by Linda Gerber
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
EPILOGUE
VISION.
The backdrop of the stadium flips and the bleachers disappear. The track morphs into a rain-slicked road. In the air around me, a random jumble of numbers drift and swirl like tendrils of fog. Twin headlights cut through the darkness, racing toward me. I try to scream, but I can’t make a sound.
“Ashlyn!”
In one blink, the stadium swirled back into place. I swayed a little and had to take a step to keep my balance.
“Are you okay?” Coach Roberts was staring at me like I had a third eye. “You look kind of pale.”
I started to give her the automatic “I’m fine,” but I wasn’t. Not by a long shot. “I . . . I’m just . . .” I glanced down at the score sheet in my hand and my knees felt weak. Bold, black numbers sprawled across the paper. Ice settled in the pit of my stomach. How could it be happening again? The trances had never come so close together before. “I think I need to sit down.”
It didn’t make sense. Not only had I been pulled into another trance, but the images were a repeat of what I had seen the day before. A repeat of an accident scene I knew too well.
The wet road. Bright lights stabbing my eyes.
It couldn’t be. Kyra and I had never seen the same vision twice. It was like I was seeing my own accident. . . .
I didn’t want to follow that thought. If I was just now seeing the images I should have seen before the accident, what did it mean? Would all the trances I had missed for the past several weeks come back to haunt me?
Or just the one that killed my mom?
OTHER BOOKS BY LINDA GERBER
Death by Bikini
Death by Latte
Death by Denim
S.A.S.S.: Now and Zen
S.A.S.S.: The Finnish Line
SPEAK
Published by the Penguin Group
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Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2010
Copyright © Linda Gerber, 2010
All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Gerber, Linda C.
Trance / by Linda Gerber.
p. cm.
Summary: Ashlyn was unable to use her visions of the future to save her mother’s life,
but as she begins to understand and control them somewhat, she realizes
that love interest Jake is the subject of her most recent trances.
eISBN : 978-1-101-46435-9
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
http://us.penguingroup.com
To Sandra, Tricia, and Donna for showing how strong the bonds of sisters can be.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, I am humbled and very grateful for the efforts of so many who helped to bring this book about. Huge thanks to my agent, Elaine Spencer, for making it all happen. This is our first baby together. Elaine we did it! And to my very patient editor, Angelle Pilkington, who continues to guide and encourage me no matter how dim I can be. Thank you, Angelle! Special thanks to Adrianne Mecham for explaining the power of numbers. Aaron, Clark, Jenna, Haley, and Dalan, you are my rocks. Karen, Kate, Marsha, Jen, Ginger, Nicole, Julie, and Barb, you keep me going. Lisa and Becca, thanks for reading! And finally, the book wouldn’t look so pretty without the genius of Theresa Evangelista. Thank you!
PROLOGUE
Sounds are what I remember most. The crunch of metal on metal. Shattering glass. Screams. The wail of the ambulance siren.
I woke to new sounds in the hospital. The steady drip of an IV bag. The rhythmic beep of a heart monitor. The soft crying of my dad and my sister as they huddled in separate corners of the room.
On the day of the funeral, the sounds were muted, muffled as if draped under a shroud. Friends and neighbors, all in black, murmured condolences as they shuffled past my wheelchair. The bishop’s voice droned into white noise as he prayed a final blessing. The wheels on the pulleys squeaked, lowering my mom’s coffin into the grave.
At home there were no sounds, only silence.
Nothing to fill the empty spaces.
Nothing to buffer me from my guilt.
Nothing to stand in the way of the trances.
1
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Michelle flicked the blinker and glanced over her shoulder to change lanes. “If it’s too soon . . .”
“It’s fine,” I said for about the eight hundredth time that day. “Or at least it will be if you quit asking about it.”
She shot me a look over the top of her Ray-Bans and made a big show of pressing her lips together.
I sighed and picked at the stitching on my backpack. Michelle was just worrying, because that’s what best friends do. So I apologized—because backing down is what I do. “I’m sorry, Shel. I have to do this, though; I need the job. No one else is going to work around our meets the way Carole does.”
“Right.” Michelle drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “If she’s so understanding, why is she making you transfer to Westland Mall?”
“She’s not making me do anything. She had to fill my position at Polaris Mall while I was gone and this one opened up.” I was beginning to regret asking Michelle for a ride after track practice. “Can we drop this, please?”
She pressed her lips together again—tight, like it was killing her to keep the words inside—and stared straight ahead.
