Christine Johnson - Grim anthology

Now I looked at Skye in the late-morning light and asked, “Is it Milly? Is there...? You spend a lot of time with her.” In front of people. In public.

Skye dropped his hand. “We’re friends, Lan. I only drove her out here today because I wanted to see you.” He stepped closer and I backed up until my elbows dug into the bark of the pine tree behind me. It wasn’t that he scared me. It was that I was afraid if he stood too close, I’d once again forget to be angry, forget how crappy this whole situation made me feel.

Forget what I’d seen in Milly’s head.

“It’s just not good timing right now, Lana.” Skye reached out and brushed a sweaty piece of hair from my forehead, his touch featherlight. “Kimberly’s only been gone a few months, and it might look bad if I suddenly had a new girlfriend, you know?”

Overhead, something rustled in the trees, and on the distant interstate, I heard the blast of a car horn.

“Is that what I am?” I asked, folding my arms tightly across his chest. “Your girlfriend?”

Skye lifted an eyebrow, a smirk twisting his lips. “Do you want a ring or something? My letterman’s jacket? I mean, I don’t play a sport, and I’m not even sure they make those things anymore, but maybe Goodwill would—”

I shoved at his chest. “Don’t make fun of me.”

Something flashed in his eyes, something dark and angry. But it was gone as soon as it had appeared, and when Skye took my wrist in his hand, his grip was light. “I’m not, I promise. But this is tough for me. I don’t want to look like the dick who doesn’t even miss Kim, you know?”

This whole conversation was going nowhere, and suddenly I wished I’d never brought it up. We only had an hour, and we’d spent half that already, walking and arguing. Skye was right. There was enough weirdness about Kimberly’s disappearance, and we didn’t want to add to that.

But then I remembered Milly, the images I’d gotten when I’d touched her ring. “Milly—” I started, and Skye’s fingers tightened around my wrist.

“I told you, there’s nothing going on. She doesn’t even like me like that.”

“Yes, she does,” I said before I could stop myself. “I saw it.”

I hadn’t quite shouted the words, but they’d still come out a lot louder than I’d intended. In a nearby bush, a bird suddenly took wing, and Skye startled.

“What do you mean you ‘saw it’?” There was a deep crease between his brows, and his grip on my wrist was tight enough to hurt now. I shook him off, irritated.

“I...I can see things. When I touch people. Same as my mom.”

Skye blinked, once, then twice, his whole body going still. “So...this psychic crap is for real? Because you said your mom just—”

“I know what I said.” Shoving my hands into the back pockets of my jeans, I tilted my head back, looking up at the snatches of blue sky through the branches. “I didn’t want you to think I was a freak, but yeah, Momma can really tell a person’s future, and I can get...I don’t know, impressions. When I touch somebody. It’s not a big deal.”

Skye had backed away from me now, his face pale. “Have you done that to me?” he asked, and I immediately shook my head.

“No,” I promised. “Never. I only do it to help Momma out before her readings. Anything else feels—” I shuddered “—gross. Like a violation or something.”

Skye seemed to sigh with his whole body, the breath ruffling his hair where it fell over his forehead. “So when you touched Milly—”

“She’s into you, trust me.” I left it at that. The longing coming off Milly for Skye had practically wavered there in the air earlier. True, I hadn’t picked up anything else. If anything had ever happened between them, I hadn’t seen it. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

“I can’t help it if she likes me, Lana,” Skye said. His own hands were in his pockets now, almost mimicking my pose. “But I don’t feel that way about her. I swear.”

When I didn’t say anything, Skye took a step closer. “When we kissed earlier... If you’d wanted to, you could’ve looked into my head, right?”

“I told you I wouldn’t do that,” I snapped.

Skye was watching me closely now, ducking his head so that he could see into my face. “Do you promise, Lan? Do you promise you would never do that?”

If he hadn’t said that, maybe I wouldn’t have felt so tempted. But there was something so intense in his gaze, something that made the hairs on my arms stand up. And it was like any temptation, like Skye himself—once I’d been told I couldn’t, I had to.

“Yeah,” I heard myself say. “I promise.”

His expression softened. “And I promise Milly and I are just friends. She’s only hanging around me because we both miss Kim. That’s it.”

He smiled at me, a dimple flashing in one cheek. In the shady woods, his eyes seemed a darker blue, and when he tugged me to him, I let him.

When he leaned in to kiss me, I closed my hands around his forearms. The key tattoo was just there underneath my palm, and there was one brief moment when I tried to tell myself not to do it. That he had said there was nothing going on with Milly, and I needed to trust him.

But another darker part whispered, Then why is he still keeping you a secret?

He had asked me never to read him, and I had promised, but standing there in the woods behind my home, his skin pressed against mine, the temptation was too strong. Just a little bit, I told myself. So I can be sure.

As always, it felt like opening a door, and I tried to keep the door opened only a crack. Just enough to see if he was lying to me about Milly.

But the moment the door from my mind to his opened, it was like a hurricane blew through it. Skye kissed me as image after image assaulted my mind. Kimberly crying. Kimberly shoving at Skye’s shoulders. They’re in a field somewhere, and it’s dark, and she needs to shut up, just shut up, shut up. Skye’s hands around Kimberly’s throat, and she’s kicking him, but he’s stronger and her kicks are getting weaker and weaker, and sweat is dripping down his face as he wonders why she won’t die, would she just die already—

My heart was in my mouth, my stomach rolling, and it took every bit of strength in me not to scream, not to push him away. But we were alone out here, far from anyone, and I’d told him I wouldn’t look. If he knew that I knew...

We parted, and he pressed his lips to my forehead while I shook. Please let him think it’s from the kiss.

I wasn’t sure how I managed to smile when he looked down at me. His eyes were so blue. Kimberly had looked into those eyes as he’d choked the life out of her. Kimberly, who had never left town, who had no glamorous future in L.A. Kimberly, who was probably at the bottom of a lake, or in a hole somewhere in that field I’d seen. Kimberly, who’d loved and trusted Skye like I had.

We stood there in the woods, looking at one another, and I tried to force my heart not to beat out of my chest, tried to keep my breathing calm. All I had to do was get back to the trailer. Get back to Momma, and get away from Skye. I could do this. I could.

And then Skye winced.

We both looked down, seeing my hand where it still clung to his forearm. I may have slowed my pulse and steadied my breathing, but I hadn’t stopped my fingers from digging into him, hard enough to break the skin. My nails had pierced his flesh, and Skye and I both watched as a single drop of blood welled up just over the teeth of his key tattoo.

His eyes met mine, and I knew there was no lie I could tell that would convince him that I hadn’t looked inside his mind. That I hadn’t seen. That I didn’t know.

I was in the woods behind my trailer with a boy who’d killed the last girl who loved him. I could look off to the horizon all I wanted, but no one was coming to save me. Maybe I couldn’t tell the future like Momma, but in that instant, I swore I could see it. When her reading with Milly was done, she’d come out and find Skye sitting there. Maybe there’d be dirt on his knees, and he might be breathing a little hard. He’d tell her I’d left. Maybe I headed out for track practice early, caught a ride with a friend—no, he wasn’t sure who. And then maybe later, he’d come back to this quiet place in Woodland Hills, and by the end of the night, I’d find myself lying next to Kimberly McEntire, wherever she was. For just a second, I thought of taking one more peek, trying to see what he had done with her. But I was too afraid to look again, afraid that anything I saw might break what was left of my mind.