The Vision (6 page)

Zander was still staring at me. He raised his eyebrows expectantly. Waiting for me.

Hesitantly, I stepped away from the group, their conversation fading to a mumble as I walked toward him, stopping close enough to see the fineness of his dark eyelashes.

“Hi,” I said, after a few seconds of silence that stretched uncomfortably, though Zander didn't seem to notice. “I'm Cassie.”

He nodded. “I know.”

He was still watching me quietly, smiling a little. Making me fidget. I clasped my hands behind my back so they'd stop. “This is the part where you say, ‘I'm Zander,' ” I told him.

“But you already know who I am.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “but it's the polite thing to do. It's called small talk.”

Slowly he grinned, his eyes never leaving mine, and he shifted from the wall to hold out his hand. “Hi, Cassie. I'm Zander.”

I reached out, slipping my hand in his, visualizing zombie brain fests to forget about the way my whole body tingled from touching him.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Huh?”

He withdrew his hand from mine and I felt the gentle friction of his palm on my skin. He folded his arms languidly across his chest, completely relaxed and confident as he leaned against the wall. “What do we do now, oh goddess of social convention?”

“Well … we can say ‘nice to meet you' and go our separate ways. Or we can talk.”

Zander thought for a minute. “Let's talk. You go first.”

“Okay.” I tried to think of something witty or interesting to say, but I was flustered around him in a way I couldn't remember ever being and what came out was, “I saw you at the hospital.”

Zander looked at me speculatively. “You saw me at the hospital.” He said it carefully, drawing out the words as if trying to extract meaning.

I felt my face grow warm. Idiot. Not how you start a conversation. Not the very first time you talk to this tantalizing guy who looks at you with a gleam in his eye and purposely drew you away from his friends and yours.

Somehow, standing next to Zander, the idea of him at the hospital, him being the father of Demetria's baby, seemed utterly ridiculous. He could have his pick of girls. Why would he choose a crazy one? What was I thinking?

But the words were already out, so I forced myself to hold his gaze and finish what I'd started. “Right. That's what I said.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Downtown,” I said. “Vauxhall Hospital. I was visiting a patient and I thought I saw you. At the window.”

“You did, huh?” His eyes were locked on mine. Reaching into the deepest parts of me. It made my throat tighten. And then he shifted his gaze away, idly scanning the crowd around us as if there must be something—anything—more interesting out there. “So?” he said.

“So …” I tried not to stammer or notice how cold it felt to have lost his attention. “So was it you? What were you doing there?”

He turned back to me. “What were you?”

I stared mutely.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said, his voice teasing but with a sharper edge. “What were
you
doing there? Vauxhall is a mental hospital. You have friends there?”

“No. I mean, not really. Not that there's anything wrong with that.” I'd lost my footing, backpedaling stupidly to get Zander on friendly ground, though it felt like I'd already lost the chance.

He shrugged. “No. Probably not a fun place to hang out, though.” He turned as one of his friends called to him from across the way. Zander held up his index finger, signaling he'd be right over. “I've gotta go,” he said, glancing down at me.

And then he reached out, his hand brushing my shoulder lightly, making me shiver, and plucked at a purple feather stuck in my hair. From that store with trashy handbags and earrings that Hannah'd dragged me into.

Zander freed the feather. I saw it drop lazily to the ground, but his hand still hovered, inches from my face, a few strands of hair caught between the fingers. I stood motionless, my heart pounding. I was afraid to breathe, not even sure I could. Zander twirled my hair lazily, thoughtfully. It felt intimate, like we were lounging on a blanket in a field somewhere instead of standing outside the movie theater at the Willowbrook Mall.

“You have beautiful hair,” he said, his voice low, eyes—
definitely
bedroom eyes—studying mine. “I love girls with long hair. Don't ever cut it.” He drew his hand back gently, careful not to pull, letting the dark wisps disengage on their own. He held my eyes for an extra second in a way that made my face burn. “See you around, Cassandra.”

Zander sauntered off, not looking back, but knowing I was watching him. Which I was. I couldn't help it.

“Cassaahhndrahhh.” Liv mimicked Zander's inflection as she came to stand beside me. I wondered how much else she'd heard. “That's sooo sexy. And the way he was touching you—ooo-la-la.”