I sighed and went back to picking at my backpack. To be fair, I understood why Michelle was acting so uptight. The last time I had been to the Westland Mall was the day of the accident. My mom had insisted on riding along with me since I’d only had my license about three weeks. We were on our way home when we got hit.
If Michelle thought returning to Westland would be hard for me because it would bring back memories of that day, she was only half right. Michelle understands a lot about me, but not everything. Not that. There are things I can’t tell even her. Like how I should h
ave seen the accident coming. How I should have tried to stop it. How if it wasn’t for me, my mom might still be alive.
My sister, Kyra, and I see things before they happen. Not entire events—snapshots, like pieces of a puzzle. Kyra sees some of the pieces and I see the others. If we’re lucky, we can fit the puzzle together and guess what’s coming.
On the day of the accident, Kyra knew something bad was going to happen. She tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen. I didn’t even try. That’s the part that haunts me most.
Michelle swatted my arm. “Did you even hear what I said?”
I blinked back to the present. “I’m sorry. What?”
She lowered her dark glasses and gestured out my window with her eyes. “Check it out. Two o’clock.”
I followed her gaze. On a motorcycle in the lane next to us was a guy who, I will admit, was not at all hard to look at. I couldn’t really see his face because it was obscured by aviator sunglasses and a scuffed black helmet, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t his face Michelle was interested in. She was probably much more taken by the athlete’s build beneath his T-shirt and jeans. Impressively contoured, his muscles tensed as he leaned forward, gripping the handlebars.
Michelle sighed dramatically and I raised my brows at her. “I thought you only had eyes for Trey.” Trey was one of the guys from the track team. He and Michelle were, as she emphatically put it, “just friends,” but I knew she wanted more.
“Nothing wrong with appreciating a fine work of art,” she said.
The artwork in question pulled ahead and signaled with one well-toned arm to change lanes, so that he was riding directly in front of us.
“Oh. My.” Michelle fanned her face with her hand. “I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
I actually might have laughed at that if Michelle hadn’t suddenly realized what she’d said. Her face went white and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Lynnie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I wasn’t even thinking.”
“Really. It’s fine.” I focused on our motorcycle guy, watching the muscles play across his back as he slowed and signaled again to make the turn into the mall parking lot.
The mall. My stomach folded in on itself. No matter what I said to Michelle, I wasn’t sure I was ready for it. But then, I didn’t have a choice.
Motorcycle Guy began his turn across traffic and Michelle blindly followed like she was connected to his rear-wheel fender. She must have been watching him instead of the road because she didn’t seem to be aware of the car in the oncoming lane, headed straight for us. I stomped both feet against the floor and reached out to brace myself for the impact.
The car was almost on top of us before I could find my voice. “Look out!”
Michelle slammed on the brakes. Her tires screeched as they dug into the pavement. My seat belt locked tight, tethering me to the seat, but Michelle’s purse flew forward and slammed into the dashboard. Her stuff rained down all over the floor mats.
“Idiot!” she yelled.
I stared at the road, heart hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it was going to break through. My chest felt hot and tight. I couldn’t breathe. In my head, I heard the echo of another screech of brakes. Felt the impact. Tasted the salted copper tang of blood in my mouth.
Michelle’s hands tightened around the steering wheel like she wanted to fold it in two. She managed to guide the car into the parking lot. “What a jerk!” she raged. “Did you see how fast he was going?”
Even if I’d wanted to answer her, I couldn’t have. My throat felt like a clenched fist. I avoided her eyes and reached down to grab her cell phone from the floor. Fished her wallet from under my seat. Grabbed a coral pink tube of lip gloss. My hands were shaking so badly I had to try twice before I was able to stuff everything back into her purse.
By the time I sat up again, Michelle had gotten really quiet. “I’m so sorry, Lynnie. I wasn’t paying attention. I should have—”
“It’s okay,” I said, as much to myself as to her. “No one’s hurt.”
“You want me to take you home?” Her voice had gone soft. Apologetic. “You could call in sick to work.”
“What are you talking about?” I set her purse back on the console and fussed with it until the handles rested against each other just so. “I’m fine.”
She frowned, unconvinced. “Look, if you need anything . . .”
Suddenly, the car felt very small. Airless. I had to get out so I could breathe. I grabbed my backpack. “Stop here,” I said. “I can cut through Nordstrom.” I had the door half open before she had even pulled up to the curb, and jumped out the moment she stopped. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Lynnie . . .” She leaned across the passenger seat, looking up at me with that same concerned, pitying look on her face. I closed the door and stepped back before she could say anything more.
