CHAPTER THREE

"You just don't know when to give up, do you Melissa?" Lauren asks, her eyes dark and hardened. We're in a dark alley in the early hours of the morning. The sun has yet to rise over the horizon, and the world feels dull and cold and dangerous.

Lauren stands only a metre from me, her arms dangling motionlessly by her sides. Her face contains none of the warmth it once had, instead coloured a sickly white, and her eyes look hollow, lifeless.

She is not the Lauren I remember.

"Give up what?" I reply.

"Being normal," she says. "You're never going to be a normal girl. You're never going to live a normal life. Your fate, your future, has been known for a century."

"Half a century," I correct her, and she shakes her head.

"Before the Seer, there was another who foretold your path differently. And he will not rest until his vision has come to pass."

"What path?" I ask, and the wind brushes up against my arms, sending shivers racing down my spine.

She looks me dead in the eye. "You should ready yourself, Melissa. The future is near."

I open my eyes to heavy darkness, fighting hard to keep my breathing under control. Lauren's face, dark and cold, hovers over me in the blackness and I squeeze my eyes shut. You're not real, you're not real, you're not real, I repeat in my mind. It was a nightmare, nothing more.

Just then, I hear a noise rattling throughout the house. I go rigid, freezing under my blankets as my eyes lock onto the dark entrance to my room. The sound of footsteps, of creaking floorboards, draws closer and closer, and I slowly slip out from under the covers of my bed and rise to feat, holding my palm out so I can use my powers quickly if need be. The noise is almost upon me now and I tense, preparing myself for the confrontation.

A figure emerges from the darkness, and I freak. "Melissa, don't!" they whisper-yell. But it's too late. Panic sends my abilities into overdrive, raw power surging down my arm and into my palm, and the person shoots back, slamming into the wall behind them and falling to the floor.

Instantly, I realise my mistake.

It's Sarah.

"Shit," I say, dashing over to where she lies in a heap on the floor. "What were you thinking?" I whisper, and slowly help her away from wall and into a standing position.

She holds a hand to the back of her head and winces, swaying slightly on her feet. "I thought no one was awake. I certainly didn't think you were going to freak out on me and blast me with your magical powers."

"Sorry. You know I'm not good at controlling them."

I help her into the room and onto her bed, thankful that she's not too badly injured. "You owe me an explanation," I say, flicking on the light before moving to sit opposite her on my own bed.

"I know," she replies. "Just give me a minute."

"Nothing's broken, right?" I ask, guilt snaking through me.

"I don't think so," she says, and my muscles loosen in relief. "I feel like my entire body is throbbing, though. I think I must be pretty badly bruised."

"Well, that's your fault."

"How so? Need I remind that it was your powers that flung me into that wall?"

"If you hadn't disappeared for a day and tried to creep back in in the middle of the night, this never would have happened! I was worried, you know. I spent half the night waiting for you out on the front steps."

"You did?"

I shrug. "So where have you been? And why didn't you tell us where you were going?"

She shakes her head, looking down at her hands. "At first I just wanted to get away. I said some...stuff the other night, and I wasn't ready to face up to you and explain it."

"But you're ready now?" I ask, interrupting.

She meets my eyes for a second before looking away. "I don't know. I hope so." I give her a few seconds and she continues. "I met up with Ethel."

"Ethel? Why? How come she didn't let us know you were with her?"

"I asked her not to. Look, Melissa, you're not gonna like what I say next. You may not even want to speak to me after this. But all I ask is that you don't judge me too harshly."

My heart thumps a little harder. "What did you do, Sarah?" I ask, and my voice comes out low and full of dread.

She takes a deep breath. "I've been lying to you. About everything." She watches me for a response, but all I can do is stare. I don't know what to think. Surely this is a joke?

Sarah's face contracts painfully, and I know that it isn't. "You know when I told you everything that had happened to me since we were children?" I nod, my gut twisting. "Well, it's all made up. Katherine helped me to come up with it because I needed a back story, something to tell you when you eventually asked."

"Katherine knows?"

Sarah nods glumly. "Everyone except you and Caden. Even Patrick knows...in part. I was going to tell you the other night but then I freaked and backed out. I went to Ethel for help, to ask her what I should do, and she told me to tell you. She said that you deserved the truth."

I swallow, wanting to be strong, wanting not to react harshly. But all I can seem to think is, Sarah's been lying to me, all this time she's been lying to me. I let out a breath and try to relax my thoughts. "Just tell me," I say.