“Please, Liv.” I hardly had the heart to argue because she was right. I kept replaying the way he'd looked at me, called me by my full name the way no one else did. I was surprised he even knew it.

“I was worried about you guys,” she said with feigned concern. “I thought you might need to get a room.” Liv laughed at her own joke while I blushed hot pink.

She shook her finger at me. Teasing, but not really. “You've got it bad for a bad, bad boy, Cassie. Better to stick with your funeral home romance. It might be weird and a little twisted, but it's probably not nearly as dangerous as getting close to Zander Dasios.”

He'd said the word “love.” I imagined it on his lips, the context different, and knew Liv was right.

But I had a feeling it was too late.

chapter 8

I couldn't sleep. An insomniac combination of zombies and Zander.

I thought about texting Jack but I felt guilty, like I'd cheated on him. Even though we weren't together. Even though I'd done nothing more than stand next to Zander. Let him play with my hair.

The emptiness of Jack's silence would be too hard tonight anyway. It was so unlike him to hold a grudge, I'd been really surprised and hurt at first when he didn't respond to my messages. I kept thinking he might. I've gone over and over how things ended and I guess I couldn't have handled it much worse. But even now I'm not sure what I would change. The essential problem is the same: the mark is the mark is the mark.

It was dusk of a warm day in late October and we were at the preserve again, not near our tree, but on the rocks overlooking Miller's Pond. I'd been trying to keep up the conversation about school and tests, but I couldn't stop thinking about the woman with the mark I'd warned a few weeks before, my second since going back to Ashville.

I saw her on my way to school. She was walking with a friend, dressed in sweats—the clean, pressed, matching kind that looked like they never saw any actual sweat. I should have followed them, skipped school and tailed her back to her house, waited until she was alone. But I had a calc quiz that day, one I'd studied hard for. For once I felt ready, sure of a good grade, one I thought I deserved and might need for college.

So I walked right up to her, tried to speak quietly, pull her away from her friend so we'd have some privacy. But she didn't hear well and her friend refused to take the hint.

She died anyway.

That part was bad, but even worse was her friend. The one who'd listened to everything I'd said. The one who saw me downtown just a few days ago. She'd run after me demanding that I stop. She needed to talk to me.

“… sent, do you?”

It took me a few seconds to realize I was at the preserve. With Jack, who was waiting for an answer. A few seconds too long. “I'm sorry, Jack,” I said. “What did you say?”

Jack shook his head and looked away. “It doesn't matter.”

“No, it does. I'm sorry. I was just zoning, but I'm with you now. Really.” I touched his arm to be sure he knew.

He didn't move and that was a bad sign. He should have smiled or reached over to hold my hand. That's what he'd normally do.

“Jack.”

He looked at me and I felt my stomach drop at the things I saw in his eyes: sadness, resignation.

“Listen,” I said earnestly, “I'm sorry I've been a little distracted. I've got some stuff on my mind, things to take care of. It's nothing to do with you.”

“What kind of stuff ? What things to take care of ?”

I tried to hold his gaze, but his eyes were too penetrating. Daring me to be brave enough to tell.

Which of course, I wasn't.

I shrugged. “Just … stuff.” I tried for the obvious. “You know, things with Nan, her will, um … schools. It isn't you.”

He nodded. “Right. Except that it is, Cassie. Whatever's bothering you is big enough that it's always with you. I can see it, like a cloud in your eyes, something that's keeping you from committing to anything else. Even when you're with me, you aren't really. Not a hundred percent. Whatever it is, I'd like to help.” He took my hands then, seeming so small in his, and looked deep into my eyes. “But you won't let me, Cass. You know how I feel about you and I think you feel the same about me. I don't know why you won't tell me and let me help, but you won't and I feel like an outsider. Like I'm always second best to whatever this thing is.”

He waited. This was my chance, I knew. My last one.

It made me tear up because I didn't want to lose Jack and I would if I didn't tell him. “You're not second to anything with me, Jack,” I said. It was the best I could do, but it wasn't enough. Especially since it wasn't true. I wanted it to be, but the mark
did
cloud everything, and until I figured it out, nothing would be quite right.

