Mirage

by Kristi Cook

  He leaned back against his desk, looking stunned. “What are you saying, Violet? You think I’m trying to hurt him?” He pushed forward off the desk, raking a hand through his hair as he paced before me. “God, Violet, I’m trying to help him.”

  I let out my breath in a rush. “I know you are. I’m sorry. Please, just”—I shook my head—“just let me try this my way, okay? I could try it on my own, back in my room, but I have better luck with you talking me through it.”

  “You like to do things the hard way, don’t you?” he said with a tight smile. He slumped back into the chair behind his desk. “You remind me of my brother, James.”

  “Seriously, Matthew, I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.” I rose, stepping up to his desk. “I meant it when I said he thinks you’re a genius. I don’t understand half of what he says about the work you’re doing together, but I know he feels like he’s finally getting close. Thanks to you,” I added.

  He shook his head. “Unfortunately, there’s no protocol to follow. No way to test it out, except on him. I wish there was another way, I really do.”

  “Yeah, me too.” My gaze fell upon the framed photographs arranged on the wall behind him. In one, he was standing on the deck of a sailboat with his arm around a guy who looked just like him, only older, maybe a bit heavier. And then it hit me …

  “Wait, you have a brother?”

  He nodded. “I was always a bit different from everyone else at Winterhaven. I’ve gotten used to it.”

  “You know Jack Delafield has a brother too, right?”

  He nodded. “Ah, but Jack and I are not the same.”

  “Wow, that’s pretty cryptic. Care to explain?”

  He folded his hands behind his head as he leaned back in his chair, looking more relaxed now. “I just meant the circumstances are different, that’s all. Jack’s the older sibling; I’m the younger. Aidan’s got a theory about that, one I tend to agree with, so that’s significant.”

  I nodded, remembering Aidan’s explanation. “That whole thing about the Rh factor, right?”

  “Right. Anyway, you want to try this last recall or not? On your terms,” he added.

  “Yes.” I slipped back into my chair with a sigh. “Thank you.”

  I knew I had to push everything else from my mind, to focus my sixth sense as best I could. I could do it, I told myself. I’d done it dozens of times. This shouldn’t be any different—not if it had been a vision.

  When I left his office a half hour later, I was pretty sure that it wasn’t.

  “Violet? M’ija?”

  I sat up, clumsily pulling the earbuds from my ears. “Did you call me, Lupe?” I yelled.

  “You’ve got company!” Lupe shouted back, and I hurried out into the hall. Leaning over the banister, I saw Whitney standing in the foyer below.

  Lupe kissed her on both cheeks, then stepped back, studying her with a scowl of disapproval. She made a clucking sound with her mouth. “Mi Dios, haven’t they been feeding you?”

  “Yeah, but I miss your chicken fried steak,” Whitney replied with a laugh—avoiding the question, I realized. “No one makes milk gravy like you do.”

  Which was true, but still.

  “We’ve got plenty of leftovers in the fridge, if you’re hungry,” Lupe offered.

  Last night’s Thanksgiving dinner had been a true feast: smoked turkey and Virginia ham with all the fixings—cornbread dressing, collard greens, dumplings, pole beans—and even my favorite Jell-O mold. I patted my stomach appreciatively, glad Patsy had agreed to fly down to Atlanta with me. It felt great to sit around the long dining table, a family again, even if what we considered family was a bit of a hodgepodge these days.

  After all, Patsy wasn’t really related to Gran. Gran was my real mother’s mom. As for Lupe, her only son had never married and never had kids. He lived in California, and since neither Lupe nor her son liked to fly, she pretty much spent all her holidays with us.

  And now Melanie, the home health aide, had joined our motley crew. Apparently she had family somewhere near Dahlonega but had opted to spend Thanksgiving with us instead. Clearly, Gran and Lupe had grown to care for her and were thrilled to have her. Even Patsy seemed to really like her. Actually, the two of them were off now getting mani-pedis at Patsy’s favorite salon. They’d tried to convince me to come with them, but I had opted to stay home and wait for Whitney.

