She lets go of her fork and looks me in the eyes. “I’ve noticed something, about the dreams. They show us what they want to—what they think is important for us to see.”
“So you’re saying Vic Blanchet thinks it’s important for me to see how much he loved killing people?”
“Yeah, because he wants you to follow in his footsteps. Don’t you get that vibe?”
My stomach sinks. I have gotten that vibe. When I have those dreams, the highlight is always that pure exhilaration of stealing someone’s life force. Vic was a psychopath. He cared more about his next hit than the lives of others. It was the only thing he lived for. It’d make sense that he wanted me to pursue that too, trying to enlighten me about the pleasure I could have if I just did what he did.
“Why does that matter though?” I say. “Is that the secret?”
She shakes her head. “You said my gift sounds like a lot. That’s because it is. It’s not one gift.” She sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “It’s two. They were twins—both born gifted—and they died in the exact same moment. That’s the only thing they ever show me—them dying.”
“So, one could see the future and the other one…?”
“The past. I don’t know anything else about them. Just that they were killed.”
“Killed? By who?”
She shrugs. “I kind of get the sense that they want me to find out, but I don’t know how. I’ve done my best looking into it, but I can’t even find out who they were. Maybe if I were a police officer or something, I’d have better luck. Anyway,” she stands up with her plate in hand, “I told you it was something impossible. One gift, one person. Seems like a basic rule, right? But no. Honestly, I don’t even think there are rules. Maybe we’re just trying to force gifts into some sort of comprehensible box, but I don’t think they’re meant to fit in there, you know? Anyway, I have to go now. Laundry duty. But hey, thanks for letting me tell you. Kind of feels good to not be the only one to know anymore.”
She smiles and then with a serious expression, she says, “Bye, Chrys.”
“Oh, sure. Bye.”
She heads into the kitchen.
I finish eating, thinking about what she said. No rules. It does sort of seem that way. The gifts don’t really make any sense. Maybe that’s why Madeline Taylor was so keen on trying to figure out her limits. She never did, though. She just discovered she could do more and more things, until she died. Is that how all the gifts are? No rules, no limits?
I shudder at the thought of what that might imply for my own gift. No limits to how I can kill people. Great.
I put my plate away in the kitchen and head back to the cabin. Remington, Hunter and Ana Maria still look like they’re asleep, Hunter having gone back to bed before I went to the computer room earlier.
After climbing up my bunk bed ladder, I crawl under the covers, unable to stay awake any longer. Maybe Carl will only be searching for me at night, since that’s when people usually sleep, right?
Trusting that, I close my eyes and fall asleep within minutes.
Chapter 33
Ron sits on the edge of the bed in her room, Giselle laying in it with the covers up to her neck. Giselle refused to go into her and Iris’s bedroom.
It’s dark outside now.
Ron is no longer in the store but she can’t stop playing it over and over in her head. Ron and Giselle had spent a long time on the ground with Iris’s body and Carl standing there dumbly. After hours, perhaps, Ron finally snapped out of her thoughts. She shook out her sleeping legs and called the police.
The sheriff—a short white woman in her fifties or so—came about fifteen minutes later. She asked us what happened to Iris and to Carl, who she also tried to question many times but he just smiled back at her. Giselle said nothing, so Ron had to tell them that they don’t know what happened and they just found them like this.
The sheriff called for an ambulance and after what seemed like forever, two came. While she waited, it sounded like she also called for a medical examiner or someone like that but it seems like the closest one is in the next town over hours away.
They wheeled Carl away into one of the ambulances and it drove away, the other ambulance hovering outside.
The sheriff pried Giselle from Iris’s body and had the body put in a bag and into the ambulance. Then, it drove away too.
She tried to question Giselle again but she just sat there, the tears no longer flowing but her face looking like she’s still crying. She moved on to Ron, and Ron just told her what she said before—that they don’t know what happened, and that she’s not sure about Carl but it looked like Iris had some sort of medical issue. Ron had looked to Giselle then, expecting her to interject and say that can’t be possible because Iris was very healthy, but she didn’t. She just stared at the ground blankly.
The sheriff told them they’re free to go but not to leave town until the autopsy results come out in a day or two. She left and so Ron hoisted Giselle up and practically carried her upstairs. She tried to bring her into their bedroom but that was when she spoke for the first time, saying, “No. Not there.”
So Ron brought Giselle into her room, where they’ve been ever since. Ron isn’t sure if Giselle is sleeping or not but she’s very still.
Ron gets up from the bed and leans over Giselle. “Giselle, are you hungry?”
Giselle opens her eyes and shakes her head.
“Okay, well, I’m going to get something to eat.”
She nods and closes her eyes again.
As Ron
