Annie and Fia (Mind Games 0.50)

Fia takes my hands and pulls me close, stroking my hair the way I stroked hers when she was little and scared of the dark. “It’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay.”

I freeze. I know Fia’s voice better than my own, and I know the tone in it now. I’ve heard her use it on our parents hundreds of times. “Why are you lying to me?”

Heather sounds relieved when she walks back in. “I just talked to your parents. They’re fine. They’re going to head home early instead of going to a movie.”

“They’re okay?” I can’t believe it. I saw it happen. I saw it.

“Yup! Totally fine. Why don’t we turn the TV back on and I’ll make some popcorn.”

My stomach turns and I think I’m going to be sick, but I try to breathe deeply. They’re fine. Heather talked to them.

“I saw it,” I whisper to Fia.

“Maybe you fell asleep and dreamed it.”

“I don’t dream like that.” Until now, I didn’t even have an image for what my mom looks like. She’s only a voice in my dreams. I’ve been blind since I was four. I never see things.

Fia shifts uncomfortably, squirming next to me. “It’s going to be fine.”

She’s lying again.

An hour later I’m nearly asleep on the couch when someone knocks on our door.

“No,” Fia says, her voice so quiet I can barely hear it. “Don’t answer it. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know.”

“Can I help you, officer?” Heather asks, fear and confusion making her voice higher than normal.

“Is this the Rosen residence?”

“Yes. Is something wrong?”

And then our world ends.

FIA

Four Months at Keane

THE AIR STINGS MY NOSE. I BREATHE IN AS DEEPLY AS I can. It’s bitingly cold, but you can taste that it’s clean. And space! So much space! They hardly ever let us go outside in Chicago, and when we do it’s always supervised field trips in the city. There’s room here, room to think and to feel and to breathe. I could probably even get far enough away that I wouldn’t have to worry about Ms. Robertson listening in on me.

“What was that?” she asks, glaring suspiciously from where she is helping the shuttle driver unload our bags.

Oh crap, I hope she didn’t hear, I think. She didn’t. She has no idea what I’m planning. Don’t think about it, Fia, don’t think about it. She won’t know until it’s too late. I’ll wait until she’s sleeping. Don’t think about it.

Her glare deepens, and I smile innocently. I pick up my bag and Annie’s. Eden is already helping Annie across the heavily salted sidewalk to the lodge. When I walk into the rush of warm air, I let myself laugh. Pretending to be plotting is my new favorite Ms. Robertson game.

It’s not very hard to be creepy in my head.

There’s a room for us to congregate in while we wait for our keys, and it’s already set up with steaming hot chocolate. Everything smells like pine with a hint of dark, bitter coffee, and I’m not at the school, and there’s no training here so no one is going to hit me until I hit back, and maybe, just maybe, my head will be quiet.

Eden looks up at me with a puzzled expression, then raises her eyebrows in an I-told-you-so sort of look. I flip her off.

“Fia.”

Eden snorts and shakes her head, mouthing, “Busted.”

With a sigh I turn around to find Clarice, Annie’s staff mentor and hero. Clarice is teaching Annie about the visions she sometimes sees, helping her with them. Clarice is the best thing that’s happened to Annie in years.

I hate Clarice.