Watch Me: Teen Paranormal Romance (A Touched Trilogy Book 3) (21 page)

Sebastian’s face blurred and when it was clear again he is older, laugh lines crinkling his temples. He smiles at me and I wonder who he is really looking at. Am I in the place of the young girl? Her mother? I try to see through his eyes, but I can’t. I am frozen in place, locked into this perspective.

I’m not in his future. I am in
ours
.

Behind him, images flash so quickly they are nothing more than streaks of color. It is a lifetime of events playing in reverse. I want to pause, to see but I can’t take my eyes from his.

They slow and come to a stop. We are outside. Blue sky and trees. Summer. People are around us. I know them. I know the place, but nothing and no one look familiar. Bastian’s face changes, paling with fear. It is now.

I leave myself and enter his future. What I can name of the vision is the same as before, but those images stay in the background. Instead, I watch Bastian. My hand reaches out and I brush it along his cheek, my fingers passing through his ghost-like form.

Terror. Love. Indecision. He sees the gun. Me. Fear.

It is what exists strongest in this moment that will decide. Bastian’s fear of death, of life, of love. There is nothing I can do to stop the events. It is his decision and only he can make it.

“Fear of love takes all, as fear of loss brings love,” I said, blinking my dry eyes. I dropped my arms. We had long stopped dancing.

“Should I take that as a warning or a fact?”

I shrugged and headed for our table, leaving him to follow. “It’s what will determine whether they all die or not. When the shooting happens, your choice will decide who lives or dies.”

Sitting down, I finally glanced over at him. He stood shell-shocked and I realized he had miss interpreted what I’d said.

“You don’t kill anyone, Bastian. But that day, whether you stand, run, or fall it will determine who dies.”

He sat beside me and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “So, what do I need to do?”

“I’m not sure. Not completely anyway. I can’t see which choice connects to the deaths.”

“What about the words you said?”

Fear of love takes all as fear of loss brings love.
They’re words I’d never forget.

“I don’t think they’re meant for me to figure out. They’re for you and you’ll know when they make sense. Then you’ll make the decision.”

“I think you may be onto something,” he said. “I keep telling you to focus on me in the visions. The visions are of my future, so the words should be for me.”

“Great, I’m glad we agree. But it doesn’t help us figure out what we can do to stop it from ever happening.” There had to be something I could do.

“I don’t think you can. Even when you changed things before, you only changed the outcome. Andrew and Nadine still ended up in that room together and you’re no longer dating him. Nothing you did stopped that from happening.”

I wanted to kick him. I hated when he was right even more than I hated when Phoebe was.

“Then my gift is worthless.”

“Not necessarily. I’m aware of the possible consequences my actions will have, which is more than I had before. You said yourself the words will make sense when it happens. That has to at least increase the probability of a favorable outcome.”

Conversation became impossible as Phoebe and Nathan came back to the table. I forced myself to relax and enjoy the rest of the night. This was the only prom I’d ever go to; I wanted to soak in every part of it.

Eventually the DJ announced the last song, and for the second time I found myself in Bastian’s arms. The temptation to lose myself in the feel of him was strong, yet I couldn’t. Bastian didn’t want love. And I did. He held no space for it in his dreams of the future.

I didn’t doubt that he liked me, but I knew myself well enough to know I would want more. There was no way I could let myself be with someone who wouldn’t let themselves love me back.

“I was wondering if you would be-”

“Don’t,” I interrupted him. “You want something I can’t give you.”

“And what would that be?”

“A loveless future.”

“I was unaware I asked for a lifelong commitment. I had anticipated asking you to go to the movies.”

The song ended and I drew away. I lifted my hand and, just as I had in my vision, I caressed his check.

“Maybe, but it would change. For me it would be something more and that’s the problem. You have a fear of love and that is what I would need.”

Chapter 25

The sun beat down on us as we sat through dress rehearsal for the graduation ceremony. I slid to the edge of my chair, the hot metal stinging the underside of my thigh as my skirt hem inched up.

Anxiety was a constant companion these days, particularly whenever so many of us gathered together. Today was no different with the exception that it brought us one day closer to the event. Well, that and the fact there was only a week until the official graduation ceremony.

Lily sat between Phoebe and me and from the way she kept nudging my knee with hers, she sensed my tension. She may have been the only reason I managed to make it through the last thirty minutes without a total meltdown.

“Chloe, everything’s fine. Just relax,” she said when we paused for a short break.

“How can you know that, Lils?”

“I might not be able to see the future, but I do feel people’s emotions. And I haven’t picked up on anything. At least, not enough to cause anyone to go homicidal.”

“You do realize that’s not as comforting as you meant it to be,” I said.

She laughed. “Maybe not, but in a week we’re done with high school. How can you not be even the a little bit excited?”

Phoebe leaned around her to smirk at me. “I think it’s great you’re worried about finals for a change. Every year you gloat about knowing you’ll pass while taunting me about my own possible failure. Now you’re getting to suffer along with the rest of us.”

Lily giggled in agreement. “She has a point, Chloe.”

