Authors: Melissa Marr
In a separate file, I jot down what I remember of the death visions, the deaths that already happened, and prosopagnosia. I add my notes that prosopagnosics use voice, clothing, hair color, walk, and other details to identify people. Maybe that’s the trick I need to try in my visions. I’m still staring at my notes, googling other meanings on the flowers, and flipping between them when Nate comes to stand behind me. He looks over my shoulder at my screen listing the flowers and says, “I’m sure the police already started looking up what the flowers he left with Micki and Amy meant.”
“I can’t
not
think about it.” I look back at him. “The killer carved my
name
on Amy’s body when he killed her. He killed Micki and tried to kill me. And now”—I motion to the counter—“he’s sending me flowers and dead bugs and cryptic messages.”
“I know.” He looks so calm that I feel better just having him near me. “That doesn’t make it your fault.”
As much as I want that to be true, it feels like it’s somehow my fault. I save the document and close my laptop. I don’t say anything, but Nate knows me. Even though it’s been far too long since we were kids, I don’t think I’ve changed so much that he can’t figure out that I disagree with him.
He pulls out the chair my mother had been using and sits down. I reach out for his hand before he takes mine. It’s more forward than I would be, especially if we are truly just friends, but I feel like my seams are loose. I’m afraid that he’ll touch me, and I can’t bear looking at his death. I thought I was holding it all together, and I’d planned to test my visions, but last night I realized that I’m ready to fracture.
“They’ll catch him,” Nate says.
“Everyone keeps saying that, but Amy and Micki are dead.”
His hand tightens on mine, and I’m reminded of those weird days between death and funerals. In Jessup, my family makes a lot of appearances at the homes of the grieving. My mother has an almost pathological need to take covered dishes to mourners. Dad says it’s because she lost her mother so young. Looking out for the grieving makes her feel less helpless, but being inside the house where death is clinging to every thought makes me feel lost. There’s a hazy sense of being out of time and place in that grief window—sort of like being in the hospital. I feel desperate to talk about something,
anything
other than death, but it’s there in every room and under every word. It’s inescapable.
It’s all part of why I hate funerals. They’re so heavy with awkward desire to talk about anything other than loss, but the guilt of doing so makes it impossible. It’s suffocating—and there will be another one in a matter of days.
“We’ll have to go to Amy’s funeral,” I think out loud.
Nate’s expression is stony. “There’s a killer who’s obsessing on you. I’m not sure going to Amy’s funeral is a good idea.”
“I agree,” says a voice from behind me. I look over my shoulder and see the detective standing there with my mother.
“You can’t stop me,” I point out, calling upon my television police knowledge. “I’m not even a material witness. I’m allowed to go anywhere I want.”
Detective Grant’s lips twist into a smile of sorts. “Everyone I’ve interviewed describes you as sweet and almost meek. I’m not sure they were right.”
I tilt my chin upward and stare at her. “I’m not going to live in a cage because of some sicko.”
She walks past me to examine the flowers, the card, and the cicada. She doesn’t touch them, telling us, “A tech will be by to collect these shortly.”
I push myself up, using the table for leverage. Nate wraps an arm around my waist to help steady me. I reach for my crutches and pull away from him.
“I wore gloves,” I point out.
“You shouldn’t have opened them at all,” the detective chastises me.
“Nathaniel, why don’t you help Eva out to the sofa,” my mother says.
I can’t disobey her. There’s nothing else to say to the detective right now, and I won’t learn anything new by staring at the dead cicada, the tiny card, and those horrible, beautiful flowers. I meet Nate’s gaze and nod. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to feel safe again. I want to lock everyone I know and love, and even those I only like, here in the house with me, and we can wait while the police catch the killer.
The sheer weighty terror of it all creeps up on me. Someone tried to
kill
me. Someone feels such vile things for me that he—or maybe even she—wanted my life to end. There’s no way to make that kind of wrong feel okay. It’s such a big violence that it killed Micki and Amy. Their deaths feel like my fault.
And it makes me sick.
What did I say or do that made this crazy person fixate on me and my friends?