  “Thanks, but I’m still full from last night,” Whitney was telling Lupe now. “Trust me, my grandma sent us back home today with two dozen Tupperwares full of leftovers. I think we’re going to be eating turkey for the rest of our natural lives.”

  “Well, go on, then.” Lupe shooed her toward the wide, curving stairs. “But you girls let me know if you get hungry, sí?”

  “Will do,” Whitney agreed, then hurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  “Look at you!” I said, wrapping her in a hug as soon as she crossed the threshold. “You look great!” Thin. She looked way too thin, but I wasn’t going to say it, I wasn’t going to start in on her right away, no matter how badly I wanted to. It would only put her on the defensive. No, I had to ease into it.

  We both plopped down onto my bed, a beautifully carved four-poster that had been my mother’s when she was a kid.

  Whitney reached for a pillow, clutching it to her chest. Hiding herself. “I can’t believe you’re flying back tomorrow!” she said with a scowl. “We’ve only got one day to hang out. This sucks.”

  “I know, right? I wish your grandparents had come to you this year, instead of you going there.” They lived in Alabama, a four-hour drive away. “What time did you leave this morning?”

  Whitney rolled her eyes. “At the butt-crack of dawn. You know how my dad is.”

  Oh, I knew. It didn’t matter where you were going—Stone Mountain, Olympic Park, even the mall—he’d swear that everyone else on the road was going to the same place. If he was driving us to Six Flags and the traffic was heavy on I-20, everyone else was surely headed to Six Flags too—the park was going to be packed, he’d complain. And then we’d get there, and the parking lot would be half empty.

  Still, at least Whitney’s dad had been around to take us to places like Six Flags. My dad was never home, always off on assignment in some dangerous, faraway place. And Patsy? She was way too busy to be bothered. Not that she would have set foot into an amusement park anyway.

  “So, how’s school?” I asked Whitney, forcing aside the mental image of Patsy riding a roller coaster, as amusing as it might be.

  “Pretty much the same as always. Competitive. Sometimes I wish I’d stayed at Windsor Day, though I guess it would have been weird there without you.”

  I playfully punched her arm, wincing at the sharp feel of bone that my knuckles encountered. “Hey, I was at Windsor for two whole years without you, remember?” I leaned over to my nightstand and plucked off a pack of gum. “You want some?” I offered as I took a piece for myself and popped it into my mouth.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Is it sugarless?”

  “Of course. Four out five dentists surveyed recommend Trident to patients who chew gum,” I intoned.

  “Oh my God, you remember that?” she asked with a laugh. It was a game we played when we were kids, trying to stump each other with slogans from television commercials. “But no thanks, maybe later.”

  Wow, Whitney was refusing gum? That wasn’t like her. I turned the pack over, checking the nutritional information. With a shrug, I tossed it back on my nightstand, watching as Whitney pulled the hair band from around her wrist and combed her long blond hair back with her fingers before securing it in a ponytail.

  I was always envious of her ability to get her hair into a perfectly neat ponytail without a brush or mirror, something I couldn’t accomplish no matter how hard I tried.

  But then, everything about Whitney had always been so natural and effortless—just like our friendship, even now.

  We were so much alike, after all. At
least, I always imagined that we would have been, had I not been forced to go through life hiding a vital piece of myself from the rest of the world, her included.

  “Guess who I ran into last week?” she asked, drawing me from my thoughts.

  “Who?”

  “Talia Simpson—remember her?”

  I did—she had been one of our best friends in lower school. But she’d moved outside the Perimeter the summer after fifth grade and switched schools, and I hadn’t seen her since.

  “Wow,” I said. “Talia Simpson. I’m not even sure I’d recognize her.”

  “Oh, her cousins live down the street from my Aunt Jo, so I see her every once in a while. Anyway, I ran into her at the mall. She asked about you, so I told her that you’d moved to New York. I showed her the picture of you and Aidan.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  She raised one blond brow. “Let’s just say she was suitably impressed. She asked for your e-mail address. I hope it’s okay that I gave it to her.”

