CHAPTER TEN

"It's like it's happening all over again," Caden whispers beside me. He's talking about Before.

And it does feel that way: Sarah, lying pale on Katherine's couch, refusing to wake up; Katherine bending over her, checking her temperature. It feels like time has put us on a horrid loop, laughing as we repeat the same things over and over – as we make the same mistakes, fight the same battles. Watch the same deaths.

"She just fainted?" Katherine asks, still hovering over Sarah.

Caden looks sideways at me for a second and our eyes meet, a silent conversation running between us. "Yes," Caden says before I can respond. "I mean, she was looking a little tired, but I didn't expect her to just collapse. Has she been sleeping?"

"As far as I know. Where were you?"

"Just leaving Sarah's biological father's house."

Katherine looks up for a second. "You went? How did that go?"

"Well," I reply, and it's only half a lie. "He was happy to see her."

Katherine smiles, but a sadness lingers behind it. Then she sighs, stands up. "Sarah will be fine. It seems she just needs time to recover. From what exactly, we'll find out when she wakes."

I stand silently as Katherine leaves the room. When I'm sure she's gone, I look to Caden. "Why did you lie?" I ask. "There's no reason for us not to tell her what's going on."

"Think about it, Melissa–"

"Maya."

"Think about it, Maya. You've just discovered you have powers, that your father is an Anarkk – or at least an assumed Anarkk – and then you realise that you might be one as well. That the reason you fainted is proof you are one. Would you want everyone to know about it? Wouldn't you want to be in control of who finds out?"

"I would," I say. "But Katherine's different. She's not exactly going to kick her out of the house if she finds out Sarah's an Anarkk – and a mild one at that."

"I don't think there's such thing as a 'mild' Anarkk. You either believe in the end or you don't. There's no fence sitting when it comes to the survival of humanity."

I shrug. "Maybe," I say, because he may not have hope in Sarah, but I still do. I just can't imagine the girl I was once so close with could ever be capable of such immoral beliefs. Nor could I ever truly believe that the father I grew up with was lying to me. How could he do that? How could I have missed something so huge?

I stop myself before the questions go any further. It's thoughts like these that threaten to tear apart your soul.

"Are you okay?" Caden asks, reaching out to me.

"I'm fine," I reply offhandedly, taking the smallest of steps away as the reminder, Don't get too close, starts up in my brain, repeating over and over like an annoying tune I've got stuck in my head.

He doesn't look hurt like I thought he would, just confused, and the emotion is quickly buried beneath a mask. "If that were true, you wouldn't be staring into thin air. And this morning has changed a lot of things. You'd be crazy if weren't at least slightly upset or confused about it."

"I think upset is a bit of an understatement," I admit softly, because I feel numb, and numbness is my body's protective blanket. I slip underneath and draw the edges up over my head whenever I'm threatened by deeper, darker emotions, and it keeps them at bay. "But hey, enough about me. How are you doing?"

Caden brushes the question away. "I'm fine. Can't wait for school tomorrow."

"I do miss the homework." I say, only it comes out a lot more sincere than I planned.

"Wait – really?" He raises an eyebrow.

I laugh. "No, not really. Sometimes maybe – when I want to take my mind off things. Maths can be very good for that. But I certainly don't miss anything else – especially not the people."

"I think you'll find things will be different this time around, now that you no longer have a disease."

"I know, but it annoys me. Before they wouldn't go near me, yet now I'm fine because I've swapped back and I look like another person. It's like I have to change myself to fit in."

"You haven't changed yourself. You've become yourself. The way you looked before, the disease – that was the lie. This is the real you."

"Then tell me why it feels so fake," I say, locking my eyes on his. "Tell me why I feel like I'm putting on an act every minute of every day."

"You've been Melissa for a long time – all your life, really. You can't expect to just slip back into this life like you never left."

I let out a breath. "I wish I could."

After a minute, Caden speaks, his voice breaking through the quiet. "You don't deserve this," he says.

I laugh humourlessly. "No one does. I'm just the one who got stuck with it. I'm the unlucky choice of fate."

He cocks his head slightly to one side. "You believe in fate?

"I don't know. I'd like to. I think it'd be nice, knowing that there is only one future – that nothing we do will change it. We wouldn't have to worry about anything if we knew we couldn't change the outcome."

"And you believe this even though you receive prophetical visions prompting you to change the future?"

"Well, first off, I've never actually changed the future before – my visions always come true. And secondly, I never said I believed in fate. I said I'd like to."

"But if something bad was destined to happen, wouldn't you want to change it?"

"Sure, but I wouldn't be able to, and therefore, I wouldn't have to worry about it."

