“Stop!” she gasps. “Stop! You have to stop! He’s thinking about Annie! If you take Sadie, they’ll hurt her. He knows I can hear him, he’s telling me what he’ll do to her, it’s . . . oh please please stop.” She sobs, and I lean back, watching as the two men who went inside walk out with Sadie, holding her elbows. She doesn’t fight them, but hangs her head as though she’s being marched to the gallows.
Sandy blond with the gun smiles at me, tips his head.
“I’ll kill you,” I scream, and I mean it, I do, I will kill him I will I will I will.
He laughs. Closes the door. Backs out of the driveway and drives right past us, because he can, and I can’t do a thing to stop him.
ANNIE
Four Weeks Before
COLE LETS OUT A LONG, LOW STRING OF SWEARWORDS. “There’s a Bentley parked in front of her house. They’re already here, it has to be them.”
My stomach sinks. They’re right there, right inside. That monster, James, and Eden—whom I miss so much it hurts. Why is she still working with them?
I snap. “Wait! What time is it? Sarah, look up where her school is! In the vision, she got home after James and Eden were already there. Then Fia came a few minutes after Sadie walked in. So it was James and Eden, then Sadie, then Fia.”
“Adam needs to stop texting me,” she mutters. He was desperate to come when he found out it involved Fia, but Rafael agreed it was best for just the three of us to make this trip. “Okay, go two blocks east and pull over. The high school gets out in five minutes, and she’s close enough she’ll probably walk. This will put us right in her way, unless she goes a strange route home.”
Cole parks and we get out of the car. I tell them again what Sadie is wearing, though we’ve gone over the vision so much we all know every detail.
I lean against a wall, my cane in the car so we don’t draw attention in case there are any other Keane employees out and about. Eden is right down the street. James is right down the street.
And Fia is here, somewhere.
I wish we could abandon Sadie and kidnap Fia instead.
“Sadie?” Sarah says, and I stand up straight.
“Yeah?” The girl sounds wary.
Sarah actually starts crying. “We did it. We found you first. I didn’t think we would.”
“I need to go home.”
“You can’t,” I say. “There are people there. Bad people.” Eden isn’t bad. Fia isn’t bad. She’s not, she’s not. “They want to take you to a private school. They’ll say it’s to help you, but they want to take advantage of you, use you for your abilities.”
“
What abilities?” Her voice is cautious, with an edge of fear.
“Do you see things? Things that haven’t happened yet? Or maybe you can feel what other people feel. Or know what they’re thinking without them telling you.”
I can hear her breathing getting faster and uneven. “I—no. No. I can’t. No. I have to go home. My mom wouldn’t send me to the school. They invited me already, and we said no.”
“She’s going to sign the papers, Sadie. I’ve already seen it. I went to the school. Please believe me that you want to stay as far away from it as you can.”
“She said—my mom said—no, I’ll go tell her.” I feel the air shift as she walks by me and I am so desperate to keep her here, away from that house, that I reach out for her. If she goes home, if she meets Fia, we have lost our chance forever, I know it. I put my arm out too high, though, and my hand brushes her neck, her hair tangling in my fingers.
“Sadie, wait, please—”
She stumbles, then something bangs on the car hood next to us.
“Sadie? Are you okay?” Sarah asks.
“She’s having a seizure.” Cole grunts, then I hear the car door opening.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my hands fluttering uselessly in the empty space in front of me.