Intuition: The Premonition Series (23 page)

“Naw, I have to hit the bathroom. I’m gonna be late anyway,” I say, still holdin’ my hand out for the keys.

“Sweetie, you can use my book. I’ve already taken this class,” Buns chimes in helpfully, lookin’ past Zee to me from her seat on the other side of him. Seein’ Buns with her fairy queen beauty, I’m sure that I will never meet anyone like her again. I’ll miss her too, the way she is always tryin’ to mother me now that my family is no longer available to me.

Don’t think about that now,
I tell myself as I look at her. I want to thank her for everythin’ she has done for me throughout this freakin’ mess of a life.
I wrote them letters,
I remind myself.
They are in my bag that I’m leavin’ here. They should find them after I’m gone.
I can’t bring myself to write a letter to Reed, though. I’m grateful for his help, ‘cuz without him, my family would probably be toast from Alfred, but he has taken my girl’s heart so I say we’re even. I am leavin’ him somethin’, though—the tablet that Evie and I wrote on the other night in my room. It explains why she’s leavin’ him—I guess I owe him that much.

“I write all my notes in my book so I won’t lose ‘em,” I explain, while Zephyr hands me the keys. “Thanks, Zee.” I take one last look at them, tryin’ to memorize their faces, and then I turn ‘round and walk out of the classroom, hopin’ I’m not makin’ the biggest mistake of my life.
Well, if it’s a mistake, ya probably won’t be alive long enough to regret it,
I think as I run to the car and launch myself into the driver’s seat.

Backin’ out of the parkin’ space, I fish in my pocket for the map that Red printed out for me, unfoldin’ it as I drive away from campus. We are supposed to meet up at the train station in Coldwater. We are leavin’ the car in the train station parkin’ lot. Red reserved two train tickets to Chicago on her credit card that her Uncle Jim got for her when she went to Crestwood. It’s the last purchase she’s ever gonna make on that card, since she isn’t gonna be Genevieve Claremont anymore. She contacted the private investigator, Ryan somethin’-or-other, that had worked with her Uncle Jim. She told him that she believes the man who killed her uncle is stalkin’ her and she doesn’t believe the police can protect her from him. She isn’t lyin’ technically, Alfred is stalkin’ her and probably will until I kill him, which I will as soon as I evolve and find the maggot.

This Ryan knows a guy that makes passports and new identities for a price. I didn’t ask her how much it cost or where the money came from to purchase our new names, but I have a feelin’ it cost her a lot of the savings her uncle left her. One good thing came of it, though: she finally had a reason to praise the Crestwood Mothers Club. She cut out the pictures from her freshman directory to send him for our new passports and licenses. Her new name is Lillian Francis Lucas. I have been practicin’ it in my head so I can get familiar with it, but I have decided I’m just gonna call her Red until I can get the Lillian part straight. Maybe Lily will grow on me, I’ll see. She didn’t get to pick her new name ‘cuz I think they got it from a recently deceased woman. I guess that’s how these things work. They gave her Lillian’s social security number and created a birth certificate too, but the birth date is doctored so she’s only eighteen.

I hate my new name,
I think as I scan the rearview mirror for any signs of pursuit. Zee has to have noticed that I didn’t return to class by now. Cell phones are probably goin’ off if Red managed to slip away too. Not seein’ anythin’ behind me, I concentrate again on the road ahead of me.

They always say karma is a bitch, but now I know it’s true. Evie teased me about my bad dodgeball karma again as soon as she handed me my passport.
Henry David Grant.
My mother would be freaked if she knew my new name; I mean Grant is just too ironic for a guy who grew up with sisters named Scarlett and Melanie. I guess it’s lucky for me that I can never contact her and tell her. Not with Reed’s ability to persuade humans. I tell her my name and it’s all over. He would be on our doorstep the next day. I can’t even call them, text them, or email them ‘cuz Reed can trace it Evie said. She said we have to go on blackout mode until she can get us some new phones and a new computer. I guess Reed can find us just by the IP address of the computer he gave her. Good thing Red knows ’bout these things ‘cuz she’s ’bout as crafty as he is.

