But I can’t think about that now. I’ve got to keep her alive until the cops come. That scream was so loud surely her dad is calling 911 right now. I shove her around as fast as I can, though even colossal effort on my part leads only to tiny changes in Clara’s movements. Her screams continue as she gets hit over and over—her arms, her legs—but I’m managing to protect her head.

Until the killer gets smart and takes out both legs with one low swoop I can’t block.

He stands over her and while I can’t see his face, I know from the sick, low chuckle that emanates from his throat that he must be grinning.

No! I agonize as I watch him raise his bat to deliver what will surely be the deadly blow. I can’t have done all of this for nothing.

But I can’t do anything. I can’t affect the world physically—Smith said so.

Even so, as the bat comes down, I throw myself over Clara’s crumpled, sobbing body, and raise my hand to block the blow.

It slams into my arm with a force that jars my shoulder and radiates all the way to my spine, the pain exploding within me.

He was wrong, I realize in wonder as the killer pauses to look down at his bat in confusion. Smith was wrong! I can save her! I cover Clara’s body and absorb the next hard blow as well, a scream tearing itself from my throat as pain like nothing I’ve ever felt before spreads across my back from the savage strike.

Two more blows across my back, and then the scene is wavering. It’s too much. I’m losing the mental strength to stay in it. Once more the bat strikes me, at the back of the head this time, and in the last moments before I lose consciousness I look up and see a dark figure in a familiar peacoat running toward me.

Smith, I realize. He’s coming to save me. No, to save her.

And as the vision fades, I hear the most beautiful sound in the entire world.

Sirens.

TWENTY-TWO

I come to with a whimper in my own bedroom. Everything hurts.

Wait. That’s not quite right. It’s a weird kind of pain that’s slowly receding like the waves on a shoreline. I’m lying on my floor and my face is wet with tears, but I’m here. I’m out of the vision.

Was I kicked out because I lost consciousness or because I couldn’t hold on any longer? I’m not actually sure which one came first.

A deep ache throbs in the arm that took the brunt of that first hard blow and I move it gingerly. In my vision, I was sure the unforgiving bat had shattered the bone, but it’s whole and straight and doesn’t hurt as I move it this way and that.

The rest of my aches are slowly fading too. Like phantom pain. “It was all in my head,” I whisper in wonder. I’ve never, ever felt anything like that and I was sure I was going to die with Clara.

But I didn’t. I may have saved her. I’m not sure how much good it did though. I was right there with her and I didn’t see a single distinguishing characteristic in the killer.

But the sirens. The sirens were coming.

I curl up and pull my knees to my chest, trying to process everything that happened. I blocked his bat. And the killer knew it! I remember so clearly the way he paused, everything in his posture indicating surprise, when the blow he aimed at her head connected with something, but it wasn’t her.

I affected the physical world. That means that next time I can rip his mask off. It’s possible I could even hold him until the police arrive. Maybe call in an anonymous tip to make sure they come.

This changes everything.

The fact is they might catch the bastard tonight. But if they don’t—if he slips away—then I can end it next time. I glance up at the clock. There’s probably an hour before Clara leaves her house. Part of me wants to go hide and see the vision play out—but I didn’t see myself there. I can’t risk changing even the tiniest detail. Better stay here.

Wait, I think, searching my fuzzy memory. I did see someone else.

“I saw Smith,” I whisper aloud.

I chuckle and shake my head. He said he trusted me to do it on my own, but of course he wouldn’t be able to just let it happen. He’s too much of a control freak. I should have known he’d go check on me.

Even if he doesn’t know it yet.

Amused at knowing something he doesn’t, I grab my phone and call his number. “It’s done,” I whisper when he answers.

“Tell me exactly what happens,” Smith says. “From the beginning.”

“It was weird,” I say, still whispering. “I followed Clara back all the way to her house and there was seriously no reason for her to have left. She was sitting on the couch reading and then she got up and walked out the door. It was like . . .” I pause, hating the comparison. “It was kind of like what we’ve been doing. Like someone was talking to her in her head and telling her to go, and then she did. A couple of times she even stopped and looked back and seemed really confused, but she kept going.”

“Charlotte? Are you sure there are no other Oracles in Coldwater? Or anywhere near Coldwater?”

“There aren’t. I asked my aunt a couple weeks ago. The Sisters of Delphi follow the bloodlines so closely, it’s almost impossible for someone to be missed.”

“What about your aunt?”

I snort. “Oh, please.”

“It’s not uncommon for Oracles to snap and go crazy after fighting their entire lives. Shelby’s great-grandmother went totally insane when she was seventy and eventually the Sisters. . . . They put her down for lack of a friendlier term. Because she was hurting people.”