Rewind (Vanish Book Three) (9 page)

“
Hey, is everything
alright?” I asked as I grabbed his hand and went
visible.

“
Yeah,” he said, sounding a
little nervous. “I think we should be friends.”

“
Okay,” I
replied.

“
I mean, first. It seemed to
work out well the first time.”

“
Yeah, I’d be happy with
anything at this point. It was really hard seeing you….”

“
Dead,” he said
monotonously.

“
Yeah,” I sighed.

He put his arms around me and gave me a
hug. I was happy to be friends with him, but that wasn’t to say I
couldn’t be happier.

“
Do you think she’s asleep
yet?” he asked.

“
I’ll go check, wait
here.”

I crept down the stairs. I
didn’t hear anything, so I thought the coast was clear. She was no
longer sitting at the table, and her drink was still full. I looked
around with caution, but I didn’t see her. The bottle that had been
sitting next to her glass was gone.

Before I could register what
was going on, loud thudding footsteps raced towards me. I heard
glass shattering, and a horrible pain on the top of my head. I fell
to the ground, and then everything went black.

“
Gotcha,” she laughed when I
came to.

One second, I could see and
hear clearly. The next, everything went black. This went on for a
few minutes. With some effort, I rolled my head over, there was
glass underneath me; I felt it cut me as I moved.

My head was turned toward
the stairs behind her. Dante knew something was up, and he was
coming to help me. He put his finger up to his lips, but I don’t
think I could have said anything, even if I wanted to. I was
lightheaded, and I couldn’t seem to find my voice. To the left,
right behind Ann, was the fireplace. Dante grabbed the poker and
came in swinging. I pulled the necklace out of my pocket, and it
slipped from my fingers onto the floor. Everything went black, but
I could vaguely hear what was going on around me.

“
Scarlett!” Dante yelled as
he came over to me.

“
The—the necklace,” I
mumbled and then I was out.

Chapter 8:
Hospital

When I woke up, I didn’t
recognize anything surrounding me. The blue curtains and plain,
white walls, were the sort you would only find in a hospital. Not
to mention, the monitors surrounding me. I looked at the chair next
to me; I was alone. I sighed.

“
You’re awake,” Dante said
as he walked through the door. “I’m sorry I left; I went to go get
something to drink, are you thirsty?”

“
A little,” I croaked. He
handed me the bottle. “Where’s the necklace?” He took it out of his
pocket and placed it in my hand.

“
I’m so sorry,” he said
again.

“
Did you put it on Ann?” I
demanded in a small voice. I knew the chances were slim; he didn’t
know about any of that yet.

“
Yes,” he smiled.

“
How did you
know?”

“
My dream, remember?” he
took the necklace and put it around my neck.

“
I wonder how it works,” I
said as it lit up.

“
I’m one step ahead of you.
I asked her. I told her I wouldn’t kill her if she told
me.”

“
And she actually did?” I
said, amazed.

“
Yep, if you grab someone’s
hand they will forget whatever they know about you, or whatever
else you can think of that you don’t want them to remember. If you
touch their face, and you want them to forget, they’ll forget just
about everything. Except little things like their name, unless of
course, you want them to forget that, too.”

“
I can’t believe she told
you that.”

“
Well I had a knife to her
throat.”

Just as he said that, a
nurse came in. She looked shocked. I knew she heard, but she acted
as if she didn’t. I reached out for her hand, and she let me grab
it.

“
What did I come in here
for?” she said to herself. I smiled, and Dante smiled back. “Do you
need anything?” She finally said, sounding frustrated.

“
Can you come back in a
minute?” I asked.

“
Sure,” she said as she
started walking to the door.

“
Could you take me
somewhere?” I asked Dante.

“
I don’t think that’s a good
idea, you’re in really bad shape, Scarlett.”

“
I know, I know. I need to
keep the plan going, and I can’t if I have stitches on the back of
my neck and head.”

“
So where exactly do you
want me to take you?” He asked, confused.

“
Back to George’s, Cooper
can heal people—well, I hope he can.” I said, unsure of whether or
not that too could have changed.

“
Alright, fine.”

The nurse walked back in and came to my
side.

“
What did you need?” she
asked.

“
Come here.”

When she came closer, I
grabbed her hand.
We were never
here.

Still holding her hand, I
grabbed Dante’s. As the blue and green swirls began, I let go of
her. Less than a second later, we were gone.

It was late, but I needed to see
Cooper. I decided to skip the part where we had to beg George to
come in and headed straight for Cooper’s window. I knocked and soon
a light turned on.

“
Who are you?” he asked as
he opened the window.

“
Scarlett, I knew you, but
you wouldn’t remember. I need your help.”

He reluctantly agreed to come outside.
I knew I could tell Cooper everything, and he would at least try to
believe. He listened intently.

“
So you’re saying you’re
planning to take on the Alliance?”

“
Yes, but I can’t do that
unless you help me.”

“
You want me to help you
take on the Alliance?” he said, I was about to correct him, and
tell him what I actually needed, but he started talking again.
“Yes.”

“
Yes?”

“
I’ll do it; I’ll help
you.”

“
Great, but what I was going
to ask,” I said as I lifted up my hair. “Could you heal
me?”

“
Sure, no problem,” he said
as he moved closer—too close.

It felt like old times; I felt like I
was going to puke. I didn’t want to make the same mistakes I made
last time, now I knew Cooper was my cousin, and even though I
wanted my identity to remain secret, I needed to tell
him.

