Smith doesn’t waste any time. “Tell me what you saw,” he says, pulling his hands out of his pockets and blowing on them for warmth.

“It was . . . it was awful. There were pieces, Smith. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” And I’m not embarrassed when my voice cracks.

“Take this next right,” he says, pointing. He leads me down a road I’m unfamiliar with to a very small park that’s hardly more than a three-car parking lot and a teeny clearing. “Can you work in the car?”

“Um, shouldn’t I be able to?” I ask, completely lost.

“I think so. I guess I’m asking if you’re warm enough and if you can relax in here. You need to be at ease.”

“As at ease as I’ll ever be with that picture in my head.”

“That’s the best we’re going to get, I guess. Here.” He pulls the necklace out of his pocket and drops in into my fingertips. I feel its unnatural warmth and a tiny part of me sighs in relief. I realize I’ve missed it.

I don’t have time to analyze that.

“Just like last time?” I ask, the stone nestled in my hands.

“Except that it should be easier. You’ll be amazed how quickly you’ll get better at this.”

“I hope so,” I say doubtfully. But I remember the two minuscule steps I was able to take during the vision this morning. It took every ounce of strength I had, but I did it. Even without the stone.

I focus on the stone with my eyes wide open and remember the sensation of entering my second sight from last time. When I find myself standing in the bloody room again only a few seconds later, I’m shocked by how effortless it was. That part, anyway.

“Are you ready for me?” the voice of Smith asks.

“I’m ready,” I say aloud, quickly looping the focus stone around my neck. “Let him in.” I don’t have to yell this time. I simply murmur the words and then Smith is beside me.

I start to comment on how easy it was this time, but Smith isn’t looking at me. He’s staring at the carnage. He steps closer to one of the mounds of hacked flesh that looks like it might be her head, and hunkers down.

“Do you know who it is?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I think it’s a girl. The—” I gag for a second then push it back and point. “The shirt is purple.” Although, I realize with a start, Linden was wearing a purple shirt last night.

It’s not the same shade of purple, I tell myself, trying to calm my raspy breathing. And he’s too big. Too tall. This is a small person. “What do I do?” I say aloud when I find my voice.

Smith leans on his heels and pushes his coat back to slip his hands into his pockets. His forehead is filled with wrinkles. “A third death. I guess technically it could have been the fourth if we hadn’t diverted Jesse. This has got to be the same guy.” He looks down at the gory mess and shakes his head. “Let’s avert this one again,” he says after a long pause. “But we can’t keep doing this forever.”

“You want to quit?” I say but Smith cuts me off.

“You’re misunderstanding me. We can’t just keep avoiding the killer. Next time, we’ll have to take steps to catch him.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling dumb. He showed me how to save Jesse’s life and he’s about to help me save this girl too. Of course he’s not going to just walk away. “So what do we do now?”

“First let’s figure out where we are.” Smith begins to walk around the scene with an ease that I envy. It feels like I’m carrying ten-pound weights around my ankles. I touch the stone and remind myself that his freedom is only because he’s powerless here. I have to funnel all of my energy and concentration because what I do changes things.

I take in the room, noting the cement floor and the walls made of Sheetrock. The roof slopes on both sides and is made of some kind of metal. “It’s a shed or a workshop, I think.”

I slowly start walking toward a set of doors on one end, and Smith nods approvingly. “You’re getting better already,” he says as I reach for the sliding metal doors. But even though I can feel the doors under my hands, I can’t make them open.

“We’re not physically here, Charlotte,” Smith says, startling me away from my task. “Remember that. We’re an impulse, a compulsion, nothing more.”

“I’m going to have to rewind in order to see anything else then,” I say. Mentally, I tell the scene to rewind. Though it starts slowly, soon it picks up speed, going faster than I ever managed with Jesse. I watch, my stomach clenching, as the same black-clad, masked figure enters the scene and demolishes the girl in reverse with a two-foot-long blade.

I’ll never be able to sleep again.

SIXTEEN

I grit my teeth, grateful that at least in reverse, the girl’s body is coming back together. It’s only when we reach the initial strike of the machete that I’m able to figure out who it is—because the very first thing the monster does is slice his blade across her face.

My throat convulses, but I stare hard as her skin is made whole. “Nicole,” I whisper. “Nicole Simmons.” She’s part of the student council leadership and she reads the announcements on the school TV channel every day. I’ve seen her each morning my entire junior year. Every student in the school would recognize her.

I wonder briefly if the killer knows this. If he slashed her face first because it was so identifiable. Or was it just happenstance?