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“Yeah, you dropped it back there. Here.” Pixie holds it out, walking backward in front of Sadie, smiling.
Sadie shrugs, leaving her hands in her pockets. “Keep it.” She turns to look over her shoulder, and our eyes meet.
The blood drains from her face. She looks terrified, and then she looks sad, and then she looks the type of bone-deep, soul-weary tired I see reflected back at me from mirrors. There’s a swelling of something I didn’t know I could feel for anyone other than Annie. Compassion. I want to help her. I want to protect her, not because I like her, like how it is with Pixie. I want to protect Sadie simply because she needs protecting. She nods at me, a sort of resigned gesture, and then turns and walks toward home.
I let Pixie come back to me. Her eyes are wide. “Well?” I ask.
“She looked at my hand and thought, ‘No way I want to see what this girl’s future is like.’ But when she saw you—when she saw you, she thought, ‘I’m dead. I thought I’d have more time. Oh well.’ Why would she think that, Fia?” Pixie looks at me imploringly, begging me to explain to her why a girl I’d never met would equate me with her own death.
“I don’t know,” I say, and I’m falling apart because I don’t know. Anything.
What has she seen? What does she know?
What do I do?
ANNIE
Five Weeks Before
I CRINGE AS SOMETHING SMASHES AGAINST THE WALL. Shattering glass rains down onto the tile floor.
“Stop defending her!” Sarah screams. “Five for five! Five times I’ve tried to get to these girls, and five times Fia has already been there!”
“I don’t understand why—”
“No! You don’t! Because you keep trying to figure out why she’d do that, what her plan is, but the thing is, she doesn’t have one! She never has! She’s doing whatever James tells her, because she’s in love with him. Do you have any idea how much more effective their recruitment has gotten since Fia ditched you and went back to them?”
“Sarah,” Rafael says, his voice flat with warning. “You need to calm down.”
“You see what I’m seeing and then tell me if you can calm down!”
“Why don’t you go for a walk?”
“Why don’t you go to hell!” She takes a few deep, unsteady breaths, and when she talks again, it’s restrained. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I need to . . . I’ll be back in a while.”
The front door slams.
“I’m sorry about that,” Rafael says. “The last few weeks have been hard on her.”
I lean against the counter glumly. “I understand.” Ever since Sarah called confirming that Amanda was a real person—a twelve-year-old girl now whisked away to the Keane Foundation—I’ve been fighting the cold dread creeping in my bones. There’s a reason. There has to be a reason Fia would do this. Sarah’s wrong, I know she is. Fia wouldn’t do this otherwise.
I wish I could talk to her, call her, let her explain. But another part of me is terrified that if I did talk to her, she wouldn’t be able to explain anything, and I’d know once and for all that I was wrong about her.
I can’t be wrong about her. She’s my baby sister. She’s not evil.
Rafael’s hands come down on either side of my neck, thumbs rubbing slow circles in the muscles there. “You have a lot of tension,” he says.
I laugh. “Can’t imagine why.” His fingers feel heavenly, though. I close my eyes and barely hold back a sigh. “How long are you two here for?” They got in this morning, but Rafael has been with Adam the whole time in the makeshift office. Adam didn’t go back when he was supposed to a few days ago. Something about a more “peaceful environment” here, but I have a sneaking suspicion he stuck around to keep an eye on me.
Sarah came with Rafael. I was looking forward to spending time with her again, but . . . well.
“We’re leaving. I won’t risk being in the same place as you for long, not after what happened before. Though I would rather keep you with me.”
He sounds like honey, thick and sweet and earthy. I know he’s flirting with me, and I can’t help but be pleased. Who knows, maybe I don’t meet the guy from my visions until I’m fifty. What’s wrong with a little flirtation?
Rafael’s hands guide me around until I’m facing him. I can feel the lines of him, leaning in close, brushing against me. He pushes a strand of hair off my face, tracing his fingers down my cheek and lingering on my earlobe as he tucks the hair back.
And then, so suddenly I startle, his lips are against mine. I feel like time has slowed down, but not in a dreamy, romantic way. Though I’ve idly daydreamed kissing him a few times, I can’t seem to figure this out. I wonder what I should be doing—whether I ought to move my lips, or use my tongue, what I ought to do with my hands—and then I realize that if I’m standing here with his lips against mine, wondering these things, I am probably not feeling the way a girl should during her first kiss.
