“Welcome,” Iris yells with a hand by her mouth. “We’ll only be open for a bit.”
Iris turns away and picks up a chocolate bar with pink flowers on the wrapper.
“It’s cherry blossom white chocolate. I think it’s from Japan or something.” She hands it to me with a big smile. “Try it—on the house.”
I take it and put it in my tote bag. “Thanks. I’ll try it later.”
A buzzer sounds from somewhere to the side of us.
I look over. A middle-aged man with slicked-back blond hair is standing in the aisle, holding out some sort of scanner pointed at me, his green eyes wide. It’s the man Ron was talking about—Carl.
“She’s gifted!” he shouts, staring at the scanner with brows raised high.
I freeze in place, one hand holding the strap of the tote bag tightly on my shoulder. I struggle to breathe. My heart pounds wildly.
How much does he know? Does he know what my gift is too? My mind is flooded with memories of bodies slumping to the floor—some my own, some dreams of Vic Blanchet’s.
“Chrys—” Iris starts to say.
Carl points at me. “Grab her Iris! She’s one of them!”
A hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t touch me!” I say, turning and pushing Iris’s upper arms.
Cold energy rushes into my hands and up my arms. Iris falls to the ground with a thud, her arm knocking boxes of chocolate bars off the shelves.
I stare at my hands in horror.
“What the hell did you do to her?” Carl yells. “What the—”
“Chrys, let’s go,” Hunter says from behind me.
I shake my head, still looking at my hands. “I killed her, Hunter.”
“It’s okay—”
I whirl around. “It’s not okay! I killed her!”
Carl is just standing behind Hunter, his arms slack at his side and a dumb grin on his face. I look at him confused, trying to process what’s happening to Carl and more importantly, what I just did.
“You didn’t mean to,” Hunter says. “And we have to go now.”
My chest is tight and I feel like I’m going to throw up. “I killed her.”
“It was an accident. Please, let’s just go back to camp.”
It’s getting harder and harder to breathe—painfully so. I can still feel the cold energy circulating in my body. Iris’s life force, in me. Stolen by me. A murderer.
A murderer.
I can practically see Vic Blanchet’s cruel grin, savoring this moment.
All this time, I thought I had a semblance of control over my gift, but no. I’m a danger to everyone. I don’t have any control. I—
A weird sense of calmness starts to creep its way in.
“Stop that!” I snap at Hunter.
“Listen, I know this is a lot to process right now but you don’t have to do it now. Just let me calm you down until we get back to camp. We can’t stay here.”
I grab my head and shake it with eyes closed. “No, no. Just leave me alone.”
I feel sick and jittery—a nervous, manic energy that makes my thoughts run wild and grim, flashes of memories and horror.
Death. Murder. Bodies slumping on the ground, disturbingly still. My mom. Those police officers. That cold room where I spent my childhood, locked away from everyone, the only human interaction a gloved hand that slid a tray of food into my room three times a day.
The tests. The drills. The torture.
“Chrys!” Hunter yells.
I open my eyes and wrap my arms around myself, rocking back and forth.
“Just let me calm you down, okay? Just for a little bit. We have to get out of here before someone comes.” He takes a step forward and reaches his hand out to touch my shoulder.
“Don’t touch me!” I say.
He jerks his hand back. “Okay, I won’t touch you.” He sighs, and after a moment, he says, “It feels awful, doesn’t it?”
I just stare at him, breathing raggedly. My heart feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest and I can’t stop shaking.
“Doesn’t it?” he repeats.
I nod slowly.
“I can make it go away, for a little while. That sounds nice, doesn’t it?”
I nod again.
“Okay, so, you’ll let me…?”
The calm starts to creep its way back in. It’s so foreign and wrong but I let it blanket my mind. It pushes aside everything—the sickness, the jitters, the memories, the accusations. I can still sense it all beneath the blanket of calm, but it’s harmless, asleep, the details forgotten—just the impression that something is there. And if I just look at Hunter and the world around me instead of inside of my mind, even that weak impression fades away.
It’s peaceful. I can breathe again. I’ve stopped shaking.
Hunter sighs deeply in relief. “Let’s go.”
He holds out his hand and I take it without much thought. There isn’t much thought in my mind anymore anyway.
He pulls me to Carl and I follow, looking at the unmoving man with a numb curiosity. Hunter pries the scanner from Carl and hands it to me.
“Put this in your bag,” he says.
His words sound like they’re coming through a door. It’s slow to process but eventually I take it and put the scanner in my bag, not really sure what this thing is or why Hunter took it.
Hunter pulls me out of the store, and then out of town, all the way back to the camp.
Chapter 29
Ron is sitting on the couch next to Giselle, watching a TV sitcom on the laptop together. They started watching it soon after Iris left with Chrys and Hunter. At some point, the power came back on because they heard the microwave beep in the kitchen.
Giselle plugged in the power cord then, and they kept watching the sitcom.
The episode was about twenty-five minutes long, no commercials. When it finishes, the next one loads automatically but Giselle pauses it.
She looks to the door. “Why is Iris taking so long? She hasn’t seen this episode yet so I don’t want to watch it without her.”
“Maybe we should go check on her,” Ron says.
Giselle nods and
