makeshift bandages came off.
Desmond had marked me permanently. Four deep wounds in the back of each hand still oozed blood, but at a much less life-threatening rate. “You’re going to need stitches,” said the EMT.
For some reason a picture came to mind that I couldn’t shake. Granny May bent over her quilting, moving that needle steadily up and down as she hummed “Rock of Ages,” looking up every once in a while to smile at me as I lay on the floor playing solitaire, trying to get her cat, Snookums, to move its butt off my cards. Unexpected tears filled my eyes.
“I am?” I said.
“She may be feeling a little shocky,” the EMT told Cassandra.
Cassandra pointed to the puddle under the table. “All that blood is hers.”
The EMT nodded. “Better bring the cookies and juice then.” I let the ladies help me into the ambulance and didn’t even protest when the EMT covered me with a blanket. Sometimes it’s nice to be comforted.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
Thirty-two stitches, twelve cookies, and five cups of juice later, Cassandra and I arrived back at the RV. Bergman’s irritation abated somewhat when he saw my war wounds, but he still didn’t want us there, watching him do his top-secret, need-to-know-level engineering. So we dumped our gear and went back outside. Someone, probably Cole, had set five neon-green lawn chairs out front under the awning. I supposed we were now TV stars, having set off the cameras inside the Chinese lanterns, but it didn’t matter. Nobody was awake in the bedroom to watch us.
“I am beat,” said Cassandra, slouching down so she could rest her head against the back of her chair. “How am I supposed to do any readings tonight when I feel like burnt toast?”
“Fake it,” I suggested.
She looked at me with the kind of horror Granny May might’ve experienced upon hearing me utter a dirty word. “Are you kidding me?”
“Cassandra, you have to do an hour-long show plus one ‘prize’ reading afterward, and if you’re lucky it’ll be for dragon-breath. Where’s the harm in telling people they’ll find true love or get a lucky break?”
Her face pinched like she’d just bitten into a lemon. “It’s just not done by genuine psychics. It’s unethical.”
“Okay, chill. I was just trying to help you out.”
She rolled her head toward me and smiled tiredly. “It’s just been such a long day . . .” Yeah, I guess I had put her through the ringer. The fight had been bad enough, but in its own way, the hospital visit had been worse.
I’d ended up enjoying the ambulance ride in a pathetic I-haven’t-driven-this-fast-in-weeks kind of way. On the way I’d developed a strange sort of sugar rush. At the hospital I’d been transferred to a wheelchair and almost immediately freaked Cassandra out by popping a wheelie. Hey, I might as well celebrate my recent triumph, since clearly no one else would. We’d been waiting in an interim room (the hallway) for several minutes when I noted her swiping at an escaping tear. Now that bothered me.
“Are you still upset about your vision? Or was the fight too much for you?” I knew she’d seen plenty of violence in her time, but I still hated to expose her and Miles to the seamy side of my work. A thought hit me. Was I truly about protecting them? Or did I just fear the way they’d look at me when they finally figured out what I was capable of? Ouch, definitely too hot to handle until later.
She’d thought about it awhile, her lips pressed tight, then she’d shrugged. “As much as I complain about my lot, I do enjoy living. When I think of all the places I’ve been, all the people I’ve met, all the wonderful curiosities I’ve explored and how, after all this time, there is still so much to see, so much to know”—she shrugged—“I’m afraid it’s finally slipping through my fingers.”
“Your visions, I know they come true a lot, but I really believe they’re just possibilities. I think what you see is more likely to occur. But in a world where anything can happen, you have to believe we can choose things. And we can change things.”
“I want to . . .”
“What about that guy, Sergeant Preston? How come you brushed him off?”
More tears welled in Cassandra’s eyes. “When I touched him, I
“What?”
“He has a little boy from his first marriage. His widowed mother depends on him and his three brothers adore him. And he is going to die trying to save me.”
“Wow, that does kind of put a big old stinky blanket on the budding romance.”
“Jasmine, I’m serious!”
“Oh for chrissake, Cassandra, why do you have to be all gloom and doom lately?” I had an inspiration. “Why can’t you just jump in the sack with the guy, do the happy hoppy, and wallow in regret later like the rest of us lowlifes?”
“The happy hoppy?” She smirked.
“Hey, I’m a quart low here. You want clever, you better get me some replacement blood.”
“You are such a hypocrite. I know you have never just ‘hopped in the sack’ with anyone. It’s not in you.”
“Hey, if I want a lecture on my faults I’ll call my dad. Oh, that reminds me, I should call my dad.” I pulled out my phone.
“Jasmine,” Cassandra hissed, “we are not done here.”
“Yes. We are,” I said. “We have clearly established that your recent visions suck so bad we’re going to have to take drastic steps to break them. Also that you really need to get laid.” I bulldozed over Cassandra’s shocked intake
