“Yes, please, someone get me my own sociopathic, sex-obsessed slimeball! How can I go on without a man like that in my life?”
“You don’t know him,” I snap, surprised by how much her criticism of him stings. Is it because we’re friends now? I think Pixie is my only friend in the whole world besides James. And I’ve known her all of two days? Three? I don’t know her. And she’s dangerous, I keep forgetting.
I drain the rest of my smoothie, then look at her. “The last time I came to find Sadie, a girl ended up dead.” Tap tap tap TAP. I hate that TAP. I hate it I hate it so much so much.
Her shoulders sink, and she leans over to me, nudging my arm. “I know about Eden. They told me. I’m sorry, Fia.”
She smiles, but the smile is a lie, a preamble to what is coming next. The ice in my stomach from the smoothie spreads outward and I don’t want to hear her anymore.
“Have you ever asked James about his . . . particular life ambitions?” Her voice is as casual as a knife in the gut.
I scowl, tug on my boot top, and wish I’d worn sandals. “What ambitions would a sociopathic sex-obsessed slimeball possibly need?”
“He’s got a lot of plans,” she says, watching me closely. “I care about you, Fia, and I’m not trying to drive you away from him. I don’t understand it, but I know you need him. I’ve seen your thoughts when you’ve been away from him for too long. But you have to have your eyes open. You have to have enough information to make decisions.”
I throw my cup. It sails through the air and lands in the trash can without touching the sides. “I never need information to make decisions. There’s Sadie.” Now we have something to do and I can stop thinking and start doing.
It’s strange, finally seeing her as more than a photo. I never actually saw her in Iowa. My heart flutters. Maybe this is what it’s like to see a movie star in real life, this strange slowing and stopping of time, the recognition of knowing someone you don’t actually know. Sadie’s done so much to my life for never having been in it.
Her long hair is pulled into a ponytail at the base of her neck. She’s aggressively plain—no makeup, clothes dark and baggy. In spite of the weather she’s wearing a collared shirt, buttoned all the way up, and over that a hoodie jacket, with her hands shoved into the pockets. She trudges by, purse slung across her body. Her shoulders are turned in, her eyes on the ground.
Everything about her pleads to be ignored. I’m so sorry, Sadie.
“What do you know about her?” Pixie asks.
“Seer. She’s been flagged before, but she was nabbed by Lerner and we lost her. Either she’s broken with Lerner or they screwed up, because someone picked up her trail again yesterday. And here we are.”
“She doesn’t want to come with us, then.”
“It’s not really up to her.” One way or another, Sadie is going to the school.
I slide unnoticed onto the sidewalk behind her and watch as she navigates the space. There’s an almost dance to the way she twists and turns to avoid other people, the intense focus it must take to remain untouched moving through a crowd.
Pixie swears. “You’re right. She’s thinking, ‘Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, d
on’t touch me.’ It’s like being in your head—she’s adamant, obsessive about it. I doubt if she even knows she’s thinking it, but she’s not thinking anything else. Just that, over and over again.”
We keep following, watching her move with a runner’s grace belied by her horrible posture.
Pixie shakes her head, piercings glinting in the sun as she raises an eyebrow. “Maybe she was . . . maybe someone . . . hurt her. In a . . . way.” Pixie looks at me helplessly.
It isn’t that simple. Not that there would be anything simple about a situation like that, but it would be its own tragedy. Not one that would have put her in Keane’s Seers’ line of sight so many times. “We need to touch her, see what happens.”
That’s the key, I know it is, because when I think about touching her, everything in me screams to stop, to stay away, to avoid doing exactly that. I can listen to the directions of wrong as well as right. Pick the one thing you shouldn’t do, and do it. That’s how I became a model employee. That’s how I filled the school with the most promising new students they’ve ever had.
Maybe that’s what went wrong when I saved Phillip Keane’s life.
“So, what, run up and bump into her?” Pixie asks.
I narrow my eyes, take in all of Sadie. We don’t know where she’s staying. All we knew was that she’d walk by this café in the afternoon. Stupid Seers. But the strip malls have turned into residential streets, so we must be getting close.
“I don’t think that’d work. Look at the way she’s dressed—maximum skin coverage.”
“Oh, so just run up to her and casually stroke her cheek! No biggie, then.” Pixie huffs, digging a twenty-dollar bill out of her pocket. “I have to do everything. Hey!”
Sadie doesn’t turn around, and Pixie jogs to close the gap between them. “Hey, you dropped this.”
Sadie barely looks up, keeps walking. “No, I didn’t.”