Struck (15 page)

I wanted to listen to my own voice of reason, but … this was a lightning survivors’ group, presumably organized for people who’d been struck during the electrical storm the day of the quake, not people like me. But still … I was curious. And more than that I was suspicious. What did Mr. Kale want with a bunch of people who’d been struck by lightning?

A bunch of people like me …

So I listened. And I immediately heard a voice I recognized. A voice that I’d be happy never to hear again.

Katrina.

“I don’t think anyone new is coming,” she said. “We might as well take that flyer down. Face it, Uncle Kale, we’re never going to recruit anyone this far from the Waste, not with Prophet to compete with. You know where the survivors who’d listen to us are going every night. We should be focusing every Seeker on the Rove.”

My brows drew together. The Waste seemed like the last place on earth a lightning survivor would want to go, back to the scene of the strike.

“Not every survivor in this city is drawn to the Rove, Katrina,” Mr. Kale said. “The ones who were struck before the quake don’t feel the same pull. Can you imagine Mia Price going there? She’s the one we should focus on.”

I covered my mouth to silence the choked sound my throat tried to make at the mention of my name.

I could hear Katrina’s smile in her voice. “Actually, Mia will be here tomorrow morning for initiation.”

“No way. You’re lying.” That was Schiz.

“She just needed the right motivation.”

Katrina told the room about the deal she had made. Everyone started talking at once, but Mr. Kale silenced the group.

“There’s a problem,” he said. “I spoke to Mia’s brother briefly, after the last meeting. He doesn’t care what his sister says. He wants to be a Seeker. I told him to be here in the morning for initiation.”

My teeth came together. Parker and I were so going to have words.

“We need her more than we need him,” Katrina said. “It’s too bad. He’s so eager to be useful.”

“Maybe I could talk to him, tell him the situation,” Quentin said. “He’s a friend of mine. Sort of.”

“Don’t bother,” Katrina said. “I’m sure Mia will deliver the bad news for us.”

Mr. Kale sighed so loudly I could hear him through the door. “I don’t like this. No one should have to be blackmailed into our circle.”

“I did what I had to do.” Katrina sounded defensive. “She’s the Tower girl, I know it. Without her, this is pointless. You know what my ancestor, our
founder
, prophesied.”

“I’m not convinced she’s the Tower girl,” Schiz said.

“Are you kidding me? You can feel the Spark coming off her without even touching her. She’s like a freaking power plant. None of us have a fraction of her energy, not even you, Uncle. We need her on our side if we’re going to stand a chance against Prophet and his Followers. If she’s bonded to us and we can conduct for her, it’ll be like having another hundred sparked Seekers in our circle.”

“She’s powerful, yeah, but power is nothing if she won’t use it,” Schiz pointed out. “Besides, you know that’s not the real reason we need her.”

I leaned closer, waiting for him to elaborate on the “real reason,” but everyone went silent for a moment, as though digesting Schiz’s reminder.

“Maybe she’s the one prophesied and maybe she isn’t,” Mr. Kale said finally. “We’ll know soon enough. Either way, you still have work to do. If you’re new to the Rove, stay close to Katrina and do exactly what she tells you. You’re dismissed.”

The doorknob twisted and my heart jumped into my throat.

I bolted for the stairs and didn’t stop running until I reached my car.

Jeremy was right.
Now that they know who you are, they’ll try to use you
. That’s what he’d told me before he put his hands over my eyes and took me to the Waste. To the Tower.

The question was, what did the Seekers want to use me for? And how could I stop them from doing it now that I’d agreed to become one of them?

15

I’M SURE MIA
will deliver the bad news for us
, Katrina had predicted. I hated to give her the satisfaction of being right, but that was exactly what I intended to do.

At home, I headed straight for Parker’s closed bedroom door. I raised my fist to knock, but was distracted by a voice coming from down the hall, from Mom’s room. She and Parker must be in there together, probably having a meaningful conversation about what Mom had revealed at the survivors’ meeting. And I was being left out. Again.

I crept down the hall and opened Mom’s door a crack.

