FIFTY

Two years ago, on the day my hands first went numb, when the feathery wind catchers and weather-aged copper bells guided me through the woods and brought me to the clearing where my sister used to put schoolgirls into trances and smoke from a hookah, I’d felt the strangest sense of déjà vu.

Like a premonition.

Like I was chasing fate.

Tonight, however, as I scramble through the same clearing under the cover of night, in an effort to avoid anyone who might be out searching for the intruder who broke into the Ramirez family’s guest cottage, I don’t know what I feel.

Fear. Confusion. Betrayal.

Helplessly, hopelessly lost.

Spying a human-sized hole in the underbrush, I wedge myself between fallen branches and a few wet saplings. My breath comes in sick urgent heaves. In the distance, I make out what sounds like the Doppler wail of police sirens. Or maybe that’s my paranoia again, playing tricks on my mind and crafting perception into whatever form will torment me the most.

I don’t have to go to Cate, I tell myself. I don’t have to do what she says. That’s in my control. I could just go home. Stop taking her calls. Pretend the never existed. It’s not like I’ve ever learned anything from her anyway. She’s cryptic. She’s maddening. Ambiguity’s the devil’s emotion, and it’s all I feel around Cate. It’s like wearing my skin inside out, being near her. I am that raw. That vulnerable.

I could walk away. Stop looking for answers. Go to Jenny, sweet Jenny.

Who’s waiting for me.

I whimper, thinking of Jenny’s warmth, her dry spark-on-tinder touch. The way I’m bolder and happier and freer when I’m with her.

The thing is, in the same way I can’t stop questioning miracles, I can’t stop looking for answers. That’s my fatal flaw, I think.

I want to believe in answers.

I need to believe in whys.

For the second time today, I pull my hands from my pockets and hold them in front of my face. They’re tingling something crazy, but whether that’s from cataplexy or conversion or cold, I can’t be sure.

“What’s really wrong with you?” I whisper. “If it’s not burying Cate’s stuff in the woods that made you do this, then what is it?”

My hands still don’t answer.

But deep down, I think I know.

After waiting for what seems an eternity, with sharp twigs jabbing into the seat of my pants and Cate’s sense of urgency burning into my soul, I make my move. I creep from my hiding spot back toward the road, hidden beneath the clouds of this moonless night. I arrive at my Jeep unseen.

I slip behind the wheel.

I head off in search of answers I may not wish to find.