Watch Me: Teen Paranormal Romance (A Touched Trilogy Book 3) (17 page)

Chapter 19

“Five weeks,” I said to Lily as she watched me with sad eyes.

That’s how long it was since I had a clear vision, and those I had were all from Sebastian. Not very comforting when I think of the layers of death and blood consuming his future.

“By changing my future, I’ve completely screwed up everyone else’s.” I paced the length of the living room then spun and walked back. “Things were almost normal before I started changing things.”

“Chloe, don’t you think that’s a bit of a stretch?” she asked, pulling her curls into a messy bun on top of her head.

“No. I saw things fine before Javier’s party.” I avoided her doubtful stare. “Okay, so maybe my gift wasn’t working perfectly, but close enough. Ever since then, I’ve been having issues. It’s like double vision, only it’s multiple visions all at once like the future doesn’t know yet what’s going to happen. Then after the New Year’s party at Nadine’s, every vision I see is almost completely black. For everyone.”

“Except Bastian.”

“Pretty much,” I said, giving up on the pacing to sit beside her. “And now I’m obsessed with looking into his future, trying to figure things out. What’s worse is he knows what I’m doing and he doesn’t do anything to stop me.”

“Does that make a difference?”

“Yes. No. I mean, it doesn’t stop me, but I feel like I’m using him just so I can fulfill some compulsive need to know everything that’s coming.”

Tipping my head to the side, I rested it on Lily’s shoulder. It didn’t take long before my frustrations melted away.

“You’re not supposed to do that,” I said accusingly, but she only smiled in return.

Her ability to heal the emotional pains of people was like being in the eye of a storm. One minute you’re being smothered by pain, or frustration, or anger and the next you’re empty, but once the eye has passed over you the storm will be upon you again.

“Some people are worth a little pain,” she said.

“Yeah, but a little frustration isn’t going to kill me.”

“Maybe not, but that wasn’t just a bit of frustration, Chloe. You’re scared. Scared of the future you don’t see.”

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, she was right. I’d never felt fear of the unknown before and it was terrifying.   

“Is this how you feel every day?” I asked.

“Afraid of not knowing what will happen? No.”

“I hate this,” I said grateful for the lack of feeling Lily had left me with, however temporary. “What is the point of having this gift if I can’t even rely on it to be true? Or even just clear enough to see?”

“What are you seeing?”

“It depends. A few people have nothing, just an empty void of where their future once was. With some people, like you, I see a whole mess of images that overlap the darkness. So many I can’t keep them straight. Not that it matters, because everything about them is blurry.”

“So what is different about Bastian’s?”

“Everything is clearer. I can make out distinct details, but even then there are multiple versions.”

Lily’s hand smoothed my hair. Of the three of us, she was the most motherly. Dad always said our mother had a gentle soul, and that Lily was most like her.

“Something bad is going to happen, Lils. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“Maybe you don’t need to do anything. Maybe it just needs to happen.”

I pulled away, choking back a hysterical laugh. “If you’d seen what I have, you would say that. If you knew…you would do everything in your power to stop it. ”

“So, tell me what it is. Maybe I can help you put it together.”

The brief images I had of the vast nothingness ahead for Phoebe and Micah along with so many of our friends covered with blood flashed through my mind.

“No. This is something I have to figure out on my own.” Determination filled me and I stood up, putting some much needed distance between us. I pasted on a fake smile. “What are your plans for today?”

It was one of my more obvious attempts at avoiding a conversation, but served its purpose. Lily headed off to the library to meet Owen and finish work on a calculus assignment and I got ready to go shopping with Nadine and Bianca.

Even though Nadine was cool with him being interested in Bianca, and even though they weren’t officially dating yet, things were still off kilter when the three of us were together like a constant undercurrent rippling the waters of our friendship. To be honest, some of those waves came from the still present resentment I felt toward Nadine.

Town Center was quiet for a Sunday afternoon with people probably still recovering from Christmas. We wandered from store to store, browsing the aisles and trying to make an effort to find anything of interest.

