A Need So Beautiful (12 page)

The pain in my chest is going to kill me and I lie on the exam table and curl up. I feel like a child. I’m scared and alone, just like I was in the moments before Mercy found me in the hospital. Inside I know that Monroe is telling me the truth, but it hurts too much to believe. I can’t let myself believe him. “My family won’t forget me,” I murmur.

“That’s the hardest part,” he says, tilting his head to look at me. “You will slowly be erased from their memories until there are none left. Eventually they won’t even remember having met you. That’s why I’m here. Because even when everyone else forgets you, I’ll still be here. I’ll guide you until the end, just like I did for the others.”

“I don’t want to end.” I climb down from the table. “You have to fix this. Otherwise I’ll ask Onika. She says there’s a way to—”

Monroe stands up and grabs me hard by the shoulder. “You stay away from that beast,” he hisses. “Don’t you listen to a word her forked tongue spews.”

“What?” He’s hurting me, but the look of terror on his face has me shaken. “But she said—”

Suddenly there’s a tug in my gut, but when I try to ignore it, it becomes an intense pain. I wince, pulling away from Monroe to lean back over the table. “It’s the Need.”

“The Need?” he whispers to himself, as if he likes the term.

“Make it stop,” I growl, pushing my forehead down into the table as I continue to writhe. “Make it stop.”

He’s at my ear. “Don’t fight it. It’ll destroy you.”

“It’s destroying me anyway!” There’s another painful turn, this time at my side, and I scream.

I’m compelled to leave. My body feels like it’s on fire and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop myself from going. I still have so many questions. But I can’t stay. The Need won’t let me.

I straighten up as best I can and back away. I feel like a puppet, only instead of strings, I’m guided by ribbons of heat that tear through my flesh. There’s a file set in the plastic basket on the back of the door and I have to reach for it.

Monroe says nothing as I yank the folder out and flip it open, the pages blurring in front of me. I’m pushing through the papers, waiting for something to come into focus. And then it does. It’s the name of a pharmacy. Dell’s Drugs. Dell’s is just a block or two away, and all at once I know that someone is there waiting for me. Waiting right now.

My feelings fade but I don’t move. I don’t want to go. “What happens if I don’t fulfill the Need?” I ask without turning around.

“You must. It’s your destiny.”

“What happens if I don’t?” I ask again louder.

“Then the light will be lost. The people you’re meant to save will lose hope because they won’t feel that love. That acceptance.”

I laugh bitterly, the cruelty of it too much. “So I just have to sacrifice myself? Dissolve?” My hand clasps the doorknob. My body is pulling me out the door, but I have to hear him out. I want him to tell me I don’t have to go.

Monroe walks over and hugs me, resting his cheek on the top of my head. But I don’t squeeze back. Instead I feel the binding of his journal in his coat pocket.

“It’s truly beautiful,” he whispers. “A burst of bright light like nothing you can imagine. It’ll fill the world with a moment of unconditional love. Everyone you’ve touched will have peace.”

“And then I’m gone?” I slowly snake my fingers into his outside pocket and wrap them around the leather-bound pages. It feels like old skin.

“Released back into the universe,” he murmurs. “Sent home.”

“Well,” I say to him, sliding the journal under my sweater before backing up. I meet his eyes. “I think that destiny sucks.”

Without waiting for a reply, I slip out of the exam room and through the white-floored lobby. I’ll find a way to beat this. But right now I have somewhere else I need to be.

Chapter 12

D
ell’s Drugs is on the bottom floor of an apartment building on the corner of Eighteenth Street. It’s in an old brick structure, but inside, Dell’s is as antiseptic as can be. White walls, white tiled floors—even the shelves are white. As I enter, the Need continues to burn me. Tearing me up from the inside.

The cashier glances at me, but doesn’t say anything. She pops her gum and goes back to reading the latest issue of
Seventeen
. Toward the back I see the sign for the pharmacy and a rush of air blows past me. I reach out to hold on to the nearest shelf.

“You okay?” I hear. I nod and look up, seeing the cashier staring at me. She shrugs and flips the page of her magazine.

I reach in my pocket and touch the journal, comforted by its existence. Monroe said he’s been documenting the Forgotten. If Onika’s like me, she must be in here. And it’ll say how she fought the crossover.

