LITMIR.BIZ

       ANNIE

       Three Months Before

      

      I’VE BEEN VENTURING OUT MORE NOW THAT RAFAEL got me a white cane. Coming and going as I please is a luxury I intend to take advantage of. It’s strange—for so long I hated seeing the future because it didn’t belong to me. It belonged to Keane. Now I have my own future, and no idea what to do with it. Fia was always supposed to be with me. She’s not.

      I feel lost.

      As I trail my fingers along the hall wall I hear voices. I pause—both are hushed but clearly angry. Taking a few steps forward, I lean near a doorframe and listen.

      “—you know I’m right!” Cole.

      “I don’t! And you don’t know, either. I’m tired of arguing with you.” Sarah sounds exhausted.

      “What about Annie? There’s no reason for her to stay here. She can’t accomplish anything. She sees even less than you do, and she’s a huge target. She needs to be placed somewhere else.”

      I flinch at the tone of his voice. I didn’t think Cole liked me, but I had no idea he wanted me gone that much. Rafael decided not to set me up somewhere else with a real life and a new identity. He wanted me close.

      I was flattered, but lately I’ve realized I’m useless here. It makes me feel pathetic and small, but Cole’s right. There’s no reason for me to stay, other than to be protected.

      I’m tired of needing other people to protect me.

      “That’s not our call,” Sarah says.

      “That’s exactly what I’m talking about! Why isn’t it our call? Why does he get to decide who stays and who goes?”

      “You start bankrolling this operation and you can have more say,” Sarah snaps. Something thuds to the ground, too small for a body, and then Cole swears.

      “What is this?”

      “Give it back.”

      “You’re taking these?”

      She sounds ashamed. “I haven’t started yet.”

      “This is insane, Sarah.”

      “How am I supposed to help if I can’t see enough? Rafael has a source on the inside that says Keane has all his Seers go on Adderall.”

      “He also has girls killed and thrown into the river. Is that our next step?”

      “Aren’t you the one who said we should do whatever we have to, whatever it takes to keep more girls out of his claws? Well, this is my whatever it takes.”

      Something small hits the other side of the wall I’m leaning against and I jump, turning and hurrying back to my room. The last thing I want is for Cole to catch me eavesdropping. I can only imagine what he’d say.

      I flop onto my bed, tormented by futures both seen and unseen. They feel just out of my grasp, as usual.

      “Fia,” I whisper to the empty room, “what should I do?”

      Then something changes. I’m still in the dark. It’s not a vision, it can’t be, I don’t see anything. But I’m not on my bed anymore. It has to be a vision.

      Someone reaches out and laces his fingers through mine and my world blossoms with color—inside the darkness. It’s color and light and life that I feel inside me instead of seeing outside. I’m wild with giddy joy, a warm heat flaring like something long dormant in my heart has finally been switched on.

      His fingers are not much longer than mine, his palm only a bit bigger, rough but warm, and the way our hands fit together …

      Holy crap. I’m in love.

      That’s when I feel my bed underneath me again and realize I’m back in the present.

      I had a vision where someone holds my hand and I know I’m in love with him. It’s the single most romantic thing I have ever experienced.

      And it wasn’t even real.

      But if I saw it—or felt it, really, because I’ve never had a vision where I was me like that, where I couldn’t see—then it has to happen, right? I rub the palm of my right hand with my left thumb, torn between elation and nerves. Love. I can live with the promise of love. I just wish I knew when. And who.

      And, with a sudden sharp ache, I wish more than anything I could tell Eden. It feels wrong to have something like this without her to whisper it to. For a moment I hate Fia for her choice. She not only took herself away from me, she made it impossible for me to ever see my best friend again.

      Someone is going to hold my hand, and I’m going to be thrilled. And no one I love will know.