Mind Games (6 page)

“Baby baby
baby
, Ms. Robertson! Ta-taa!” Fia doesn’t take my hand, she never does anymore, but I hear her stomping toward my room and I follow.

Her steps jerk to a halt. I assume James grabbed her. His voice is deliberately calm. “Okay, Fia. You saw her. I don’t know why you needed to, but you’ve seen Annabelle now, so can we please get you to Dr. Grant?”

“Dr. Grant? Why does she need a doctor?” I ask.

“But I have to tell Annabelle all about my great adventure. Annie—” She leans in so close to my face I can feel her breath. “I got
SHOT
. It was awesome. How many seventeen-year-olds can say that?”

“Someone
shot
her?” I turn toward James’s voice in horror. “You let her get shot?”

“Please, Fia,” James says.

“Oh, fine. I also killed some poor innocent college kid. You would have liked him, Annie. He was cute. He had long legs and long arms and gray eyes. Then he was dead. Poor cute dead kid.”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. It felt like I’d been holding it since I lied to Keane. “I’m sorry.”

“That I almost got killed or that I did some killing? ’Cause I’m not sorry about any of it. Not sorry, not sorry, not sorry at all. Is the hall spinning for anyone else? Just me? Okay, I’m
gonna go get blood on Annie’s couch. Don’t worry, James—she can’t see it. She’ll never know.”

I hear her shoulder dragging along the wall as she stomps—lurches—stomps to my room.

“Did you give her something?” I ask. I assume she isn’t bleeding to death or James wouldn’t have let her come up here at all. Maybe he gave her something for the pain already? I didn’t smell any alcohol on her breath. She hasn’t been this bad in a long time.

“No.” James has the audacity to sound sad. He has no right to be sad about what this is doing to my sister. I take another step toward my apartment, and he brings his hand down on my arm. I shrug away from it.

“She’s not allowed to be here right now.”

“James. She got shot. She killed someone. I think you can afford to bend the rules.”

He’s quiet and I hold my breath: please, please be a person, just this once. “Fine. I’ll send Grant up to take care of her in your rooms. But then she’s got to go.” I hate him. I hate that Fia can only visit me when they say so, that we can’t ever leave this floor of the school together. That Fia can live somewhere else while I am kept locked up.

“You’re a saint.” I bite off the words, wishing I could be the poison to him that Fia is to Eden.

“For what it’s worth, I really am sorry. About everything. And
I promise I won’t leave her alone tonight. I’ll take care of her.”

“She’s not yours to take care of.” I walk to my room without tracing the wall and slam the door shut. “Fia? Where are you?”

A muffled sob comes from the couch. I trip on the corner of it and swear. I haven’t tripped on my furniture in years. Then I nearly sit on her legs as I try to sit next to her. “Shh, it’ll be okay.”

“It won’t be okay. Annie, what I did…what I did…I’m so sorry. I’ll fix it, I promise.”

I find her hair and stroke it; it’s soft but at the end it’s hard and crusted with something. Blood. I want to throw up. My baby sister is on my couch and she has blood in her hair and I don’t know if it’s hers or his.

“Did you see anything?” she whispers. “Are they going to kill us? Are we still okay?”

“We’re fine, we’re fine, I promise, we’re fine.” I wish I could see her arm, see how bad it is. Look in her face to see how much pain she is in. Maybe I don’t wish it, actually. I’d rather see her dancing.

Which reminds me. “Don’t go dancing.”

She laughs. “Why?”

“Someone watches you.”

She laughs again. It’s harsh and low and nothing like the way she laughed when we were little. “When I dance,
everyone
watches me.”

I sigh, lean my head against hers. “And don’t let James stay at your place tonight.”

“Did you see something? Is something bad going to happen?” She sounds terrified.

“I’m your big sister. I don’t have to see anything to know James is always something bad.”

Fia snorts. “You wouldn’t think so if you could look at him.” Then her voice is muffled as she moves the pillow back, brushing my face with it. She screams into it, then sobs, then throws it with a thud across the room. “My arm really hurts,” she whimpers. I hear her finger tapping on the couch cushion, the three-then-pause-then-three in an unending loop. Oh, Fia.

“I know. But it’s okay. You’re done. I won’t let them make you do that ever again.”

“Annie,” she says, hooking one hand behind my neck and pulling my head down to her lips. “I didn’t do it.”

“Didn’t do what?”