I slowly start to make my way down the aisle, feeling the pain increase as I go, but wanting to get out of the cashier’s line of vision. There is a searing pain in my shoulder, radiating under my arm and starting across my chest. I know it’s my skin. I wonder if the injection Monroe gave me can keep it from peeling off.

Holding on to a cool metal shelf, I look ahead to the small waiting area next to the pharmacy counter. Sitting in the chairs is an old couple—the woman looking very frail. And next to them a mother, holding a wiggling toddler on her lap.

Nothing about them strikes me, so I walk ahead, looking for my Need. Strong cramps turn my gut and I stumble a few more steps until I can see the counter.

And then a rush of wind goes through me. Standing there is the pharmacist. He’s maybe thirty, thinning dark hair, glasses. He looks completely average until a violent pain in my head starts to blot out my vision. And again, I am blind. Then in my mind, I see him.

Miles Rodan is in bed, moving beneath the sheets. The red-haired woman with him isn’t his wife. The scene changes and Miles is home, a pretty dark-haired woman is yelling at him, threatening to leave. Planning to take the kids. He begs her to stay, but she doesn’t. She knows he was having an affair.

The vision changes and I feel sorrow, as if I am Miles. I’m sitting alone in the kitchen, bottles of medication in front of me. I’m filled with despair and the most isolating loneliness I’ve ever known. It’s like drowning in a deep, dark lake.

And then I see Miles again. He pops a few pills into his mouth and chases it with a sip of Jack Daniels. His wife is gone, and so is the mistress. Everyone’s miserable. He holds the prescription bottle in his hand and shakes out a few more pills. It’s all his fault. It feels like my fault. He takes a few more. . . .

I’m pushed as my eyes fly open and I move toward his light. I hear the shuffle of the old lady who was in front of me in line, but I can’t see her. I can only see Miles, glowing from behind the counter. Sweat begins to gather on my forehead and above my lip. He has the medication now. Tonight he’s going to kill himself.

Invisible vines try pulling me forward, but I hold my spot in line, not wanting to draw attention. Behind the counter, Miles’s light pulsates. If I don’t stop him he’ll be dead by the end of the night.

The woman in front of me turns around and asks if I’m okay and it takes all of my concentration to tell her in a nearly normal voice that I am. But when she looks away, I cover my face with my hands. I don’t want this. Every Need makes me worse—brings me closer to disappearing forever.

Miles calls for the next person in line and the woman shuffles ahead. They talk as his fingers click on the computer, but their voices sound far away. Behind my eyes I can see Miles. How he’ll gag from the pills. How he’ll mix them with alcohol for a lethal combination. And how he’ll lie crying on his bed, twisting in agony before he dies.

“Next.”

I hear it but I don’t move. I almost can’t. But the Need is there, forcing me to do this. I gasp and step forward, keeping my eyes toward the ground.

“How can I help you?” Miles asks, but his tone is cautious. I wonder if I look like an addict. With incredible effort I lift my gaze and stare at him, his light.

“Don’t do it,” I murmur. A new pain burns into my back and I wonder if the skin there is peeling off. It makes me whimper.

“Excuse me?” Miles says. “Look, do I need to call the cops?”

Cops? My fists ball up and I feel angry. The Need puts me in these situations, makes me do these things. I’m not a drug addict and I’m not the one planning to kill myself tonight. So he can save his judgments for somebody else. Somebody who’s not melting away because she has to help him.

I lean in, my mouth tight. “I know what you’re planning to do, Miles. I know about you and Gillian. And about the pills you have stuffed in your pocket.”

And suddenly, unlike my usual Needs, who move away, staring and freaking out, Miles reaches to grab my arm and pulls me toward him. He twists my wrist at an odd angle and I fear he’s going to snap it as he hisses in my ear.

“Was it you? Are you the one who told my wife?”

“Let go,” I say, my head swimming, trying to find the words that’ll get through to him. “You need help.”

He drops my hand and steps back from me. His features are tense, scared. “Get out of here,” he says. But nothing has changed and I know I can’t leave yet.

“Please,” I start to say, when a new person walks into my line of sight. She’s illuminated slightly, just enough so that I can see her. The redhead from my vision. She’s working in between the rows of pills, a clipboard in her hand. She glances at me and I gape at her in surprise.