  “Sure. Hey, don’t you have some auditions coming up?” She was applying to several conservatory programs, planning on majoring in dance.

  “Yeah, but my parents are still giving me a hard time about it. They want me to go prelaw, UGA or Tech. They just don’t get it.”

  “That totally sucks.” I couldn’t even imagine that kind of parental interference. I was on the opposite end of the spectrum—Patsy hadn’t even asked me what I wanted to major in. Probably a good thing, since I wasn’t quite sure yet. “They’re at least letting you go to the auditions, though, right?”

  “Yeah, thank God.” She released the pillow and reached for my discarded iPod. “Wow, your taste in music has really changed,” she said, scrolling through the songs.

  “Just expanded a bit, that’s all. Anyway, the fact that they’re letting you go to the auditions means they haven’t totally ruled it out. I’d wait till you get your acceptances, and then talk to them, tell them how much it means to you.”

  “If I get any acceptances, you mean. Ooh, this is a great playlist.” She touched the shuffle icon, and music began to play.

  It was Aidan’s playlist, I realized. I suddenly wished our telepathy worked long distance, wished I could reach out to him and tell him that I missed him.

  “You’re going to get plenty of acceptances, Whit,” I said, pushing Aidan from my mind. “Just give your parents a little more time. Maybe try to, you know”—I took a deep breath, gathering my courage—“put on a little weight between now and then, so they won’t be so worried about you.”

  Her brown eyes narrowed a fraction. “I can’t gain weight now, not before the auditions.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I think with a few more pounds you’d still—”

  “Please don’t start in on me, Violet.” There were tears gathering in her eyes. “I have to listen to this all day, every day. Between my parents, my shrink, my dietician—it never ends.”

  I took her hand in mine. “You know how much I love you, right? But seriously, I’m worried about you. You’ve never been this thin. What do you see when you look in the mirror?”

  A single tear slid down her cheek. For a moment, she said nothing—she only stared off toward the window.

  “C’mon, Whitney,” I pressed. “Talk to me. Please?”

  Finally she nodded. “I know it’s nuts,” she said, wiping away the tear. “I mean, I realize I’m too skinny. But still, when I look at myself …” She trailed off, shaking her head. “I keep thinking, ‘Just another pound or two and then I’ll stop.’ But then I don’t stop. I can’t. You have no idea what it’s like trying to pretend I’m normal, when deep inside I know I’m completely screwed up.”

  I had to tell her, I realized. Not everything—not that Aidan was a vampire and I was a Sâbbat. But I needed to tell her about the visions. I wanted her to understand that I did know what it was like, that I totally understood the paralyzing fear of discovery.

  Oh, I knew it would mean walking a thin line, that I would be risking her scorn and disbelief. I’d heard the stories, after all. I remembered what happened to Cece’s old roommate, Allison.

  But this was different. This was Whitney. How could I possibly expect her to fully open up to me if I wasn’t equally forthcoming with her?

  Okay, make that semiforthcoming, because I’d already established the fact that I couldn’t possibly tell her everything.

  I mean, sure, she liked to read as much as I did. As a reader, she was clued in to think “vampire” or “werewolf” whenever she came across a character that seemed to fit the bill. But that was fiction. In real life, you just didn’t think to yourself, “Hey, that guy sitting next to me in English is awfully pale. I wonder if he’s a vampire.”

  Because real life didn’t work that way. Well, except that mine did.

  Still, I’d stick with the psychic stuff. That, at least, was considered within the realm of possibility. There were stores everywhere selling tarot cards and crystals, toll-free numbers to dial for psychic readings. Just watch a little late-night TV and you’d see plenty of commercials for both.

  What you would not see are ads for products to, say, protect yourself from your friendly neighborhood vampire. Yes, I knew where the line was, and I wasn’t going to cross it.

  “I do understand,” I said, giving her hand a sympathetic squeeze. I smiled at the friend I’d known since kindergarten—the friend who’d seen me through braces and crushes and even my father’s death—and I told her everything.

