Heart's Reflection (2 page)

"Sure,"
I said, slapping his hand away.

"Okay, you
caught me. I'm having trouble traveling to my usual circle of girls since Dad
cut off my access to the family car keys. Of course, he gave Liam his very own
pick-up." A derisive curl formed on his lips. "I just saw an ad for a
motorcycle in the paper. I've probably got enough money saved to
buy—"

"No," I
cut in. "Not a good idea. Those things are dangerous."

"You're
worried about me? How sweet," he said in a tone filled with sarcasm.
"But I know how to ride. I've been practicing on Dad's."

"I mean it.
Promise me. No motorcycles. Not even your Dad's."

He threw up his
hands in a mock surrender. "Okay, okay. I promise. I really wanted a car,
anyway." Keagan leaned in and ran the tip of his index finger along my
jaw. He whispered in my ear, "More room to maneuver in the backseat of a
car."

"Hey."
Liam shouted from the field. He removed his helmet and threw it to the ground
as he barreled towards us. "Get your hands off her, dude."

When Liam reached
us, he grabbed Keagan by the shoulders and spun him away from me. Liam rammed
his brother with arms outstretched and Keagan staggered back a step, but didn't
go down.

"You'll have
to do better than that on the field Friday night, little brother." Keagan
sneered.

Liam's face
contorted with rage and he swung at Keagan.

"No," I
screamed.

Keagan leaped to
the right and away with a laugh. Liam's punch failed to land.

"Weak, bro.
You are so whipped you're almost cream," Keagan said.

This only enraged
Liam further and he came after Keagan, tackling him. The two rolled on the dirt
punching at each other. The players on the field stopped their practice and
were focused on the fight, with hoots, whistles, and shouted encouragements.

"Beat his
ass, Liam," Billy Broaderick called.

"Keagan.
Liam," I yelled. "Stop it. Both of you."

Coach Dixon
finally arrived and pulled Liam off Keagan, with my boyfriend continuing to
strain against the coach's hold so he could get back to pummeling his brother.

"Knock it off
or I'll make sure you're suspended," the coach growled.

Liam stopped
straining and the coach released him.

He stood puffing
and glowering at his brother. "You're lucky the coach saved you, you sorry
douchebag."

When I walked to
Liam and hooked my arm through his, Keagan took in my position and nodded as if
he knew I'd just signaled my allegiance. Guilt gnawed at me and I dropped
Liam's arm. Why did I feel guilty? I hadn't hurt Keagan with the gesture had I?

Keagan rose before
brushing himself off and turned to the coach. "For your information, you
don't have the power to get me suspended or anything else anymore."

"I was sorry
to see you leave the Academy, son," the coach said.

An angry fire lit
Keagan's face. "I'm not your son and I don't need your pity. Save your
sorry
for Friday. You'll need it when
the Hawks beat your cream puffs into the fake ground of this shitty
place."

Liam lunged for
Keagan.

This time there'd
be blood from both brothers.

Grabbing Liam's
arm, I fought to hold him back. But then my eyesight faded, the sound of the
surrounding voices muffled, and a vision began. Like a nail shooting through my
skull from a pneumatic gun, the images moved through my brain in fast-motion
and then slowed.

A football stadium
loomed all around me, but it was night and crowds packed the bleachers. Over
the loudspeaker, the announcer talked about this being the best game in the
history of the two teams and said something about the battle of the brothers. I
realized a game was in progress. Glancing to the right I saw the scoreboard lit
with visitors: 20, home: 14. The clock was stopped with one minute, twenty
seconds left to play in the fourth quarter. Liam stood on the field with number
33 on his uniform. Keagan— at the position of linebacker—fidgeted
with impatience in the defensive line. The quarterback called a play and handed
off to Liam. He didn't get more than a few steps before Keagan hammered him and
the two went down.

Pain,
breath-stealing in its intensity, jolted through me as if I'd been struck.

Keagan bounced
back up, leaping to his feet. Liam stayed down, lying still with his head at an
odd angle. Keagan drew off his helmet. A gloating smile quickly fell from his
lips and those taunting eyes became anguished. Coach Dixon and others rushed
from the sidelines but it was hopeless. I knew what had happened. The
excruciating ache in my neck told me that Liam's had been broken.

