Perfect Lies (Mind Games 2)

“Well, pay lots of attention so you can describe it to me in great detail when I get out.”

“Will do.” She closes the door behind herself, humming happily.

“Hey, Eden,” I say, cradling the phone against my ear, every part of me exhausted and worn down from the last two weeks of running.

“How you holding up?”

“Fine.”

“Liar. I don’t have to Feel you to know you’re crumbling.”

I lean my head against the back of the bath, running my fingers along the top of the water. “It’s fine. Really. We keep Sadie away from Keane, Fia doesn’t die. It’s that simple.”

“You can’t keep hotel hopping for the rest of your lives.”

I sink deeper, only my head above water. “I know. I know. But until I see something else, something that lets me know we’re past the danger zone . . .”

“Did you tell Sadie?”

“No. How am I supposed to tell her the reason we’re still running like crazy is because if she goes to Keane, my sister will murder her and then jump off a building? Besides, she seems like she’s doing well. I like her. She’s a sweet girl.”

“I think you should tell Rafael. He can help figure something out. He has no idea why you three aren’t stopping somewhere, and he’s genuinely worried about you.”

“Can we trust him?”

Eden hesitates. “He hates James and Mr. Keane. Maybe more than you do, even. He’s not going to do anything that will help them. You can’t fake that kind of hate.”

“I’ll think about it. I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up. I feel like I’m fraying apart at the edges. You know?”

“I know. I can hear it in your voice. Things will work out. I promise.”

“Liar,” I say, but I’m smiling.

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.” I hang up, let the phone drop over the side onto the stiff hotel mat. I replay the vision over and over, trying to find some detail, some hint that the time period it happened in is over. But the windows are too high, so I can’t see any trees for season clues. I don’t know what Fia’s hair looks like to compare it, or James’s. And Sadie looks the same as she did in my other visions.

Sadie doesn’t deserve this. The whole point of keeping her out of the school was to make sure she had a safe, happy life. Every night in a different cheap hotel with Cole and me, every day underwritten by a current of stress and strain . . . this is not protecting her. This is ruining her.

At least, unlike Adam and me, she’s not pretending to be dead. She’s emailed her mom a few times, let her know she’s alive and safe. I can hear the TV in the room, still blaring the cooking channel that Sadie finds everywhere we go. Of the three of us, she’s the most okay with this situation, when she should be the least okay with it.

I slip down until only my nose is above the water.

Something has to change.

When I stumble out of the bathroom, shivering from sitting numbly for so long in the freezing bath, I can hear the soft sounds of Sadie breathing in the farthest bed. I wonder what she’s seeing, what futures are playing out in front of her eyes. She’s whimpering in her sleep. She does most nights. She sees things while she’s dreaming—not as bad as when she touches someone, but bad enough that she stays awake as long as she can every night.

I walk until my calves bump against my bed, then lean forward to pull the blanket back.

My fingers touch skin. Cole must have fallen asleep, waiting for me to come out of the bathroom. I mean to pull my hand away but his stomach is soft, so soft, and warm enough that I flatten my palm instinctively against him. I can feel the waistband of his pants and the bottom of his shirt where it’s ridden up to expose this bare strip.

Things have been changing the last few days, stretching and shifting, until I could swear there was a sort of current between us. Now, touching him, it’s completely alive with electricity. And I know with sudden and perfect clarity that I want him.

I have never wanted so much with my fingers. I want to crawl them up his stomach, under his shirt, feel the muscled contours covered by skin that has no right to feel this way. Tender. Delicate. The idea of any part of Cole being delicate is so incongruous that it snaps him into a whole new light, a whole new way of seeing him.

The image in my head I’ve built of his face, hard angles and narrowed eyes, evaporates, replaced with . . . warmth and softness. I have no idea how to picture him anymore.

I don’t realize my hand is still on his abdomen until his own comes down on top of it. “Annie,” he says, voice thick with sleep, but it isn’t a question. It’s a statement.