“Are you really going to the Triple Feature with Andrew?” Nadine asked.

The Valentine’s Triple Feature was a partnership between the local drive-in theater and Beachgrove High school. Each year the theater hosted a three movie feature to celebrate Valentine’s Day with the cheer squad manning the concession as a fundraiser. This year I was more than happy to be on the other side of the counter.

“Yep,” I said and held up a teal hoodie with thumbholes. I rummaged through the shelf looking for a medium, but only found smalls. Width-wise they would fit. Length was another matter.

“It’s gonna be weird not having you help serve,” Nadine said, taking the hoodie from me and holding it up to herself. Damn her for being four inches shorter.

“Can we focus, please?” Bianca said, snatching the hoodie and hanging it back up. “I need to find a rockin’ outfit and all of this stuff is super preppy lame. No offense, but I’m not really interested in dressing like the two of you.”

The hunt continued as we moved to a new store and our conversation centered on the Triple Feature. It should have been fun - shopping with my friends, talking about the most romantic night of the year, a night that I would get to spend with Andrew. Yet the more we talked, the more my stomach twisted into a giant knot. I tried to push the feeling of impending dread down.

Was it possible that whatever was going wrong with my visions, and hid within Sebastian’s future, would happen during the Triple Feature?

“What about this one?” Bianca held up a black top with horizontal tears across the front and a silver lining underneath. Not my style, but she could pull it off.

“Yes,” I said at the same time Nadine said, “No way.”

Bianca looked at her. “Why not? I think it’s cool.”

Nadine gave her a scolding look. “Girl, it screams nightclub, not date night.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have a date this year. Again.”

“What about Owen?” Nadine asked.

“Why would I be on a date with Owen?”

Nadine and I glanced at each other and broke out in a laugh.

“What?” Bianca said. “We’re just friends.”

Her denial set off another round of giggles. I don’t think I ever realized how crappy a liar she was.

“It’s okay,” Nadine said, throwing and arm over Bianca’s shoulder. “It doesn’t bother me. I kinda figured he had a secret thing for you.”

“Nothing’s going on between us!” Her pink cheeks though gave her away.

“Sure,” I said. “Keep telling yourself that.”

Bianca responded by stomping away to try on the shirt. After shopping, we headed to the café in the center of the square. We found a seat inside and treated ourselves to hot chocolate and cheesecake bites. We’d only been there about thirty minutes when Bastian appeared, sitting down beside me.

“Was the lack of invite an intentional oversight or did you temporarily forget to extend an invitation to this charming tea?” he asked.

“Oh, it was intentional,” I said giving him an evil grin, which he immediately returned.

“Excellent.” He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “My day is not complete without invading a girls’ tea party.”

“Sorry, we’re not having tea. It’s hot chocolate,” Nadine said, oblivious to the fact that Bastian wasn’t being literal. Not that it was surprising. They rarely spoke, so she had little experience with his bizarre personality.

“Well, never fear. I have brought my own.” He held up his cup as evidence.

“What are you doing here?” Bianca asked him.

“Can a guy not go out for tea without question? Perhaps, I simply enjoy relaxing in a café and imagining that I am in jolly old England. Someone once told me if you imagine hard enough anything is possible.”

“A girl can wish,” I said.

Ever since New Year’s, Bastian and I had settled into a weird frienemy relationship. I claimed to tolerate his presence for the sake of our mutual friends, but I was actually coming to enjoy our odd conversations. They made a nice change from the monotonous discussions I typically had with people.

Despite none of us extending an invitation for him to join us, Bastian stayed seated and launched into a fairly normal conversation with Nadine and Bianca. While they were busy talking, I seized the opportunity to look into Sebastian’s future again and slid my foot over until it entered the gray haze around him.

The images came through clearly, although it was easy to see that some of them were overlapping futures. There were the graduation ones. In one he limped, while in another he walked normally. Today another was added where he used a crutch. I tried to pull back to the surface and see his future closer to the present. That is when the images distorted.

