was propelled toward me. I grabbed hold of her at one of those awkward, wrong places, trying to pull her to me, to protect her, but my hands tangled in locks of her sticky wet hair. There was the shriek of shattering glass and the sting of it spraying on my skin. We began to careen into a mind-scattering tailspin where earth and sky and everything in between seemed like the pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle thrown into the air. When everything settled, I knew only one image would be left, the same image I’d already lived a hundred times: holding her blood-soaked head in my lap and screaming, screaming, screaming as the glass rained down upon us.
I guess everything after the glass shattering around us was too much. The last thing I could remember was screaming endlessly as I held her head in my lap, feeling her hair, slick and gummy with blood.
The rest of Taryn’s death was too much to get through my brain.
She was the one destined to die in the Jeep, in the horrible accident she’d feared most. I wasn’t supposed to die then. Soon, but not then. After her death, though, I didn’t care. I wanted it.
The rest of that week was like gazing at snapshots from an old camera. Disjointed and distant. Me at the funeral. Me lying in bed. Me banging my head against the wall, delirious, wishing I would go next. I didn’t, couldn’t think about Nan or my mom, or the danger they were in. The hole in my chest opened to a chasm. It ached so bad sometimes I scratched and clawed at it, trying to get whatever poison was in there out. I green-elephanted constantly. I don’t think I ate, but maybe I did. I know I didn’t sleep. I don’t remember doing any of the things the living are supposed to do. No wonder I couldn’t see any of that in my visions. It all seemed so surreal, so vague. Like watching someone else’s life.
The next thing I remembered with perfect clarity was sitting on the lumpy sofa in front of Pat Sajak, staring at the dull brown shag carpet, feeling Nan’s heavy eyes on me. She asked me a question, probably something stupid, like whether I wanted more iced tea, but I didn’t hear her, didn’t answer, just watched the giant wheel tick to a stop on the big black Bankrupt.
“We’re all going to die,” I muttered.
She pursed her lips, then said, “Oh, honey bunny, you don’t—”
“I do!” I growled at her in an almost animal voice I didn’t know I had. “The Touch is already working. It’s going to kill my family. Everyone. It knew. Taryn was my family. In the future. I would have married her, grown old with her. It got her first. You’ll be next. Or Mom. It won’t stop until we’re all dead.”
She sat teetering on the very edge of the recliner, looking small, like she was ready to fall off. “It’s sinful. And two wrongs don’t make—”
I jumped to my feet. “Don’t talk in clichés! You know it. It’s the only way we can stop it.” I knelt beside her. By that time a picture of Taryn, looking alive and beautiful, appeared in my head and I began to sob. “Please. I don’t want you to die because of me, too.”
She took my hand. Hers was trembling. “What is it called again?”
I raised my head to look in her eyes. She’d sucked in her bottom lip, something she only did when she was thinking hard. Hope flooded me. “Flight of Song,” I said. “She’ll be there today at five. We can go together.”
She shook her head. “I think your mother is coming down with something. She’s not right. Someone has to stay with her.”
“What?”
“She was coughing blood. She didn’t want you to see, but—”
I swallowed. Oh, no. “Nan. She’s dying, don’t you see?”
She nodded. “Yes. I see. What do I have to do?”
She had her arm propped up on the velour pillow. I motioned to it. “Can you drive?”
“I will. It’s not far. Now, tell me. What is it I have to do?”
“All you have to do is go in and tell her you want it. I have extra money from lifeguarding upstairs. Give it all to her. Tell her it can’t wait. Make sure she does it right away. Bryce Reese spends most of his nights at the Sawmill. Once you get the Touch, you need to go there