“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?
ANNIE
Five Years Ago
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.