“Are you doing okay?” Nate settles on the uncomfortable chair to the left of the sofa, near enough to reach me if I need anything but not so close as to make me nervous.
I’m nervous anyhow. I need to figure out who’s killing girls in Jessup, and to do that I need to tell Nate my secret. I can’t research anything without him knowing why I’m trying to solve it.
“If you touch me, I see your death,” I tell him before I can back down from the impulse. “Since the accident, I see people’s deaths. I thought it was just hallucinations, but . . . I think it might be real, and I’m terrified.”
Nate stares at me with something like sympathy in his eyes. He’s still staring at me when my mother walks into the room.
“The detective is leaving, and I have to go to the police station with her. I’m swinging by the office
briefly
to pick a few things up, but I’m not staying,” she says. “I’ll lock the door behind us. The alarm is set, the company is monitoring it as a top priority, and the police will do drive-bys, and . . . I’ll have my phone, and . . .”
Nate nods. “I’ll be with her until you come back. We’ll be okay.”
She pauses, but she doesn’t really have a choice. If the detective needs her to go to the station, she has to go. We
are
safe here, too.
“I’m fine,” I add. “Promise.”
She takes a shuddering breath. “Do you want an officer to stay? I’m sure we could ask Detective Grant to—”
“No,” I interrupt. “You can call or text, and the alarm is set. The service monitors it, right? Honestly, I’m
fine
.”
Reluctantly, she leaves.
Once she goes, Nate is silent again. It’s not until the outside door closes behind her and we hear the lock engage and the telltale beep of the alarm being armed that he says, “Say that again.”
“When people touch me, I see their deaths. One of the nurses has a heart attack. My father dies from some disease in the hospital. You . . . you drown on liquor after the killer finds you along the road.” I watch him as I tick off the deaths I’ve seen, listing them impersonally so I don’t think about the details, the feelings, the horrible panic of death.
“And this started after the accident,” he half asks, half states.
“Yes.”
“But you think it’s . . . not from your TBI.”
I huff in frustration. “I
know
it sounds crazy, but you’re my proof.” His brows raise, and he motions for me to continue, so I say, “I knew about Nora and Aaron because of the death vision. When you touched me, I sort of . . . I think of it like
falling
into it. I fell into you, and you were worried about them. You hadn’t told me anything about them yet, but I knew their names already.”
He’s silent again, but this time he’s motionless. We sit staring at each other for several tense moments, and then he stands and walks toward me. “How do you think I die?”
I flinch away. “Liquor.”
“I stopped drinking.” He kneels on the floor in front of me so we’re eye-to-eye. “I don’t drink
or
drink and drive.”
“I know,” I whisper. “He forces you off the road, and you don’t have your cell phone . . . well, you didn’t. The vision changed after I asked you to keep your phone on you. When I saw your death the second time, he broke your phone. It was on Old Salem Road. You were almost home, and it was dark, and—”
“I do drive that way,” he interjects. “It’s faster.”
After a minute pause, he says, “That’s why you made me promise to check for my phone.”
I nod. “It wasn’t enough though. When you got out, you thought he was going to help. He doesn’t help. You need to stay in the truck so he can’t touch you.”
“Why did I pull over?”
For a moment, I think back, letting myself imagine the two times I’ve felt Nate die. “You get sick. Ready to throw up. It’s like the flu or something.”
We exchange a look as I realize how strange that sounds. How would the killer know Nate would have the flu and would be pulling over? That part doesn’t make sense. Even if the killer was following him, it wouldn’t mean there would be an opportunity—unless there was reason to expect Nate to get sick. I meet his gaze. “He must give you something first. Poison or a drug or something. Don’t eat or drink anything that isn’t in a sealed container. Until we catch him, you can’t risk it. I don’t know
when
it happens.” I pause. “It was a Friday, I think. You were thinking about visiting Aaron.”
“Okay.” Nate doesn’t look away. “How does it work?”
“It only happens when people touch my bare skin. If I touch
you
, it doesn’t happen.” I pause. Telling someone feels weird, like speaking it makes it somehow more real. “It has to be bare skin, and it doesn’t happen
every
time . . . I don’t know why. I didn’t even think it was real. I thought I was just hallucinating, but . . . I don’t know . . . It
feels
like it’s real, some sort of curse or gift.”