The blood, the gun, the bodies. God, the bodies. Darkness settles, obscuring pieces not ready to be revealed. The gun. Whose hand holds it? Whose finger pulls the trigger?

As the darkness sucked the vision away, I found myself trembling as the three of them watched me with varying degrees of concern.

I gave a weak smile. “I’m fine. The hot chocolate must not be sitting well with me.”

Bianca reached over and grabbed my cup. “Here, I’ll finish it for you. This girl can never have too much chocolate.”

Snatching it back, I glared at her. “Thanks, but I’ll choke it down.”

Nadine brought up Ricky and the accident. He was heading to trial, but no one could see how he had any way of being found innocent. My dad was surprised Ricky’s attorney hadn’t gone for a plea deal.

Conversation continued and my mind wandered back to the visions of Bastian’s future. He wasn’t holding the gun. The hand was that of an older man. Blunt nails and withered skin. Whoever he was, he was left handed, a plain gold wedding band circling his finger.

I tried to fill in the pieces, to gather details about where it would take place, who the man was, anything. Yet they never materialized. The only thing I could figure out was that there was some crazy man out there who intended to kill a number of my friends and classmates. And somehow, Bastian was tied to the event.

All I could do was try to put everything together before it happened, and pray that I’d have enough time to change the future set to destroy everyone around me.

Chapter 20

They would make their move tonight. I was absolutely sure that whoever this random future changer was, they’d attack during the Valentine Triple Feature.

“We don’t have to go,” I said to Andrew, moving reluctantly toward his mom’s car.

“You’ve gone on about this thing for the last month. How can you suddenly not want to go?”

“I do. It’s just I have a feeling something bad is going to happen.”

“You said the same thing about the basketball game last week. Nothing happened then and nothing’s going to happen tonight either.” He pulled me to a stop beside the car and I turned to face him. Our fingers laced together and he lowered his head just enough to press his lips to mine.

It was a sweet kiss, one that seemed to represent the state of our relationship. Things between us were nice. Sometime over the past two months, the excitement of being with Andrew faded. In its place was this feeling of waiting, as if I was simply biding my time until something changed.

“You’re thinking really hard again,” he whispered against my lips. My eyes fluttered open and found him staring at me. “Your head is tilted to the left. You only do that when you’re thinking.”

“Or kissing,” I responded with a smile.

“No, when you’re focused on kissing you tilt to the right.” He stepped back, letting go of my hands and opened the car door. “So are you gonna tell me what you’re worried about?”

I slid into the seat and closed the door. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He gave me a strange look. “Are you sure?”

“What are the movies tonight?”

The Triple Feature consisted of three films, typically rom-coms that managed to be clean enough to pacify concerned school officials and parents, while still appealing to us ‘kids’.

Andrew rattled off the movie titles and launched into some detailed trivia about the actress who stars in each of the films. By the time we reached the drive-in, I knew every movie this actress had been in including some obscure horror flicks from the early nineties.

The drive-in was packed and our late arrival meant that not only were we situated in the back, we also missed the first few previews. Andrew set up the old-fashioned radio speaker as the first movie started on the massive whitewashed plywood screen.

When he wrapped an arm around my shoulder, I snuggled close. I tried to lose myself in the plot, forcing myself to laugh at the same points he laughed, yet it was only a surface level awareness. Inside my mind raced, picking up every little sound and movement, trying to catch a glimpse of anything familiar from Bastian’s future.

Near the end of the first movie, I realized I was in the wrong place. In Bastian’s visions, I was close enough for him to see, to touch.

“Let’s go get a drink. I want to say hi to Nadine,” I said as the credits rolled.

“No way. Everyone is getting drinks and stuff right now. We’re better off waiting ‘til the next movie starts.”

“Well, let’s go find Bianca.”             

He grudgingly followed me out of the car, rolling up his window and locking the radio inside.

Bianca was exactly where I thought she'd be, lying on her stomach between Owen and Tonya in the back of Nathan’s truck. Phoebe and Nathan snuggled together sitting with their backs pressed to the cab.

“Come to hang out with us lowlies?” Tonya asked.

