She chuckles lowly. “Yeah, I noticed. But Chrys, I don’t think you have to be afraid of that. You really are in control.”
“Well, you think you have no control,” I say, “but I think you do. Before, you couldn’t help but talk about the future but now you can keep it in. That sounds like control to me.”
“Sure, I guess the ability to keep my mouth shut is some sort of control,” she says. “But I just don’t get it. What’s the point of having this gift if I can’t even say anything?”
“What’s the point of being able to kill people? Honestly, I don’t think there is a point, Valeria. It just is.” She doesn’t say anything, so I continue, “You know, I don’t think you have to keep your gift a secret though. I don’t think anyone will hate you for it.”
“Chrys, you hardly know anything about my gift. Seeing the future is just one part of it.”
“Well, you can tell me about the rest of it, if you want to. I won’t judge you for it.”
She sighs. “I really don’t want to. I just… I can’t deal with that too right now. I can hardly think straight. There’s just so much going on in my head. All the new info is so overwhelming. And the worst part is, I changed so much that I no longer have any clue what’s really going to happen in the next couple of days. I guess I involve myself in everything somehow. There are too many blind spots. I don’t even understand how Adrien died. All I know is that he went to bed and never woke up.”
“Did you… see the exact moment when he died?”
She nods.
“Was… was I there?” I whisper.
“Chrys, if you were there, do you think I’d be here talking to you now?”
I sigh in relief. “So I didn’t do it?”
“Of course you didn’t. No one was there besides his cabin mates, and they were all sleeping in their beds. You really think that you did it?”
“I mean, it’s a possibility. I used to sleepwalk… back when I had no control and just uh touch people. I thought maybe it was happening again.”
“Look, I know that, but you were just a kid then. Anyway, it definitely wasn’t you, so don’t worry about that.”
“Then how? It doesn’t make any sense.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“What if he were poisoned or something?”
“That just doesn’t make sense. He ate and drank the same things as everyone else. And I’ve seen everyone in this camp. No one did anything suspicious that would have harmed him.”
“How do you know that for sure?”
“When the future changes, I see all of it at once. Everyone I’ve ever looked at. It’s like… an update or something. Just all at once I get all the changes but it’s way too much to process like that, so I have to separate everyone from the pile and examine them individually. It took me a while to work through all the information. From the moment I told you about Elise, I’ve been in my cabin sorting through everything. I didn’t sleep at all last night. So I know for a fact that no one here harmed Adrien—no one that I’ve ever looked at.”
“And you’re sure it also wasn’t natural?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but there’s just no way it could have been. This reeks of a gift…”
“How?”
“The impossibility of it. Only gifts can make impossible things possible. And while what I say does affect the future, it’s not like my words can cause a heart attack. Maybe I set things in motion by blabbing to you, but it’s just a ripple effect. There is always something external from me that causes the rest of the changes.”
“But you said no one here did it.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t anyone here. It had to have been someone else, someone with the kind of gift that works over long distances. Something like Hunter’s. Something with reach. But why target Adrien? He didn’t even have a dangerous gift. All he could do was make his body light up, like a beacon. But it’s not like he would have any enemies out for revenge.”
“Maybe it isn’t about Adrien. Maybe it’s about the camp.”
“The camp… like a threat? But if someone were threatening us, they’d leave behind a note or something, wouldn’t they?”
“I guess. I don’t really know.” I sigh.
Valeria rests her chin on her hand, eyes closed, thinking deeply.
Maybe there is a message somewhere and we just haven’t found it yet. Or maybe there is no reason or motive. Maybe it’s just cold-blooded murder.
I shudder.
I can kind of understand that—killing someone for no reason, just because you want to. I understand that, and I hate that part of me. I push it down the furthest, as far back in the depths of my mind as I can. The one thing I hold onto with tightly clenched fists is my humanity, my firm belief that life is sacred. Because if I lose that then what would I become? A cold-blooded murder, that’s what.
Valeria opens her eyes suddenly. “The town.”
“What?” I say, pulled away from my thoughts.
“The town nearby,” she says. “There are so many giftists there searching for the camp and trying to get rid of us. One of them could be using their gift to target us.”
“You think someone who’s gifted would be involved with them? Wouldn’t that mean that they hate their own kind?”
She looks deep into my eyes, unblinking. “Anything is possible with gifts.”
Chapter 16
The door of the cabin opens behind me.
“Uh, may we come in?” Remington says.
I stand up, forgetting that Valeria and I have been sitting right in front of the door. Valeria stands up too and we move further into the cabin, out of the way.
Remington and Hunter enter. Hunter closes the door behind him.
“What happened at brunch, Chrys?” Remington says. “I thought you were going for seconds but then you never came back.”
“Sorry,” I