“I’ll fix it, I promise. You’ll be proud of me, I’ll make you proud, and I’ll get you out. I didn’t do it. I couldn’t. I didn’t kill Adam.”

My heart freezes, and I grab her by the shoulders. She yelps with pain. “You didn’t?”

“No, I couldn’t! I’m sorry. I know I screwed up. But I thought…I hoped…you wouldn’t have wanted me to kill him. He’s nice, Annie. I made the right choice. I listened to
myself for the first time in years. I was so scared I’d come back and you’d be—that they’d know, and they’d hurt you. But they don’t know. I got away with it. And I’m going to keep listening to myself. I can do this.” She waits for me to answer, but I don’t, I can’t. Her voice is even more pained when she talks again. “I thought you’d be proud that I saved someone Keane wanted dead.”

I let her go and sink back onto the couch. A sharp knock raps on the door. “Keane didn’t want him dead,” I say.

The doorknob clicks; our talk is over. At least Dr. Grant is a man and therefore our minds are safe for now.

“Who then?” Fia asks, her voice slipping. She is in so much pain it hurts me to hear her, but I can’t go to her, I can’t help her. “Who wanted him dead?”

I stand and move away from the couch. “I did.”

ANNIE

Three Years Ago

“I SAW THE LAKE! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT. DOES IT ALWAYS look that amazing? I can’t wait to go!”

“But you won’t actually be able to see it,” Fia says, slamming a drawer shut.

“No, but I’ll be able to remember seeing it in my vision! I can pull it all up and play it out in my mind, and I can match what I remember seeing with how it all smells and feels and sounds.” I throw a pillow, jumping on her bed. I feel like I could fly. I feel like I
am
flying. I saw something because I thought about it hard enough, and it wasn’t horrible or confusing. I still don’t have many visions, and can’t usually figure out what they are anyway—people I don’t know, places I can’t recognize. None as bad as the one with my parents but none particularly awesome.

But this one! It was the beach, a beautiful narrow stretch of pale sand on the shore of the lake, a lake so wide—melting off into the horizon—it might as well be the ocean. My classmates—I saw some of them, too, but the only one I recognized was Eden because of her wild curly hair that I play with when we’re hanging out. And Clarice! I saw Clarice; I knew it was her because I heard her voice and I’d know her voice anywhere. Her hair is long and her eyes are blue, the same color as the sky. I had forgotten to miss blue. Blue!

I flop down onto my back, tracing my stomach happily. “I didn’t tell you the best part.”

“Oh?” Another drawer slams. “I can’t find my bra,” she mutters.

“The best part is, I saw you.”

“So? I’m not that great to look at.”

“Don’t be stupid! This is the first time I’ve seen you since you were a toddler! Your hair is so shiny, and your face. Oh, Fia, you’re beautiful. You’re so, so beautiful. I knew who you were the second I saw you.” Tears trace from the corner of each of my eyes. I’m on Fia’s bed, and it smells like her, sweet vanilla, and now I know what look goes with that smell.

She was there, on the beach ahead of whatever vantage point the vision gave me, and she looked back for a brief second before kicking a ball wildly and chasing after it through a group of adults.

She didn’t look happy. I wonder if she always looks that way and I don’t know. Or maybe I don’t remember what happy looks like. But even with her brows knit together and her mouth pulled tight, she was so beautiful. And when she ran, she was every description of graceful I have ever read.

“
You’re
beautiful,” she says with a sigh. “And I’m glad you saw something happy. Really. That’s amazing. I hope you keep seeing happy things. It makes everything worth it.”

“Maybe next time they take us on a Broadway trip I can see the show beforehand and ruin the whole thing for you.”

Fia lets out a dry laugh. “You do that. I hate musicals anyway.”

Our door flies open. “Where were you in class today, Fia?” Eden says, and then they both swear loudly and I feel a blanket get ripped out from underneath me.

“KNOCK FIRST!” Fia screams. I’ve never heard her so angry.

I wave a hand lazily in the air. “Relax! Eden doesn’t have to knock. Oh, wait—are you naked? Did she see you naked?” I giggle, still giddy with happiness, still seeing the beach. I know what Eden looks like. I want to touch her hair again; it was so wild in my vision. Now when she comes over, I don’t have to imagine what I think she looks like. I know! “Does Fia have big boobs? She won’t tell me, and apparently it’s not okay to feel them and see for myself.” No one laughs. “Sheesh, joking.”