  Okay, almost everything.

  And the crazy part? She believed me.

  19 ~ Lockdown

  I had just walked into sixth-period fencing class when the alarm sounded. At first, we assumed it was just a fire drill.

  “Okay, folks, you know what to do,” Coach Gibson said. “Leave all your bags and equipment here. Let’s exit the building in a quiet and orderly fashion, shall we?”

  But then a voice came over the public address system. “Attention, this is a Code Yellow. I repeat, Code Yellow. All students must remain where you are until you receive further instructions. Teachers, perform a head count immediately and call it in to the admissions office. Dorm masters, please report to your posts for a head count, as well. Thank you.”

  Apparently we were under lockdown.

  “What’s going on, Coach?” someone called out as we milled about, confused.

  “No idea,” he answered with a shrug. “Let’s do the head count, and then I’ll go downstairs and see if anyone knows what’s happening. Everybody sit.”

  So we did. I found a spot beside Tyler on a mat. Everyone remained silent as the coach walked among us, counting. “We seem to be missing one,” he said, then counted us again. “Where’s Suzanne?”

  “I think she’s at the infirmary,” someone offered. “She wasn’t feeling well at lunch.”

  He nodded. “Okay, we’re good, then. You guys sit tight; I’ll be back in a bit.” He pulled open the door that led to the back stairwell—the fire exit—and stepped out. As soon as the door slammed shut behind him, everyone started talking at once, the sea of voices rising in an incoherent, nervous buzz.

  Fire drills were always announced in advance, and no one had ever mentioned a Code Yellow—at least, not as long as I’d been at Winterhaven. So yeah, I was a little nervous, overly aware of the fact that our teacher had just left us alone.

  “I wonder what you’re supposed to do if you’re in the bathroom,” Tyler said, raising his voice to be heard over the din. It was a good question, actually.

  “I wish I had my cell phone,” came a voice behind me, and I turned to see who it was—Sarah Mason, an empath like Marissa. She was usually the girls’ team second seed, behind me, which meant she didn’t like me very much. I could only assume that her current choice of seat had something to do with Tyler, since she was looking at him now with puppy dog eyes.

  “What are we supposed to do, just sit here and do nothing?” she whined.

  “
I guess we could practice,” Carlos offered, rising to his feet. Carlos was the captain of the boys’ team, although he usually ranked in the bottom third. He was a good leader, though.

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to be practicing,” Sarah argued, and I had to admit I agreed with her. Who went on about their business during a lockdown?

  “You were the one complaining about doing nothing,” Carlos said with a shrug, then sat back down.

  Tyler leaned toward me, his breath warm against my ear. “I’ve got my cell in my bag,” he whispered. “C’mon.”

  He stood and held a hand out to me, and I took it to stand, following him as he picked his way through the crowd to the cubbies by the door, where our bags were stashed. I didn’t even bother to ask why he was breaking the rules by carrying his cell around campus. Nothing Tyler did surprised me.

  “Max has sixth period free,” he said, crouching down to rummage inside his bright turquoise bag. “I’ll text him—maybe he knows what’s going on.”

  I’d almost forgotten that Tyler and Max were roommates. Considering how much time Max spent with Marissa, I doubt Tyler saw much of him, but still. It shouldn’t surprise me that they were friendly, despite the fact that they were polar opposites, as far as I could tell.

  I stood there watching while he typed his message. Dude, whassup? Uknow?

  Not fifteen seconds later, there was a ping. A body. In woods by river.

  Tyler’s eyes, widened with shock, met mine for a brief moment, and then he started typing furiously. What u mean, a body? Dead?

  We waited a bit longer for Max’s reply this time. Think so. Lots of police and EMTs. That’s all I know.

  Tyler’s reply was brief. Thx.

  “What the hell?” he said aloud. “I didn’t hear any sirens.”

  “Me either. Do we tell them?” I tipped my head toward the rest of group.

  Tyler shrugged. “Your call.”

  “I don’t know. Kind of sounds like speculation at this point, you know?”