Dead. Liam. Dead.

"Nooooooooooooo,"
I screamed, keening. Falling to my knees, with my head buried in my hands, I
wept.

Chapter Two

Why was everyone
staring at me?

"Tara."
Keagan fell to his knees beside me and put his arm around my shoulder.
"What is it?"

Through bleary
eyes I saw his face, brows furrowed, his mouth compressed in a frown of
concern.

"Get your
hands off her," Liam yelled. He grabbed Keagan's arm and jerked him back,
practically tossing his bigger brother to the ground. Then Liam turned to me as
Keagan stood.

"Tara—"
Liam began only to be interrupted.

"Are you all
right?" The coach crouched in front of me. He started to place a hand on
my chin, probably with the intention of examining me, but I didn't want to take
the chance of another vision...this time of
his
death.

"Don't,"
I cried, reeling back to evade his touch.

"Okay,"
he said, leaning away. "But where's the pain? Is it your head?"

Keagan yelled at
the field. "Somebody get the school nurse and call an ambulance."

"She doesn't
need a nurse or an ambulance," Liam said, shoving his brother hard with a
hand to the chest.

"Just because
I suggested it?" Keagan shook his head. "You really are pathetic,
man."

"He's right.
I'm fine." I struggled to rise to my feet without touching anyone. My
breath chugged in and out. The air felt like gravel in my lungs. "There
was a...a bee. It didn't sting me. I'm sorry I overreacted but I'm really
allergic."

"I didn't see
a bee." Keagan scowled, eyeing me up and down.

"If she said
there was a bee, there was a bee! A'ight?" Liam shouted getting up into
his face.

"Now
boys," the coach said. "Calm it down or I'm going to have to call campus
security."

"Call
'em," Liam said. "They'll be too late to save this jerk."

Keagan didn't back
away. He just stared Liam directly in the eyes. When he spoke the words came
out as a growl. "You wanna fight bro? Let's go."

"Aghhhhhhhhhhh,"
I screamed. "This arguing is driving me crazy. I can't take it."

The three of
them—Liam, Keagan and the coach—all turned to me in concert. The
expressions on their faces couldn't have registered more shock if I'd sprouted
horns. Come to think of it, my outburst was sort of like a fluffy bunny turning
into a charging bull.

"Just go
ahead and kill each other. I can't stop you." My voice broke on the last
word with the strain of the volume and the emotion.

As they all
continued to gawp at me, I whirled and ran without really knowing in what
direction. The only requirement was to get away.

* * * * *

"It was
horrible," I said. "Liam lying there with his neck broken and then
the two of them fighting...I knew where it would end. With Liam dead."

As I spoke, head
resting on our kitchen table, my voice came out sadly muffled. But my
grandmother heard. She reached over from her seat opposite me and placed a hand
on my shoulder. The combination of patting and massaging didn't have its usual
comforting effect.

"Oh honey.
I'm sorry."

Sometimes I used
to rail to my Gran about why a banshee could never see anything but death. I
couldn't foretell babies or marriages or...well anything happy. Just another
person's end. But bitching about
my
talent
wouldn't change anything.

"Gran, what
am I going to do?" I asked, lifting my head.

"I know what
you're feeling, Tara. Believe me, I know," Gran said. "But there
isn't anything you can do. It's fate."

My head shook so
hard the hair fell into my face. "No. I saw Liam's death before. For seven
years he's been fated to die of old age. Now, suddenly, he's gonna die on
Friday night?"

"Sometimes
that happens. There's a fork in the road." Gran smiled sadly. "He's
passed over the fork and his destiny's changed."

My phone pinged,
signaling a text. Pulling it out of the purse I'd dropped on the floor at my
feet, I examined the face and found a message from Liam: Cum2 dinA @ my hous
2nite. I promiS 2b gud.

Like lightning,
another text followed. This one was from Keagan: Won't promiS 2bgud but promiS
no fyts w/bro or my MFF.

Keagan's text
almost made me crack a smile. I knew the MFF was a less than polite reference
to his father. For Keagan that pledge was huge.

