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I start to move my hand, embarrassed, but he grabs hold of my wrist, pulls it around his waist toward his back so that I have to climb on the bed or fall over it. “Annie,” he says, and now it sounds like a question, and I can feel the same question burning through me. He brings my hand up, brushes his lips across my wrist, and I crawl against him, my shoulder beneath his arm, my head in the curve of his neck and shoulder.
My own lips find his skin there, and I realize I want to feel him. I want to taste him, I want to know this strange new Cole, this warm and soft in the night Cole. I put my palm against his cheek and he leans his face into it, then shifts his body, arm wrapped around my waist pulling me on top of him.
“Annie,” he says, and this time it is a sigh that I seal with my lips against his. They’re full, almost hot against my own, and I can taste my name on them, taste how he sees me in the way his mouth moves across mine, lips gentle and searching. Then he rolls, flipping me onto my back beneath him, his chest and stomach and hips hovering just over mine, his lips so close to mine I can feel the air between us, charged like the moment before a thunderstorm breaks. I cannot stand it, cannot stand this tension, so I arch my back and wrap my hands behind his neck, pulling him down to me.
He makes no sense, this boy with velvet-soft skin, lips that promise nothing and everything and make me forget that anything exists except this space we’re in. A space that is getting smaller, tightening around us, wrapping us together in a puzzle of arms and legs that I don’t ever want to solve.
“Annie,” he says, and it’s a question again, aching and hopeful, and I don’t know the answer, I only know how I feel and how I want to keep feeling, so I pull him closer, and then—
Sadie screams.
Cole lets out a heavy breath, his weight on me no longer tense as he relaxes his muscles and drops, then rolls to the side.
“What?” I say, flustered, my heart racing. “What’s wrong, Sadie?”
She takes a gasping breath. “I saw it. I saw it. I’ve never seen myself older, and now I know why. I’m going to die. I’m already dead.” She dissolves into shuddering sobs and I sit on the edge of the bed, helpless, not wanting to go to her and accidentally touch her, make it worse.
“How?” I whisper.
“It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. You can’t help. I’m dead.”
I sink into myself, feeling useless. Then I sit up straighter. I’m not useless. I can take care of her. I will. “I can help. I know exactly how you feel. I’ve seen myself dead, too. Three years ago, I was supposed to be shot in the head. And I’m here with you.”
“Your sister changed it?”
“Yes.” I try to sound as hopeful and sure as I can. “She did. So we can change this.”
Sadie lies back down, the bed creaking beneath her. “Your sister is the one who makes it happen. Nothing is going to change. I’m going back to sleep.”
“Sadie, I—”
“Leave me alone.”
Cole’s hand comes down on my shoulder, and I follow him into the bathroom.
“We’re not fixing it, then,” he says.
“We might be—she didn’t tell us what she saw, maybe—”
“Annie.”
I put my h
ands over my face, then sit on the edge of the bath. “Okay. Okay. Obviously this isn’t working. We need to try something else. I think we need to tell Rafael, bring him in. He has resources. He could send Sadie out of the country, somewhere remote.”
“I don’t trust him not to take advantage of Sadie’s ability.”
“Neither do I. Not after the way he let Sarah fall apart. But he’s not going to let Keane get Sadie. He’ll get her somewhere safe.”
I wait for Cole to argue, but he sits on the floor next to my legs, then leans his head against them. It feels so open, so vulnerable it’s an actual pain in my chest. I rest my hand on his head, feel his hair, coarse with a hint of curl, between my fingers.
“If you think it’s best,” he says.
I try to laugh, but I can’t quite manage. “I have no idea what’s best. But I think it’s our only option.”
Rafael wastes no time. The next afternoon we meet him at a small airport.
“Annie, bella, I’ve missed you.” He kisses my cheeks and I try to smile but I can’t.
