Page 84 of A Seer and Present Danger

Someone was behind me. I could feel them there.

And I knew I’d gotten everything very, very wrong.

CHAPTER 18

“Put down the fire extinguisher,” Aggie said from behind me. “Now.”

Did she have a knife? A gun?

I looked into the future…

“Don’t!”

Futures fuzzed and blanked out.

“You don’t get to manipulate it,” she said. “You don’t get to change it. The future is what I say it is. Extinguisher. Down. Now.”

“Really?” I huffed. Yes, I was terrified, but I was also a little miffed. “Why do you and Vandre get to know how to mess with the future and I don’t?”

Aggie scoffed. “Oh, poor little Piper. Like you aren’t Ordinary’s favorite. Like you aren’t pals with witches, monsters, and gods. You thought your friends would keep you safe, didn’t you? Friends just use you, then stab you in the back. Extinguisher. Down. Don’t make me say it again.”

“Jeeze. All right.” I leaned and shuffled a step forward toward Vandre, pretending to lose my balance.

“Stop.”

“I’m a little dizzy,” I lied. “Not being able to see the future is really messing with my balance.”

“Put it on the floor.”

How was I going to get out of this?

I placed the extinguisher as close to Vandre as I could. If he regained consciousness maybe he could help before…before Aggie killed me.

Was that how she thought this was going down?

Oh, I was so not going to let that happen.

Enough was enough.

I turned to face her.

Gun. She had decided a knife wasn’t good enough. So now she had a gun—which was no bigger than her hand but somehow seemed to take up way too much room in the kitchen.

“You’re wrong about friends,” I said. “Having friends is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

“I am never wrong.” She put her finger on the trigger. “Now, tell me where it is.”

“The bear?”

“The box. Where is Pandora’s box?”

I laughed, then pressed my fingers over my mouth. “You think I know where the box is? I’ve never even seen it. I have no idea where it is.”

“You know. You have to know. All the futures say you have it. You hid it or smuggled it to someone else. But you know where it is.”

“I don’t. Aggie, I have no idea. Any future that says I have the box is lying.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re lying.”