Dana crossed her arms and stared at me.
The words flew out of my mouth, certain that my window of explanation was closing. “I saw it that night at the bonfire. I saw you getting in the car with that idiot and him dying in an accident. That’s why I was so adamant about you leaving with me.”
Her expression softened, but she didn’t drop her arms. “Keep talking.”
What more was there to say? “It’s been happening for years. But it’s not fun. I always see when people die. I hate it. It makes me want to hide in my room and never look at another person again.”
Dana unfolded her arms and leaned against the white pillar. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
I exhaled, so relieved she hadn’t laughed at me. Or worse, told me I needed help. “When I’m with you, I can pretend like I’m normal. Besides, what if you thought I was crazy?”
“Jayne.” She grabbed the back of my head and pressed her forehead against mine. “You’re my best friend. I’ve known you for ages. I know what kind of person you are, I know how weird you can be, and I know when you’re acting strange. Don’t you think I would know if you were crazy?”
“Maybe.” I cracked a smile. “Maybe not. You’re halfway there, yourself.”
She released my head. “Okay. Cat’s out of the bag. You’re really psychic.” She tapped her lips with her finger. “It’s going to take me some time to fully appreciate that fact. So what’s in my future?”
“I’ve never seen your future.” It felt so strange to be talking about this with Dana, as casually as if discussing the weather.
“Oh.” She looked disappointed. “But you saw my future at the bonfire.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I saw his future, and yours intertwined with his. But I’ve never seen yours. I don’t see people’s future’s, Dana. I See their deaths.”
“All people? You see everyone’s death?”
I pressed my lips together. “No, it’s kind of random. I seem to see only the awful deaths.” I thought of Herold, of Hannah, and shuddered.
“Interesting,” she murmured. “So, uh, what’s the deal with Aaron?”
I leaned forward, glad she’d approached the subject. “What did he tell you?” And can I get his number from you?
“Not much. He sounded a little confused. Like he was trying to figure you out and hoped I had some clues.”
“Sounds like something a girl would do.”
Dana laughed. “Either that, or a guy who’s really trying to win someone over. So what gives? I know you like him.”
“I don’t know what’s going on. He didn’t talk to me all day.” I sighed. “It won’t work out anyway. I keep thinking it’s better just to let him go, but...” I shrugged. “I can’t seem to do it.”
“Who says it won’t work out? Just because he’s rich and English and extremely attractive doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be the absolutely perfect fit for you.”
“I know it won’t work.”
“How can you possibly—oh.” Her eyes widened slightly. “Really? You saw his future?”
“Yes.”
“And?” She leaned toward me, clasping her hands together. “What, he wasn’t with you?”
I bit my lip. “He left me for his ex.”
“That scumbag! Wait. It hasn’t happened yet.”
“No, but it will.” Sooner than later, at this rate.
“Now that, Jayne, you can’t know. I’m sure we could—”
“Dana. I’ve tried.” I fixed her with my most serious expression. “It never works. You’re proof. Even telling you the truth at the bonfire, I couldn’t keep you out of that car.”
“That’s just one example. I’m sure at some point—”
I was already shaking my head. “I always try.” Joshua came into my mind, his vibrant smile, the excited exuberance of a four-year-old boy.
“Joshua was the first person I tried to save,” I whispered. “I was determined to save him after I saw his death. I memorized his outfit. When he wore it, I offered his mom to babysit him all day. My goal was to keep him off the street, where I knew he got hit by a car. We played all day. Then I took him home, so pleased with myself for having staved off the tragedy.
“But Joshua slept in his clothes. The next day a car hit him while he rode his bike.” I closed my eyes. “That was the day I learned I can’t stop destiny. I can’t change our fates. I was twelve. I always try. But I’ve never succeeded.”
Dana leaned back against the pillar. “Well, damn, girl. That’s about the saddest thing ever.”
I smiled wistfully. “Yeah. No kidding.”
“Dana.” Mr. Sparks stepped out of the house. He nodded at me. “Hello, Jayne. Dana, I’m leaving now. I expect you to go inside and stay there until I get back.”
She nodded, rolling her eyes at me behind his back. “I’m grounded,” she said as he walked away. “Can’t go anywhere.”
“Not even school?”
She shrugged. “I included that in the grounding. I’ll be back on Monday.”
“I’m in trouble too. My dad assigned me a project.”
She raised her eyebrows and whistled. “A project? Wow, he hasn’t given you one of those since like, fourth grade.”
“Eighth, I think,” I clarified.
Dana frowned. “But why are you grounded? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Yeah, well...” I pushed myself to my feet. “I guess in their eyes I did.”
“That’s my fault, huh.”
It might be her fault. She was the one that wouldn’t come with me, after all. “Never mind, Danes. Could be worse.” I thought of the wreck, of that dead boy.
“Yeah,” she said softly. Then she shook herself. “Tomorrow I have permission to go to the mall with my mom. So we can talk about my future. Want to come?”
“Can’t. I’m still grounded. I have my project. Will you be at the lacrosse game tonight?”
“I thought you weren’t going to go to those anymore?”