That was when I regretted not giving them more of a warning about what was coming. Up until now, all I had told them was that there would be a shooting and we would witness it. I shook off the feelings of regret and guilt.

It wouldn’t have mattered if I did. Every possible future I’d seen we were there. There was no escaping it. For whatever reason, we all needed to be there. It would be in the last seconds of it when each of our futures would be decided. Nothing we did before hand would make any difference. Telling them would have made it impossible for them to enjoy what little time there was left.

“Thanks for ganging up on me,” I said. “And to think I was finally going to tell Phoebe about when she and Nathan-”

“Truce!” Phoebe shouted, cutting me off. She ducked her head when everyone around us turned to stare at her. “Hey, wait a sec. There’s no way you could know that unless your visions were working again.”

I gave her an evil secret smile that left her to figure out if I really was seeing the future again, or trying to psych her out.

“I’m not getting in the middle of this,” Lily said, standing. “I’m going to get a drink before Mr. Arnold has us start all over again.”

Phoebe and I watched her go, not in the direction of the water table, but toward Micah. We looked back at each other and laughed.

“Are you going to ditch me for your boyfriend, too?” I asked her.

“Nah, he’s already fetching me water like a good boy.”

“This is a really depressing time of year to be single,” I said.

“Is there a non-depressing time to be?”

“Summer. Once summer starts I won’t miss it so much.”

“Miss Andrew you mean?”

I glanced over my shoulder to where he sat in the back. He did look good even though he was wearing the bright green shirt with a zombie emoticon. God, I hated that shirt.

As I turned back around, I caught sight of Sebastian looking at me from the row in front of us. He was about ten seats down. Too far to hear what we were saying.

“I miss being with someone more than I miss Andrew.”

Bastian smiled and gave me a Vulcan salute. I shook my head, trying not to laugh. Nothing kept the guy down. I’d worried that after prom things would be weird between us, but really, they always had been.

Instead, things had normalized. Which I wasn’t sure I liked. As much as he drove me crazy before with all of his strange teasing and off the wall flirting, I missed it. Now, he just treated me like Bianca or Owen.

I wasn’t sure why it had felt so important to say no to him. I couldn’t even say I’d seen it wasn’t in his future. All I knew was that he needed to experience the sacrifice of love before any of us could have a future.

The sharp crack of the gunshot exploded around me and for a split second I froze. My eyes fixed on Bastian. His eyes widened.

He had green eyes. Somehow, I never noticed that before.

Then instinct took over. My body folded in on itself, hands shielding my head. Screams and another shot echoed around me. I spun, searching for the source. My mind raced. Run. Hide. Get down. Nothing made sense. I didn’t know what to do.

I saw him then only yards from me. Close enough to smell the sulfur with a metallic tinge drifting through the air, pushed by a gentle breeze. Fear vibrated though my entire body, consuming me.

The man’s face was familiar only from the pictures in the paper and on the television. Video of him yelling about his wife’s death at the hands of a drunk and reckless teen had been all over the news, demanding justice be done, and that Ricky and all the other drunken kids at the party be punished.

John Tuggle was years older than he had been in January. Short white hair slicked down and wrinkles frame his sad eyes. Surrounding him was the thick gray cloud of his future billowing toward me.

Everything went silent and I was sucked in even before it hit me.

The vibrant mesh of colors, the endless possibilities of his choices flash so quickly I can barely register what they are until he begins to settle on which he’ll choose. He has decided whose life he will end. When the choice is made, I see the images I first glimpsed from Bastian.

I see John Tuggle’s future. The one he has chosen for himself. For my sisters. My friends. For me.

It is filled with rivers of blood and sorrow. Death and pain take us all, leaving no one whole. We will have nothing of the futures we planned.

Within his future, I see him as he sees himself. He is a victor, cleansing the world of those who stole from him, who ripped away the woman he spent his life devoted to. He is the avenger. Victory is vengeance and death for those who took and those who lost.

My eyes blink and I am taken from Mr. Tuggle’s future and thrust into the futures of everyone around me. Images bombard me and I struggle to take it all in. Pain explodes behind my eyes, yet I am helpless to close them.

The gun. Nadine. Vacant eyes. Pools of blood. The black nothingness of death. Spots of brilliant red sprayed across faces of the living.

An image of Lily flashes and I focus on her, following the picture through the maze of the endless futures.

She cries, Micah’s blood splattered across her face. Then she holds his daughter Hannah at the cemetery. He is with her at a church. Hannah’s creamy white dress is a miniature version of Lily’s beautiful gown. Lily’s red curls spill over her shoulder as she laughs. The images flicker and Lily and Micah are old together, their hair long turned white, holding each other.

Phoebe at her side. Phoebe smiles. Her future takes over, at first filled with a dark absence, a space so vast and empty. It is a darkness of death. The sight rips at my chest, tearing a piece of my heart away and I gasp as a devastating void fills my soul. Then she is there with Lily and Micah. With Nathan at college. Visions of them together and apart, so many possibilities layered one upon the other.

Other futures pass by, a montage of what will and could be. Yet, for each one of peace and happiness there are twice as many filled with the darkness of death and despair.

