Watch Me: Teen Paranormal Romance (A Touched Trilogy Book 3) (5 page)

“We should get going if you want to catch the previews.”

He stopped and turned to face me. “Nice avoidance technique on both subjects.”

I opted to address the least dangerous issue. “I thought we agreed to put Homecoming in the past and move on.”

“You agreed. It’s still bugging me. One minute we were dancing and the next you were stomping off and demanding to go home.”

We’d been dancing and then out of nowhere came Nadine and her date, dancing beside us. For a few seconds, I’d been inside both Nadine and Andrew’s futures and the overlap had been gut wrenching to watch.

“Well, don’t worry about it. It’s over. I was freaked and now I’m not.” I stepped close to him and wrapped my arms around his neck. Pressing up on my tiptoes, I let my lips fall across his. He relaxed and encircled me in his arms.

I was exactly where I was supposed to be. For now.

Chapter 6

“I’m thinking of joining a convent.”

Bianca’s words brought my head around to look at her and I snorted. “I’m pretty sure you need to be Catholic to become a nun.”

Bianca ran a hand through the new blue highlighted pixie cut she sported. “I didn’t say anything about being a nun. I can’t think of anywhere else my parents wouldn’t look for me if I ran away.”

“That bad?” I asked, trying not to laugh.

“My parents liked him! Seriously, Chloe, they liked him. He covered up the tattoos and took out the piercings and God, he even cut his hair.” She leaned forward and rested her head on top of the cafeteria table. “I loved his hair. Logan had so much potential. What would possess him to destroy it?”

“Did you stop to consider he thought he wouldn’t be able to date you if they didn’t like him?”

“They weren’t supposed to like him. They were supposed to try and keep us apart. We would sneak around behind their backs, until they grudgingly accepted him, though they would always secretly hate him.”

“Okay, time to bring it back to reality.” This time the laugh burst forth.

She groaned. “Reality is a drag sometimes.”

“It’s not like you guys were going to be together forever,” I said. “Don’t worry. In a couple months, you’ll be dating-” I cut my words off before I said Owen’s name. Telling her wouldn’t change anything in the long run, but she’d freak if I did and then…well, what? If it truly was the future, what did it matter if she knew?

“Shut up!” Bianca jerked her head up. “It’s super creepy when you do that fortune teller stuff.”

“It’s not fortune telling.”

In our family, fortune telling was on par with witches and Ouija boards - not acceptable. Nanna once said the difference between fortune telling and prophecy was that fortune telling was about seeking to gain by either the teller or the receiver. Prophecy was a gift from God, a glimpse of what was to come so we could prepare our minds and spirits.

“Whatever.” Bianca picked up my pen from the table and began doodling stick figures on the corner of my English assignment page. “How come you have no problem with doing it to me, but you won’t tell Nadine about it? It’s always weird when we hang out and I know that she doesn’t know what you know.”

“It’s different with her.” Different because while I would be friends with Bianca for another ten or eleven years before we completely lost touch, Nadine and I had a shelf life set to expire in two and a half weeks.

She stared at me for a long moment and then rolled her eyes. “Anyway, Phoebe thinks I should get together with Sebastian. You know, the tall Trekkie geek.”

I sat up a bit straighter at the mention of his name. “Isn’t he a bit tame for you?”

“Yeah, well, he’s odd in a way I doubt he could hide from my folks. Then again, I don’t think I could take listening to him go on about which Star Trek series is the best.”

“Is he really into that?” I enjoyed the newer movies with Chris Pine, but the older ones were a bit too much for me.

“Girl, he and Owen debated for an hour about the scientific probability of zombies versus aliens. Notice I said probability and not possibility. They had percentages and shit.”

“There’s always the hope he’s an amazing kisser.” I laughed as her eyes brightened.

“Good point. Which, of course, leads nicely to the turning point I believe you were going for. How was the date with Andrew?”

“Good.”

One of her eyebrows lifted. “Seriously? Good? You have nothing further to add?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want details! I want to hear that he stripped off the nasty green shirt he always wears and showed you his rippling abs. Then you slathered him with tanning oil as he lay on the beach under the hot sun. That boy has got a body to die for.”