“Hey! Speak for yourself,” Bianca said.

“Well, I always try to say hello to the little people.” I gave Tonya a smirk.

I wasn’t sure why she and I hated each other, but it went back as far as I could remember. Nanna liked to say there will always be someone you simply don’t like, and then one day you’d become best friends. I believed her until I met Tonya.

Glancing around, it didn’t take long for me to figure out that not everyone was there. Micah and Lily weren’t anywhere around. Nadine. Bastian. None of them were here.

“Where are Lily and Micah? I haven’t seen them,” I said.

Phoebe pointed to the far end of the lot. “They ended up somewhere over there. We tried to save them a spot, but it was so busy when we got here.”

“What about Bastian?” I asked. She and Andrew gave me weird looks, though for totally different reasons. Andrew probably wondered why I was asking about another guy, while Phoebe was most likely already picturing me dumping Andrew for Bastian based off one little question.

Luckily, Bianca took it as completely normal. “He bailed on us.”

I sagged against the side of the truck.

“Hey! Watch the paint!” Nathan said, moving to swat at the arm I rested on the truck. “My dad will kill me if it gets scratched.”

“Well, then it shouldn’t be too hard for the Sheriff to catch your killer.”

“Ha ha. Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

“Come watch with us,” Bianca said, patting the space beside her.

The groan from Tonya sealed my decision and I hopped up into the truck bed, scooting over so Andrew could squeeze in.

“Comfy?” I asked, nudging him with my shoulder.

One of his eyebrows lifted as he paused in his struggle to arrange the blanket underneath him. “Oh, yeah. This is so much better than sitting in a warm car with cushioned seats.”

I laughed. “Just for a little, okay?”

“Fine,” he grumbled.

For days, I’d been on pins and needles, thinking that tonight would actually be the end of everything. To know it wasn’t was such a relief I could almost cry. Instead, I let myself enjoy being with Andrew and Bianca, and even my sister. I chose to ignore Tonya’s presence.

“You ready to grab a drink?” Andrew asked about half way through the movie.

“Definitely.” I slid off the truck after him.

“Going to rub it in Nadine’s face that she’s spending yet another Valentine’s Day serving soda and popcorns?” Bianca asked, laughing.

“No, we’re going to financially support the cheer squad.”

That only made her laugh harder. “Enjoy rubbing it in.”

Although I denied it, there was truth to her words and it all went back to the bitterness that still festered inside me.

Andrew and I made our way toward the concession. Part way there we ran into Micah and Lily who were doing the same thing as us.

“You look like you’re having fun,” she said as the guys walked ahead of us.

“I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Maybe because you’ve been on edge for days, freaked out about something you think will happen.”

“I was, but not anymore. At least not tonight,” I said. Tomorrow was different. Until something became clear or it actually happened, I’d worry. For now, though, I could relax. “Are you having fun?”

“Yes.”

I pulled her to a stop, letting some distance grow between us and the guys. “You don’t sound so sure. Is everything alright with you and Micah?”

Even though I’d seen futures of them together, I’d also seen one of her with Dylan before he died.

“We’re really good.”

“So what’s going on?”

“I love Micah. But it’s still hard sometimes to deal with Dylan being gone.”

“You came here with him last year.”

“And the year before.”

“So why come tonight?”

She tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “I can’t let my memories dictate what I do. I need to be able to do things I did with him or go places we went, and build new memories.”

“Maybe you just need more time.”

“Maybe, but right now I have Micah to help me get through it and he lets me.” She shrugged and gave a slight smile. “Now, if we could stop dwelling on the past, we can catch up with Micah and Andrew before Micah buys a bunch of those nasty Junior Mints.”

He was in the process of purchasing the Junior Mints when we found him at the nearly deserted concession.

“Where’s Andrew?” I asked. Micah pointed to the restroom over to the right. I walked over to the small building, and leaned against the wall just outside the men’s door. A few guys came out, but no Andrew.

“Hey, Javier,” I called out, waving for him to come over from his place in the concession line.