We didn't break up then and there, but that was the day I knew we would. The day I put it in motion.

Three weeks later, I told him.

“I'm leaving, Jack.” I'd asked him to walk me home, said we needed to talk. I hadn't bothered assuring him it wasn't as ominous as it sounded. We both knew it was.

He nodded, but didn't say anything. We'd had a fight the day before. Something stupid. By then our fights usually were. I could feel us at the thinnest part of a relationship so frayed we were ready to fall through. I think that's what he thought I meant—that I was leaving him, leaving our relationship. Which I was, but also more.

“You're right about there being something else,” I told him. “I can't tell you about it now, but I hope someday—when I've got it figured out—I can.”

He looked at me, residual anger replaced by something not much better: disappointment. There was little worse than feeling I'd let Jack Petroski down.

“It isn't you,” I said, thinking how, if it weren't already a cliché, my overuse of that line these past two months would have made it one. “If it were something I could tell anyone, you'd be the first. It's just … it's a family thing that I have to figure out on my own.”

“Cassie,” he started. “Whatever it is—”

I held up a hand. “I can't.”

He nodded.

“I've bought my tickets, talked to guidance and all that …”

He stopped short, my real meaning sinking in. “You're leaving Ashville?”

I nodded.

“Where will you go?” He wasn't sure if I was kidding or maybe just floating the idea with no real plans to act.

“Chicago,” I said, the firmness of that one word clarifying how serious I was. “I have a friend out there, a girl I met in Kansas over the summer.” Or at least she'd be out there soon. We'd been arranging everything over the past two weeks, since I'd told Petra my emancipation paperwork had come through and I was thinking of leaving. I was shocked when she suggested that she come, too. Then elated. The semiregular e-mails we'd exchanged since I'd left Kansas turned into nightly phone calls as we planned the details, both of us ready and needing to leave things behind.

“When?”

This was the part I was really dreading. “Monday.” I grimaced, waiting for his anger.

But Jack was only confused. “Monday? You don't mean four days from now Monday, do you?”

I nodded, still grimacing.

He frowned, getting it. “What about your apartment? The emancipation and will and other legal stuff you've been working on with that lawyer?”

“It's all done. Taken care of.”

“So you've been planning this all along?” He asked incredulously. The anger I'd been expecting worked its way into his voice. “You knew you were leaving? How long, Cassie? Since you've been back? Didn't give me much of a chance, did you?”

“It's not like that, Jack. I—”

It was his turn to hold up a hand. “That's okay. Spare me the excuses. I get it now. Sorry I was such an idiot before. I thought we …” Jack shook his head. “Forget it.”

“You thought we what, Jack?”

“Nothing.” He adjusted his backpack. “Good luck, Cass.”

“Wait. Don't leave yet, Jack.”

“Why not? You are.”

And that was it. He turned and walked away.

I told myself that someday I'd work up the nerve to tell him about the mark, but it was a hollow thought because, really, why would he wait around to hear it? And even if he did, how could I tell? He might understand, but it would change how he looked at me forever, the same as if I told him I had a contagious disease or committed a horrible crime. I'd seen it with Lucas over the summer. I wouldn't be the same person to Jack. The girl he'd taught penny poker and challenged to bike races and shared a fort with in the maple tree would be gone. And I'd never be able to reclaim her.

And then there was that lady. The friend of the dead woman. How long would it be before I saw her again? Before she told her friends about me? Before one of them recognized me as Nan's granddaughter or the girl who lived next door to them?

When would they start showing up on my doorstep with torches? Overreaction? Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn't take much for a reputation to be built in a small town.

Figuring out how to use the mark required risks I couldn't take there. I needed a safe haven and I needed it to be Ashville. It's where my life was, my friends, my memories. It was home. That had to be preserved above all else so that maybe someday I could go back.

I'd written Jack a few times after I left; real letters, not e-mails. Nan always said an apology was best made in person, and if that wasn't possible, on fine stationery. I'd sent him the first letter right after I got here. Others over the following weeks.

Now I just texted. Short little notes, unable to fully sever the connection.

He never wrote back.

After rolling around in bed for an hour, the stuff with Jack and the scene with Zander fighting for space in my jittery brain, I called Tasha.