"I–"

Just then, a scream pierces the night, echoing around the house, down the halls, in my bones. I leap to my feet, the voice awfully familiar.

"What was that?" Sarah asks, looking up at me in a mixture of fear and worry.

"Not what. Who," I say.

Realisation dawns on Sarah and I at the same time, and Sarah's eyes grow wide. "Caden," she says. In an instant, I'm sprinting out the room, my fear so strong that it may as well form an actual presence beside me, bashing repeatedly into my chest. I run down the hall to Caden's room, focused on nothing but getting to him, reaching him. The sound of my blood pumping through my veins is so loud in my ears that it drains out everything but that one thought.

"Caden!" I yell as I approach his room. But when I look inside, he's not there. My breathing quickens, my palms slick with sweat. Where is he? Gasping, I rush around the house, looking in all the rooms as Sarah fights to keep up with me.

When we've looked everywhere, she says, "The street! The voice came from the street." With one last surge of hope, I dash to the front door, yanking it open and spilling out into the night.

And sure enough, there he is, on his knees before the road. "Caden!" I shout, running down the steps and over to him. He's shivering in the icy night air, and he stares down at a spot on the pavement, his eyes haunted and pained. There's a hand over his heart, and his nails dig into his skin.

I drop to the ground next to him, simultaneously relieved and terrified. "Caden, what happened? What can you feel?"

He squeezes his eyes shut, wincing, and says, "My heart... It feels like...a knife...in my heart."

Sarah approaches from his other side, but I look up at her and say, "Get Katherine. Quickly." She nods, running back into the house.

My heart is beating so fast I fear it might explode. "Do you know anything about why or how this is happening or who it's happening to?" I ask, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He shakes his. "I can just feel it – it's near. The future is near."

You should ready yourself, Melissa...The future is near...

I freeze. "What did you say?"

"I said they're near. The person is near."

I close my eyes for a second, pushing all thoughts of my nightmare from my mind. "Is it still going?" I ask, and my voice wobbles. "The...the pain."

He nods weakly, his breathing laboured and shaky. "But it's fading."

I take a deep breath, doing my best to relax myself. "We need to call the police."

"No," he says, his back straightening, his eyes suddenly wide and alarmed. "We can't. We don't know what's happening or where it's happening. We don't even know who it's happening to. We can't just tell the police we think someone's been stabbed in the heart."

"But we have to do something. Someone might be dying as we speak. They might be getting murdered."

Caden shakes his head. "We ca–" He stops.

I frown. "Caden?"

"It's stopped. The pain's stopped."

I go still, goose bumps rising on my arms as if my skin can feel the evil emanating from the darkness. "Is that good or bad?"

He looks down the road. "I don't know," he replies softly.

"Caden!" someone calls, and there's Katherine, rushing out of the house. "What happened?"

"Nothing," he says, "I'm fine." He gets to his feet and I allow the hand I had been resting on his shoulder to fall to my side before standing after him.

"Sarah said you were feeling someone's pain," she says as she comes to a stop. "Was it bad this time?"

Caden nods.

Katherine stiffens, growing tense and alert. She looks back and forth down the road, her eyes searching for any sign of life. "Come on," she says, her tone urgent. "We need to get inside."

"Why?" I ask, as she turns me around with a light hand on my back.

"Caden only feels extreme pain. We have no idea who could be out here. It might just be a common house murder, or it could be something worse."

Her words make me shiver. "What's worse than murder?"

My mother looks at me, her concerned eyes latching on to mine. She doesn't say anything, but a message seems to pass between us, travelling along an invisible thread.

Patrick. It could be Patrick.

When we get inside, Katherine turns around and closes the door, bolting it shut. "Tell me, why were you outside again?" she asks Caden. I stand still as she moves away from the door and starts rolling down all the curtains we didn't close before bed.

He has an uneasy look in his eyes as he watches her lock up the house. "I needed some air, and I didn't want to wake everyone."

She nods, passing by us as she heads over into the kitchen and begins winding down one of the blinds. "Next time, stay inside. It's okay if you wake us, just don't venture outside. Patrick knows about your powers. He could use it to lure you out."

"Patrick did this?" Caden asks, and Katherine, now finished, comes to a stop before us.

"I sincerely hope not," she says. "For all our sakes."

-:-:-:-:-

The next morning during breakfast, after I sit and listen to Sarah lie about where she'd been all yesterday – "I just hung out around the shops; I needed some time alone to get used to the idea of being home-schooled" – I break the news that I'm changing my name.

