I frown, hurt. “I didn’t make you come!”
“It’s your fault I’m all you have! You let Mom and Dad die! You saw what was going to happen. You SAW it. And you didn’t stop it! If you hadn’t let them die, we’d never be here in the first place! Everything would be okay! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!”
Fia, who said she never blamed me, who promised me, promised me, had blamed me this whole time.
“Get out of my room,” I say.
“Make me.”
“GET OUT OF MY ROOM! GET OUT OF MY LIFE!”
The slamming door is my only response.
Later that night I can’t sleep. I feel too guilty. I shouldn’t have said those things to her. I’m the big sister. And she’s hurting, has been for a long time. I need to help her. I need to be the calm one, the one who can be in control, see this for what it is.
She needs help.
I pad down the hall. I don’t know if the lights are still on or not, but I know the way to Clarice’s office by heart. She works late a lot; maybe she’ll still be there. It feels right to be doing something.
Voices are coming from her office. The door must be open. I walk closer, then stop. At least I know she’s awake. I’ll wait in the hall until she’s done.
I’m about to sit when I hear Fia’s name.
“Surely there has to be a better way to control her.” Ms. Robertson’s voice.
“Eden says she’s getting worse. The guilt is fading and being replaced by anger and something Eden calls a swirling mess of empty despair. That girl has a thing or two to learn about precise definitions.” I don’t know whose voice that is; it sounds vaguely familiar, but I’m sure I’ve never had instruction from her. Almost all my classes are with Clarice, one-on-one.
“It’s an unusual case.” Clarice. So Clarice knows Fia’s struggling, too, and she’s already working with the rest of the faculty to help. I smile. “The other girls worth keeping are easy enough. By the time they put it all together, they’re in so deep and enjoy the perks so much they don’t realize it wasn’t their own idea. Like Eden. Broken homes are wonderful, aren’t they?” A smattering of laughter. I don’t like the feeling of this conversation.
Clarice’s voice is closer to the door. I shrink back against the wall, praying that the hall lights are off. I don’t hear them. There’s no hum. But I don’t usually try to listen to the lights. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they can see me right now. Maybe they’re standing there, silently laughing at me. Mrs. Robertson needs to see you to read you. Can she see me? I slide a few feet back toward the hall to the stairs.
“But it’s different with Sofia,” Clarice says. “It always has been. There was no way to gain her trust and then build up to what we wanted her to do. She knew from the very beginning she didn’t want to be here or do what we want her to, so it’s been a fight all along.”
The unknown voice who talked about Eden: “The guilt is fading, though. You’ll have to figure out a new method to keep her from running.”
Clarice, in a tone so matter-of-fact my blood runs cold: “I already know exactly when she’s going to try. We’ll have something in place by then. She’s the school’s top priority; Keane is deeply invested in her. All the little empaths and Seers are replaceable. Sofia is special.”
“She’s a monster.” Ms. Robertson.
Clarice, small laugh: “But she’s our monster.” Creaking. People getting up from chairs. I need to leave. I was not supposed to hear this. “And we’ll keep doing whatever it takes so she stays ours.”
I turn and run silently back down the hall. Whatever it takes, whatever it takes, whatever it takes. It echoes through my head. They’ll keep doing whatever it takes. What else have they already done? It doesn’t matter. I’m getting my sister out of here. I won’t fail her anymore.
Tomorrow we run.
FIA
Monday Evening
I BRIEFLY CONSIDER STOPPING AT A LIBRARY TO CHECK for an email from Adam, but it doesn’t feel right. Besides which, I don’t want to. I don’t want to think about Adam and the way he looked at me, the way I saw him decide to trust me. I don’t want to think about how normal and safe it made me feel when he was driving. I don’t want to think about things like normal and safe, things I can’t have.
I don’t want to do anything tonight, nothing at all, but spin and pulse and pound. My fingers cannot tap tap tap when I am dancing. Annie can’t betray me while I’m dancing. James can’t use me. I can’t hear my own thoughts. I haven’t been dancing in four months, not since we left Greece, and I ache for it.
I run a few blocks south, then cut in to the city. Not sure where I’m going. I never plan ahead. Learned my lesson about that a long time ago. Thank you, beautiful James.
There, ahead of me, a line snaking around a sidewalk. The unmistakable thumping hum of bass that will push right through me. Perfect. I look up and choke on a laugh. The place is called Vision.