Intuition (3 page)

Sera tilted her head toward his. “You know, I
hate to say this, but—”

“—we need to head back,” Luke said.
“Homework?”

“English. I haven’t even started that essay.”
Sera sat up, put the water bottles back in their pack, along with
the leftovers from their lunch. She got it all zipped up and
slipped her arms through the straps.

Luke hadn’t moved, but watched her. “You’re
carrying it?”

“It’s lighter now. And it doesn’t slow me
down going down the mountain. Just up. Plus equal opportunity and
all that.” She stood up, held her hands out to him. He grasped them
and let her pull him up to sitting.

But he made the mistake of looking down.

His heart slammed against his chest, his
breath caught in his throat. He should have been looking up at her
or out at the view. Why couldn’t he have kept his eyes up?

Because now his panic was back full force.
Now he couldn’t look back up to meet her eyes for fear of what
she’d see there. Alarm. Panic. Terror. He couldn’t do anything but
stare at her shoes.

Holy crap.

Her
shoes. Sera’s.

The ones he’d Seen in his vision.

Hey! Thanks for reading. If you liked this
short story and wanted to tell all your friends about it, I could
totally learn to live with that. Go ahead. I’ll wait. (No, really.
I mean it. Call them, post, tweet. However you want. I’ll still be
here.)

You just did me the biggest favor by doing
that. Seriously. (And you are now, officially, my favorite person.)
If you loved this and wanted to show it, a little review of why you
liked it or what you liked about it posted online would be the
perfect way to do that. (It doesn’t have to be long or in-depth,
just say what you’re inspired to say.)

Thanks! You’re the best. (And I really do
mean that.)

Warmly,

j.

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Preview

ONE

“
Shall she be the first to die,
Seer?”

Luke’s head whipped up and he froze with the
realization—she was talking directly to him. That had never
happened before.

She spoke again, a taunt. “Yes, I think so.
Her healing makes her the more dangerous.”

No. A chill tingled up his neck, settled on
his scalp. Not his sister. This one couldn’t be about Sera. Damn
it, who’d said that?

There.

Holy. Crap.

Ivory satin skin, copper colored hair, her
body a combination of hard and soft in all the right places.
Divine. That was the only way to describe her. Luke found it hard
to breathe looking at her. It pierced him, her beauty. She smiled
serenely at him. And though her words had struck terror, her visage
soothed him. He knew with sudden certainty that he’d do anything to
make her happy.

Torchlight from sconces on the walls flicked
amber across her tall angular form. As Luke gazed intently,
however, her beauty quivered, disappeared to reveal a disturbing
gauntness. Sharp cheekbones under pale as death skin. Collarbones
stood out above the skin-tight black tank top. Hip bones jutted out
just above the top of her taut black pants. Not an ounce of excess
to her body. Nor an ounce of humanity in her glittering dark
eyes.

Had he really thought she was beautiful only
a moment ago? He studied her. She was sickeningly skeletal, yet
then inexplicably alluring again. All at once terrifying,
grotesque, and ravishing. What the hell was she?

Goose bumps spread up his arms.

This was the scariest vision he’d ever
had.

His eyes settled on the wide gold disc around
her neck. It was shaped like an Egyptian collar necklace and
inscribed with ancient-looking symbols. It lay flat against her
chest, wrapping all the way around her neck, the only adornment she
wore.

He took a step back and noticed they were
standing together on a dais next to a sleek, dark stone throne. A
throne? Seriously? thought Luke. Where the hell was he?

As Luke turned back to her, she smiled
suddenly, sending a chill scuttling under his skin. There was no
happiness, no warmth in her face—only inhuman excitement. With a
start, he realized what was about to happen.

No one else was here.

He was about to witness his own death.

In all of his seventeen years he’d never had
a vision about himself before—he hadn’t thought it was possible. If
it was, he wasn’t sure this was something he wanted to See. But
maybe if he didn’t look at her, it wouldn’t happen.

