I watch
Katie’s face fall.
“I’m
sorry,” I say, standing up. “I shouldn’t
have told you. I knew it.” I put my hand over my face. “I’ll just go.”
“No. You can stay,” Katie says, but it’s flat and
monotone.
“I have
nowhere to sleep. All I’m doing is
eating your food. And taking up
space. And making you depressed. Face it, Katie. I’m not helping by staying here. Let me go.”
“Where
will you stay?”
“I….”
“Come to
think of it, I never saw you around anywhere.
You weren’t at the Ceremony. You
weren’t anywhere. Where did you come
from?”
“I
was…I just….”
“Just
what? Where. Did. You. Come. From?”
“The
American Society!” I fling my hands into the air. “You got me!
They flew me here! They wanted me
to investigate! They’re hearing this
right. Now. Are you happy, Kathryn Ann
Wilde? Because I’m not.”
I storm
out the door. The cool air whips my face
and blows my hair around out of my face as I look up at the starry, clear
sky. “Come and get me! I’m done here. I’m freaking done!”
No one,
of course, comes.
My
vision goes black and my hearing shuts down.
I know what’s about to happen.
She walks out the door. She looks at the girl in front of her whose back
is turned. She listens quietly to the
girl’s sobs. She reaches out to touch
the girl’s shoulder and the girl whips around.
She stares in shock at the girl.
My vision comes back. I feel tears streak down my face and start
sobbing. I don’t bother trying to hold
it back. You can’t change the future.
The
wind blows at my back. I hear
footsteps. Just as I assume the girl
from the vision, Katie, reaches out, I whip around. She gapes at me.
“You—your
eye—,” she stammers.
I shrug
and press my lips together. My hands
slap against my thighs as they fall.
“I
heard that all the Seers…but I never thought…”
“Thought
what? Did you just assume that I was
wearing my hair like that as a fashion statement? Well, you thought wrong. But what’s the big deal, right? It’s only the fact that my left iris is STRAIGHT WHITE. No.
Big. Deal,” I shout angrily.
Katie
flushes and backs away, her eyes wide.
But when she speaks, her voice is steady. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just surprised.”
“Well,
Kristen—,” she cuts me off saying that her name is Katie, “you’d better go tell
your buddies about poor little Grace with her ugly old eye. Or does Lilly already know?”
“It’s
Lois. And no, she doesn’t,” Katie says
firmly.
I get
another flash, but this one’s brief.
“By the
way, Melanie’s waking up.”
“Mallory,”
she says. “It’s Mallory.”
Katie ran inside after I told her that. Mallory had woken up and was a bit
disgruntled, but when she remembered what had happened she started crying.
We sit
on the couch, trying to comfort her. She
keeps crying and shaking her head.
“I just
can’t believe he’s gone. He was always
there and now he’s gone. It doesn’t make sense.”
Lois
wraps her arm around Mallory and rubs her shoulder. “I know.
I know. It’ll be alright. I promise.
It’s okay. You’ve got us.”
Mallory
keeps shaking her head.
Scarlett
runs out of the kitchen with a tray of cupcakes.
Mallory
looks up. “You don’t have to fatten me
up, you know. I’m okay.”
“Nonsense,”
Scarlett says. “Cupcakes are good for
you.”
Mallory
takes one and her lips curl upward a teeny bit.
“Okay. Thanks.”
She’s
stopped crying. An improvement.
I walk
into the bathroom to make sure my hair is hanging properly. I stare at my reflection. My eyes are still tinged red from my crying
earlier, and my hair is tangled from the wind.
My cheeks are flushed behind the freckles. I stare at the mirror until my sight goes
blurry.
I shake
my head a bit to break myself from the stare.
Out in the living room, Mallory
is smiling. The thought that she’s
feeling better makes me smile.
But
then, and I don’t know how I didn’t see this coming, the door breaks open.
A man
in all black shoves his way in. He’s got
a captive whose head is covered with a bag.
There’s a gun to the poor person’s head.
He
loads the pistol. “If you ever want to
see her alive again, come with me.”
He
pulls the bag off.
It’s
Luna.
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