“Get out,” Miles says again, more forcefully.

“Gillian,” I call. My Need zooms in. My knowledge of Miles fades away and I see that Gillian doesn’t know what he’s planning to do. She thought she was doing what was right by breaking it off with him. She was trying to protect his family.

“Yes?” she asks, stepping toward me.

“Don’t,” Miles orders, waving her away. But she’s watching me, like she’s sensed something was wrong all along.

“Gillian,” I say, outstretching my hand to her. “He has pills in his pocket that he’s planning to take tonight. He’s going to take all of them!”

Miles shouts that I’m crazy, that he’s calling the police, but Gillian looks at the back of his white coat. When she glances at me, I see the widening of her eyes and I’m sure they’re glazing over with the knowledge. She’s listening to me.

“Miles?” she asks. She knew something was off. She’s felt suspicious because while she was taking stock, she’d noticed the missing pill bottle. The light around her starts to fade and my sight returns.

Miles turns to glare at her, the phone at his ear. “She’s some psycho, Gill,” he says. “Probably a junkie. Let me handle it.”

“Do you have pills in your pocket?” she asks, her voice weak. Just then another pharmacy worker comes over, catching the end of the conversation.

Gillian touches her lips like she’s figured it out. The man she had loved was going to kill himself tonight. Partly because of her. The other pharmacist takes the phone from Miles and begins asking him questions.

Gillian looks up at me and I expect a thank-you. But as I stand in front of her, I watch the recognition drain away.

“Sorry, miss,” she says to me. “We have a situation. You’ll have to come back later.”

Suddenly the tension releases and I’m struck by a wave of euphoria. My eyes roll back in my head for a second and I stumble over to clutch on to a shelf of decongestants. And then just as quickly, I’m exhausted, wiped out. I glance up again to see Miles with his head in his hands. Gillian is wiping her eyes while the other pharmacist is on the phone. I saved him. The Need saved him.

But it hadn’t taken long for Gillian to forget me, and that bothers me. Is it getting worse, or am I just noticing it more? I close my eyes and wait for the room to stop spinning. It feels like I’m missing more skin, but I don’t have the strength to look. When I feel steady enough, I move down the aisle.

There’s a tingling on the back of my neck, like someone is staring at me. Uncomfortable, I turn toward the waiting area. Onika’s there. Any relief I’d felt is gone, replaced with fear. Monroe had called her a
beast
.

She smiles as she sits next to the woman with the squirming toddler. Onika’s long hair cascades over her shoulder onto the fabric of her black jacket, effortlessly beautiful.

The child next to her lets out a harsh squeal as he tries to break free of his mother. Onika flinches and looks sideways at the toddler, her eyes seeming covered in shadows. I see her dark red lips move, murmuring something I can’t hear. I’m frozen in place, watching her.

The child suddenly turns to her, eyes wide. Onika stops whispering and glances back at me, grinning again.

Still in his mother’s arms, the toddler starts to whimper and clutches on to her before resting his head on her shoulder. The mother pats his back and says something like, “Oh, see. That’s my big boy.” But it’s obvious that the kid is scared. That whatever Onika said—or did—to him has frightened him into silence.

Sickness starts to churn inside me. Onika stands, flicking out her gloved hand in a quick gesture, and the pain is gone.

“God, Charlotte. You look like hell,” she says as she walks toward me.

“Monroe told me not to talk to you.” I take a step back from her. She looks offended.

“Why? Because I’m trying to help you?” She groans. “He is nothing if not predictable.” She reaches out to take my arm and leads me into the aisle, where we’re hidden by shelves of feminine hygiene products. She crosses her arms over her chest. “Monroe Swift is a liar, and the sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be.”

“He said you were lying about being able to help me.” My heart is racing even though I don’t feel scared anymore. It’s like the fear ran out of me.

“Yes, love. Because he wants you to dissolve. The sooner you do, the sooner he’s free.”

“What? How will he be free?”

She reaches out to brush my hair back behind my ear, a mothering gesture. It puts me at ease. “Because as your Seer he’s trapped in servitude. But from what I hear you’re his last Forgotten. And once you’re gone, he can live a normal life. And here’s a secret.” She leans close to my ear. “He used to be my Seer too.”