“No,” Mary Ann rushed out when her friend stood. “Stay.”

“Nah. I’ll just cause more trouble.”

Aden watched the exchange, head zinging back and forth between them, expression bemused.

“You won’t.” Mary Ann gripped Penny’s wrist and tugged her back into the chair. “You’ll—” A thought occurred to her and she gasped. “Oh, no. What time is it?” She set her mocha on the tabletop, pulled her cell from her pocket and glanced at the clock. Just as she’d feared. “I’ve got to go.” If she didn’t hurry, she wouldn’t make it back to the Watering Pot in time.

“I’ll walk you wherever you’re going. I don’t mind.” Aden jumped up so quickly, his chair skidded behind him and knocked into a man who’d been walking past. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“I’m in a mad rush, so I…I think I should go on my own. I’m sorry.” Best this way, she told herself. Her blood was still burning in her veins, her stomach still clenching. She leaned forward and kissed Penny on the cheek before standing herself. “It was nice meeting you, though, Aden.” Kind of.

“You, too.” He sounded despondent.

She backed up a step, stopped. Backed up another step, a dark corner of her mind shouting for her to stay, despite everything.

Aden moved toward her, saying, “Can I call you? I would love to call you.”

“I—” She opened her mouth to say yes. That dark corner wanted to see him again and figure out why she felt both pain and affection in his presence. The rest of her, the rational side of her nature, listed all the reasons to stay away from him: School. Grades. Tucker. Fifteen-year plan. Yet still she had to fight to work, “No, I’m sorry,” out of her throat.

Whirling, she headed back to the Watering Pot, wondering if she’d just made a huge mistake. A mistake she would regret for the rest of her life, just as Penny had predicted.

THREE

ADEN WATCHED as Mary Ann walked away from him.

“Here’s her number. If you still want to call her, that is, considering her rudeness,” the girl named Penny said, sliding a piece of paper toward Aden. “The second number is mine. In case you decide you want someone a little more available.” Then she, too, stood and walked away from him.

“Thank you,” he called. He grinned as he stuffed the paper into his pocket. The grin didn’t last long, however. He didn’t know a lot about girls, but he knew that he’d made Mary Ann Gray uncomfortable. Knew she’d wanted nothing to do with him.

Had she sensed how different he was? He hoped not, because that would make convincing her to spend time with him impossible. And he had to spend more time with her. Had to talk to her, to get to know her. She really was responsible for his newfound sense of peace.

It was strange, too. The more time he’d spent in her presence, the more he’d had to fight the urge to run away from her. Which made absolutely no sense. Up close, she was even prettier than he’d realized, cheeks bright, eyes a mix of green and brown. She was smart, well able to hold her own against her friend. Any other guy would have wanted to date her, yet when they’d begun talking, he’d first experienced a wave of affection, as though he should be mussing her hair and teasing her about boyfriends. (As if he needed more proof that he was weird.) And second, that stupid desire to flee for his life.

He could think of no reason good enough to run from her. The moment he’d spotted her at the café, the voices had screamed again—he had hated that—then quieted again, and he had loved that.

How did she do it? Did she even know she did it? She hadn’t seemed aware, her pretty face innocently unconcerned.

He hadn’t decided yet if she was the girl in his visions or not. She certainly looked like her, but the thought of kissing her…he grimaced. It just felt wrong. So very wrong. Maybe, hopefully, after he got to know her, that would change.

He kicked into gear, heading home, careful to stay first on the sidewalk above the graveyard, and then the main roads. Twice he tripped over trash, stumbling forward, and every wound on his body throbbed.

Ugh, we’re gonna hurt tonight, Caleb said.

Yep. Beyond the ache of the existing bruises, in a few hours, the poison would begin to break him down, chew him up and spit him out.

You’re really starting to annoy me, Ad, Elijah suddenly said. I do not like the airstream or whatever it is that tosses us into that black hole.

“Tell me about it. The black hole, I mean.”

Dark, empty, silent. And just for the record, I’d like to know how you’re doing it.

A girl. I caught a glimpse of her, Eve said.

Julian sputtered. A girl? A dumb girl is sending us away? How?

“Is she the one I’ve been dreaming about, Elijah?” Duh. He should have asked before.

Don’t know. I didn’t see her.

Oh.

Well, I did see her, and I’m positive I know her. There’s something familiar about her. Eve paused, clearly thinking things over. She pushed out a frustrated breath. I just can’t place what, exactly, is familiar.

