Intangible

And then Sera knew. No vision had ever terrified Luke. Never. In seventeen years. It was as if his own life were at stake. But he didn’t See his own future. He only saw other’s. She suddenly had a terrible feeling that she knew exactly whose future he’d Seen.

Her voice was a whisper. “Do I get hurt?”

His face contorted, but he didn’t say anything.

“Oh my god. Do I die?”

Always, for my family.

And for my brother John

for whom I wish I had

the power to heal.

ONE

“S
hall she be the first to die, Seer?”

Luke’s head whipped up and he froze with the realization—the woman, the voice, she was addressing him directly. That had never happened before.

She spoke again, a taunt. “Yes, I think so. Her healing makes her the more dangerous.”

No. A chill tingled up his neck, settled on his scalp. Not his sister. This one couldn’t be about Sera.

His eyes searched the room. Blood-red rock walls rose from a charred black stone floor with the deepest, darkest shadows lurking in every crack and crevice. Luke blinked hard. Did the shadows just move? He shook his head to clear it, focus.

It was a vast, vacant space that felt both cold and hot simultaneously. Luke went from shivering to sweating to shivering again. Oh my god, Luke thought. Am I literally in hell?

He turned around. Damn it, who’d said that?

There.

Wow.

Ivory satin skin, copper colored hair, her body a combination of hard and soft in all the right places. Divine. That was the only way to describe her. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe—it pierced him to his core, her beauty. She smiled serenely at him. And though her words had struck terror, her visage soothed him. He knew with sudden certainty that he’d do anything to make her happy.

Torchlight from sconces on the walls flicked amber across her tall angular form. As Luke gazed intently, however, her beauty quivered, disappeared to reveal a disturbing gauntness. Sharp cheekbones under pale-as-death skin. Collarbones stood out above the skin-tight black tank top. Hip bones jutted out just above the top of her taut black pants. Not an ounce of excess to her body. Nor an ounce of humanity in her glittering dark eyes.

Had he really thought she was beautiful only a moment ago? He studied her. She was sickeningly skeletal, yet then inexplicably alluring again. All at once terrifying, grotesque, and ravishing.

Goose bumps spread up his arms.

This was the scariest vision he’d ever had.

His eyes settled on the wide gold disc wrapped around her neck. It was shaped like an Egyptian collar necklace and inscribed with ancient-looking symbols. It lay flat against her chest, the only adornment she wore.

She smiled suddenly, sending a chill scuttling under his skin. There was no happiness, no warmth in her face—only inhuman excitement. With a start, he realized what was about to happen. Someone was going to die.

But no one else was here. And that could only mean one thing.

He was about to witness his own death.

In all of his seventeen years he’d never had a vision about himself—he hadn’t thought it was possible. And now that it appeared it was, he knew with certainty that this was something he didn’t want to See.

She looked beyond him suddenly and her eyes hardened, her stance tensed. It was almost as if Luke was no longer the target, but in the way. He followed her gaze, turning to look over his shoulder.

He instinctively smiled at what he saw—his twin sister Sera. But in the next instant the woman’s words echoed in his mind. Shall she be the first to die? A rising panic threatened to choke him. He scoured the room for a way out. A way to change what he knew with absolute certainty was about to happen.

It wasn’t his life. It was hers.

“The Children of the Prophecy must die!” The woman’s cry filled the room.

And then her gold necklace hurtled through the air, slicing deep into Sera’s neck.

“NOOOOOOO!” Luke stood up so quickly he jammed his knee into his desk and nearly knocked over the computer he’d been using when the vision had gripped him. His heart screamed staccato beats, his breath came in raspy gulps, his grey t-shirt was drenched. He tripped over his chair, scrambling to grab the small, wire-bound black sketchbook on his bedside table before the details faded away. He wrote in a near frenzy as his eyes fought to focus in the dim light. Every little detail of his vision went down on the page: colors, smells, the look of the room and the people in it, what they wore, words they said. Everything he could remember.

He wrote without thinking. Without order. Without pause. Lists of words, remembered phrases. Any clue that might help him figure out how to stop it from coming true.

He had to stop this one.

If only he knew how.

His visions always came true. Always. No matter what he did. He wrote them down, dissected them for clues. Then he tried to get there before the events happened. He did everything he could to thwart them. But nothing had ever worked.

Visions came to him either complete or incomplete. Complete ones came quickly and with little warning. The vision would take him, and he’d know it would happen soon. He’d have to rush if he wanted even a chance to stop it.

Incomplete visions came on slowly. He’d feel off for hours, sometimes, knowing a vision was coming. And waiting.
Impending doom
is what he and Sera half-jokingly called it, this pre-vision sensation when all his senses were abuzz.

That’s the way he’d been feeling since he’d gotten home from school. The whole afternoon he’d been jittery waiting for the vision to come, knowing the delay meant it would be incomplete. But that he also had more time to figure it out. Maybe even enough time to stop it.

What did he have to do to change the future? He hadn’t figured that out yet.

But he sure as hell needed to figure it out now. Right now. It was Sera.
Sera’s life.
His breathing quickened again just thinking about it. Threads of fear wove around inside his chest and ever so slightly squeezed.
Sera.

He had to save her. Had to. But how?

Don’t panic, he thought. Keep calm. Think. He shut his notebook and put it back down on the table, ran a hand through his short dark hair. A bright red 1:02 glowed on his bedside clock. Shivering, he pulled his sweaty shirt over his head, and replaced it with a soft green henley. He pushed the sleeves up to his elbows as he padded the short distance down the hall to his sister’s bedroom, the khaki carpet swallowing his footsteps. A nightlight stretched his shadow to the far end of the hall.

He paused for a moment at Sera’s door. What was he going to tell her, coming to see her at one o’clock in the morning? It’s not like he could say, “Hey, I’m scared to death that you’re going to die because I just Saw it. Wanna help me figure out how to stop that from happening?”

Shall she be the first to die, Seer?
The woman’s words echoed in his mind.

He didn’t have to say anything. He just needed to know she was okay at this moment. He knocked quietly.

“Sera?” Opening the door gently, he said, “Are you up?” and stepped into her room.

It was empty.

TWO