pale, her body drained of blood in seconds. A sob escaped my throat before I could stop it. She glanced around, patted my arm, and urged me forward.
“It doesn’t matter, sweetheart.”
But it did matter. How could something so heinous happen? Who would do such a thing to Ms.
Mullins? To Mr. Davis?
Just before we went inside the nurse’s office, she turned to me, her expression grave. “It doesn’t matter,” she repeated. Then she placed her hands on either side of my face and whispered, “It doesn’t matter what you saw. Nothing is inevitable.”
Surprise glued me to the spot. I gazed at her questioningly, my lips parting, then closing abruptly, afraid to say anything. But how did she know I’d had a vision? Ms. Mullins wasn’t a member of the
Order. She didn’t even go to our church, not that every churchgoer was a member. Far from it. But how did she know about my visions?
With a smile both grim and knowing, she patted my shoulder again and ushered me inside the nurse’s office.
Within seconds of my entering the nurse’s office, Jared and Cameron were outside the door, Cameron keeping vigil in that weird, predator-like way of his, and Jared watching me through the doorway. He refused to leave when the nurse told him to get back to class, taking in her every move as she took my vitals, scrutinizing her every decision, all the while keeping tabs on me from underneath his dark lashes.
His gaze was so intense, it warmed me to the marrow. I’d been shaking uncontrollably, but with him near, my body seemed to calm. I hadn’t realized I was on the verge of hyperventilating until I started breathing normally again, rhythmically.
Nurse Mackey checked me for a concussion. “I’m going to go call your grandparents. Get them over here.”
Wonderful. I would be shipped off by nightfall.
She gave Jared and Cameron an admonishing frown. “You kids really need to get back to class,” she said before giving us the small room. It had a desk, one cot whose edge I was sitting on, and a couple of chairs.
After she left, Cameron asked, “What happened?”
“I had a vision.”
“Did anyone hurt you?”
I blinked up at him in surprise. “In the vision?”
He shook his head. “No, just now.”
Confused, I said, “No. I just had a vision. Why?”
Before he could answer, Glitch burst through the door. I jumped a solid foot. “I’m here,” he said, panting as though he’d just run with the bulls. He put his hands on his knees and swallowed hard, trying to catch his breath. “I made it,” he said between gasps for air. “I’m good. What’s going on?”
“Lor had a vision,” Brooke said, and every face turned toward him.
He paused. Straightened. Looked at us like we were all crazy. Then said, “A vision? That’s it?”
“It was a bad one.” Brooke took my hand into hers and squeezed.
“No, really. A vision? Doesn’t she have those all the time?”
“Not like this,” I said, the memory flooding back in another nauseating wave.
He finally started to get the picture.
Cameron turned to Jared, his expression wary.
Without even looking his way, Jared asked, “What?”
Cameron bounced back and refocused on me. Someday those two would be friends. Until then, we had to put up with their squabbles. They were like first-graders fighting over the only red crayon in the box.
“So, are you guys back to hating each other?” Glitch asked, still out of breath. How far had he run?
“’Cause I’m good with that.”
“Glitch,” Brooklyn said. She pointed a warning finger at him.
“What?” he asked. “It’s a legitimate question.”
With a sigh of resignation, Cameron stepped back. “I don’t know what’s caused this imbalance, this turbulence in the air, but it’s clearly affecting you, Lorelei.”
“What happened in your vision?” Brooke asked.
After a hard swallow, I told them everything. About Ms. Mullins. About Mr. Davis. About the kid and the gun. The only things I left out were the little details like smells and the sounds. I had never had a vision quite that realistic before.
“And Mr. Davis had on his red tie.” It was odd that I would remember that, but I did.
“Oh,” Brooke said, surprised too. “Well, he always wears that tie on game days, so if this does happen, it won’t happen at least until Friday, right? But it could be any Friday. What was Ms. Mullins wearing? We can keep an eye out.”
“Blood,” I said, sparing her an exasperated look.
She cringed. “Do you remember what color she was wearing? Her shoes?”
“Red and red. Honestly, all I remember seeing was blood. It was hard to get past.”
“We have to find that new kid,” Cameron said.
“Surely that doesn’t have anything to do with him, potential descendant or not,” I said. “I mean, this was a high school kid. An angry kid who wanted to take out his frustrations on the world.”
“Not the world, Lorelei,” Cameron said, stepping closer. “You.”
I looked around in alarm. Glitch’s head was bowed in thought. Jared’s arms were crossed over his chest. Brooke’s face was almost pale.
“No,” I said, refusing to believe it. “He shot Ms. Mullins and Mr. Davis. He wasn’t after me.”
“And yet he aimed the gun point-blank at your head,” Cameron said. “Shot you with a particular kind of purpose.”
Jared fixed a hard gaze on me. “Most likely, he only shot the others because they were in the way.”
Cameron took over again. “He was after you, Lor. The prophet. The only one, according to prophecy, who can stop the coming war before it starts.” He kneeled before me. “I promise you he wanted you dead, and I can also promise he was sent by someone else.”
“Is it the same guy causing this disturbance you’re sensing?”
“Possibly. Or the man who opened the gates of hell in the first place. We still believe he was the one who sent that reporter who tried to kidnap you. We have to figure out who he is.”
“And you’re the only one who’s seen him,” Brooke said.
“Right, when I was six.” The only plausible solution to stop this war lay in the fact that I had seen the man who opened the gates of hell ten years ago. Maybe it was that simple. Me remembering who he was or recognizing him at some opportune moment. How else would I stop a supernatural war?
Glitch brought me an orange soda, and it helped with the whole nerves and vomiting thing. I convinced them I felt well enough to stay at school.
“She can’t be here,” Cameron said to Jared. “At school. It’s too dangerous.”
“Cameron, Ms. Mullins’s life is in danger. Mr. Davis’s. I can’t possibly leave now.”
Nurse Mackey came back in just as Grandma and Granddad showed up. She frowned, perplexed, when
Grandma called Jared “Your Grace.” Grandma insisted on calling him by his celestial title, though Jared swore the angels, arch or otherwise, never really went by such titles. Nurse Mackey shook it off, then explained what had happened, trying to calm my grandparents down before leaving us alone in the room again.
Brooke jumped up and offered her chair to Granddad, but he waved her back into it as Grandma sat beside me on the cot. Jared and Cameron joined us as well, closing the door behind them.
“What happened?” Granddad asked as he sat in the vacant chair before me, his face a picture of concern.
“Nothing. I just got dizzy.” The vision flashed in my mind and made me start shaking again. Grandma sat on the bed beside me and wrapped me in her arms. I let her, but only for a minute. Her gaze darted occasionally to Jared, and it angered me, so I leaned out of her grasp. She was so worried about him.
What was he going to do? Incinerate me right then and there because he was so dangerous?
