Fate's Demand (Twisted Fate, Book 3)

Chapter Twenty-Three

"I still see a lot of things and it's never static. Sometimes it changes in the middle of a vision." Suzie paused and took a breath. "Like when we were attacked at the arcade. The vision came during the party the night before, though the setting hadn't been clear until it started to occur. I saw you die, it went gray, and then there was a super bright light. Then that thing was dead instead of you. I had just started telling Mike and Raffy about it when the other things came through the front door."

"Shadows."

"What?" She looked up, and I shrugged.

"Those things—the people possessed by Darkness? I don't know what they're really called, but I call them shadows."

Not knowing what they were didn't keep me from guessing. Considering it was Suzie's double that warned me of Dark Souls, I didn't want to have to explain. At least, not until I understood more. Besides, there was no casual way to drop the fact that I was supposed to lead the Dark Souls to Suzie and then expect her not to be curious.

Wrinkles appeared in her forehead and her eyebrows squinched together. "They don't even have shadows." She shook her head and flipped her hair over her shoulder. "You know what? Whatever. They're evil. I'm glad that vision passed, unfulfilled."

"The vision was real, though. It didn't change except for the dying part—are you sure you didn't just get that jumbled and see me passed out? Cause that light? The shadow dying? That was me."

"I thought Gabe killed it?"

I shook my head. "Nope. All me," I told her. "Apparently, if I think about things I love, I don't have to keep it bottled up." I smiled but it was forced. Those same emotions were going to ruin any chance I had of becoming involved in a normal, happy relationship. "Who knew love could be so deadly?"

"At least if it appears in another version of a vision, I'll know what it is. It was seriously creepy." She twisted so that she was looking at me instead of the wall and began chewing her lip.

"What?"

"Uh, well. Who were you thinking of to bring out your light? What do you love that much?"

Closing my eyes, I whispered, "Everything." I opened my eyes again and met her gaze. "I was thinking of everyone who's important to me and then..." I shook my head, afraid to admit what it was, like doing so somehow made me inferior for not having moved on. "I don't know."

"David?"

I nodded, unable to lie, the truth belying my intentions once my mouth opened. "Yeah. Everything else made me feel good and warm—whole. When I thought of David, it was like a switch, you know?"

She grinned and glanced down, scrutinizing her nail beds. "I knew it."

Of course, she knew it. I rolled my eyes. You don't have to be vision-girl to know I still loved David—at least the one I had known. But she was the one who had visions. Maybe...? Could she know?

"Suzie?"

"Yeah?" She looked up, full of smiles and free from worry, and dropped her hand to her lap.

I took a deep breath. She has to know. "Do you know who David is?"

Her smiled slowly faded and her eyes became guarded. "What?"

"Do you know who he is?" I repeated. I could tell by the shutter slamming down on her emotions that she did. Or, at the least, she knew something that could point me in the right direction. "Who is he now? When he isn't pretending to be David in my dreams?"

"I don't know what you mean." She looked away.

"Yes, you do. Oh my God." I sucked in my breath. "You know exactly who he is! Please tell me!"