Parker wasn’t there, and at first I didn’t see Mom either. Then I spotted her kneeling beside the bed, hands clasped. I sucked in a breath when I realized she was praying. I hadn’t seen Mom pray in years, and only in Grandma’s presence. Never alone.

“—forgive me, Dear Lord, for failing as a mother … failing to lead my children to the light. Their sins are my sins. Please, God, forgive my daughter. Show her the light and the way of righteousness. And … and please forgive her for what she did to those people in Arizona. Please don’t let her hurt anyone else. Please help me forgive her. Please, please take this terrible curse from her—”

Stunned, I backed silently away from her room until I stood in the living room, in the dark.

Cursed? Was that what she thought of me? Granted, I’d referred to myself as “cursed” more than a few times, but Mom was always the first to insist that I wasn’t cursed at all. She said I was special. Unique.

She was lying.

I unlocked the front door and stepped outside onto the porch. I needed some air, but the moist ocean breeze carried its pins-and-needles storm warning to my skin, which did nothing to help with my building anxiety. In the distance, I could see hundreds of fires dotting the beach in Tentville, gray smoke tunneling into the sky.

I surveyed the dark street, and wondered …

I cleared my throat. “Jeremy?” I called softly, feeling ridiculous. “Are you there?”

As though he’d been waiting for an invitation to appear, Jeremy stepped from behind a hedge like a shadow that had shaken its maker. Again, this version of Jeremy in the dark, this light-rimmed silhouette, reminded me of something, and again I struggled to grasp what that was.

I didn’t move from the porch. I let him come to me, and as he approached, the porch light gave him color and the memory slipped away.

“Where’s your militiaman?” he asked, glancing around.

“I gave him the night off.” I narrowed my eyes at Jeremy. “Why? Do I need protection from you?”

He shook his head, but yellow light from the porch lamp reflected off the lenses of those black-framed glasses, screening his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He shoved his hands in his pockets like he didn’t know what else to do with them. His cheeks looked smooth, like he’d just shaved. My fingers wanted to feel them to know for sure, so I trapped my hands in my pockets, too.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay after what happened on the beach, and—” He cleared his throat and lowered his eyes. “After what I showed you.”

I didn’t know what to say. The truth was, I still hadn’t really processed what had happened that day. What was still happening.

“Why do you care?” I descended the steps until we were nearly at eye level. “And why do you seem so familiar to me? Have we met before today?”

Jeremy lowered his chin, turned his face away. He pulled a hand from his pocket and smoothed his hair down over his forehead. He glanced up at me through the tops of his glasses. His voice was soft. Low. “I’ve seen
you
before.”

My cheeks felt warm. “There you go, sounding like a stalker again.” But I found myself wanting to stand closer to him. Jeremy’s pull was like an opposite charge, asking me to reach out. To connect. It was so similar to that feeling I had when a storm moved in overhead, that need to call the lightning down and let it inside me.

I descended another step. Only one more and I’d be right in front of him, inches of nothing separating us. “Jeremy, have you ever heard of something called the Spark?”

The muscles in his neck tensed. “Who told you about that?”

“You know what it is, then. And you know who the Seekers are.” I swallowed. “You’re not one of them, though,
are you? I mean, you’re not trying to recruit me to some … some cause or army or something?”

He shook his head quickly. “No, I’m trying to keep you out of that.”

“Why?”

“The fewer questions you ask, the better off you’ll be.”

I ignored this advice. “Can I tell you something, even if it sounds crazy?” I watched for his reaction. “Those people you warned me about, the Seekers … they told me the apocalypse is coming, and claimed some fortune-teller had a vision about me a couple hundred years ago, something to do with the Tower.” I searched Jeremy’s face. He didn’t even blink. “Also, I think Mr. Kale can read minds and talk without opening his mouth. Not like a ventriloquist. Like he can talk inside your mind. What do you think about that?”

A ripple of disturbance appeared on Jeremy’s face. “I think you should guard your thoughts carefully when you’re with Mr. Kale. Or avoid him altogether.”

“Doesn’t any of this sound the least bit strange to you?” I answered my own question. “I guess it wouldn’t to someone who can do what you do.”

