Death, Doom and Detention

“What?” she said, sobering.

I shifted away from her. Plucked at the pillow. “The visions. I never lost them.” I looked up to gauge her reaction. “In fact, they’re so strong, so fierce, I can’t control them. They come at me like missiles. They punch me in the gut. They tear through my heart. They make me sick. Every single one.”

She scooted closer. “You’re still having them?”

“Yes.”

The surprise on her face confirmed she really had no idea. “Lor, why didn’t you tell me? Why would you lie about that?”

“Because I don’t want them.”

“Why? Why would you not want something so miraculous?”

“Miraculous?” That time I did scoff. “You call what happens to me miraculous?” I drew in a ragged breath and readied myself to give her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Curling my fingers into the pillow, I asked, “Did you know there is a student at Riley High who was raped last year?”

Her eyes widened, but I barreled forward, afraid if I stopped, I wouldn’t be able to start again.

“She never told anyone, because she thinks it was her fault. She keeps it bottled up inside.” I leaned into her. “Do you know what it’s like to be raped, Brooke? Because I do. Now I know exactly what it feels like. It is a complete and savage violation of body and soul.”

Stammering, Brooke said, “I-I didn’t know.”

“Then did you know that another student is planning to kill himself?”

Her expression morphed into a mixture of shock and sympathy. “No.”

“Not just thinking about it. Planning every moment. He’s going to do it with his father’s gun. Do you know what it feels like to be that desperate? That lost?” Before she could answer, I asked, “And do you know what it feels like when a bullet enters the roof of your mouth and blows the top of your head off?” I was shaking with the memory of something that had yet to come to pass. My stomach lurched as I heard the gun go off. As I felt, for just a split second, a bullet enter my brain before everything went black.

“Lorelei,” she said, her voice faltering, “I’m so sorry.”

“And did you know that there is another student who will die in a motorcycle accident this summer? Or another who is almost going to die of exposure and dehydration when he goes rock climbing with a friend in Utah and gets lost in the desert? Do you know what it feels like when your kidneys shut down? When your tongue swells to three times its normal size until you can barely talk? Barely swallow?”

She put a hand on mine. “I’m so sorry, Lor.”

“You don’t understand. I don’t just see what happens to them. I feel it. Every ounce of horror. Every wave of nausea. Every pang of heartache. I’m right there with them. And I get everything—every emotion, every jolt of pain—in a blinding flash that leaves me in a stupor. The aftermath lingers for days on end. I can’t eat. I can’t concentrate.”

Her hand pressed against her mouth as tears spilled over her lashes and onto her cheeks.

I gazed into her huge brown eyes, not wanting to offend her, but hoping—no, praying—that she would understand. I was not prying when I saw what had happened to her. I would never do such a thing. It came to me when I least expected it. When we were working on a science project in lab. It was just there.

“And did you know that another student at Riley High was almost abducted when she was seven? That a man reached out of his car and grabbed her as she was on her way home from the store? That terror filled her so completely, she wet her pants?”

Brooke stilled in disbelief for a second, then she fell into the memory like a skydiver during free fall, her expression blank, void of anything but that moment in time.

“And when she wrenched free of him, ripping her shirt and staining it with the orange Popsicle she dropped, she ran all the way home, too scared to scream, too in shock to cry. But she never told her mother. She wasn’t supposed to go to the store by herself. Ever. And she was more worried about getting in trouble for that than turning the man in. So she never told anyone.”

After taking a moment to let the memory resurface, Brooke stood and stepped back, struggled to absorb the fact that I knew.

“How would you suggest that I tell her that?” I asked, my voice soft, empathetic. “The student who wet her pants and told her mom she’d fallen in a puddle of water? How should I approach her and tell her that I know one of her most guarded secrets? Do you think she would believe me?”

I hadn’t missed the clenching of Cameron’s fists when I talked about Brooke’s memory. The tensing of his jaw. He cared for her deeply. That much was obvious. And I was glad because of it. To have a nephilim on your side could only be a good thing. He was super strong and super fast and could protect her from so many of life’s dangers. Like pedophiles.

“I don’t want this anymore, Brooke. Any of it.”

She blinked back to me, but before she could respond, Glitch lifted the window. “What’d I miss?” he asked, his gaze bouncing between the two of us. Alarm flitted across his face when he saw Brooke. Then again when he saw me, and I realized I was crying.

I wiped furiously at my wet cheeks and strode to the bathroom. Apparently, Cameron had called the whole gang.

“What happened?” Glitch asked Brooke as I closed the door and swiped at the tears, angry at what I’d seen, angrier that I’d shocked Brooke, that I’d hurt her with a memory she’d tucked into the farthest reaches of her consciousness, trying desperately to forget.