“Did you bother going outside over the weekend? It was cold and windy. And how do you know what his abs look like?”

“Uh, hello? Don’t you remember when we went to the pool this summer and you practically drooled over him the entire day.”

“I vaguely remember.”

“So? Details! Come on! There has to be something.”

“Nothing to tell. We had fun. We ate lunch, went to the beach, and then a matinee. Then he had to go to work.”

Bianca rolled her eyes and tilted her head back. “Ugh, you’re so boring! Nadine is wearing off on you. She’s so goody-goody.”

“And you’re starting to sound like Phoebe.” I pointed my half-eaten granola bar at her.

“I know. You really should stop ditching me for Nadine and Andrew. When I’m left with limited company to communicate with I get a little tense.” She grabbed her backpack from the floor and her breakfast tray with the other hand. “I gotta get to class. Ms. Garcia totally spazzed on me last week about being late.”

“I’ll catch you at lunch.”

“Ugh. I can’t. I’m meeting Karin for my Mandarin tutoring. If I fail my final, my parents said they were going to enroll me in some online program to do on the weekends.” She waved and took off.

I dumped my granola bar wrapper in the trash and went to biology class. While bio did make my list of top five classed, I normally didn’t dread it. Not that I felt dread. No, it was more like anxious. Sebastian was in the same bio class. I’d tried hard to put the vision of his future into a little compartment I liked to call delusions, but I couldn’t. Not completely. Today I would check it out again.

The room was empty when I walked in and smiled at Mrs. Booth when she looked up from her computer screen. My seat was in the perfect spot. In the front corner closest to the door, I could simply stick out my foot and it would pass right through Sebastian’s future.

The warning bell rang and students started trickling in. I kept my eyes focused on the doorway, concentrating on keeping myself from being dragged into the puffy hazes surrounding the people walking by. Finally, Sebastian came through. I didn’t even need to stick my foot out. The haze he carried had spread and thickened. The instant he passed through the doorway, images flashed before me.

Blood everywhere, soaking into the grass. Micah on the ground, Lily crying over him. Nadine and Andrew glazed eyes. Phoebe screaming, blood running down her face. Sebastian standing a few feet away. A gun in someone’s hand.

I jerked back in my seat, pulling as far away from him as possible. My chest tightened painfully and I struggled to take a deep breath.

“Are you okay?”

I glanced at the girl next to me and tried to remember her name. I knew it. We’d been lab partners for almost four months, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just not feeling well.”

She leaned to the side, away from me. “Maybe you should go to the clinic or bathroom or something.”

Behind me, Javier leaned in toward us, making a barfing sound. “She’s gonna spew chunks all over you, Alonna.”

“You’re disgusting. I’m fine,” I said.

Still, I took Alonna’s advice and headed for the restroom. I splashed cold water on my face and drew in a few slow deep breaths before spending a minute repairing my makeup. Just because I felt sick to my stomach didn’t mean everyone had to know.

When I got back to class, Alonna sat at a new table. In her place, next to my seat, was Sebastian. I sat down and began the struggle of acting natural, a nearly impossible feat considering the effort required to not to sink into his future.

“Hey, Alonna wanted to switch seats. You okay with that?” he asked.

“Sure, whatever.” I opened my notebook and tried to catch up on the notes flashing across the Smartboard. Technology ruled until you missed a few slides then it sucked. There was no way I could see what the previous screens had shown.

Every ounce of my being was centered on blocking out Sebastian and I kept my mind focused on taking notes. A wicked tension headache was in full force by the end of class. When the bell finally rang, I practically jumped from my seat and ran out of the room. I found Nadine at her locker, waiting for me to go with her to our next class.

“You look like crap,” she said, walking alongside me.

“Thanks.”

“Sorry, but you do.”

I pulled my water bottle from the side pocket of my bag and took a sip. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

The answer pacified her and she launched into a recap of every minute of her Thanksgiving break, starting when her mom discovered the nail polish stain on the carpet. While she was engrossed in the details of the green bean casserole and marshmallow salad, I inched closer to her. My shoulder bumped hers and even if I hadn’t been trying, her future would have pulled me in.