“What happened to you?” Eden says. She sounds scared.

Fia stomps to the door. “Shut up. Get out of our room.”

“What’s wrong?” I sit up.

“Her body…” Eden says.

“I SAID SHUT UP.”

“No, tell me what’s wrong. Eden, what can’t I see? What’s wrong?”

“She’s covered with bruises and cuts! Her whole stomach, and her arms, too! What have they been—”

“Get out of my room!”

Eden shrieks and I hear footsteps tumbling over each other, then the door slams and Fia’s breathing is heavy.

“What was she talking about?”

“Nothing. Eden’s an idiot. I hate her.”

“She was not talking about nothing!” I stand, reaching out for Fia. She always comes when I reach out for her. But my hands meet only air. She’s staying away from my hands.

She’s never stayed away from my hands before.

“Are you really covered with bruises and cuts?” It comes out a whisper. I shuffle forward, and finally I connect with her. She doesn’t move. I pull the blanket away and tenderly reach for her stomach. It’s smooth. I trace my fingers along and she hisses a sharp breath, and there, under my fingers, on her ribs, the rough ridge of a cut. There, higher, another one. I pull her arm to me, she’s been wearing long sleeves all the time—why hadn’t
I noticed that? A long cut down her forearm, another on her shoulder.

“How did this happen?”

“Training,” she says, and her voice has no life.

“What kind of training?”

“Lately it’s been knife fighting.”

“They have you learning knife fighting? I thought you were in a gymnastics and self-defense class!”

“They take it very seriously here, apparently.”

I’m squeezing her arm, maybe I’m hurting her, but I can’t let go, I can’t let go because then I can’t see her at all. She sighs.

“They’re training me to fight. The knives are new. Before it was just hand-to-hand.”

“Like karate?” Karate would be okay. Kids take karate all the time. Not with
knives
, though.

“Like street fighting. They have real knives. I have a plastic one. I don’t get to stop until I’ve delivered an incapacitating blow. Doesn’t matter how many times I get cut.”

“
No
.”

“It’s okay, Annie. I don’t get cut much anymore. These are old. They’re almost all healed. And I’m getting very, very good.” Her voice sounds like the knives I can see sliding across her skin, through her skin, her pretty, pale skin, pale like the sand on the beach where I saw her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I back up, pulling her with me,
until my legs hit my bed and I can sink down. My fingers trace and trace and trace the lines on her arms.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal! It’s a huge deal. I can’t believe they’re letting you do this! I’m going to tell Clarice. I’ll complain. This is insane. They have to stop. Is Ms. Robertson behind it? I’ll have her fired!”

“Okay,” she says, and I can tell from the sound of her voice that her head is turned away from me and toward the window. “You talk to Clarice. I’m sure that’ll fix it.”

“Did you tell them you don’t want to do it?”

Her arm moves up as she shrugs. “Yeah. They said it wasn’t optional. Could come in handy someday. They always blabber on about how they tailor our educations to what we’ll need. Maybe I’ll need to be good in a knife fight.”

“You are never going to be in a knife fight,” I say. My head is spinning. I don’t know what’s going on or why she hid this from me. But I’ll tell Clarice, and Clarice will make sure whoever is responsible for this is in serious trouble.

I clutch Fia’s hand, feeling the sand beneath my toes. I thought today would be magical, but as I match up what I saw with what I feel and hear and smell, I just keep seeing the expression on Fia’s face from the vision.

She wasn’t happy.

Nothing about her was happy. I remember my parents’ faces, I remember what happy looks like, of course I do. The dozen other girls shout and laugh around us; I hear a few running through the shallow waves even though it’s far too cold to get in.

We spent the afternoon at the aquarium. Eden could tell I was distracted and kept telling me the names of the weirdest fish, but I couldn’t stop wondering about what’s going on with Fia. Still can’t. Fia pushes my hair aside where it’s blown into my face and I try to smile at her.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I ask, hopeful.

“Yeah.”

“Eden?” Clarice asks. “Could you take Annabelle’s hand? I need to borrow Sofia for a minute.”

I relax a little. I talked to Clarice yesterday and she was horrified. She said some of the trainers they brought on were new and overzealous, and what they were doing with Fia was completely inappropriate. She said she’d fix it immediately. I smile and let go of my sister’s hand. Clarice is going to tell her that she’ll never have to do that insane class again.