As quickly as they flooded me, they are gone and I am left with only Bastian. It is a future that was only seconds away. The possibilities for him to choose are endless, yet I know he will make one of two.

In the first, he turns and runs. He chooses to live. He will leave death behind for those of us who linger too long. In this, he will have his job, his car, and his lonely life.

In the other, he moves toward me. He sacrifices for a future that becomes an infinite set of possibilities. He sacrifices for me. Only I know it is Phoebe he saves.

“Fear of love takes all as fear of loss brings love.” The words left my lips as my head swung back to Bastian.

I blinked and time resumed.

Phoebe’s time was now. Bastian’s time for choice was now.

He focused on me, his eyes darkened by a horror reflected in the faces around us.

“Chloe!” Phoebe yelled from beside me. Her hand wrapped around my arm and she yanked me to the side as she struggled with tipped chairs. Terror whitened her face.

“I love you,” I said and pushed her to the ground, hiding her within the sea of chairs. Falling to my knees, I threw myself on top of her, doing anything to block the bullet that would rip through her in mere seconds.

Between the tipped chairs, I watched John Tuggle swing his gun in our direction, its barrel smoking from the rapid fire. Then I could only see Bastian's back as he ran in front of us. He charged forward. Another shot blasted through the air, and Bastian flew backward, knocking chairs over and into me as he fell to the ground.

“Oh, God what’s happening?” Phoebe whispered in my ear, her breathless voice quivering.

I covered my head, pressing my face next to Phoebe’s. I waited for another shot, something to tell me…anything. But nothing came.

There were some muffled shouts from voices that should have been familiar, yet focusing on who they belonged to or even what they were saying was beyond my current capabilities.

The screaming stopped, replaced by the eerie wails and cries of the terrified. I lifted my head. John Tuggle no longer stood where he’d been. I rose on to my knees, carefully to keep my hands pressed to Phoebe’s shoulders so she couldn’t get up.

That’s when I saw Mr. Arnold and a couple of students on top of John Tuggle. Blood tinted his white hair red along the back. I prayed for his death. Not only out of anger and vengeance, but out of sympathy. His future if he lived would be one forever filled with the pain of losing his wife and the horror of what he had done today.

“Chloe!” Lily yelled as she ran toward me, blood splattered across her face and cream cardigan. “Where’s Phoebe?”

She must have seen Phoebe’s body beneath me for she gave a horrible bawling cry. I let go of Phoebe to grab her as she stumbled over the chair separating us.

Phoebe sat up and gripped Lily’s arm. “It’s okay, Lils. I’m not hurt.”

We collapsed into an awkward three-way embrace, our bodies shaking from the sobs tumbling from us. I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the tears welling in my eyes.

“Micah?”  I looked at Lily.

“He’s fine. He’s helping someone who was hit. I don’t think…I don’t think they made it.”

“Who was it?”

“I didn’t see. I just… I had to find you, to make sure the both of you were okay.”

Phoebe and Micah had made it though the attack. Who else had survived?

“Did you see Nathan?” Phoebe twisted around, trying to spot him above the chairs.

“I saw him before,” Lily said, her entire body shaking as her ability to feel the pain around her kicked in. “Then everyone ran.”

“Nathan!” Phoebe yelled, jumping to her feet, spinning to search amid the chaos. She took off running when she found him sitting on the ground by the water table.

“Oh, God. Bastian.” I lunged forward, shoving at the chairs in my path.

When I reached him, all I could see was the blood. His blood. Everywhere. His shirt was saturated all along the right side of his chest.

“Bastian?” I placed my hands on either side of his face and turned it to me. His eyes were closed. My breath caught in my throat. I slid my hand to his neck and searched for a pulse.

When the faint beat came, it pushed out the air I'd been holding to.

“He’s alive.” I tore at his shirt until I could see where he’d been hit. I didn’t know what a bad gunshot wound looked like, but anything bleeding that much couldn’t be good. I yanked off my cardigan, folded it into a square, and pressed it to the wound.

A familiar whimper grew my eyes away from Bastian. Lily was on the other side of him, her face completely devoid of color as she rocked back and forth. Micah appeared behind her and sank to the ground, wrapping his arms around her holding her up.

She was already in agony from the emotional and physical pain surrounding her, yet I had to ask her. I owed it to Bastian to ask her.

I latched onto her arm with one hand, keeping the other pressed against Bastian.

“Don’t,” Micah said, glaring at me. He knew what I wanted.

“Lily, he’s the only reason why Phoebe’s still alive, why Micah is alive. He could have run. So many times, I watched him run and they died. But he didn’t, Lils. He saved them.”

They were desperate words, but I felt desperate. Nothing else would have made me ask Lily to go through the pain that would transfer to her.

Micah cursed as she reached out and placed her hand atop Bastian’s. Her breath sucked in as the pain Bastian felt transferred to her. The contact lasted only a few seconds before Micah pulled her limp hand away. The blood drained from her face, only her freckles giving her any color. She inhaled deeply then let it out before her head flopped back against Micah’s chest.