Keagan and Liam.
The two brothers. Each with a tragic future.

Placing the phone
on the table, I glanced up at Gran. "If Liam's fate could change, then it
can change back. I can do something to change it back."

"What?"
Gran asked.

"I don't
know," I said. "But I can't be responsible again for someone I care
about dying. I just can't."

"What do you
mean
again
? Who do you think you're
responsible for?" Confusion knit Gran's brow.

Silence blanketed
the room for long seconds until I could force out a sound. "My
parents," I whispered.

"Oh
sweetheart." Gran rose from her chair and then pulled me up and into a
tight hug.

Blinking back the
tears, I allowed the words to spill out. "I saw what would happen. But I
didn't stop them."

"You weren't
responsible for your parents. There was nothing you could do about that
accident."

"I tried. I
told them, but they didn't believe me."

"That was
more my fault than yours." Gran patted my back. "I should have told
your mother about the family gift. But I thought, since it would skip over her,
she didn't have to be troubled about it."

"I coulda
tried harder to convince them," I said, leaning into her soft neck. The
scent of her lavender soap enveloped me just as her arms did.

"Even if you
had convinced them, it wouldn't have changed anything. If they'd believed you,
what would they have done? Never drive a car again? Don't you think I've tried
to change fate in my seventy-two years? No, honey," she insisted with a
little shake. "And what if you did change Liam's future? How would that
change other events? Pull on one string and the whole fabric unravels, maybe?
Perhaps someone else dies?"

What did I care
about that amorphous someone else? I needed to save my boyfriend. "There
has to be some way."

"Your
parents' fate was not in your hands and neither is Liam's."

Not in my hands?
Maybe not right now, but that didn't mean I couldn't try to grab onto Liam's
destiny and tug like hell. But if I tried and I failed, his death really would
be my fault.

Did I have the
courage to take that chance?

* * * * *

Going to the
Ellsworth house that night was the first step in my campaign. But I soon found
that sitting through the uncomfortable tension between the brothers and their
parents was an almost insurmountable challenge. How successful would I be in
changing fate when I couldn't even manage to change the heavy mood of dinner
conversation?

Keagan sat on one
side of the table opposite Liam and me. He scowled down at his plate as he
pushed the mashed potatoes around, trying to form a perfect circle with the
gloppy substance. With one turn of the fork, black ink peeked out from beneath
the cuff of his shirt.

Omigod, he'd
gotten a tattoo circling his forearm a few inches above his wrist. I glanced
around the table, hoping that none of the others had seen it.

Their father
loomed at one end of the table, stuffing his face. In between bites he sipped a
scotch. He wasn't drunk, just buzzed. Mrs. Ellsworth hovered about, mostly
occupying the space between her seat and the kitchen. And it wasn't only her
legs getting a workout. Whenever Mr. Ellsworth would make some nasty comment,
Mrs. Ellsworth would treat it like a turd in a cat box. She'd giggle nervously
and let loose a barrage of inane chatter as if she were trying to bury his
comment so deep beneath her own words that we wouldn't realize how stinky his
words were. The only blessing was that so far most of his jabs had been
criticisms of politicians and work colleagues. Only a few had been directed at
the family.

At the moment we
were all sitting in a merciful pocket of silence between the turd laying and
the scratching.

As Mr. Ellsworth
finished chewing a bite of the meatloaf, he glanced at Keagan and then at his
son's plate. He swallowed and his lips twisted into a displeased curl. He
opened his mouth and I knew we were in for a smelly one.

"So Keagan.
Flunked any tests at the new school yet?"

Keagan flinched,
the slight movement so brief I would have missed it if I hadn't been looking at
him. His eyes met mine and the corner of his lip curved upward into a wry smile
before he turned his head toward Mr. Ellsworth.

"No," he
drawled.

"Just no? Are
you disrespecting me boy?" Mr. Ellsworth picked at his teeth.

"No...sir."

"I see you've
got a new tattoo there?" Mr. Ellsworth pointed his knife at his son's arm.
"Did you get one of your biker friends to do it with an infected
needle?"

"No."

"Maybe
septicemia's already setting in. Ever think of that?"