Henry Grant,
I think again as I exhale a deep breath that eases some of the pain that name causes me. It’s not even the name that I object to, if I’m bein’ completely honest with myself. It’s just a name. If Red had given me the most stellar name I could think of it would still suck ‘cuz it’s not my name. It’s someone else’s name. I’m givin’ up my birthright. It’s mine. Russell Marx. Me. It’s like I’m givin’ up my humanity, too, ‘cuz I was nothin’ but human when I was Russell. Now I’m supposed to be Henry and he’s some kind of freaky half-angel. I have had thousands of names in a thousand different lifetimes, but for some reason, this one, Russell Marx, is the hardest for me to give up. Maybe it’s ‘cuz I’m not dyin’ and movin’ on to the next life. I don’t know, but the pain I feel is somethin’ awful. I clutch the steerin’ wheel tight, drivin’ faster than I should through the sleepy little towns between Crestwood and Coldwater.

I check my speed and ease up off the accelerator when the next thought occurs to me. Maybe I have been foolin’ myself. If I’m bein’ completely honest, then I have to admit that a part of Russell died months ago on that convenience store floor. Somethin’ else survived, but it wasn’t all me. No. I’m different now. I can feel it. There is a new purpose that Russell could never have fulfilled, not as I was. I’m changin’ ‘cuz I have to. Scannin’ the cars behind me again, tryin’ to see if any are familiar, I catch my own reflection in the mirror.
I even look different,
I think as I hardly recognize myself in the mirror. Evie fixed my crooked nose when she healed me. I’m also beginnin’ to get that angel shine to my skin that sorta creeps me out. It’s like someone’s backlightin’ me or somethin’. A small shiver escapes me when I think of it.

No, I’m definitely different. I used to be eighteen, but I’m not anymore. No I’m much, much, much older than that now.
I was eighteen when I died and I woke up ancient, with memories of things I’ve never seen with these eyes,
I think, lookin’ at my brown eyes in the mirror again. I can plow a field with oxen and a yoke. I can make mead and tell ya just how much honey yer gonna need for each cask. I can make the casks, too, come to think of it. I can thread a needle and spin fibers into thread. I can weave baskets and make candles. I can make fire without a match.

I can build just about anythin’ I can think of: from an adobe hut to an engine to the spires on a cathedral. I can hoist a mainsail and navigate a ship by usin’ a sextant. I understand a host of different languages, some that don’t even exist anymore. And I can kill with bullets, swords, sabers, spears, arrows, axes, chakrams, knives, daggers, slings, rocks, and an assortment of other weapons that I don’t even care to remember.

Pullin’ into the town of Coldwater, I check the map again, and then follow the posted signs that lead me straight to the train station. Red said to park in the lot and wait for her there. She was very specific ’bout not gettin’ out and roamin’ ‘round without her. I kinda laughed at her at first, ‘til she told me ’bout the shadow man she met at the Coldwater coffee shop last semester. When she told me what happened, it made what I did afterward to the firewall seem even worse. Smashin’ the crap out of it after she went through so much trouble to get it for me was an awful thing to have done. And knowin’ that all along she was alone with that evil whack job, Alfred, makes me feel sick inside.

I locate the train station. Turnin’ into the parkin’ lot, I find a spot in the back of the lot and cut the engine. I scan the lot for Red, but can’t see anythin’ but humans wanderin’ ‘round with luggage and smilin’ faces.
They look happy. I wonder where they’re goin’, Chicago maybe,
I think, watchin’ a couple of travelers bustlin’ into the station on what is probably a planned trip to a destination of their own choosin’. For a moment, I give into the feelin’ of jealousy that makes my teeth clench and my hands ball into fists. I can hardly remember now what it feels like to be completely human and have no clue that angels truly exist. Ha! Even if I had thought they existed, I imagined them so much differently than the reality. How I could’ve bought that Hallmark version is beyond me. I should’ve paid closer attention in school when the nuns were talkin’ ’bout all the sinners gettin’ smoked by the avengin’ angels. That’s more their speed. Well, the Powers anyway. Not the Reapers—they’re nicer… well, the divine ones are anyway.

I check my watch again to see if I’m early, but I’m not. I’m right on time.
Where are ya, Red?
I think to myself as my knee bounces in agitation. I look out the back window to see if she is behind me somewhere.
Maybe she couldn’t go through with it,
I think and a wave of anxiety courses through my body.
This is the only way she’ll let me back in her heart. She’ll never see me if Reed is ‘round. He’s like a drug to her. A drug she’s gonna Jones for when he is not ‘round to give her a fix.

