Sleep No More

EIGHTEEN

When I get home from Linden’s house—sadly, there was no more kissing, not even when he said good-bye—I go right to my room and start studying the photos of Repairing the Fractured Future from the beginning.

As the sky outside my window darkens, I’m starting to get at least a small part of what the book is saying. Apparently the supernatural plane is a place that actually physically exists, but on a slightly altered dimension of reality. But you don’t, like, disappear from this world to go there. You project a physical version of yourself with your mind. I guess it’s like what I’ve been doing in my second sight when I revisit my visions. I think. Or, that’s what the author of the book thinks. It all sounds a little sci-fi to me. But what seems to be clear is that it’s a different place from my second sight, where I see my visions. My second sight definitely exists inside my head.

According to this, to get to the supernatural plane you “jump” into the alternate dimension with your projected physical self. Whatever the hell that means.

It’s hard to get much more decent information out of the text. Maybe because I haven’t been there. Haven’t seen it. Yet.

That night when I go to bed, I lock my bedroom door. It’s becoming a habit and not one that I like. But my life is full of secrets now. Well, it was always full of secrets, but now I’m even keeping them from Sierra.

I lie in bed with my fingers clasped over the necklace, waiting for sleep to take me.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Sleep never comes easy when you really want it to. But somewhere in the midst of my tossing and turning, the blankets begin to envelop me in a distinctly nonrealistic way. I’m not completely conscious—more the sensation of being in a dream that you somehow suspect is, in fact, a dream.

I’m floating, no, more like swimming through thick water. And I’m reaching, reaching for something I can’t see. I want to get there so badly. I’m almost there and then . . .

Sunlight pierces through my eyelids.

I wake up feeling like I didn’t actually sleep. Rest, I guess. And there’s a sense of disappointment that almost overwhelms me. I’m not sure why. I didn’t get to the supernatural plane . . . at least I don’t think I did. But maybe I was heading there?

I’m pulling a shirt over my head when my mom calls my name excitedly. Which makes me nervous. I hate that this is my life now.

It’s Nicole. She’s all over the news.

But it’s because she’s alive.

“I just had this feeling,” Nicole repeats again and again to every reporter who asks. “My parents had just left and I had this feeling I should go to my friend Sara’s house. I knew I had to leave,” she says very seriously as her hands reach up to grasp her cross necklace. The implication is lost on no one. Her bright blue eyes are wide in both the horror of what might have happened and the excitement of her fifteen minutes of fame.

There would be no excitement if she actually knew what was supposed to happen. The mental picture still chases my appetite away.

The cameras continually go back to the machete, still stuck in the shed wall as police circle it and take photo after photo. The tracks where the killer rolled over the snowdrift are also taped off, though the police have said that they don’t expect to be able to retrieve any useful evidence from them.

My mom is so excited that someone evaded the killer, but I feel like there’s a countdown clicking in my head. Despite the fact that we headed this one off, Smith is right; we’ve got to do more. There was less than twelve hours between me having the vision and the actual event taking place. The few visions I’ve had and been able to track in my life were always days early at the very least. I remember when I was six, waiting almost two weeks for all of the signs to happen that I saw in the vision of Sierra dying.

I’d never had a vision come to pass in less than a day before this guy started murdering kids. He’s so angry. I shiver. I’ve got to get better at this changing-the-future thing. I have to stop him.

Back in my room, I pick up my phone to start studying the Oracle text again when it starts vibrating in my hand and I freak out and drop it on the floor.

Perhaps my reflexes are not quite catlike.

Linden’s name flashes on the screen, and my heartbeat jumps right back up to racing—albeit for a completely different reason this time.

I’m bored. What are you doing today?

I groan and flop back on my bed. For six years, I’ve wished that Linden would show some kind of interest in me. Why does all of this other crap have to be going on at the same time? I stare at the phone screen for a long time trying to decide the likelihood that my mom will let me out of the house at all today.

Not sure my mom will let me do anything.

*My* mom still has her security guy.;)

I raise an eyebrow and text back:

Can’t hurt my case.

Want to go snowmobiling?

It sounds like heaven. But seriously? I push the button to call Linden so we can actually talk in full sentences. “Good morning,” I say when he answers, and it feels somehow intimate to greet him like that while I’m lying in bed.

“So what do you think?” he asks. “My new machine is dying for a test run.”

“Is that safe?” I ask in half a whisper, just in case my mom is within hearing distance. I shouldn’t have to worry. I should get a vision before the killer strikes again. But I don’t know that for sure. Still, I would know if my own death were coming, right? It’s what I’ve been depending on these last few weeks.

“Do you doubt my abilities as a driver?”

“That’s not what I mean,” I say. “Should we be out alone with the . . . the murderer still out there? I mean, after the thing with Nicole?”

Linden is silent for several long seconds and I feel guilty. I know he likes that I help him forget about the killings, even if only temporarily. But we have to be reasonable. “I think my rig is fast enough that I could get away from anyone who might approach us. And I’ll keep us out in the open. Would that make you feel better?” I expect him to sound annoyed, but he doesn’t. He sounds like he really wants me to feel okay.

