Sleep No More

TWENTY-TWO

I come to with a whimper in my own bedroom. Everything hurts.

Wait. That’s not quite right. It’s a weird kind of pain that’s slowly receding like the waves on a shoreline. I’m lying on my floor and my face is wet with tears, but I’m here. I’m out of the vision.

Was I kicked out because I lost consciousness or because I couldn’t hold on any longer? I’m not actually sure which one came first.

A deep ache throbs in the arm that took the brunt of that first hard blow and I move it gingerly. In my vision, I was sure the unforgiving bat had shattered the bone, but it’s whole and straight and doesn’t hurt as I move it this way and that.

The rest of my aches are slowly fading too. Like phantom pain. “It was all in my head,” I whisper in wonder. I’ve never, ever felt anything like that and I was sure I was going to die with Clara.

But I didn’t. I may have saved her. I’m not sure how much good it did though. I was right there with her and I didn’t see a single distinguishing characteristic in the killer.

But the sirens. The sirens were coming.

I curl up and pull my knees to my chest, trying to process everything that happened. I blocked his bat. And the killer knew it! I remember so clearly the way he paused, everything in his posture indicating surprise, when the blow he aimed at her head connected with something, but it wasn’t her.

I affected the physical world. That means that next time I can rip his mask off. It’s possible I could even hold him until the police arrive. Maybe call in an anonymous tip to make sure they come.

This changes everything.

The fact is they might catch the bastard tonight. But if they don’t—if he slips away—then I can end it next time. I glance up at the clock. There’s probably an hour before Clara leaves her house. Part of me wants to go hide and see the vision play out—but I didn’t see myself there. I can’t risk changing even the tiniest detail. Better stay here.

Wait, I think, searching my fuzzy memory. I did see someone else.

“I saw Smith,” I whisper aloud.

I chuckle and shake my head. He said he trusted me to do it on my own, but of course he wouldn’t be able to just let it happen. He’s too much of a control freak. I should have known he’d go check on me.

Even if he doesn’t know it yet.

Amused at knowing something he doesn’t, I grab my phone and call his number. “It’s done,” I whisper when he answers.

“Tell me exactly what happens,” Smith says. “From the beginning.”

“It was weird,” I say, still whispering. “I followed Clara back all the way to her house and there was seriously no reason for her to have left. She was sitting on the couch reading and then she got up and walked out the door. It was like . . .” I pause, hating the comparison. “It was kind of like what we’ve been doing. Like someone was talking to her in her head and telling her to go, and then she did. A couple of times she even stopped and looked back and seemed really confused, but she kept going.”

“Charlotte? Are you sure there are no other Oracles in Coldwater? Or anywhere near Coldwater?”

“There aren’t. I asked my aunt a couple weeks ago. The Sisters of Delphi follow the bloodlines so closely, it’s almost impossible for someone to be missed.”

“What about your aunt?”

I snort. “Oh, please.”

“It’s not uncommon for Oracles to snap and go crazy after fighting their entire lives. Shelby’s great-grandmother went totally insane when she was seventy and eventually the Sisters. . . . They put her down for lack of a friendlier term. Because she was hurting people.”

“That’s not funny, Smith.”

“No, it’s not,” he replies. “But what you described sounds like another Oracle steering someone from their second sight.”

“I’m not saying there can’t be another Oracle involved. I’m just saying it’s not my aunt. Maybe there’s someone off Delphi’s radar. Or they’re not from here. Did you ever think of that?”

“Where is your aunt?” Smith says softly.

I refuse to admit to him that she’s not here. After all, if she were doing something with her own second sight—which is completely and utterly ludicrous—she could do it from her bedroom.

“I have more to tell you. Clara walked to the tunnel at the train yard and I got her to call her dad and he answered right before the killer attacked. It was perfect!”

“Excellent,” Smith says. “Then what?”

“He hit her with a bat and I kept shoving her around, trying to avoid, like, death hits, I guess you could call them. But he was too strong and he got her feet out from under her and he lifted his bat to finish her off and I stopped him!”

“What do you mean, you ‘stopped him’?”

“I put out my hand and the bat hit me instead. I affected him physically, Smith!”

“Did you save her?”

“Are you listening?” I press. “I did what you said I couldn’t do. This changes everything!”

“Did you save her?”

“I . . . I don’t know for sure. I think so,” I say softly. “I took a lot of hits for her and then I heard sirens.”

“You heard them?”

“Just before I blacked out. I’m pretty sure that’s what pushed me out of the vision. I was lying on top of her and I’m hoping I helped block maybe another hit or two after I lost consciousness, but I—” Guilt floods through me. “I don’t actually know.”

“Did you see anything else?” Smith presses. “Anything else that could be helpful?”

I think about seeing him running into the scene. Should I tell him? Maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t want to make him change the future by deciding not to go and then ruining everything I worked for. “No, nothing else.” I can practically hear his thoughts right now. She’s not sure she saved her—I’d better go watch just to be safe. Truth is, there’s a chance that Smith running in at the last moment will save her.

So I don’t tell him. This one thing I will simply let play out.

“I know her,” I say when the silence gets heavy. “She was in four of my classes last semester.”

“Are you guys friends?” Smith asks, sounding confused as to why I’m telling him this.

“No, not really. But if I . . . if I weren’t, you know, me, I think we would be. It’s something I’ve thought a lot the last year or so, actually, since we keep having classes together. We like the same things, we’re both advanced juniors, I think we’d get along really well.”