I’m ready for that. I just have to get her through the first few months again, and then she will come out of it. She was comin’ out of it last semester, when I kissed her at the lake. She responded to my kiss, at first anyway, then she pushed me away, but she had kissed me back at first. I didn’t know why then, but I do now. Her soul wants me, not Reed, me. There has to be a way to get her to respond again. If there is, I’ll find it. It’s worth the risk. She is worth any risk ‘cuz I can’t seem to let go of her, just like she couldn’t let me go when I was dyin’ in her arms.

Somethin’ is definitely wrong,
I think as my lips flatten in a grim line, lookin’ at my watch again.
She’s late. Her part in this escape is much harder than mine.
I try to remind myself. She has to get away from Brownie and Reed. Brownie shouldn’t be too hard because she trusts Red and isn’t tryin’ to protect her from every little thing that could possibly go wrong.
Reed, on the other hand, can’t keep his eyes off her… or his hands,
I think, frownin’. She wouldn’t go over how she planned to get away from him. When I asked her, she said she couldn’t plan it ‘cuz it was gonna have to be as natural as she could make it and rehearsin’ it made her feel sick.

Seein’ a train leavin’ the Coldwater station just in front of where I’m parked, makes my anxiety level increase. Watchin’ the railroad crossin’ lights near the street begin to flash, my breathin’ increases while the crossbars drop slowly, stoppin’ the traffic as the loud clangin’ of the bell warns that the train is approachin’. The train crosses the street; its’ cars go over the rails between the crossbars one-by-one:
ca-click, ca-click, ca-click, ca-click.
The sunlight flashes through the division of the cars as each one passes in front of me.
It’s not my train that’s leavin’,
I remind myself. We’re not even gonna take a train. We just need the angels to think that that’s what we’re doin’.

Red really put a lot of thought into this plan. She is buyin’ train tickets to Chicago, but we are headin’ across town to the bus station to catch a bus north. She said we need to buy time to get out of here. They might just be desperate enough to go after the train, especially since it’s headin’ for Chicago, which is sure to freak Reed out and throw him off his game. She said there is no way we can go to Chicago ‘cuz it’s too big a risk. Reed will be frantic to follow us to Chicago, if he thinks that’s where we’re headed, ‘cuz he will believe we are ridin’ straight into the Fallen.

Red has been tryin’ to teach me how to think strategically when it comes to angels. She says that to avoid angels, we have to think small towns, no excitement, and no luxury—nothin’ fun. Oddly enough, that sounds like a great new life to me. Boredom will be a great change of pace to what we have been through in the last few months. I’ll take boredom over the Fallen any day.

I check my watch again when the last train car travels over the tracks ahead of me.
She is officially really late now,
I think, beginnin’ to really worry ’bout her. The best thing that could’ve happened to her is that Reed caught on to her plan and stopped her. The worst I don’t even want to think about, ‘cuz it has a name, and it’s name is Alfred. Panic hits me then and I start the engine of the car before I can check myself. I sit there for a second, with the engine idlin’, tryin’ to calm down and think rationally.
Should I look for her? Should I call Zephyr and tell him what we’re up to? Should I wait and not blow the whole thing she planned for months ‘cuz of a little glitch?
My knee is bouncin’ up and down for real now as I’m rubbin’ the palms of my hands on my jeans.

We have to move soon, if we want to make it to the bus station in time to catch the bus to Mackinaw. Once there, Ryan has arranged to have a car waitin’ for us. Red said not to get my hopes up too much ‘cuz its gonna be a used beater, which is so much different from the luxury we have been used to the last few months. I expect we are in for some culture shock for a while ‘cuz our fortune will drastically change now that we are not gonna be hangin’ with the VIPs. I have to admit that I was kinda diggin’ all the clothes and stuff Buns and Brownie kept throwin’ at me for no good reason other than they were bored and wanted to shop. I had to leave everythin’ behind though, so it’s back to my old lifestyle of t-shirts and jeans from now on.
I hope I can find stuff big enough to fit me when we get to the U.P.,
I think, tryin’ to go over the plan so I won’t throw the car in reverse and peel out lookin’ for Red.