I watched Dominic study for an hour and a half. We didn't even have an exam or presentation (or even class, given the whole professor having a heart attack thing) in ASL, but he still worked through every exercise in chapter three twice.

What the hell was wrong with him?

"Is there any reason you're still sitting here?" Dominic said after signing something to himself.

I shook my head, even though I was just making sure that my counter-wish had gone through to whoever was supposed to make the talisman work for me. "Just because. Is there any reason you're working on something that wasn't even assigned?"

He looked up from the book. "I know you think sign language is worthless, but I take it seriously."

I didn't respond to that. How could I? I did, in fact, find it boring and useless, and he definitely cared too much about it.

"Do you want to see if we can find anything else with the metal detector? I'm so bored," I said.

"You can go do that. I'm busy," he replied.

"That's not gonna work for me."

"And why not? All you're doing is irritating me."

I hesitated. What was I supposed to tell him? "Look, you don't want to know what the talisman, which has a mind of its own, might do to you."

"Should I mentally prepare to have a heart attack at nineteen?" he asked.

"No." I held up my hands and forced out a small laugh. "I think I fixed that. I'm just trying to make sure that it's working."

He let out a sigh. "You need serious psychiatric help."

That sure was hilarious coming from him, but I smiled anyway. "I'm doing just fine."

Neither one of us spoke for a moment. I wasn't sure why he didn't believe me and, on a bigger scale, why he didn't like me at all, but I was going to find out.

Usually, it wasn't hard to get a read on someone. Jack liked me a little too much and in the wrong way. Sierra just wanted to fit in with the rest of us and stuck her nose where it didn't belong so she could. And while I didn't have Dr. Reed completely figured out, I did know that she loved the archaeological part of her job but not the teaching aspect. And I couldn't blame her there. Dead people were much more interesting than living.

Jack thought I didn't ever challenge myself, but Dominic was exactly that. I had to find out what he hated about me. There wasn't much material to work with since I was a pretty cool person who didn't care what people thought, but I needed to know.

My one goal for the day was supposed to be to get a hold on controlling the talisman, and even though I slightly failed at that, there was still plenty of time to figure it all out as long as no one else found out about it.

"Don't you think I'm safe now? Nothing bad has happened yet," Dominic said as he finally shut his textbook.

"We gotta wait until midnight. I don't want to feel like a murderer for the rest of my life, and as soon as it's tomorrow, whatever happens to you isn't the talisman's fault and therefore my problem," I said.

He laid his head down on his backpack. "I would literally rather be dead right now."

I didn't respond to that. Sorry for trying, dick. Why did Jack want me to care? All it was doing was irritating me.

"Sometimes I wish you didn't ask me about the coin at all. Then we could just go our separate ways and never have to deal with each other."

I raised an eyebrow. "You're not serious, are you? I tried to un-involve you, but you kept finding me everywhere and ruining everything."

"You still think I was trying to? Hell no. It's just that I have these weird feelings that make me do things I don't want to."

Feelings? What were those? "What is that supposed to mean?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."

That had to be a lie. The only feeling that would make someone show up wherever I went would be psychotic lust, and he didn't like me. Unless it was something like what told me to buy the metal detector and dig at the pond.

What if that was it?

"Describe it to me," I whispered with an exhale.

He sat up. "What?"

"Describe the feelings to me. I might understand," I said.

"It's like I know it's going to be more trouble than it's worth, but for some reason, it's like the future doesn't even exist, so I don't have to care about it. And then I have to play catch up to make sure I actually keep my life on track."

The world usually felt like that to me (minus the catching up part), but that summed it up perfectly.

I took out the talisman from my pocket. "Well, I think I know what's doing that. I think something was tired of waiting in the ground for someone to illegally dig it up."

"Lindsay, that's ridiculous."

"So you're stalking me then."

"What? No."

"So then you agree that the talisman is sending its vibes or whatever to both of us?"

"Oh my god. Fine, yeah. I agree."

I smiled. "Then maybe it'll listen to you better."

Before I could convince myself that it was a bad idea, I handed the talisman over to Dominic. Maybe it was the talisman's persuasion at work again. What did I know?

"What am I supposed to do with this?" he asked.

"Just think about something you want to happen. Pick something that'll happen quickly so we can see what happens," I said.

"That's it? All I have to do is think about it?"

I shrugged. "That's what I do, and it works for me."

For a moment, he shut his eyes. I smiled. This was a little more serious than a birthday wish, and for some reason, step one was always to close the eyes just like we were five and had hope for life.

I blinked. That coincidence was probably from the talisman too.

"Well, it didn't work, so—" Dominic began, but I interrupted him.

"It usually takes a little longer than that? What'd you ask for?"

"That when I opened my eyes, you'd be gone. So I guess it doesn't work for me."

And he liked to get mad at me for not taking things seriously.

I smiled anyway. "I guess not."

That wasn't enough to convince me that the talisman wouldn't listen to him, but we could address that later. After all, if it was sending its vibes to him, the two had some kind of connection, even though he wasn't there when we found it. That was only Jack and me.

Maybe Jack could control it. Sure, Dr. Reed tried to tell me that I was the only one who could learn to control it, but she was an anthropologist, not a paranormal expert.

"Or maybe you're a witch. I think we need to give that possibility more time and attention," he said, and he smiled. I didn't even know he was capable of that.

I laughed. For the first time, it seemed that maybe we were on the same page with the talisman. And the smile? I could deal with a few lighthearted jabs instead of flat-out insults.

***

A few hours passed by, and Dominic didn't seem nearly as irritated with my presence as he did originally. He told me that my chewing was obnoxious, though.

If the inner circle idea had worked for me with Jack and Dr. Reed, I definitely would have made a separate inner circle with Dominic now that we both knew we had the same kind of feelings that stemmed from the talisman, but it would never work. Who knew how long the tolerance would last? He certainly wasn't patient enough to deal with the uncertainty that came with the so-called magic of the talisman.

I wasn't going to mention our little breakthrough to anyone else, even if it wasn't a secret. I had already established that I couldn't keep them secrets for very long, and I was either going to be right about my inability to keep my mouth shut or I was going to find a way to circumvent my own brain.

Back in Sierra's and my dorm, it was close to midnight, and although Sierra had asked Dominic and me to leave a thousand times so she could go to sleep, I didn't feel like it. I was pretty sure she didn't want us to leave anyway. She liked Dominic for some stupid reason.

"Seriously, Lindsay. I have a midterm tomorrow, and I'm so freaking tired. I really don't want Dominic to see Tired Sierra," Sierra said.

"Tired Sierra? Is that a thing?" I asked.

She nodded. "I get really grumpy when I don't get enough sleep."

"So does everyone else. You're not special," Dominic said.

"You must never sleep then." She grimaced. "See? I wouldn't say something like that normally."

Yes, she absolutely would say that to literally anyone. But I ignored that comment and put the talisman back in its spot in my dresser. It had gotten me into enough trouble in the last seventy-two hours, and I was sure that it wasn't going to stop anytime soon, especially since a few answers were just beginning to come together.

All I had to do was figure out if Jack could maybe use the talisman, see if Dominic was just too impatient with it, and find out how I could manipulate it into doing exactly what I wanted. Then I had to work with Dr. Reed to determine who made it and when and where it came from. How difficult could that be?

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Hello, and thank you so much for reading!

This chapter was on the shorter side, but what do you think Lindsay and Dominic are going to do with this new development? What about everyone else?