Nate listens, but instead of telling me I’m crazy, he says, “So I’m going to touch your arm now.”
He extends his hand, and I drop my gaze to it. I watch as his fingertips get closer, and then they graze my skin. That’s all it takes.
The car swerves toward me, and I have to go off the road to avoid impact. I feel the truck dip and jerk as the front wheel hits the ditch. I’m braking, hoping the brakes don’t lock up, praying I don’t go into a spin, and regretting the lack of airbags. My brain is racing, rolling into thoughts that seem out of place. I wasn’t going fast enough that the accident will be fatal, but I don’t have time to be without wheels
.
It’s dark out, and there are no streetlights on Old Salem Road, but I know the area well enough after driving it every day the past year and a half. It’s wooded along the road, but not thick. The front of the truck clips a tree, but it’s only a sapling. I start to swerve farther only to jolt to a stop as I smash into a much larger tree
.
The truck gives one last shudder as it comes to a stop at the tree, and I shakily cut off the engine. I know there’s no real danger of explosion. This isn’t a movie, where cars explode constantly
.
I unfasten my seat belt and push the door open. It creaks in a new way, and I wonder how much damage there is to the frame
.
I wince as I slide out of the truck. I must have hit my knee because there’s a sharp pain when I put weight on my left leg. Tentatively, I take another step. Nothing seems to be broken, but I suspect that I’ll be limping for a couple days
.
After a moment, I pat my jeans pockets and find my phone
.
My face feels wet, and I realize that blood is dripping from a gash above my eye
.
A car pulls up in front of me, and I wonder if it’s the car that ran me off the road or someone who saw the accident. The headlights shine in my face so I can’t see who’s inside the car. There aren’t a lot of people who drive along Old Salem Road, but there are a few houses and the reservoir
.
The lights make the person getting out of the car look like a silhouette. He’s not a huge man. I can tell that. I concentrate on details: size, height, clothes. It’s too dark to make out anything about the clothes beyond trousers and a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. The height makes me think “man.” Although
he
could be a bigger woman. . . . I watch the person walk up to my truck. Something seems wrong. I realize that he’s holding his arm straight down, motionless and tight against his body. It seems awkward because his other arm swings as he walks toward me
.
He—or she—isn’t speaking. I can see the shape of a person, and I’m almost certain it’s a man, but I still can’t see a face. It’s there, but I can’t focus on any details. His hair that I can see sticking out from under his hood looks brown. The shape of the body, the haircut—short—makes me pretty sure this is a man
.
I’m shaking, and I think back to what Eva said. This is the accident she warned me about; this is the person who attacked her. This is the man who killed Amy. I wish I could remember the details about this attack, the things that she said I did, so I could change them all right
now
when it’s happening
.
I fumble with my phone, tapping the button for my mother, and then look around for some sort of weapon
.
He swings his arm out and up, and I realize that he has a crowbar in his hand; that’s why he kept his arm close to his body
.
I try to dodge him, with some success, but in the next moment, the crowbar hits my shoulder. My phone falls as I duck and grab the Maglite under the seat of the truck. It’s not as long as a crowbar, but it’s heavy and extends my reach. I just need to get away from him, hopefully knock him down long enough for help to arrive
.
The side window shatters as my attacker begins swinging wildly
.
I twist my body, putting more of my weight on my uninjured leg. I swing blindly with my flashlight, cursing the lack of streetlights and the blood dripping from my forehead
.
“You’re not worthy,” he says
.
I feel bones shatter. He hits my cheek, my nose, and my mouth; the pain is excruciating. I can taste blood
.
The added pain from the blow to my face makes me a lot less than steady
.
“You’re complicating the message,” he says
.
I hit the ground, and try to struggle to my feet, but I’m trapped between him and the truck. I roll to the side, as he swings again. I try to block it and feel the heavy metal bar hit my forearm, breaking it. I notice gloves on his hands, covering his skin
.