“What’s up?”

“Can you go in and check on Andrew. He’s been in there like ten minutes.”

Javier grinned. “I told the dude not to eat the beans at lunch today. Those things’ll tear your insides apart. ”

“That’s disgusting.”

He disappeared into the restroom and was out a few seconds later. “He’s not in there.”

“What? Micah said he went in there, and there’s no way I missed him when he came out.”

“I don’t know. I’m just telling you the dude isn’t in there.” With that, he went back to the line, leaving me to figure out what happened to Andrew.

I scanned the entire concession area, wandering from end to end. I was about to make my way to the truck when I spotted him. He came around the side of the building and he wasn’t alone; Nadine walked close beside him.

They weren’t touching, nor did they act suspicious, yet something about them screamed guilty. Had everything I done been for nothing?

Nadine smiled and waved at me.

“Where were you?” I asked Andrew when I reached them. “Micah thought you’d gone to the restroom and I was waiting for almost ten minutes.”

“I did, and then I saw Nadine.”

“I needed to grab my cell from my car,” she interrupted his explanation. “It’s parked in the back, and I was a bit nervous about going alone, so Andrew went with me.”

“Oh.”

How do you argue with something like that? Only a horrible person would want her friend to walk through a dark parking lot to her car when she was afraid. And only a horrible person would be angry with her boyfriend for being willing to protect her friend.

“You still want a drink?” Andrew asked.

“Yeah, and popcorn.” I took his hand in mine and tugged him close to me. Away from her.

The three of us walked together to the concession where Nadine went through the side door to go back to work and Andrew and I joined the short line. We stood in silence and walked back to the truck in without talking. But unlike Lily, I never did comfortable silence.

A few feet from the truck, I said, “Let’s go back to the car.”

“I thought you wanted to hang with Bianca?”

I shrugged. “I can do that tomorrow.”

He gave me a curious look. “If that’s what you want.”

What I want. It wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted a fun and romantic Valentine’s Day with the boy I was in love with. I wanted to be… I didn’t even know. But surrounded by a bunch of happy people right now was about as far from what I wanted as possible.

We passed the truck, ignoring the kissy noises Bianca and Tonya started making when we didn’t join them.

In the car, I sat there and watched the movie, letting that horrible silence grow. And with each passing minute, the feelings bubbling inside me expanded.

“Are you mad at me?” Andrew asked.

“No.” I gritted my teeth, staring hard at the screen.

He snorted. “You’re mad because I made you wait?”

“No.” It was true. The emotions filling me had little to do with anger.

“Is this a guessing game?”

“I told you I’m not mad, but if you keep asking me then I’m gonna get mad.”

He stopped talking, but that only made things worse. I was being kinda bitchy, okay, really bitchy, and Andrew was getting the brunt of it for no real reason. In between the ten-minute intermission, we managed some small talk and things evened out a bit. Yet nothing could erase the picture of them together.

“What do you think of Nadine?”

“What do you mean?” He shifted to face me, surprise widening his eyes. “Holy crap. Are you mad at me for walking Nadine to her car? Is that what this whole silent treatment is about?”

“I’m not mad and I was being quiet, not giving you the silent treatment,” I said, trying to keep from huffing. “I just asked a simple question.”

“The Chloe I know doesn’t just ask simple questions, especially not like that one.”

“Are you avoiding answering the question?”

“Fine. She’s cool and I like talking to her. Is that a crime?”

“No.”

“So what’s the problem?” he asked.

I closed my eyes. My head thumped against the headrest before I looked at him again. “There isn’t one. It was only a question. You’re allowed to talk to Nadine. You’re allowed to think she’s cool.”

I spoke the words and meant them. He could talk to anyone he wanted.

“You’re really not upset you had to wait?”

“Really.”

“And you don’t care that I was walking with her?”

Did I care?

My gut reaction was to say yes, and part of me did. The idea of my boyfriend and my friend together behind my back left a foul taste in my mouth. But I felt no anger. I was simply sad, because it was all coming to an end and I finally knew what I wanted.