CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

When Renée returns the next morning, it's to a much emptier house – so empty, in fact, that I feel it inside me, like an absence so great it's transformed into something real and tangible. An ache in the pit of my stomach, a hole filled with phantom pain. Even after a long sleep, Sarah's voice rings in my mind, clear as day, as though the words left her mouth only minutes ago: You should know, lying doesn't suit you.

And the worst part is, I can't even deny it.

I said I was sorry. And it was a lie.

I sit in silence at the dining table, finishing off a late breakfast, when I hear the knock at the door. Katherine opens up and lets her in. "Renée," she says. "Thanks again for coming."

I stand and quickly clean up my things. My hands fumble and I nearly smash my cup in the sink. Renée comes around the corner a moment later. "Good to see you again, Melissa," she says. "Should we get started?"

Just like that. After what the last visions did – destroying my relationship with Sarah and turning the past I shared with my father into a lie – I almost don't want to witness another ever again.

But I go through with it. Renée sets up at the dining table this time as there's no one around to occupy it. The process moves quickly; before I know it, the silver mark is on my wrist and the vial of black liquid waits in my hand to be consumed.

"Go ahead," she says.

I don't hesitate. I drink.

And a few moments later, everything fades away.

-:-:-:-:-

The first vision comes.

It is not the one I want.

I watch from the edge of a cold wide room, filled to the brim with darkness – a scene so familiar by now that I tense up instinctively, knowing what comes next. In the centre stands the man in a black coat, eyes as dark as his clothing. Keon, I finally realise, recognising him from a previous vision. The same receptacle beside him, the same blue flames flickering in it's basin, creating harsh, ugly shadows.

Suddenly, my perspective changes.

I'm standing beside the receptacle now, able to see Keon through the dancing flames. Suddenly there's movement, so fast I barely register it happening. And then the scream comes. It's a word.

No.

I'm moving, running, tears in my eyes. And then there's blood on my hands, pain in my chest like a knife shoved through my heart. Looking back, I see something glint dangerously in Keon's hands and mistake it for a gun. "What have you done?!" I yell.

But in the shadows behind him, something moves – someone moves. They step forward, travelling closer to the baptismal font, and the light cascades onto their face, tinging their skin blue. One hand is still raised, palm facing forward. The other rests palm up, a silver orb hovering above it that morphs and changes into various shapes with the fluidity of liquid.

Lauren.

And suddenly the scene rearranges itself in my mind, like the pieces of a puzzle, falling into place. I see the object in Keon's hand, which is in fact not a gun but a dark stone. I see Lauren stepping forward, the silver hovering over her palm – an ability, no doubt. I recall the movement, the sharp silver pieces that whizzed past on Keon's other side and landed in Caden's chest.

And I realise:

Keon doesn't kill Caden.

Lauren does.

The vision dissipates into darkness. In the dark, a new vision quickly begins to take shape at the command of my thoughts and emotions.

I step into light.

"It hurts," Lauren says, seated on the end of a small metal-framed bed. She's in a small, one-windowed room. Save for a bed, IV drip and monitor, it's empty. Across from her, Keon watches appraisingly.

"What did you do to me?" When she looks up at him, her eyes are bloodshot and welling with tears. There's a bruise on her cheek bone, a scabbed over cut on her forehead.

"I saved you."

"From what?"

"From death."

She holds a hand to her heart as if it pains her, digging her fingers into her skin like she wants to rip it out. "Why?"

He doesn't reply straight away. "We're going to be doing some more testing before we bring you out for training with the rest. We might have to make some...adjustments."

"Adjustments? To me?"

"Nothing too severe, I promise. In the mean time, you'll receive meals in here three times a day. We need you to regain your strength."

Keon turns and heads for the door. Before he leaves however, Lauren blurts, "Was it worth it?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Was it worth it. Saving me."

He seems to consider it for a second. Then he says, "That remains to be seen," and leaves.

The vision disintegrates and the images rearrange into a new scene. Suddenly Lauren is dressed all in black and standing in a large concrete room. Her face has healed and her eyes have hardened, darkened. At the far end of the room is a target and she faces it, ignoring all else.

A woman stands to her right, arms crossed. Suddenly, the doors open. When the woman turns her head, her short, silver hair barely moves, as if it's been gelled into position.

Keon walks into the room. "Cristin," he says, acknowledging the woman as he comes to stand beside her.

The two of them look to Lauren. "Go ahead, Lauren," Cristin says.

Lauren adjusts her footing and raises her arms, palms facing skyward. Slowly, a ball of silver liquid grows in the air above her hands, it's surface rippling and changing. When it's the size of a soccer ball, she changes the position of her hands, drawing them closer to her chest and spinning them so her palms face outward.

Then, in one, deadly movement, she thrusts forward.

As the silver liquid flies through the air, it transforms into a dozen razor sharp spikes. Barely a second later, they tear into the target with lethal force. Some go all the way through, getting lodged into the wall behind it. Almost all hit the bullseye.

Cristin claps her hands together excitedly. "Isn't she brilliant!"