There were flashes of her shopping with Bianca and me, of her with Andrew at Javier’s party, her opening Christmas presents. I pressed deeper, and the images blurred. I could still see the future I’d always seen for her, but over top were new images. Shattered glass. Her car flipped over. Nadine crumpled inside.

The images faded and when my eyes refocused, Nadine had stopped walking and was staring at me as if I was crazy.

“What?” I asked, then cleared my throat and took another sip of my water.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I told you I didn’t sleep well.”

Her eyes widened and she said, “Chloe, I asked if you wanted to go shopping with me tomorrow after school and you told me to stay home or die.”

Holy crap. A forced laugh burst out from me. “I guess I’m worse off than I thought. Maybe I should go home. I’ll call you tonight.”

“I’m hanging out with Owen, but I’ll text you.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

She giggled. “Considering you’re saving yourself for Andrew, you’re not leaving me much to do.”

“I haven’t been saving myself for him.” The words sounded bitter even to my ears.

It wasn’t a complete lie. For a long time I had waited to be with him, thinking he’d be my first even though I’d never seen that future. Then after Homecoming, I realized it would never happen between us.

I took off for home, not even bothering to stop in the office and sign out. That would require calling my dad to notify him I was leaving. It was much easier to skip. I’d just have to break down and ask Phoebe to use her well-honed forgery skills to write me a note tomorrow.

Talking during my visions wasn’t normal for me. It happened once before that I knew of. I had the same kind of double vision of Lily’s future. In one, a car hit her leaving her badly injured while Micah was with his ex-girlfriend. The second set of images showed Micah going after Lily, causing her to turn back from the road in time.

I’d had no idea I even said anything, but according to Micah, I told him to choose right or the one he loved would die. Luckily, the words made sense to him, because he went after Lily and she’d stopped turned back from the parking lot just as some idiot had torn through and slammed into a car right by Lily.

I’d thought it had to do with Micah being a buffer, which somehow let him block my gift from working with him. But Nadine didn’t have that ability, so something was seriously effed up with my gift. What else was new?

The empty house didn’t help me sort things out and after forcing down the salad I’d packed for lunch, I decided to go out. I needed to relax, to organize my thoughts, and hopefully, find my way back to being myself. Thirty minutes later, I found myself at the cemetery.

Walking along the path to my mom’s grave was actually comforting. It sounds kind of morbid to think of liking such a depressing place, but visiting Mom always made me feel safe. I’d never understood Phoebe’s aversion to coming. When I topped the slight hill, I spotted Nanna sitting on a bench a few yards away from Mom’s grave.

I sat next to her, loving the comfort of the arm she laid over my shoulder.

“I knew you’d come here,” she said.

“Seeing the future now?” I asked.

She laughed softly. “No, but I know my granddaughters, and of the three of you girls you always loved coming here.”

“So you came hoping I’d come, too?”

“I always love spending time with you girls, but no, today is my regular day to visit. Your Uncle Silas is coming by in a bit and he’s taking me shopping.”

Uncle Silas was my mom’s youngest brother and a healer like Lily. Nanna liked to say he had the gift of miracles; a rare gift and one that carried heavy burdens. Miracles don’t happen every day and while simple healings of cuts and broken bones were easy for him, Uncle Silas never knew when a miracle would happen. As Nanna always says, God has his own plans and those touched by him are simply a vessel of him to act.

“I never made my weekly visits a secret, so while you may not have planned to see me, I think you wanted to. Tell me about school, or perhaps your boy.”

“School is good. Andrew’s good.” I took a deep breath, drawing in the Chanel No. 9 perfume she’d worn every day since I could remember. I imaged it was the same one my mother wore. I liked the idea of being able to smell her presence even if I would never feel it.

“I see. Well, now we cleared that up, would you like you tell me why you really came to see me?” Her fingers drummed against my arm, as I stayed silent. “Something has been bothering you for much longer than a day.”