I chuckle dryly. If only. “It’s not me you have to convince; it’s my mom.” I stand and poke my head out of my door and look both ways down the halls before asking quietly, “What if I told her I was just going to your house?”

He laughs and the bright sound chases away my melancholy. “You do what you gotta do. Just . . . just come, okay?”

I’ve never gone snowmobiling before. It feels like flying! I hang on tight to Linden and squeal when he hits a snowdrift that launches us a few feet in the air only to land softly in a mound of powder, and then we’re gliding again.

I’m dressed in a full-body snowsuit that Linden grew out of ages ago. And I’m grateful for the warmth as the frigid air whistles past us. We last for a full two hours of crisscrossing acres upon acres of perfect, untouched powder and by the time we pull back into his parents’ six-car garage, I’m bursting with delight and excitement even though my cheeks are so cold I can’t feel them.

“That was awesome,” I say when Linden unfastens my helmet for me and I pull it off, the world stunningly bright without the visor in front of my eyes.

“It’s a good machine,” Linden says, looking down at the shiny snowmobile and then running a hand along the side of it.

Getting out of our snowsuits is almost as funny as when we got into them—with Linden again having to assist me with half of my fastenings.

“I feel like I’m four,” I say, giggling. “I need so much help.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Linden says so casually it makes my heart skip a beat. His simple, easy assumption that we’ll do this again. Soon, and often enough that I’ll grow accustomed to the silly snowsuit.

“You look cold,” Linden says, and lifts his hand to push a damp strand of hair off my face. He meets my eyes and his hand freezes. For a moment, I think he might kiss me again. A real kiss, not a deal-sealing kiss. But after a few seconds of tension he smiles, drops his hand, and inclines his head. “Let’s go inside.”

We stop in the kitchen and Linden pushes a button on a very high-tech-looking shiny thing and a few minutes later, we’re both holding steamy cups of frothy cappuccino. “This is so cool,” I say, my hands warming around my mug. “It’s like Starbucks in your house.”

He leads me into a rec room where a huge TV stretches across one wall and a sectional big enough to seat at least ten people lines the wall. Linden drops onto the built-in chaise and pats the space beside him.

Not the seat beside him, but the space on the same cushion right beside him.

With a quick you can do it inner pep talk, I carefully lower myself down next to him so I don’t spill my drink. Our thighs touch and our shoulders rub as I tentatively put my feet up on the chaise close to his.

As I sip my foamy coffee, I subtly take in the space around me. The décor is fairly sparse and almost entirely black and white. Multicolored pillows line the couch, deep jewel tones that are the only bright spots in the entire room. It’s so elegant and beautiful.

But it does make me worry about getting coffee on anything.

I’m not sure I’d like living in such formality. I study Linden’s profile and wonder if he finds it stifling.

Before he catches me staring, I turn away and as I do my gaze finds a long, wide mirror mounted above the couch on the adjacent wall. I gasp and put a hand to my hair. Helmet hair is the least of what I have. It’s like helmet and bed and teased hair all rolled into one almost-beehived mess.

Linden looks up at my sound of dismay. When he realizes why I’m upset, he snickers.

“You knew!” I accuse, pointing a finger at him.

“Aw, come on. It’s cute,” Linden says.

I set my coffee down on the end table and jump up to try and bring some sort of order to the mess on top of my head. Something smacks me in the back and I turn to see one of the pillows on the ground. I grab the pillow nearest to me and lob it at him. He puts his hands up to block what would have been a perfect shot to the face, then launches it at me again, following it immediately with another one.

I shriek and we both laugh and toss pillows until all of the formerly perfectly situated decorations are on the ground. Linden grabs me around the waist and flops back onto the couch, pulling me against him.

He runs his fingers over my messy hair, fixing some of the strands. “You look adorable like this.” And then, with almost no warning, his lips are on mine and he’s pulling my hips tight against his and I can barely breathe.

This one is a real kiss. It’s warm and soft and purposeful in a way the sort-of kiss yesterday wasn’t. One hand runs down the side of my ribs, down my hips, my thighs, then he hooks his fingers under my knee and pulls my leg up and across him, our bodies so close that he warms me even better than the creamy cappuccino.

After a long, soft, lingering kiss, he pulls away and leans his head on one elbow to look me in the face—though he keeps ahold of my leg so our hips are pressed deliciously close.

“Why didn’t I notice you before?” he whispers, and runs one finger down my cheek. I pause at the funny sense of déjà vu his words provoke. Is it because I’ve imagined this conversation happening about a thousand times? Or did I actually dream about a scene just like this?

I smile up at him as he lowers his face to mine again. It all feels so exhilarating and surreal and I don’t know what to do. Honestly, it feels a little fast. But not for me, for him. I’ve been dreaming about this for years. Maybe Linden just moves kind of quickly.

I can’t say that I mind.

His fingertips find bare skin on my back, between my waistline and shirt. He hesitates, as though he’s unsure what to do. Then his fingers slide across my spine and pull me even tighter against him.

I let all my worries go. It doesn’t matter. Today, right now, everything feels wonderful.

Everything feels right.