"To what?" she asks.

"Maya," I say, meeting her gaze. "Your middle name."

She nods. "You do what you have to do, I get it."

"You do?" I ask.

"Of course. I'd do the same. And besides, technically it's your middle name now."

I'm surprised she's taking it so well. Maybe she feels as though she deserves it, as though this is her punishment for lying to me about whatever it is she's lying to me about. I make a mental note to talk to her about it later when no one else is around.

"We're all going to start calling Melissa, Maya, so we can get used to it," Katherine says to Sarah. "We want to avoid a slip-up at all costs."

Sarah nods. "I can do that." And the conversation moves on.

After breakfast, I head into the garage. The space is a mess, various battered objects lying strewn about. They rest amongst several broken cups and plates, as well as other things, forgotten and broken, their pieces scattered across the floor.

I focus on a pillow, resting haphazardly in the middle of the room, before closing my eyes. Katherine once taught me to draw upon powerful emotions before using my powers, but now that I've swapped back, she's had to help me make some adjustments. Instead, I simply visualise what I want the pillow to do, holding the image in mind lightly.

There's a sudden whoof, and then silence. I open my eyes.

At first, the pillow's nowhere to be seen, but then a moment later, I find it lying in the corner on the far side of the garage. I had tried to get it to levitate a few inches of the ground and instead it must have been flung across the room.

I let out a breath, fighting to keep my frustration at bay. I've been working on controlling my abilities for two weeks now and there still hasn't been an improvement. I've tried every method in the book in order to reduce their strength, and nothing seems to be working. What happened to the days when I trained in order to get my abilities to respond? Now they seem to have a mind of their own.

If there's anything I can be thankful for, however, it would be the fact that I don't possess all the powers I once had. When Patrick tried to steal my abilities from me on That Day, he was mostly unsuccessful. But he did get away with my aerokinesis and a mind control ability I barely even used.

I suppose I should thank him. Without realising it, he's made my life easier.

I try a few more times to get the pillow to levitate, but each attempt is unsuccessful. Earlier this morning, Katherine told us we'd start at school on Monday. That's two days away. Two days to somehow wrangle my powers into complacency. It's not possible.

The thought of school sends nerves skating throughout my body. It's been so long since I've had the opportunity to be normal that I don't even remember how. What do normal people even spend their time doing? What do they talk about? How do they act? I know Sarah and Caden would have the answers to these questions, but I'm too embarrassed to ask, and that leaves me with no option but to wing it.

Lord help me.

Just then, there's a knock at the door. "Is it safe to come in?" Katherine asks.

I nod before realising she can't see me. "Yeah, it's safe," I say.

The door swings open and she enters, closing it behind her. "I know how you must be feeling," she says as she approaches me.

Really? Enlighten me.

"It's tough to cope knowing that Sarah wants to be home-schooled because of the way she looks. But you have to know, this isn't your fault. It's not your fault that her face is associated with freezing weather and death."

I sigh. I know she means well, but the truth is, her words are of no comfort. I have more on my plate than just the guilt of Sarah choosing to be home-schooled. I have to deal with the memories that keep coming back to me in my sleep, the nightmares of Lauren that seem to follow me into the day, the unanswered questions that swirl around and around my mind without end, and my powers, which are never going to be controllable, certainly not before school starts. And now, on top of all that, I have to worry about Patrick coming back to kill us, and Sarah's words, to which she still hasn't offered me an explanation: "I've been lying...about everything."

"Thanks," I say. It's not Katherine's fault that she doesn't know half the stuff that's been happening to me. I've been keeping a lot to myself.

Suddenly, images and scenes flash by inside my mind, like a reel of darkness and pain: an expansive room filled with freezing air; a dark and intimidating man, his eyes as black as his coat; a pool of blood, expanding slowly across the floor; my fear, my pain, pulsing like a second heartbeat; and screaming – so much screaming.

I gasp, my pulse suddenly twice its normal speed, and the images dissipate.

"Melissa?" Katherine asks, her voice overflowing with worry and fright.

"It's nothing," I say. "I'm fine. It's nothing."

But it's not nothing. It's a vision – coming to me while I'm awake now that my powers are so much stronger – and it's the same one I've been having for weeks. The one I've been working so hard on keeping a secret. The one I've come to dread – come to fear.

It's a vision of Caden's death.