The others never saw the images Elijah projected inside his head. Only Aden did. So Eve wouldn’t have seen her in the visions. “We’ve only been here a few weeks and haven’t left the ranch until today. We haven’t met anyone but Dan and the other dregs.” Dregs, his name for the other “wayward” teens at the D and M.

I swear. I know her. I do. Somehow. And she could have lived in any of the towns we’ve been sent to.

“You’re righ—” Realizing that he could be caught talking to himself, Aden searched his surroundings, making sure no one was within hearing distance. He would have thought his replies, rather than speak them, but there was such a constant stream of noise in his head that the souls had trouble differentiating his words from everything else.

He was outside, the sun finally beginning to fall, the ranch on the horizon. It was a sprawling structure of dark red wood surrounded by windmills, an oil rig and a looming wrought-iron fence. Cows and horses grazed all around. Crickets chirped. A dog barked. It wasn’t the kind of place he’d ever imagined living, and he was as far from a cowboy as a person could get, but he found that he liked the open spaces better than the crowded buildings in the city.

In the back was a barn, as well as a bunkhouse where he and the other dregs slept. Usually they could be found outside with their tutor, Mr. Sicamore, or baling hay, mowing and scooping manure into a wheelbarrow for fertilizer. The chores were meant to help them “learn the importance of hard work and responsibility.” Only taught them to hate work, if you asked Aden.

Thankfully today was everyone’s day off. As he strode past the gate, no one was out and about.

“You’re right that she could have lived in a different town at the same time as me, though the odds of that are pretty bad. Still, I promise you, I never saw her, really saw her, until today,” Aden said, picking up their conversation where they’d left off. If he and Mary Ann had crossed paths before, he would have experienced that sweet silence. That was not something he would have forgotten.

Caleb laughed, though there was a sharp edge to his amusement. You keep your head down and your eyes averted everywhere you go. You could have met your mother and you wouldn’t have known it.

True. “But I’ve been shuffled from one mental institution to another, and even juvie, where no girls were allowed. This is the first time I’ve really been out in public, no matter what town I’ve been in. Where would I have met her?”

Eve’s breathy sigh drifted through his head. I don’t know.

I still think you should stay away from her, Elijah said solemnly.

“Why?” Had the psychic already divined Mary Ann’s death and now hoped to save him from the heartache of her loss? Aden fought a rush of dread. When Elijah told him when and how someone was going to die, that someone died, exactly as Elijah had said. No exceptions. “Why?” he rasped again.

Just…because.

“Why!” he insisted, the question harsher than he’d intended. He needed a good reason or he’d be hunting her down at the first opportunity. Anything for another taste of that silence.

Well, I for one don’t like how powerless I feel when you’re around her, Julian said.

“Elijah?” Aden insisted.

I just don’t like her, the psychic grumbled. All right? Happy now?

No impending death, then. Thank God.

Aden tripped as one of Dan’s dogs, Sophia, a black-and-white Border collie, tangled around his ankles, barking for attention. He petted her head and she continued to dance around him. As he stood there, an idea took root in his mind. He didn’t speak it, not yet. But he did say, “Well, I do like her, and I want—need—to spend more time with her.”

Then you’re going to have to find a way to set us free, Elijah said. Any more time in that black hole and I’ll go insane.

“How?” They’d already tried a thousand different ways. Exorcism, spells, prayer. Nothing had worked. And with his own death looming, he was becoming desperate. Not just for the peace it would give him these last years—months? weeks?—of his life, but because he didn’t want his only friends dying with him. He wanted them to have lives of their own. The lives they’d always craved.

Let’s say we did find a way out. Eve paused. We’d then need bodies, living bodies, or I fear we’ll be as insubstantial as ghosts.

True. But bodies aren’t something we can order online, Julian said.

Aden will find a way, Caleb replied, confident.

Impossible, Aden wanted to say, but didn’t. No reason to destroy their hope. When he reached the main house, he muttered, “We’ll finish this conversation later,” and meshed his lips together. All the lights were dimmed, no shuffling feet or banging pots echoing. Still. No telling who lurked where.

He knocked on the front door. Waited a while. Knocked again. Waited even longer. No one appeared. His shoulders sagged in disappointment. He really wanted to talk to Dan and put his as yet unspoken idea in motion.