“Hey, Cameron,” I said as I fished a tip out of my bag and turned back to our table.
“Your friends already left a tip,” the barista said from behind the counter. “See you tomorrow.” She grinned at me, knowing I’d be back. If I remembered correctly, she’d graduated a couple of years earlier and had gone off to college in Albuquerque. Must not have worked out, since she was now a barista in a small-town coffee shop. Or it worked out perfectly, and she’d gone to college to become a barista in a small-town coffee shop. Hard to imagine, but okay.
“See ya,” I said before glancing at Cameron again. He took the whole brooding thing way too seriously. The glare he’d graced me with could have frozen heck itself. “See you tomorrow, Cameron.”
He lifted a finger in acknowledgment. I felt oddly honored.
“What took you so long?” Brooklyn asked as I stepped into the late-afternoon sun. New Mexico was nothing if not sunny, even where we lived in the Manzano Mountains.
“Did you see that boy?” I asked, scanning the street.
“Cameron?” Brooklyn asked. If the distaste wasn’t clear in her tone, the wrinkling of her nose would have said it all.
“No, a dark-haired boy, tall and really, really muscular.”
Brooklyn jumped to attention and joined me in the search, turning every which way. “What boy? I didn’t see a boy. Especially not a tall, dark, and muscular one.”
Glitch peered in through the coffee shop window. “I didn’t see anyone either. Maybe you imagined him.”
“I had a vision,” I said breathlessly, and two sets of eyes widened on me. I knew we’d spend the rest of the evening talking about what I’d seen. If my vision was even remotely authentic, something very dreadful was about to happen to that boy.
SUPERNOVA
Three days later, I found myself struggling against both melancholy and euphoria. But if I’d known my day was going to suck like a turbo-powered Hoover, I totally would’ve faked the flu and stayed home. Or chicken pox. Or malaria. Instead, I’d walked to school like it was any other day. Like my heart wasn’t breaking. Like my head wasn’t reeling and my feet weren’t weighted down by the sudden and tragic onset of clinical depression, making each breath a trial, each step a struggle. I totally needed a car.
I walked along Main Street, past trees and small businesses geared more toward tourists than locals, until my high school came into sight. Riley High was the latest and greatest achievement of the Riley’s Switch Board of Education. It was sparkling and new with stone arches that would’ve looked more at home in an architectural magazine than in a small New Mexico town. Heavy plate-glass windows lined the front with arched pillars at the entrance. The whole thing was topped off with a scarlet dome, like a castle tucked into the mountainside. Several outbuildings encircled the school, including the gym, the agricultural and construction shops, and the cafeteria. I had to admit, when I started here my freshman year, the place intimidated me more than a little. But I adjusted quickly when I realized how much the boys had grown over the summer. High school was a grand place to be.
I spotted Brooklyn in the sea of students rushing to class and zigzagged toward her. Hugging my notebook to my chest, I took turns dodging a group of wrestlers practicing their chosen profession in the hallway and barely escaping with my life when a linebacker decided to plunge through the crush of bodies.
Who knew high school could be so dangerous?
Brooklyn was busy dialing the combination on her locker. She glanced at me between spins. “Hey, you.”
“Hey.” I leaned against the wall of bright red lockers and asked, “Do you remember what today is?”
She stopped midspin, her dark visage puckering in soft admonishment. “Of course I do. How could I not?”
I shrugged and glanced down. It was weird. I figured the tenth anniversary of my parents’ disappearance would be excruciating. Like if I’d broken a leg or gotten a really bad paper cut. Instead, the pain in my chest was more like a whisper bouncing off the walls of an empty cavern. I just woke up and they were still gone. Like they had been every other morning for the last ten years.
At first their absence had seemed like a dream, but the depth of despair my grandparents fell into convinced me they were really gone. And everyone asked me questions. What happened? What were we doing there? What did I see? Nothing, I would tell them. Again and again, nothing. I didn’t understand why they were asking me questions I couldn’t possibly have the answers to, but they said I’d been with my parents when they disappeared. The police found me unconscious beside our car at the old Pueblo ruins outside of Riley’s Switch. I didn’t remember being there. I just remembered waking up in the hospital days later, my body so heavy, I could barely move, my lungs so thick, I could barely breathe. And no one had any explanation as to why.
Then came the questions. Over and over until my grandparents, in their state of utter bereavement, ordered the authorities to stop and took me home to grieve. I found out later that the entire town had helped look for my parents. Search parties scouted for days, hunted for clues. Even the FBI showed up, but nothing was ever found. Not a single shred of evidence. As cliche as it sounded, they literally vanished without a trace.
The official report stated that my parents had wandered off and lost their way back. But they would never have done that. They would never have left me. And yet, because there was no evidence of foul play, the investigation lasted only a couple of weeks.
And I, the only one who could offer any explanation, could remember nothing. The guilt of that fact weighed on me more and more every year, like a jagged boulder in my chest that grew with each passing moment.
I’d never told anyone about the guilt except for Brooke.
Her eyes filled with sympathy. “Why didn’t you stay home?”
“And wallow in a deep pit of despair alone when I could force you to wallow with me? No, thank you.”
She nodded. “That’s a good point. I’m pretty good at wallowing.”
“And,” I said, withdrawing inside myself just a little, “I have something awful to confess.”
“Yeah?” Intrigue scooted her closer. “How awful?”
I hugged my notebook tighter and said, “I keep thinking about that boy from the Java Loft. For three days, that boy and that vision.”
A knowing smile softened her face. “And you feel guilty?”
“Absolutely. Don’t you think I should?”
“No.”
“I mean, here I am, practically orphaned ten years to the day, and my mind keeps replaying that vision over and over in my head. I’ve never seen anything like it. Or felt anything like it, for that matter. He was so fierce, so desperate, and yet somehow not quite human.” I took in a deep breath and refocused on Brooke. “But to think about that on today of all days.”
She put a hand on my arm. “Lor, I’m certain your parents wouldn’t want you wallowing for their sake.”
“I know, but—”
“No buts. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to have your gift, to see the things you’ve seen and feel the things you’ve felt. I understand where you’re coming from, but if you really loved me, you’d describe that boy in much more detail and include pertinent information like chest measurements and white blood cell count.”
I grinned playfully and leaned in closer. “Well, I did try my hand at drawing him.”
Her smile widened. “And?”
After a quick scan of the area to make sure no one was looking, I eased my notebook forward to reveal my latest masterpiece.
Her stare locked on to the image I’d drawn. The boy from the vision. She inhaled a soft breath. “Oh, my.”
“I know.” I’d caught only a fraction of his face during the fight. Dark eyes one instant. A strong jaw the next. Lashes, thick and impossibly long. So I didn’t really have that much to go on, but I drew what I remembered.
“Is the boy in your vision the same one from the hall?”
