“. . . AND IT WAS, like, super horrible and gross, of course,” Lavender said. “But I wasn’t scared at all.”
I sighed. She was leaning forward against the back of my seat, which meant she was pretty much shouting directly in my ear. She’d been regaling the entire bus with the tale of her adventures since the city limits.
If she keeps it up, it’s going to be a looooong ride back to Aura, I thought with a muffled sigh.
Still, I couldn’t really blame her for wanting to talk about it. Especially since nobody—including Lav—seemed quite sure what had happened or why. Most kids were obviously assuming it was some kind of random big-city crime.
Whatever. I was just glad nobody had figured out that Caitlyn and I were connected to the incident. And I was pretty convinced that we were. We’d spent a little while at Aunt Cheryl’s going over everything we knew, but we’d had to skedaddle before we came up with any new theories. At least any that made much sense.
I was sitting by the window for the trip home, with Cait on the aisle where she could talk to her nerdy friends, who had ended up across the way. Brayden and his crutches were two seats behind them, which meant there wasn’t much chance I’d get to talk to him anyway. So much for my big romantic day with my trip buddy . . .
But I tried not to think about that. Instead, I tuned out Lavender’s voice and stared out the window. It was dark outside, the flashing headlights of passing cars making it hard to see much of the landscape. Resting my head against the squishy pleather seat, I gazed up toward the sky instead. It was a clear night, with lots of stars, though the moon wasn’t up yet.
I yawned, wondering how long it would take us to get home. Then I blinked. Whoa. Had I really just thought of Aura as “home”? I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. But maybe . . . maybe it was okay?
As I was pondering what that meant, I realized that Lav’s chatter had finally stopped. Good. I yawned again, closing my eyes and trying to let myself drift off to sleep. But my brain was spinning along even faster than the tires on the bus, still trying to make sense of everything that had happened today.
Suddenly my eyes flew open again as someone behind me kicked the back of my seat. A second later came a muffled giggle. Huh? I rolled my eyes, wondering if Lavender had talked Megan into trying to play pranks on me or something.
“Very funny, guys,” I muttered, craning my neck to get a look over the high seat back.
I was just in time to see that Megan had disappeared, replaced by Biff—who was just leaning over to give Lav a short, sweet kiss on the lips!
Vision, I thought, quickly dropping back into my seat so they wouldn’t catch me peeking. The Sight had struck again—Cait had seen that kiss happen days ago.
That was the thing about the visions. We never knew which ones were important and which were just part of normal life, like that kiss. Not even with my sister getting all the good stuff and me getting the bad stuff. Sometimes it was hard to tell the two apart, or to guess exactly what the visions were trying to show us. Which made it hard to try to stop the bad stuff from happening.
But we had to try. I realized that now. Because the more we tried, the better we got at this. I mean, if we’d wanted to, I was pretty sure that my sister and I could have stopped that kiss vision from coming true. All I would have had to do was switch seats with Megan. Or maybe Caitlyn could have distracted Biff somehow.
We hadn’t done any of that, though. Because that kiss didn’t really matter. But some of our visions did—like the other ones about Lav, which had helped us find her and stop something way worse from happening. And the ones about our dad, too. The trouble was, those visions were all a lot more complicated and hard to figure out than a simple kiss . . .
Still, we have to try, I reminded myself. Sitting there staring out into the vast Texas night, it suddenly felt like a big responsibility, one I wasn’t sure I was ready for . . .
I felt Cait shuffle beside me and turned to find her gazing at me with a thoughtful expression on her face. Was she having the same kinds of thoughts as I was? Maybe it was that twintuition thing kicking in again.
Cait opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something. But just then Brayden appeared in the aisle behind her.
“Hey,” he said, leaning on the back of the seat since he wasn’t using his crutches. “Caitlyn, do you mind if we trade seats for a bit?” He shot her a slightly bashful grin. “Uh, I think my crutches are lonely.”
Cait giggled. “Sure, no problem. I’ll go keep them company.” She waggled her eyebrows dramatically at me, which I really hoped Brayden didn’t see. Then she slid out of the seat.
Brayden took her place. “Hey, Cassie,” he said.
“Hey.” I glanced at the bandages on his arms. “You sore from that spill you took earlier?”
“Nah.” He shrugged. “It was no biggie.” He cleared his throat and looked past me out the bus window. “Long day, though, huh?”
“Kind of.”
He nodded. “Anyway, uh, I just wanted to say thanks. You know, for helping me get around and stuff.” He waved a hand toward his cast. “That was cool of you.”
“Oh. Sure, no problem.” I hadn’t really done all that much except carry his crutches that one time. But if he thought I was Miss Helpful, I wasn’t going to argue. “It was fun.”
“Yeah.” He shifted in his seat. “Anyway, I’m glad we were, you know, partners or whatever.”
“Me, too.” I was still a little distracted by my earlier thoughts. But not too distracted to notice that he seemed nervous. Which really wasn’t like him. Could I be making him nervous?
“Anyway,” he blurted out, “uh, Biff was talking about getting a group together to see that new horror movie tomorrow night. It’s playing in Six Oaks.”
“Yeah? Sounds cool.”
He smiled. “So you’re in? Cool.”
Had he just asked me out? I wasn’t sure. But going to the movies with my friends sounded like just the break I needed from all this Sight stuff. Especially after everything that had happened today . . . I shivered slightly at the memory of how it had all played out. The key chain with those words scratched on it—what could it mean? The nasty guy who’d grabbed Lav—what was he after, and why? And most of all, my father. Could he really be alive? What else could those visions be trying to tell us?
I almost forgot that Brayden was still there until he scooted a little closer and elbowed me gently. “Hey, you okay?” he asked in a soft voice. “What are you thinking about?”
I glanced over at him, forcing a smile. If only I could tell him the truth. It was hard lying to my friends all the time—but I didn’t have much choice, did I?
“Nothing, just looking forward to the movie,” I said, doing my best to sound normal.
“Yeah, me too.” He leaned a little closer. His eyes were locked on mine, and suddenly the air around us felt strange, as if little electric currents were pulling us together.
I held my breath. Was he about to kiss me, like Biff and Lav? Too bad I hadn’t had a vision to give me a hint about that . . .
“Hey!” Lavender’s loud voice suddenly burst out just above our heads. “Bray, did you ask her about the movie?”
Suddenly the spell was shattered. Brayden leaned back. I looked up to see Lav grinning down at us.
“Yeah, I’m in,” I told her.
She chattered at us about the movie for a few seconds, then ducked away out of sight. I shot Brayden a sidelong look, wondering what he was thinking. Again, too bad my visions couldn’t tell me useful things like that once in a while!
He was just sitting there, drumming his hands on his legs, not really looking at me. I sighed and leaned back, mentally cursing Lav and her terrible timing.
Then Brayden cleared his throat. “So listen, Cassie,” he said. “Um, about that movie . . .”
“Yeah?” I prompted when he paused for, like, a really long time.
“I was wondering, I mean, I was hoping, that is . . .” He cleared his throat again. “So, how about if we sit together? You and me, I mean.”
I smiled. “Sure. That sounds great.” I almost added it’s a date but stopped myself just in time.
“Cool.” He sounded relieved. Then a moment later, he reached over and took my hand.
For a second I wasn’t sure what he was doing. But when he squeezed, I squeezed back. We sat there for a while, not saying anything, just looking out the window at the passing night with our hands intertwined.
Okay, it wasn’t a kiss. But it was really nice. And the best part? No visions at all. Whew!
Because truth be told? I was ready for a serious break from all that. Although I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get one anytime soon.