"So you're saying you'd just let it be? What if someone's fate was to die?"

"Everyone dies," I say maybe a little too quickly. I hold my breath, but Caden's question acts like the trigger and my vision rushes in like a bullet:

The darkness pooling in the corners, the blood pooling on the floor, the grief pooling in my heart.

Leave me alone! I shout at the vision. Leave me alone!

But it won't go. It smashes into me again.

Violent tears, coursing down my cheeks. Black eyes, piercing my soul. The glint of something dark and dangerous in the man's hand. Movement behind him, like another person in the shadows.

Stop! I tell it. Please, just stop!

A black-coated figure. A scream echoing around the room. My hands, stained scarlet with blood that isn't my own. Words, words: "How could you?! How could you do this?!"

"Melissa!" Caden says. He's got his hands on my upper arms, forcing me to look at him. My vision is blurry. "Melissa, it's okay. Calm down, it's okay."

"Melissa?" Katherine asks, rushing into the room, her eyes wide with alarm. When I look at her, she blurs.

"It's okay," Caden repeats.

The vision lets go of me then, slithering back into the darkness of my mind, and I collapse to pieces. I shake my head. "It's not okay," I say, and I realise there are tears welling in my eyes. "I'm not okay." I take a deep breath, trying to calm my panicked breathing. "I was screaming, wasn't I?"

"I could hear you from the other room," Katherine says. "What happened?"

I can't say it. I can't tell them. "I..." The words don't come.

"It was like you could see something I couldn't," Caden says. "A ghost?"

"No, we would have felt it," Katherine replies for me. "It was a vision, wasn't it?"

I don't know what to do. They have me cornered. How do I hide this from them?

I nod.

Katherine breathes deeply before pulling me over to a couch and sitting me down. Caden stands over her shoulder, eyes filled with worry. I can't look at him. "You need to tell us what it was about," she says.

I shake my head. "I can't."

"You can. How long have you been having this vision?"

"A couple days," I murmur. "I don't have to be asleep anymore to receive them."

"Your abilities are stronger. Is it about a future event?"

I nod.

"Then you have to tell us. What's going to happen, Melissa?"

"It's Maya," I whisper, but I don't really care anymore – and neither does anyone else. I'm just delaying the inevitable.

"What's going to happen?"

I let out a shaky breath. "There's a room. It's dark and freezing cold. I can't really see much. There's a – there's a–"

"Breathe, Melissa. You can do this."

"There's a person – a man in a black coat. Most of his face is in shadow. I don't recognise him."

"What else?"

"I can see blood – lots of it. It's all over the floor. There's some on my hands. I'm screaming. Sometimes it's just a scream, sometimes I say words like, 'How could you?' Someone's been killed. I can see their body."

"Do you know who?"

I shake my head. "No. It's too dark."

Katherine exhales. "And that's it?"

I swallow, then nod. "That's it.

-:-:-:-:-

Katherine has a long phone call after that. I can hear her by the phone, talking in urgent tones. I'm not sure who she's talking too, and I don't bother to ask.

Eventually I get tired of listening to her whispered speech, cutting through the movie Caden and I have put on to pass the time. "I'm going to my room," I announce. "Might try to get some rest before dinner. Today's been..."

"Tiring?" Caden says.

"I was going to say exhausting, but yeah."

He nods. "I'll see you in a couple hours then."

I head for my room but I don't go to my bed. Instead, I slip out the window and climb up onto the roof, determined not to use telekinesis. I'm sick of my powers.

On the way up, I scratch myself pretty badly on a piece of protruding metal, but I don't climb back down. I ignore the pain and force myself up onto the tiled roof, a red line visible on my palm, blood smeared across the skin.

Another thing I'm sick of: blood.

I make my way to the west side of the roof and sit crossed-legged. Come sunset, the bleeding has stopped and I watch as the golden sun escapes from the clouds, spewing its orange light over a city that hasn't seen its light all day. Funny how its first appearance today will also be its last. Minutes later, it smacks up against the horizon, and the earth swallows it bit by bit.

From one obstacle to the next. Sounds a lot like my life.

I lie back down on the roof, the wind playing games with my hair, tugging it free from my ponytail and twirling around and around against my skin. "What happens tomorrow?" I wonder aloud, posing my question to the quiet suburbia, to the sinking sun, to the sky. Am I ready for this? For school? For Sarah to wake up? For the inevitable inquiries into my vision?

The world is quiet save for the distant rush of peak hour traffic and a lone bird, calling into the dusk. No answers here.

I close my eyes.

A/N

Hey everyone! Sorry for the long wait but I'm on holidays now! So the next chapter should be up sometime next week.

Thanks for being patient with me :)

- Shaye