Jeremy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”

He stepped closer to me, pulling his hands out of his pockets like he wanted to reach out and touch me. But he kept his arms at his sides, straight and stiff, like he didn’t trust them.

“The things I showed you this afternoon …”

“The dreams?”

He shook his head. “They’re more than dreams. They’re warnings. Visions. And I’ve been seeing them and thousands of others like them for as long as I can remember.” His eyes locked onto mine. “You’ve been in my head for years, Mia. I’ve seen you so many times, in so many possible situations, I can’t remember them all. Now you’re right in front of me, and I don’t know what to do.”

I opened my mouth to say something, not sure what that something would be, but Jeremy raised a hand to silence me.

“Let me finish,” he said. “I don’t know how to stop the things I’ve seen from happening. I don’t know how to stop any of this without … I don’t know, tying you up and locking you in a closet until it’s over.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I eased backward up the steps. “I definitely don’t like the sound of that.”

He dug his hands into his hair in frustration, clenching fistfuls. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean I would actually do it. Only that I don’t know any other way to protect you from the Seekers. And from yourself. I don’t think you have any idea what you’re capable of, but the Seekers do. And Prophet … if he knew about you, he’d—” Jeremy cut off, as though he’d said too much.

“He would what?”

“He would want you,” Jeremy said simply. “He would do whatever it took to turn you to his side, and that would be worse than if you joined the Seekers. But if you stay out of everything … if you don’t get involved—”

I cut him off. “You think I want to be involved in
any
of this? I don’t want people having prophecies about me, or giving me tarot cards, or trying to recruit me for Team
Apocalypse. And … and I don’t want your dreams or visions or whatever they are.” I sighed. It was a mistake to come out here. I already had more problems than I could handle without Jeremy and his tortured eyes piling a few more complications on my back.

“Please stop following me,” I forced myself to say. “I’m going to need you to leave now. Goodbye, Jeremy.”

I was at the front door when he called after me.

“You don’t sleep. Not very often, anyway.”

I turned around. “How do you know that?”

My head was partially blocking the porch light, casting Jeremy in shadow again, and the memory of where I’d seen him came rushing at me like water from a flash flood.

The dream I’d had, of the boy at my bedside with his knife.

Nightmare Boy.

No wonder I hadn’t remembered. I hadn’t thought he was real.

“You were in my room,” I said before I could stop the words.

Jeremy’s eyes widened and I saw the truth in them.

“Mia, I—”

“What were you going to do with the knife, Jeremy?”

“Nothing!”

“Then why did you have it? Why did you break into my house and come up to my room and stand there with a knife like you were going to stab me?”

“I swear I wouldn’t have done it. I thought I could. I didn’t see any other way—”

“Any other way to what? To protect me from myself?”

He took a step toward me, but stopped when I backed up against the door.

“Mia,” he said carefully. “I don’t know how else to put this … I tried to show you, but I don’t think you understand. There is a strong possibility that, within the next few days, you will do something terrible. Something I’m trying to prevent.”

I was shaking all over. “Something you tried to prevent by killing me.”

“But I didn’t go through with it!”

“I don’t care,” I said, grabbing the doorknob and wrenching it. “Stay away from me. If you come near my house again, I’ll call the cops or the militia or whoever will answer.”

“Mia, please—”

I didn’t give him a chance to finish. I slipped inside and locked the door behind me, watched through the front window until Jeremy went away. Only then did I take what felt like my first breath in minutes.

Before going to my bedroom, I went through the house and checked every door and window.

Even when I was in bed under my blankets, I couldn’t stop shaking. I wasn’t cold.

I was never cold.

I was terrified.

PART 2

“Ain’t a cloud in the sky …

Don’t see no sun but don’t see no cloud neither.”

—Flannery O’Connor,

A Good Man Is Hard to Find

APRIL 15

Two days until the storm …

16

AFTER LYING AWAKE
all night, stacking up my worries one on top of the other like I was trying to build my very own tower out of them, I got out of bed when the first hint of light touched my bedroom window. It wasn’t even six, but I was supposed to be in Mr. Kale’s classroom at seven for “initiation,” whatever that meant. I had yet to talk to Parker about the deal I’d made with Katrina.