”
“It smells like it looks. And I know how it looks, too.” I smile like the crazy person Fia said I was, and she lets out a small laugh, even though I can feel from the tension in her shoulder she still isn’t happy. I’ll make her happy. I can fix things. I can be the big sister. “Oh! They said the doctor should have some of the test results back soon, but they want some samples of your DNA to compare and—”
A crack louder than thunder rips through the air, and a flash of heat whooshes past, carrying stinging bits of sand. Fia knocks us to the ground, throwing herself on top of me, and everyone is screaming and I didn’t see this, what happened, what happened?
“What happened?” I shout in Fia’s ear. But then she shoves off me and she is gone in the blackness now, screaming, screaming as loud as she can.
“WHAT DID YOU MAKE ME DO? WHAT DID YOU DO? WHAT DID I DO?”
She screams and screams until a soft thud hits the ground near me and then she is silent but everyone else is screaming and this is not the beach I saw and I crawl desperately in the sand, searching, because I don’t know where Fia is.
Where is Fia?