“
I left something out of my
story,” I said. “Can you keep a secret?”

“
Sure,” he replied. I could
tell he was telling the truth.

“
Promise?” I asked
seriously. He nodded. “I’m your cousin; your aunt Violet is my
mom.”

“
Wow,” he said, he sounded a
little embarrassed, but I knew it would be better to tell him now
rather than later.

“
You can’t tell,” I reminded
him.

“
I know.”

“
And there’s a girl, she’s
seen you in her head. She can see the future, like I can, but only
one moment at a time. She’s seen you two together; I think you
should meet her.”

“
First let’s heal you.” He
said as he brought his hands up to my neck and then up to the top
of my head. You couldn’t tell because of my red hair, but it was
stained with blood, and I needed a shower badly.

The pain vanished with the wounds, and
soon I knew there was nothing left but the sticky blood lingering
in my hair.

“
Okay, so we need you to
come back with us, but we teleported here, and I don’t think we
would be able to take you with us that way,” I
explained.

“
Give me the directions and
I’ll drive, I should probably wait to tell my dad too, I don’t
think he’s in any shape to help; neither is my mom, but my
sister—“

“
Lily,” I smiled.

“
Yes, Lily, she would
probably love to help.”

“
As long as it’s okay with
your parents,” I agreed.

He found a map, and we tried to give
him the best directions to Grace’s house. Dante gave him his
cell-phone number and Cooper said he would call in the morning.
Once Cooper was back inside, we left.

When we got back to Grace’s,
Rose was awake. She and Grace were sitting on the couch waiting for
us to return.

“
What happened to you guys?”
Grace demanded. “I was worried.”

“
We’re fine,” I assured her.
“We found a few friends to help us.” I looked over at Dante, “I
don’t think it would be a horrible idea to get Allison’s help
either, though if there’s a fight, we might want to keep her
away.”

“
Okay,” he said. “I think
you should get some sleep.”

“
Yeah, that’s not a bad
idea,” I agreed.

“
I’ll see you guys in the
morning,” Grace said as she walked to her room.

“
Can I talk to you for a
minute?” Rose asked.

“
Yeah, let’s go to the guest
room, you can stay there tonight.”

We went upstairs to the guest room and
sat down on the bed. Rose stalled for a few minutes; she didn’t
know what to say. I could tell something was bothering
her.

“
I’m sorry I didn’t listen
to you before. It’s kind of hard to shrug off whatever you said
now, it’s pretty obvious that something’s up.”

“
You mean me and Dante just
appearing?” I wondered.

“
That and everything else.
Aside from you going missing, it was just a normal Saturday
afternoon when Mom dragged me out to the car and drove me to that
awful place.”

“
Has anything weird happened
to you, something you were too afraid to tell anyone?”

“
I’ve had strange dreams,
dreams where I could go—” She stopped and looked down.

“
In the future, or in the
past… when did you have these dreams?” I demanded.

“
Ever since you started
acting weird. I just figured that was why, but watch.” She closed
her eyes, and she was gone.

“
Rose,” I said after a
minute of waiting for her to return. Nothing happened.

I waited for another five
minutes, then, I started getting worried.

I ran back downstairs Grace was already
in bed; I went over to Dante.

“
Rose is gone,” I
cried.

“
Where did she go?” he
asked.

“
I don’t know. She was
talking about her dreams. She remembered going into the past, then
she just disappeared. I don’t know—“

“
Okay, calm down. I’m sure
she knows what she’s doing. Maybe she got sidetracked, or maybe she
went to go see something. Maybe she found some sort of clue that
will help us. It could be anything; you just need to be
patient.”

“
Okay,” I took a deep
breath. “You’re right.”

I wanted to cuddle up next to him,
something major would happen tomorrow and that was the only thing
that would help me feel better. We were friends; the most he would
be able to do to help is talk to me, but I didn’t want to talk.
Talking about it would probably make me more nervous.

There was a crashing sound
upstairs. Dante looked over at me, and I glanced back before I
jumped up and ran up the stairs. When I reached the guest room,
Rose was standing there with a broken lamp.

“
What happened?” Dante asked
before I could find the words.

“
I came back, but before I
could see where I was, I knocked over the lamp; that’s
all.”

“
Get some sleep,” I sighed
with relief. “And clean that up.”

Dante and I helped pick up
the pieces of glass. Once the floor was clean, we went back
downstairs.

“
So, what are you planning
to do tomorrow?”

“
I think there’s something I
need to take care of tonight,” I sighed.

“
No, you need to get some
sleep. It can wait.”

“
No it can’t.”

“
Well, I don’t know where
you need to go, but I’m not taking you until tomorrow.”

I closed my eyes, and
imagined the house. I imagined Ann sitting there, feeling satisfied
with herself. I knew she had a plan. I knew she wouldn’t give her
powers away and then explain how they were used because she was
scared for her life. She had another plan, but when I’m through
with her, she won’t remember a thing.

I opened my eyes; blue and
green swirls surrounded me, and Dante’s hand was nowhere near mine.
He stood across the room, staring with his eyes wide open. He was
about to speak, but before I could hear him out, I was
gone.

Standing in the living room, on the
blood-stained floor, I looked around with caution. I knew she was
somewhere—waiting. I went invisible and searched the
house.

The last place I checked—her
bedroom—was where I found her. She was sleeping peacefully, no
doubt dreaming about the day she would rule the Alliance, and
probably the world. She didn’t look the part, but she was, without
a doubt, evil.