When Stephen and I first broke up, the thought of watching him play without being his official supporter gave me indigestion. So I’d requested another reporter to go to the spring games. “I don’t care anymore. It’s the tournament. I’m going.”
“Then, yeah, if I can convince my dad to let me go. I’ll see you there.”
After a busy evening at work, I could hardly wait to get into the fresh, open air of the lacrosse game. The only reason my mom was letting me go was because she thought I had to report on it. Not about to give that away, I attached my recorder to my belt. I carried my journaling notebook under one arm and started for the bedroom door.
Just as I went to open it, my phone rang. I put my stuff down and grabbed it, thinking it might be Dana.
Unavailable.
I answered it. The cops always called from a restricted number.
“Jayne?” The deep male voice had an uncanny timbre to it that sent goosebumps down my arms.
“Who is this?” I asked, my fingers tightening around my bedroom doorknob.
“Will I see you at the game tonight, Jayne?”
It was him. Scarface. I was certain of it. My hands began to shake. “Why are you calling me?”
“Why have you been meeting with the police, Jayne?”
“Stop saying my name!” I shouted. If he was trying to unnerve me, it was working.
“They called you in at the line-up. Why? What do you know?”
There was no way he could know that. I knew the police kept us witnesses hidden from them. He couldn’t see through the mirror. He didn’t have video cameras watching the police building—did he?
Maybe he had an accomplice.
It was the journalist in me jumping to conclusions, but my skin prickled. I hung up, thoroughly spooked and no longer interested in the game. What if there was someone working with him? The police weren’t looking for two. Just one.
I closed my bedroom door and locked it. With shaking hands, I dialed
Lieutenant Bailey. He might not take me seriously, but I had to let him know what I thought. Then I needed to call Dana to make sure she knew I wouldn’t be at the game. The drive out to the Lacrosse fields was relatively uninhabited, with farmlands and pastures on either side. The thought of running into him out there made me shudder. In fact, it was better if Dana didn’t go either.
If only I could See the future at will.
Neither Lieutenant Bailey nor Dana answered. I left them both detailed messages and waited for them to call me back. No one called.
I turned the light out early and crept under my blankets, still fully dressed. It was the first night in years that I was tempted to go sleep in my sister’s room. Every time I closed my eyes, a creak in the house sent them flying open again. Exhaustion finally won out, but I was so tired I felt nauseous by morning.
The lemony Febreeze smell woke me, but I wasn’t sure where it came from until I opened my eyes.
And found Beth in bed next to me, curled on one side and staring at me.
“No!” I cried, squeezing my eyes shut again.
Beth puts on another black stiletto and smiles at her reflection. Her long brown hair is curled stiffly like a helmet, making her look forty instead of twenty. Her eyes crinkle with the force of her smile, but the mirth doesn’t reach her tired eyes. The smile falls from her face.
“Ready?” A curvy red head wearing a corset walks in and takes Beth’s arm. “First one to break a thousand bucks buys drinks.”
“You’re on.” Beth takes her dressing robe off and walks onstage, assuming a position around the pole. The crowd jeers and whistles.
Then Beth walks into a dirty apartment reeking of rotten fruits, and dumps a wad of cash on the table. Her emaciated face is thick with make-up. A fat and unshaven man stands up.
“What’s that?” he thunders.
“That’s what I got,” Beth retorts. “Take it or leave it.” She turns to walk away, but he grabs her and punches her face. Beth cries out and huddles on the ground, protecting her head with her arms while he kicks her side. She jumps up and runs out the door while he sends curses at her.
Beth returns to the club, this time as a customer. A strobe light flashes brilliant colors around the room. Music plays loudly. Beth nods along to the words of the man next to her, then takes the syringe he hands her.
“Three doses,” he mouths, handing her a small bag filled with white powder.
Beth nods again, her eyes sunken and dull. She hands him a wallet and watches him walk away. Opening the syringe, she dumps the entire contents of the bag inside. She sits at a table and injects it into her arm. Then she sighs and leans back in her chair, eyes closed. Silence overwhelms her, just as she hoped it would.
The end. It was finally over. I lay on my bed crying, with Beth shaking me. “Jayne? Jayne? What’s wrong?”
I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to warn her about that awful man, about the drugs, about the life she would take.
But she wouldn’t believe me. Not yet, anyway.
“Nothing.” I wiped the tears from my face. “Bad dream, that’s all.” I put my head in my hands. Why did I always See such awful deaths? Never the gentle, dying-in-your-sleep kind.
“Oh, Jaynie. Because of prom?”
Prom? What did that have to do with anything? Then I remembered that prom was next weekend. If only that were the extent of my problems.
“No, I’m fine.” I needed some space. “If you stick around, I’m going to assume you’re volunteering to help me with my project.”
The bed trembled as she slid off. She didn’t smell like lemons anymore. I’d Seen all there was to See. I waited until she had gone, and then I lit my sweet pea scented candle. The clean smell filled the room, and I let it carry the images away. I added Beth to my green folder, wrote down her death, and filed it to the back.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. What did it mean for her current life? For her ambitions? Should she just give up now? It was all pretty pointless, right?
I wondered what I would do, if I knew I would die in four years from a drug overdose. There had to be a way to stop it.
