She glanced down at her sandwich before answering.
“No, I don’t have those kinds of premonitions. Mine are about the stock market.”
Stock market? I couldn’t hide my surprise.
“I know,” she said. “Not very interesting. But think of what you could gain by controlling someone with my ability. The money. Power.”
“I don’t want money or power. Just you.”
She blushed and picked a bit of meat from her sandwich.
“Blake’s tasted that power. If your laws can’t control him, what makes you think finding him will help? All it does is expose us. He will go straight for Liam and Aden. Through them, he can control me again.”
Are you listening to this? I sent Winifred.
I am. We need to find Blake. But we won’t involve her any further.
“Nana won’t ask again,” I promised. Then, to lighten the mood, I grinned and said, “Want to spike your tea?”
Winifred yelled at me from the first floor, and I chuckled. Michelle smiled slightly, too, and picked up her sandwich, finally taking a bite. It was only a few minutes before another question started bugging me.
“Why did you tell Sam which stock to invest in? Why not just keep it to yourself?”
She set her sandwich down slowly.
“I don’t have a choice. The information comes to me every seven days. It plays in my head like a market ticker but with just one stock on repeat. If I don’t share the information, it makes me twitchy. The longer I hold it, the more painful it becomes until I’m a mess. Blake figured that out. It became another way for him to control me. I have to share the information with someone. As soon as I do, the countdown to the next premonition resets.”
The headache the first week she was here and her weird reaction on the porch when she’d overheard Winifred speaking to Sam made more sense now.
“And that’s why you didn’t want to tell me.”
The premonitions didn’t just provide wealth, they provided a way to physically control her through her own pain. How had Blake prevented her from sharing the information? A gag? Tied hands? I wanted his blood.
Keeping my expression calm, I nudged her glass. “Drink.”
She barely managed a sip before she set the glass aside.
“There’s more,” she said. “I told you a little about what Blake said the night before I ran. That he wanted me to bite one of his men. Before that, he talked about evolving my abilities. When you asked if I saw what would happen, I meant it. I don’t have those kinds of visions. But since coming here, something has changed. I’ve gotten glimpses of people. Girls like me, mostly. I don’t know why. Those visions don’t work like the stock ones. They don’t repeat.”
I wanted to be angry. To shake with rage. But her anxious expression kept it all in check. I reached for her and wrapped my hand around hers.
“We’ll figure this out. Please, let some of the worry go. Trust us to keep you and your brothers safe.”
She nodded, squeezed my hand before letting go, then picked up her sandwich.
* * * *
For the rest of the afternoon, I kept an eye on Michelle. She didn’t withdraw into her apartment again. Instead, she went to Winifred’s and joined in on the number fun. When Jim came home, Michelle helped cook dinner and hung around for some cards afterward. The three were relaxed when she finally said it was time to get to bed. I didn’t suggest I sleep on her couch again, although I really wanted to. I could see that she didn’t need it, and I didn’t want to push my welcome.
But, come first light, I let myself into their place just to check on them. They were all sleeping peacefully. The boys woke before she did. Not unexpected. She was probably still catching up on sleep. I left a bowl of cereal on the counter for her and took the kids downstairs.
When she finally joined us, we were already on our third board game of the morning. She smiled and sat on the floor by Winifred’s coffee table. We spent the rest of the morning, and most of the afternoon, there having fun.
Yet even as we laughed and played, I was thinking ahead. Michelle had told me she had two secrets. One would test my loyalty and one would give me power over her. She’d shared both with me. There were no secrets standing between us anymore. No reason we couldn’t