Cold Tomorrow

[24]

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

When Renée returns the next morning, it's to a much emptier house – so empty, in fact, that I feel it inside me, like an absence so great it's transformed into something real and tangible. An ache in the pit of my stomach, a hole filled with phantom pain. Even after a long sleep, Sarah's voice rings in my mind, clear as day, as though the words left her mouth only minutes ago: You should know, lying doesn't suit you.

And the worst part is, I can't even deny it.

I said I was sorry. And it was a lie.

I sit in silence at the dining table, finishing off a late breakfast, when I hear the knock at the door. Katherine opens up and lets her in. "Renée," she says. "Thanks again for coming."

I stand and quickly clean up my things. My hands fumble and I nearly smash my cup in the sink. Renée comes around the corner a moment later. "Good to see you again, Melissa," she says. "Should we get started?"

Just like that. After what the last visions did – destroying my relationship with Sarah and turning the past I shared with my father into a lie – I almost don't want to witness another ever again.

But I go through with it. Renée sets up at the dining table this time as there's no one around to occupy it. The process moves quickly; before I know it, the silver mark is on my wrist and the vial of black liquid waits in my hand to be consumed.

"Go ahead," she says.

I don't hesitate. I drink.

And a few moments later, everything fades away.

-:-:-:-:-

The first vision comes.

It is not the one I want.

I watch from the edge of a cold wide room, filled to the brim with darkness – a scene so familiar by now that I tense up instinctively, knowing what comes next. In the centre stands the man in a black coat, eyes as dark as his clothing. Keon, I finally realise, recognising him from a previous vision. The same receptacle beside him, the same blue flames flickering in it's basin, creating harsh, ugly shadows.

Suddenly, my perspective changes.

I'm standing beside the receptacle now, able to see Keon through the dancing flames. Suddenly there's movement, so fast I barely register it happening. And then the scream comes. It's a word.

No.

I'm moving, running, tears in my eyes. And then there's blood on my hands, pain in my chest like a knife shoved through my heart. Looking back, I see something glint dangerously in Keon's hands and mistake it for a gun. "What have you done?!" I yell.

But in the shadows behind him, something moves – someone moves. They step forward, travelling closer to the baptismal font, and the light cascades onto their face, tinging their skin blue. One hand is still raised, palm facing forward. The other rests palm up, a silver orb hovering above it that morphs and changes into various shapes with the fluidity of liquid.

Lauren.

And suddenly the scene rearranges itself in my mind, like the pieces of a puzzle, falling into place. I see the object in Keon's hand, which is in fact not a gun but a dark stone. I see Lauren stepping forward, the silver hovering over her palm – an ability, no doubt. I recall the movement, the sharp silver pieces that whizzed past on Keon's other side and landed in Caden's chest.

And I realise:

Keon doesn't kill Caden.

Lauren does.