I paused, pressing my pen to my chin, and looked out my window. Fluffy cotton clouds floated in the azure sky. My eyes dropped to the white flowers popping out all over the dogwood tree in the yard.
And there she was, light blond hair flying around the branches of the tree. Our eyes met.
“What am I supposed to do?” I cried, staring at her through my closed window. “There must be something! Give me a better hint!”
She lifted a hand to her mouth in a gesture that looked like blowing a kiss. Then she turned and walked around the tree, her feet several inches off the ground. She never appeared on the other side, but out of nowhere a swan flew out of the branches, taking flight into the dark sky.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
My mom escorted me to the house she was trying to sell. She settled at the kitchen table with an armload of paper work and sent me off to clean. As much as I hated being grounded on a beautiful Saturday morning, her presence made me feel safe. I started in the master bedroom, sorting through boxes of old clothes, waiting for Lieutenant Bailey to call me back. Around ten in the morning, I joined my mom in the kitchen.
“These are probably Salvation Army.” I thumped a box of undesirables on the kitchen table. “Some of these clothes she may want to keep.”
“Get that off the table,” Mom demanded. I obliged her before she could swat the box. “I’ll ask her when I call her again. I don’t think she wants most of this stuff.” Mom lowered her voice. “You know. She’s coming to the end.”
Yeah, I knew all about that. “I’ll donate them for her if she wants.”
Mom nodded. “Ready to go home?”
“Yes.”
My mom and I walked the two blocks home. I pulled my hair out of my ponytail and hurried up the landing, letting the waves cascade around my shoulders. My fingers were chapped and my clothing caked in dust. I definitely needed a shower.
My phone rang twice while I showered, but I wasn’t about to break my standing rule that I not use the phone in water. Some people might manage it, but I’d fry the battery, for sure. When I finished, I wrapped the towel around me and checked out the missed calls. Both from Dana.
I ran gel through my hair and called her back. “Dana? I missed a couple of calls from you.”
“Hmm?” She sounded distracted. “Oh, yeah. It’s nothing.”
Why had she called twice, if it was nothing? “Oh?” I said, playing along. Whatever it was, she would spill it.
“We won the game last night.”
“So you went?”
“No.” She sounded insulted. “You tell me not to do something, I’m not questioning. Besides, what fun is a game without you?”
A sense of relief washed over me. “Thanks, Danes.”
“We moved on in the tournament. There’s another game tonight. You coming?”
Was I? Would he be there? My skin crawled at the thought. Lieutenant Bailey hadn’t called me back. I didn’t really like the idea of being stalked.
“Jayne?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m working until close.”
“Can you get it off?”
I probably could. The question was, did I want to? Then I had the craziest idea. What if I didn’t wait for him to stalk me? What if I stalked him instead? “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ll save you a seat.”
Something in her voice was off. “Everything okay?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, great. I’m ungrounded. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” She hung up.
I stared at the disconnected phone, feeling a twitch of uneasiness. That had been really weird.
Not to mention that I didn’t want her to save me a seat. I wanted to sit in the car and spy on others entering the game field. I debated calling her back and decided to let it go. We’d talk when I got there.
The spring air had turned rather nippy. Fo
recaster said we might even get a late frost that night. I put a knit cap on my head, grabbed my jacket, and hurried out the door.
“You’re seriously asking to leave early?” Matt laughed out loud. He reached up and adjusted his baseball cap, giving me a quick peak at his light brown eyes. “You don’t want this job, do you?”
I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. “I want the money,” I said. At least it was an honest answer.
Matt shook his head. “You can have it off if Gabby will close for you.”
I looked over at Gabby just as she popped a big green bubble. For a second I thought it would get stuck on her nose ring, but it didn’t. “Didn’t you open, Gabby?”
She finished wiping down the counter. “Yeah.”
“You know what, it’s not that big of a deal.” I put on my hairnet, trapping my wavy brown hair. “Don’t worry about it.”
“No, it’s fine,” Gabby said, grinning at me through her black lips. “I want money too.”
“There you go.” Matt handed me my clipboard with my duties on it. “You can leave at five.”
Too perfect. Depending on traffic, I might actually make it to the game early. I felt the first stirrings of excitement. Maybe Aaron would be there.
I caught myself. I’d willed myself not to think about him all day, turning the thoughts in a different direction every time I wondered why he hadn’t called me yet. His face popped into my head unbidden, those crystal blue eyes, strong jaw, dimpled chin. I sighed, remembering the feel of his lips on my mouth. No use now. I lost myself in the daydream, enjoying the memory.
I got to the field early, parking next to Dana’s yellow Beamer. Dana didn’t answer her cell phone. Typical. I sat in my warm car, surveying the gray sky and debating my choices. Almost no one else was here yet. Chances were I could sneak in and grab Dana before anyone spotted me. Turning off my car, I hurried through the gates.
The coaches were setting up. Dana sat on the front row of the metal bleachers, a thick blue and purple blanket wrapped around her knees. She handed me a thermos of hot chocolate when I sat down.
“Expecting the Ice Age?” I teased, taking a sip.
Inevitable Page 17