His eyes scanned the room. Blood-red rock
walls rose from a charred black stone floor with the deepest,
darkest shadows lurking in every crack and crevice. Luke blinked
hard. Did the shadows just move? He shook his head to clear it,
trying hard to not look back over at the hideous beauty. It was a
vast, vacant space that felt both cold and hot simultaneously. Luke
went from shivering to sweating to shivering again.

Oh my god, Luke thought. Am I in hell?

Did hell actually exist?

A slight movement in his peripheral vision
made him turn his head. He instinctively smiled at what he saw—his
twin sister Sera. But in an instant the woman’s words echoed in his
mind.
Shall she be the first to die?
A rising panic
threatened to choke him. He scoured the room for a way out. A way
to change what he knew with absolute certainty was about to
happen.

“
The Children of the Prophecy must die!”
Her sudden cry filled the whole room.

And then the woman’s gold necklace hurtled
through the air, slicing into Sera’s neck.

“NOOOOOOO!” Luke stood up so quickly he
jammed his knee into his desk and nearly knocked over the computer
he’d been using when the vision had gripped him. His heart screamed
staccato beats, his breath came in raspy gulps, his grey t-shirt
was drenched. He tripped over his chair, scrambling to grab the
small, wire-bound black sketchbook on his bedside table before the
details faded away. He threw himself back into his chair and wrote
in a near frenzy as his eyes fought to focus in the dim light.
Every little detail of his vision went down on the page: colors,
smells, the look of the room and the people in it, what they wore,
words they said. Everything he could remember.

He wrote without thinking. Without order.
Without pause. Lists of words, remembered phrases. Any clue that
might help him figure out how to stop it from coming true.

He had to stop this one from coming true.

If only he knew how.

His visions always came true. Always. No
matter what he did. He wrote them down, dissected them for clues.
Then he tried to get there before the events happened. He did
everything he could to thwart them. But it was impossible. They
came to him either incomplete, incomprehensible, or too late.
Recurring visions were the most difficult, for the information came
in dribs and drabs, and he had to piece it all together. Once he’d
sorted it all out there was never enough time to do anything about
it.

What did he have to do to change the future?
He hadn’t figured that out yet.

But he sure as hell needed to figure it out
now. Right now. Holy crap. It was Sera.
Sera’s life.
His
breathing quickened again just thinking about it. Threads of fear
wove around inside his chest and ever so slightly squeezed.
Sera.

He had to save her. Had to. But how?

Don’t panic, he thought. Keep calm. Figure it
out. He shut his notebook and put it back down on the table, ran a
hand through his short dark hair. A bright red 1:02 glowed on his
bedside clock. Shivering from his sweaty shirt, he took a deep
breath, swiveled his chair to the side, and stood up in one fluid
motion. Pulling his t-shirt over his head, he replaced it with a
soft green henley. He pushed the sleeves up to his elbows as he
padded the short distance down the hall to his sister’s bedroom,
the khaki carpet swallowing his cautious footsteps. A nightlight
stretched his shadow out long to the far end of the hall. He
knocked quietly on Sera’s door, hoping he wouldn’t wake their
mom.

He paused for a moment. What was he going to
tell her, coming to see her at one o’clock in the morning? How was
he going to explain that? It’s not like he could say, “Hey, I’m
scared to death that you’re going to die because I just Saw it.
Wanna help me figure out how to stop that from happening?”

Shall she be the first to die, Seer?

He didn’t have to say anything. He just
needed to know she was okay at this moment.

“Sera?” He knocked again. Opening the door
quietly, he said, “Are you up?” and stepped into her room.

It was empty.

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j. meyers grew up in Vermont, and now lives
in central New York. When she’s not reading or writing, she’s
chasing after her four kids, exploring the outdoors with them,
relishing the few quiet moments she gets with her husband, baking
sweet treats, and forgetting to make dinner. Though she cannot
actually see the future nor heal with a touch of her hand, she
likes to think her children believe she can.
Intangible
, out
in Fall 2011, is her first novel.