Keon just stares. A moment later, he turns and heads out of the room, the doors banging shut behind him.

"I think that means he's impressed," Cristin says.

And Lauren throws a silver spike at her heart.

I recoil, horrified, and the scene vanishes. In the silence, I find that my heart is beating fast. It takes all my effort to get my emotions and thoughts back under control in preparation for the next vision.

Finally, it comes – the vision I had been aiming for all along.

The nineteenth century room, the ornate dresser, the woman, eyes closed as she receives the first prophecy.

For a second time, I witness her waking up and calling out. I see the man – John – enter, hear the same conversation, re-watch her frantic drawing. Again, she stands up, hands him the drawing.

"What is this?" he asks.

"The Prophecy," she replies.

Without wasting any time, I approach the page, the scene zooming in on the picture drawn in ink. It's messy, with harsh, jagged lines, and for a minute I don't comprehend what I'm looking at. But as I grow more familiar with the image, I see all the details, all the things a quick glance would miss.

My breath gets lodged in my throat.

It's a drawing of rolling landscape. There's a platform in the centre, and on it there are people. Most are unrecognisable but two stand out. First, Keon, standing near the centre, looking up. Beside him, a large ring is set on a pedestal. It projects a beam that shoots upwards and ends in what appears to be a tear in the sky. A second person stands near Keon, her eyes closed. Her face is shocking but undeniable: Kalea.

And the more I look, the more I see. Like the zapping energy, shooting in all directions away from the central beam, which I originally mistook for stray pen lines. And the base upon which they stand, which is not just a platform, but a rooftop, edged with gutters and drains for stormwater. It takes me even longer to realise that there's a third person I recognise in the drawing, and by then the vision is already starting to fade away.

But I see it. Clear as day.

A girl, slumped on the ground, clothing torn and burned and bloody, eyes staring lifelessly up at the sky.

A girl whose face I couldn't possibly mistake.

Because it's mine.

-:-:-:-:-

When Renée has left – "And I won't be coming back – not even if the world is ending" – I pull Katherine back into the dining room to talk. I tell her everything.

"She needs to be stopped," she says, meaning Lauren.

I shake my head. "Of course but – the prophecy." The image of my lifeless body comes to me unbidden. I shiver.

My mother takes my hand. "A possible prophecy. There's two. Which means they're only possible outcomes." She pulls back. "And anyway – that's another issue for another day."

I take a breath and nod. She's right, after all. I've been seeing so much of the future recently that I've forgotten I live in the present.

"Any ideas?" she asks me. Meaning Lauren again. Lauren, who can conjure up silver with her hands and transform it into a deadly weapon. Any ideas? What a ridiculous question.

"She's going to kill Caden," I say, and his name almost gets lost on the way up my throat.

"Melissa, I need you to focus. She's out of control."

"I'm not hurting her. She was my–" I stop, realising I used past tense. "Is my friend."

"I'm not asking you to, but we can't let your vision come to pass. You're the only one who knows Lauren. You're the only one who can stop her."

It hits me. "Or maybe I'm not."

She looks at me, a question mark painted on her face.

"Lauren has an older brother – Harrison. If anyone can get through to her, it's him."

Katherine frowns. "It's a long shot. We'd have to explain everything to him, which could take a while. We'd also have to find Lauren and figure out how to get her on her own. And then there's still the issue of whether Lauren will even listen to him. He could get hurt."

"Or he won't, and we'll stop Lauren, and save Caden. However you look at it, it's our best bet."

She looks at me for a moment. "Alright. When do you want to do this?"

"Now?"

Katherine leans back in her chair and considers it. She looks exhausted. She looks as though she's running on empty – empty stomached, empty hearted, empty, empty, empty. And she is. And I feel it. This morning was like waking up under the rubble of my former life, heaving aside the pieces, clawing and scrabbling upwards, scratching away the dust and the dark to finally break free into the dull morning. And even then, once I was out, there was still the wreckage around me, the broken down structure of my days. Caden's gone. Sarah's gone.

My father's gone, if he was ever even here. When I used to think of him, I thought of coffee and dad jokes, television and the tan of his skin. Now I just see Thomas in the dying light, with hardened edges and emotionless pits for eyes.

It feels like a dream.

How did my life get so screwed up?

Katherine heaves a sigh. At the end of the day, we push on, we keep going. Because that's all there is. The daughter she raised slammed a door and now we don't know how to get it back open.

"Now it is," she says, and gets up. "I'll drive. Do you remember the way?"

Lauren's house – now Lauren-less. A rare sunny afternoon. The three of us – Lauren, Harrison and I – enjoying ice-cream as we walked there. The brightness of their home, lit not only by the sun, but also by the completeness of their smiles. Deep down, I had been jealous. On the surface, I knew this: it was my first happy afternoon in years.

"Yeah," I say, the memory of the sun warming my thoughts. Just a little. "I remember." 

A/N

Hey everyone! Hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Chapter 25 will be up on the 4th of February. But you can always read it on radish now, along with chapter 26, 27 and 28.

Thanks for reading, 
Shaye x