Page 2 of It Runs in the Family

Selena was begging. “Please don’t kill her!”

The body I was in laughed, a deep, ugly masculine sound, then lifted a gun, aimed at Vision Me’s head, and pulled the trigger.

A hole appeared in my forehead, and I slumped to the ground in a heap.

Selena screamed at the top of her lungs.

The man I was seeing through walked over and kicked my body, probably to confirm I was dead, but the blank, lifeless stare of my eyes was confirmation enough.

And then I was back in the Stop-n-Go, the doorbell dinging as the man walked out with his purchases. And, just like always, I blurted out what I’d just seen.

“You murdered me.”

Thank God he’d walked out before I said it, but I was no less shaken.

I rarely saw visions of myself, and I’d never seen anything really bad happen to me. Sure, when I was a kid and couldn’t control them, I’d get the occasional falling out of a tree and breaking my arm kind of vision through my cousins, but those had trailed off years ago. In fact, I hadn’t had a surprise vision in a couple of years. Not since I’d learned that forcing them—pushing myself into them on purpose—helped keep them under control.

And not since my cousins had realized they could use my gift to their advantage.

No one else in my family had visions. My mother said they must have come from the father I never knew—a married man she’d had a brief but very sexually charged relationship with. (Gross.) When she got pregnant with me, she’d hoped for a commitment, but he moved on to his next conquest. Her words, not mine. I suspected he’d stuck around long enough to realize her brand of crazy was too much and bailed for someone safer.

Maybe he’d watched Fatal Attraction and realized there was nothing worse than a married man hooking up with an unhinged woman.

My mother definitely seemed capable of cooking the family pet.

My hands were shaking, and my legs had turned to jelly, but I forced myself to breathe. The vision of my murder hadn’t happened here at the Stop-n-Go, so it was doubtful that guy would come back and shoot me now. Besides, this wasn’t some manifest destiny crap. My visions weren’t foregone conclusions. I could change them.

Then I remembered who’d been in the vision with me.

I grabbed my phone and dialed Selena’s number. She was one of my wilder cousins and flitted from guy to guy like it was her job—which, you could argue, it was, since they usually supported her. Last I’d heard, she was currently “unemployed” and living with her sister, Rita.

Selena’s phone went to voicemail, so I FaceTimed her.

Still no answer.

It was nearly two in the morning, and I knew this could wait until a decent hour, but I was too shaken to sit around doing nothing, so I called Rita.

It took her a few rings before she answered, panicked. “Iris? What’s wrong?”

I hesitated, knowing how crazy this would sound, but also knowing Rita would take me seriously. Everyone in the family knew about my visions and had reason to believe in them. “I had a vision of Selena.”

There was a moment of silence before she said in a flat tone, “You woke me up to tell me you saw a vision of Selena?” Another pause, then her voice rose. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? Do you know what time it is? Fuck that, because babies don’t tell time. Do you know how little sleep I’ve had since Baby JJ was born? I need every minute I can get, Iris.”

“I was in the vision too, Rita.”

“Well, that changes everything,” she said, her voice dripping sarcasm.

Despite her attitude, she’d freak out if I told her I’d seen my own murder. She was just majorly sleep-deprived. Her two-month-old baby had colic and didn’t believe in sleep. “I’m sorry I woke you. Really. But I need to talk to Selena. It’s really important.”

“What? Did she win the Powerball?”

“Something like that.”

“I thought you refused to do that anymore,” Rita said, and I caught a hint of jealousy in her tone.

It was true. When I was around sixteen, our cousin Billy, who was twenty-four at the time, would write down combinations of lotto numbers and make me force a vision to see if he’d win the Powerball. I only made it to four winning numbers before I collapsed with a massive migraine that put me in bed for two days. He made me do it again with the same results. After that, I refused, even when he held my head underwater in Aunt Doreen’s above-ground pool and nearly drowned me before Garrett intervened.

“Because I’m not doin’ that anymore.”