purple bookshelf, and the vision shot into my body through my elbows, jarring my bones as it traveled full speed toward my head.
Ripped muscles, popping knuckles, opposite a shirtless boy.
“You don’t want to fight me,” says Ghost Boy.
“You should have left Helen alone,” says the muscles’ owner.
And somewhere with them is a blond girl, hair in a high ponytail, ring on her finger.
Fists and muscles, muscles and fists, blood and bruises and then silence.
Muscles. Body on the ground.
Muscles and blood, blood and dead, dead muscles.
“I told you that you didn’t want to fight me.”
And the blond girl watches, watches. Always watching, hair in a high ponytail, ring on her finger.
The words and images bled into one another, a mess of information that never quite lined up and instead banged around inside my head with the force of an entire football team on steroids.
“Are you okay, Lilah?” Lexie asked, her voice bordering between tentative and suspicious.
I couldn’t believe that she hadn’t realized beyond all doubt that I’d had another touch-triggered vision, but if she couldn’t see the way my heart was pounding or the sweat pouring off my forehead, I wasn’t going to tell her.
“Cute kid. You sure you want to drag her into this, Princess?”
“Let’s just go home,” I told Lexie. “I don’t think I can take any more of this.” I carefully omitted any and all mention of whether or not I was okay. There were ways around this Truth Seer thing, and for Lexie’s sake, I had to find them.
She had more faith in me than I had in myself, and she was dying to put her Sight to the test, but I wasn’t going to let anything happen to Meara again.
Whatever that meant.
12
Tears
Never let them make you cry.
Girls and tears
are like sharks and blood.
When I got home (side note: climbing up the tree in heels? Way harder than climbing down), I had twenty-seven new emails waiting for me in my inbox. Four of them were from people I didn’t know, eight of them were from people I might have known, two were from Brock, three were forwards from Tracy (I swear, if one of them was another one of those idiotic fall-in-love chain letters, I was going to kill her), one was an actual email from Tracy, two were from Fuchsia, six were from other extraneous Goldens, and the single remaining email was from someone who I deeply suspected was Lissy James.
My finger hovered over the delete key, but I couldn’t bring myself to delete such gems as “FWD: I swear this works!” “What’s up?” “Hey girly” and “Haiku for U.” One guess as to who that last one was from.
With a flick of my wrist, I switched off the screen. I could deal with the messages tomorrow.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for dealing with my mother, who took that moment to knock on my door for what I could only assume was the forty millionth time that night.
“You going to answer?” As always, Ghost Boy appeared without warning, but this time, he didn’t call me Princess, which was, of course, just fine with me. Really.
“It’s none of your business,” I told him tersely.
“Lilah, baby, can we please talk?” Outside the door, my mom paused. “You can’t ignore me forever, kiddo.”
“That sounds like a challenge,” I mumbled under my breath, and though I could tell he was trying hard not to, Ghost Boy grinned. The smile, a real one this time, with no trace of a smirk, changed his entire face. His dark eyes softened playfully, and his upturned lips looked downright inviting.
I still maintain that I did not miss those lips calling me Princess in that half flippant, half affectionate way of his, and I also absolutely was not considering taking their lip-y invitation.
“Not quite ready to play nice with Mommy yet, Princess?” he asked me.
“Don’t call me Princess,” I hissed under my breath, and then, just to prove him wrong, I walked over to my bedroom door, flipped the lock, threw the door open,
Ripped muscles, popping knuckles, opposite a shirtless boy.
“You don’t want to fight me,” says Ghost Boy.
“You should have left Helen alone,” says the muscles’ owner.
And somewhere with them is a blond girl, hair in a high ponytail, ring on her finger.
Fists and muscles, muscles and fists, blood and bruises and then silence.
Muscles. Body on the ground.
Muscles and blood, blood and dead, dead muscles.
“I told you that you didn’t want to fight me.”
And the blond girl watches, watches. Always watching, hair in a high ponytail, ring on her finger.
The words and images bled into one another, a mess of information that never quite lined up and instead banged around inside my head with the force of an entire football team on steroids.
“Are you okay, Lilah?” Lexie asked, her voice bordering between tentative and suspicious.
I couldn’t believe that she hadn’t realized beyond all doubt that I’d had another touch-triggered vision, but if she couldn’t see the way my heart was pounding or the sweat pouring off my forehead, I wasn’t going to tell her.
“Cute kid. You sure you want to drag her into this, Princess?”
“Let’s just go home,” I told Lexie. “I don’t think I can take any more of this.” I carefully omitted any and all mention of whether or not I was okay. There were ways around this Truth Seer thing, and for Lexie’s sake, I had to find them.
She had more faith in me than I had in myself, and she was dying to put her Sight to the test, but I wasn’t going to let anything happen to Meara again.
Whatever that meant.
12
Tears
Never let them make you cry.
Girls and tears
are like sharks and blood.
When I got home (side note: climbing up the tree in heels? Way harder than climbing down), I had twenty-seven new emails waiting for me in my inbox. Four of them were from people I didn’t know, eight of them were from people I might have known, two were from Brock, three were forwards from Tracy (I swear, if one of them was another one of those idiotic fall-in-love chain letters, I was going to kill her), one was an actual email from Tracy, two were from Fuchsia, six were from other extraneous Goldens, and the single remaining email was from someone who I deeply suspected was Lissy James.
My finger hovered over the delete key, but I couldn’t bring myself to delete such gems as “FWD: I swear this works!” “What’s up?” “Hey girly” and “Haiku for U.” One guess as to who that last one was from.
With a flick of my wrist, I switched off the screen. I could deal with the messages tomorrow.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for dealing with my mother, who took that moment to knock on my door for what I could only assume was the forty millionth time that night.
“You going to answer?” As always, Ghost Boy appeared without warning, but this time, he didn’t call me Princess, which was, of course, just fine with me. Really.
“It’s none of your business,” I told him tersely.
“Lilah, baby, can we please talk?” Outside the door, my mom paused. “You can’t ignore me forever, kiddo.”
“That sounds like a challenge,” I mumbled under my breath, and though I could tell he was trying hard not to, Ghost Boy grinned. The smile, a real one this time, with no trace of a smirk, changed his entire face. His dark eyes softened playfully, and his upturned lips looked downright inviting.
I still maintain that I did not miss those lips calling me Princess in that half flippant, half affectionate way of his, and I also absolutely was not considering taking their lip-y invitation.
“Not quite ready to play nice with Mommy yet, Princess?” he asked me.
“Don’t call me Princess,” I hissed under my breath, and then, just to prove him wrong, I walked over to my bedroom door, flipped the lock, threw the door open,
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