It had been eight weeks since the accident. Eight weeks, three days, and twenty-one hours. Most of that time was spent in the hospital and then in rehab, trying to get my legs to function the way they used to. If I worked at it hard enough, the doctors said, I could run again. At least that was one thing I was able to get back.
My physical therapist said she had never seen someone go at the exercises the way I did. She thought it meant I was brave, but really, it was an escape. The therapy gave me a place to push the pain. It gave me something to concentrate on instead of the guilt.
As soon as Michelle signaled and pulled out into the parking lot, I turned and ran for the Nordstrom entrance. I shouldn’t have cut her off, I thought. She was just worried; that shouldn’t annoy me. Since I couldn’t bring myself to drive since the accident, I should be glad she was so willing to give me rides. When I got to work I should call her and—
I was almost to the door when a guy ran past me, bumping my arm. He was smoothing down a shock of brown hair with one hand and poking at the tails of a white dress shirt with the other, trying, I guessed, to tuck it into the waistband of his rumpled jeans. A gag-worthy bright colored tie with music notes all over it swung like a noose around his neck.
“Sorry!” he called over his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” I called back.
He pulled the door open, but instead of rushing through it like I expected him to, he stopped, buttoning the collar of his shirt as he held the door open with his foot.
For me, I realized.
Heat flooded my face as I slipped past him into the breezeway. “Thanks,” I murmured.
“No problem.” He let the outside door go and then hurried to open the interior door, again waiting as he held it open for me.
I thanked him once more and glanced up just long enough to meet his smiling green eyes, then quickly looked away as my face felt like it was going to combust.
“Have a good one,” he said, and took off again.
“Yeah,” I called after him. Yeah? That’s all I could come up with? I felt so stupid that I hung back and let him get well ahead of me before following him through Nordstrom toward the mall’s center court.
Being at Westland Mall again was like wandering through some kind of dreamscape—familiar and strange at the same time. Michelle and I used to come to this mall all the time, but now I felt like an intruder, out of place and conspicuous.
The feeling only intensified when I spotted the ShutterBugz kiosk on the other side of the mall’s center court. Behind the counter, a very pregnant clerk perched on the stool, absently twirling her black hair as she flipped through the pages of a magazine. Large silver hoops hung from her ears, and on her wrists a collection of metallic bracelets jangled every time she moved. With her heavy eyeliner and bloodred lips, she could almost pass for a Gypsy—if it wasn’t for the ShutterBugz apron stretching tight across her stomach.
She glanced up as I got closer and gave me the kind of once-over a girl might give to her boyfriend’s ex. Only that wasn’t likely since she looked like she w
as at least ten years older than I was. “Ashlyn Greenfield?”
“That’s me.”
“You’re late.” She slapped her magazine shut and eased off of the stool—carefully, like she had to balance the load in front of her.
I started to apologize, but she held up her hand to stop me. “Whatever. I’ve got to pee.” She untied the strings of her apron. “Well, come on. I can’t wait all night.”
I squeezed in beside her to take my place behind the counter and she looked me up and down again. “You know how to close out the register?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. No worries.”
“Good.” She pushed the apron at me and stuffed her magazine into an oversized leather bag, all in one motion. “Keys are in the side drawer,” she said, zipping the bag closed.
With one last appraising look, she slung the straps of her bag onto her shoulder and waddled out of the kiosk toward the food court. I knew from when I used to hang out at Westland that was where the closest restroom could be found.
I watched her go until she disappeared behind the rows of tables and then I pulled the loop of the apron over my head. As I tied the strings in back, I turned in a slow circle, checking out my new surroundings. No, that’s wrong. The surroundings weren’t new; nothing in the mall had changed. It was me. I felt like I was in one of those forgetting dreams, but instead of wandering down the main hallway at school in nothing but my underwear, I was standing behind the counter of a kiosk I barely even noticed before the accident. And I felt lost.
That’s when I saw the guy with the tie who had opened the door for me earlier. He was adjusting the height of a stool next to the grand piano displayed in Kinnear Music’s huge front window. He must work there, I realized. Suddenly, the tie made sense.
Now, with the safety of distance between us, I was able to get a better look at him. He had dark hair and dark eyes—green, I remembered, and then was surprised by the recollection. The planes of his face were angular, but just soft enough that he looked like he could be about my age. I hadn’t seen him around school, so maybe he went to Mountain View or East. I wondered absently if I might bump into him at one of our track meets. He did have an athletic build. Maybe a little thick through the shoulders to be a sprinter, but he could do shot put, or even javelin.