“H'lo?” Her voice was groggy. I glanced at the clock again, afraid I'd miscalculated, but 1:23 here meant after nine in Romania and Tash wasn't usually a late sleeper.

“Tasha? Hey, it's Cassie. Did I call too—”

“Cassie!” Hearing pre-caffeine Tasha's excitement made me smile. “How are you? I miss you! Wait!” I could almost see her doing the clock math. “Is everything okay? It must be …”

“The middle of the night,” I finished. “It's fine. I just couldn't sleep and it finally seemed like a time I might actually catch you awake.”

“Yeah … sort of. Late night.”

We swapped stories about the usual stuff: the kids she was teaching English, my new school, her parents.

“You hear from anyone else at home?” I asked casually.

“Like who?” She was all innocence, totally onto me.

“I was just thinking about Jack,” I said, still casual. Nothing wrong with asking about an old friend, right? “You know, wondered how he was …”

“Whether he was dating anyone? Asking about you?”

“Well, yeah.”

She sighed. “I wish I could tell you, Cass, but I don't know. When I saw him last, he was pretty upset, couldn't understand why you left.” She paused, asking carefully, “Why did you? I still feel like
I
don't know.”

I closed my eyes, wishing I hadn't brought it up. “Oh, you know, Tash, it was just … being there with the memories of Nan …”

“Yeah, I know.” I could tell she wasn't really buying it anymore. Just like Jack hadn't. “That's it, though? There wasn't anything else? Because …”

She didn't finish, just left it out there. “No, nothing else,” I answered.

We talked a little more, but before we hung up Tasha circled back.

“You know, Cass, it was December when I saw him last.” She didn't even have to say his name. “Months ago,” Tasha added for emphasis. “You know what they say about time, wounds, all of that. I wouldn't wait too long to get in touch.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. I hung up after our good-byes, not bothering to tell her how many times I'd tried.

I lay in bed for another half hour, but knew all chance of sleep was blown. I decided to go to the all-night diner two blocks away instead. I rarely went out this late, but when I wanted to, I could. It's one of the benefits of being my own boss at seventeen.

The diner was no-frills down to its very name: The Diner. I slid into an empty booth near the far corner after grabbing a job application for Liv. Not that I thought this was exactly what she had in mind, but I was here and they were “Now Hiring.” I'd carefully folded it into my backpack and was flipping through a left-behind newspaper when the men's room door opened. I glanced up, without thought or expectation, immediately wishing myself back home in bed, sleepless or not.

The man walked toward me, lowered himself to his seat, and slurped at his coffee. He was lit with a soft, steady light. The last thing I needed tonight. The mark.

I glanced at the clock by the door: 2:47. He had less than twenty-one hours to live.

I closed my eyes, rubbing them as if I could erase his image: shaggy brown hair, worn flannel shirt, dirty jeans, heavy boots. He looked around fifty, but his scruffy face was tired, the kind that seems older than it is. Beaten down.

“What can I getcha, hon?” The waitress stood by my table. Behind her, I could see the man set down his cup and collect his things. I couldn't eat now anyway. I hated this feeling, hated what I had to do next: watch, learn, judge. Save him or don't? Trade a life for his? Without any evidence there even
was
a trade-off beyond the letter written by my long-dead and possibly crazy relative. Hardly rock-solid proof.

“Nothing,” I told her, reaching heavily for my coat. “Changed my mind.”

I slid out of the booth and followed him into the dark and freezing night.

The mark was as luminous as the moon against the near-black sky, more vivid than I'd ever seen it. I followed him, tense and anxious, staying in the shadows. But the man kept his head tucked against the wind that blew straight into us, never looking back, as we walked one block, then two, three, four from The Diner and my apartment. At the end of the last block, the man turned into an alley.

I hesitated, an ominous feeling stealing over me at the cusp of the dim passage. I'd never been to this part of Bellevue before. It was probably totally benign, if a little run down, during the day. But in the deserted night, it looked anything but safe.

What if his fate was to be mugged on his way home? What if following him made it my fate, too? What if
he
was the mugger; had known the whole time I was behind him and turned in here to trap me? What if
I
was his killer, protecting myself—his death the result of my own self-defense?