LITMIR.BIZ

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      EDEN PUTS HER HAND ON MY BACK TO LET ME KNOW where she is as she moves around me in the tiny kitchen. “Thanks for letting me crash last night. The paint smell should be better by now. Speaking of, we should do your place next. The walls are a shade I like to call blindingly depressing white.”

      “Pick something pretty for me.”

      “Of course. Also, how long are you going to stand there, smelling tea packets?”

      “As long as it takes.”

      “Oh!” She snaps her fingers. “We need to go to the Art Institute. Fia’s out of town, right? That means we can go today!”

      I force a smile. I’d rather know where Fia is than be free to go on outings with Eden. But if it means getting out of this place . . . “I’ve been studying up on modernism. I think I have a lot to say.”

      “I just wish you could see people’s faces when you finish waxing eloquent about the force of anger evident in the brushstrokes and then use your cane to walk away.”

      “Ah, but if I could see their faces, it wouldn’t be funny. Stay for tea?”

      “Nah, I’ve gotta go sit in on an interview for a new security guard. His name is Liam. That sounds potentially hot, right?”

      “He’s forty, pockmarked, and pudgy, and will instantly fill the room with so much lust you won’t be able to breathe the whole time you’re in there.”

      “Pessimist. Wait—did you actually see him?” She hesitates, then sees my grin and slaps me lightly on the arm. “Jerk. I’ll come over when I’m done and tell you how blisteringly sexy he turns out to be. Love you. Bye.” The door shuts softly behind her.

      I hum, halfheartedly trying to force myself to see a vision of the guy, just on the off chance it’ll work. Now that Eden’s gone I don’t have to worry about hiding my emotions so that she doesn’t know how scared I am, but I’d rather think about something else anyway.

      I hear the door and almost ask Eden if she forgot something, but no. It’s not her.

      “Hello, James,” I say, taking the kettle off the stove as its shrill song pierces the air. I don’t want him here today. I’ve woken up every day this week with a stress headache. Now my own personal stress headache is here to visit.

      “How do you always know it’s me?” The couch springs creak as he sits, and he’ll mess up my pillows, as usual. He always puts them back wrong.

      “You walk like an elephant.”

      “I do not.”

      “A cocky elephant. And you smell like a boy. You’re filling up my whole room with boy smell, and just when I was about to enjoy my tea, too.” That’s not true. He smells like oranges and midnight. He could be a flavor of tea.

      He laughs, and in his laugh I understand why he works so well with the rest of the women around here. I’m the only one immune to him; being literally blind to his charms comes in handy. Probably why he doesn’t like me. That and he knows I’m more important to Fia than he’ll ever be. Which makes him hate me and want her all the more.

      “Why are you here?” I reach for my mug and set it on the table, then pull a packet out from the tea jar and bring it to my nose. Hmmm, oolong, sweet and green, with a dollop of honey. Still won’t combat the James smell. It’ll linger in here all day, making the muscles at the back of my neck tense up. Eden will rub it for me, but not as well as Fia used to. I’ll ask James if she can visit when she gets back.

      And I’ll hate him because Fia can only come if he says so.

      “Do you need any help?” he asks. I roll my eyes. I practiced for months when we were younger, Fia coaching me so I could get it just right. She was my mirror back then. Anyway, James isn’t here to help me. I won’t ask him again why he’s come. I’ll ignore it until he bursts.

      I sit at the table with my hands wrapped around the mug as the tea steeps, calmly pretending that it doesn’t bother me that he’s here, that I’m not terrified they’ve figured out I lied to Keane.

      “Did you know?” His voice is rough with barely concealed anger.

      My stomach flutters with fear. He could be talking about something else. “Did I know what? You forget I’m not a Reader, James. Your thoughts, thankfully, are a complete mystery to me.”

      “Did you know Fia would get sent on the hit?”

      I let out a breath, lean back heavily into my chair. Oh, Fia, Fia, what have they done with you this time? “I never know anything,” I snarl. “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know. I see. And the seeing with Fia is never, ever accurate, because she’s constantly shifting things in her own favor and everything changes around her all the time.”

      “So you had no idea she’d get picked for this job.”

      They don’t know that I lied. Which means I’m safe, but Fia isn’t. “Why would you send her? What purpose can it possibly serve? You know how fragile she is!”

      One of the chairs smashes to the ground and I flinch. I didn’t hear him get up. He can move silently when he wants to, and it frightens me.

      “You’re the one who said this Adam needed to be taken out.”

      “And you sent Fia? How could you do that? I never said Fia needed to do it! I watch for threats to your father’s best interests, like you told me to. Adam was a threat. A huge, massive, all-consuming threat. Don’t you think that merits more than a seventeen-year-old girl?” How could they? How could they send Fia? After what it did to her last time . . .”

      “My father thought it was the perfect real-world test for Fia. You had to have seen this coming. Can you see how she’s going to be when she gets back? Do you have any idea whether or not she’s in danger?”

      I can feel him leaning in, too close to my bubble. He is heat and energy and anger. This is what I understand about him that the other girls don’t. Everything about James underneath his looks is anger. Fia says you can lie with your thoughts and emotions, but only the surface ones. And I never see surface.

      “Well, I know she doesn’t die.” I narrow my eyes, daring him to challenge me on that. Death was my first vision. My own death was the vision that nearly destroyed Fia before. It’s the reason we’re here, the reason Fia is Keane’s puppet. The reason she isn’t safe.

      I will see a world in which she is safe if it’s the last thing I do. “You tell me the second you see something with Fia. If anything happens to her . . .”

      I take a sip of my tea, pray he can’t see my hand trembling, and raise an eyebrow. “If anything happens to her, I’ll never have to see for you again because there will be nothing left in the world I care about.”

      “You’re not the only one who cares about her.”

      “Do your lies really work with the Readers and the Feelers? Because I’m just a lowly Seer, and I know you’re not even fooling yourself.”

      His phone rings, and the elephant feet are back, stomping to the door. “Screw you, Annabelle.”

      “No, but thank you for offering.” I smile darkly as he slams the door behind him. And then I lean my head on the table next to my mug and cry. Why did they send her? What did she do? How can I watch out for her on paths I can’t see?

      FIA’S MAD. I CAN FEEL

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