“Was there a point to this?”

I hesitate, not sure I’m ready to voice something that’s been bothering me since I first saw Clara’s face in the vision. “I know all of these victims. Well, Bethany I barely knew, but other than that, all of them—even the ones we saved—have played a part in my life. And that’s saying something since I don’t have much of a life.”

“Charlotte,” Smith says, and his patronizing tone makes me clench my fists. “You attend a tiny high school. Of course you know everyone.”

“It’s not that small,” I say defensively.

“I don’t have time for crazy theories,” Smith says, and I can hear the nerves in his voice. My role is finished; he’s still deciding if he should play his. “We just have to wait and see,” he finally says.

“Yep.” I glance back up at my clock and see that it’s only been three minutes. “It’s going to be a long night of clock-watching,” I say as much to myself as him.

“I guess we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I say, pushing to my feet in the jumble of bedding I totally messed up while revisiting my vision. “And Smith,” I add just before hanging up. “It’s cold out there tonight.”

I pass the next few hours fighting the urge to go to the train station and watch, but even if I could get out of the house without anyone noticing, I’m terrified that any little change could erase what I did.

I briefly consider trying to break into Sierra’s room, but she’s already been gone for over an hour—I can’t risk it. It’s killing me to have the book ten feet away and completely inaccessible. But it can’t help Clara now.

Besides, there’s a decent chance they’ll catch the murderer tonight and then I won’t be so rushed for time. I’ll be able to wait until she leaves her door unlocked again.

Finally I go sit in my mom’s office. She’s behind on work because of all of the drama, so she just gives me a smile and keeps on working.

I have a half-hour-long text-versation with Linden, but it feels shallow compared to spending time with him in person, and when I finally say good night to him, I’m no calmer than I was before.

I think about Clara. And Eddie and Jesse and Matthew and Nicole. I don’t care what Smith says; I think it’s weird that they’re all people from my life. Bethany breaks the pattern . . . but ever since? It’s weird. Who would know me well enough to know the people that mean something to me—or used to mean something to me? I had practically forgotten about half of them. But someone remembered. How crazy of a theory is it really?

At eight thirty I know the attack is over and I keep glancing at my mom as she watches a TV show, waiting for the news to break in and report something. I mean, if I did save Clara, it would be because the police came. And they would report that, right? When the front door opens, I’m so on edge I almost shriek, but it’s just Sierra.

I look up at her and hate that I note the time and realize Sierra could easily have been at the train station. “Where were you?” I ask before I can stop myself. I just want to hear her answer. That’s all. I’m not actually suspicious.

I’m not.

“Out,” she says without elaborating. “I tell you,” she says as she slips out of her coat, “it’s cold out there tonight.”

The exact same words I told Smith.

Coincidence? How could it be anything but? Unless I really think she’s . . . what? Spying on me?

And yet I wonder.

I hate that Smith has planted this seed of doubt, but he’s right about one thing: there does seem to be another Oracle involved who’s compelling the victims to go meet the killer.

And didn’t I just ask myself who might know me well enough to be aware of who was involved in my past?

The news finally hits about an hour later. I watch with a strange mixture of disappointment and anticipation as I hear that the killer got away—but only after a long chase during which he dropped his bat. The Feds are all over that and their spokesperson is talking about trace evidence from the scene and testing for DNA and stuff.

Where was Smith? Maybe he ended up not going after all. Maybe I sounded overly confident during our phone conversation and he changed his mind.

But that’s not the part I’m most focused on. Clara’s condition is critical. Judging by the doctor-speak I only partially understand, I suspect the killer got in one more good hit to the head after I “left.” She’s in surgery right now and I don’t like the tone the spokesperson at the hospital uses when questioned about her chances of survival. He says only that it’s “still too early to speculate.”

Her parents aren’t at the scene of course—they’re with Clara at the hospital—but things went exactly like I figured they would. Her dad received a call, heard screaming, and called the cops. They were able to trace Clara’s phone because it was still connected, and they arrived just after I lost consciousness.

Ten seconds too late.

They play a clip of her dad repeating over and over again that he has no idea why his daughter would leave the house. That he was there, just upstairs, and didn’t hear her go out the door.

One more picture flashes on the screen of Clara’s parents sobbing and holding each other for support, and my stomach is sick with guilt.

I could have saved her. Even if I couldn’t have stopped her from leaving the house, I could have slowed her down enough that she wouldn’t have made it to the tunnel.

Did I do the right thing? Or did I make it worse?

If the killer had been caught, I would have comforted myself with the old “the ends justify the means” thing. But in this case, did they? Will the evidence the killer left behind be enough?

And what if she dies?

I tremble a little as I remember the feel of those blows falling on me. Clara took more of them than I did. How long would it take me to recover if that had been my physical body? Even if she wakes up, she’ll have the memory of that nightmarish experience to haunt her for the rest of her life.

I stare unseeingly at the television as the reporter rehashes everything all over again. It seemed much simpler when Smith and I came up with the plan. I figured Clara would get injured—like a broken bone or two. That she would be lauded as a hero even more than Nicole was. That would be worth it.

But now? I thought the worst-case scenario was death. Maybe it’s not; maybe it’s this.

For the first time since all of this started, I doubt everything Smith and I have done. I wonder how much we’ve screwed things up. I thought this was my purpose—my destiny.

Maybe it’s just my downfall.