Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
It takes a while, but the AAA guy finally comes. After a jump, my car starts right up. I drive home, winding through Sapphire Springs’ shaded streets until I arrive at the little cottage where I’ve lived for the past five years. As always, as soon as it comes into view, pride fills me.
The way I grew up—always in trouble for sassing or fighting, bouncing from one foster home to another, then my stint in juvie—I don’t think anyone anticipated I’d wind up owning a place like this. Least of all, me. But in the juvenile detention center, there was an art teacher who noticed the doodles in the notebook I always carried, wheedled me into showing them to her, and then convinced me they were actually good. I earned my GED, then went to community college for a degree in graphic design. Two years later, I had my bachelor’s courtesy of an online program. And then, to my shock, people started hiring me.
I went from Rune Whitlock, ostracized delinquent, to on-demand graphic designer. I never intended to stay in Sapphire Springs. But after Ethan offered me a full-time gig at Smashbox, the money was too good to pass up. Now, at thirty-two, I have a home of my own, someplace where I finally belong. Where no one can kick me out.
My cottage is cozy, with white split-shake siding. It has a wide porch with a swing and rocking chairs, the ceiling painted sky-blue and ivy twining around the white brick columns. Asters, mums, and lantana bloom in the tiny front yard, ushering in the arrival of fall, and a statue of Cassandra, the patron saint of disbelieved prophets, has pride of place at the center of a burbling fountain. It’s my sanctuary, and as I swing into my driveway, I want nothing more than to shut the door behind me, change into yoga pants, and nurse my wounds over the promised glass of wine.
But as I limp up my walkway, shoes looped over one finger, lugging my purse and laptop bag, I freeze. Because perched in one of my rocking chairs, wearing an outfit that looks like it costs more than I make in a year, her sky-blue Ferragamo bag crouched by her feet like an obedient dog, is someone I never thought I’d see again.
Julia.
“I always wanted to ask you,” my former foster sister says, fidgeting on the edge of my couch, where she waited while I changed out of the ridiculous sweatshirt and my ruined outfit. Valentine curls around her ankles, happy to have a visitor. “How did you know what was going to happen to me? What he was going to try to do?”
The real answer—that I saw the monster hurting her in a vision; that I knew I would do anything at all to stop him—is one she won’t believe. I give it to her anyhow. “I had a premonition.”
Julia gives me the small, shy smile I remember from the eight months we spent living in the monster’s home. I was fifteen and she was twelve. We were opposites in every way: I was outspoken and brash, where she curled into herself, as if trying to make herself invisible; I spent my time in detention and she spent it on the middle school honor roll; I was curvy, with brown hair that had a mind of its own and gray eyes too big for my face, like one of those velvet painting waifs, whereas Julia was a redhead and everything about her was angular, like a fox.
She was sneaky like a fox, too, and quiet. But he saw her, anyway.
“You don’t have to tell me. I just…” She twists her straight, auburn hair around her fingers, a nervous habit I remember from all those years ago. “I never thanked you. And I should’ve. I owe you everything.”
I get to my feet, pacing my living room. All of the familiar, meaningful objects—a jar of sea glass collected over a multitude of trips to Ocracoke Island, a painting of this very cottage hanging over the fireplace—seem suddenly empty, like the set of a play. “You don’t owe me jack,” I tell her. “And I didn’t do it for thanks.”
Julia lets go of her hair and wrings her hands, her eyes filling with tears behind her horn-rimmed glasses. “They put you in that terrible place. And I never once went to see you. Even though I got moved out of Sapphire Springs after that night, I could’ve asked my foster family to take me. They were good people; they would’ve done it. At the very least, I could’ve written. But I didn’t, because I didn’t want to think about what happened. And I—” She hiccups, then meets my eyes. “I am so ashamed.”
She looks so miserable, it tears at my heart. I come to a halt in front of her and sit cross-legged on the floor. Valentine crawls into my lap, and I stroke her soft fur.
“We weren’t exactly friends, Julia. If you’d come to visit, what would we have talked about? The fortieth A you’d gotten that semester, or my fiftieth detention?”
It’s meant to make her laugh, and her mouth does quirk up in a smile. But then it falls into a frown again. “I was so mean to you, Rune. I thought I was better than you, because you were always messing around and failing your classes. Everyone said you were a freak.” Her eyes flash to my face, anxious, but I just shrug. This is hardly news to me.
“I was scared that if they thought we were the same, they wouldn’t want me anymore. That they would send me away. But in the end, they turned out to be the worst kind of people. And you…the one I said awful things about…you s-saved me. You went to juvie for it. And what did I do? I n-never spoke to you again.”
She’s full-out sobbing now, tears pouring from her brown eyes and dripping onto what I’m pretty sure are Brunello Cucinelli jeans. Perusing fashion magazines is one of my guilty pleasures, even if I can’t afford half the stuff on their pages. Heaving a sigh, I get to my feet and rummage in my purse for tissues. “Here,” I say, pushing them into her French-manicured hand.
Julia wipes her eyes and sniffles some more. “You’re being so n-nice,” she whimpers.
“Why wouldn’t I be? You were a kid, Julia. You think I’d honestly be mad that you didn’t thank me for putting an end to something that never should’ve happened in the first place?”
My voice comes out harsher than I mean it to, and she sits up straight, those brown eyes scanning my face with the acuity I remember from when she used to make me quiz her for math tests. “He hurt you, too,” she says, tears still clogging her voice.
It isn’t a question, and so I don’t treat it that way. Instead, I just shrug.
That clear brown gaze travels over me from head to toe, lingering on the bruises on my elbows and the scratches on my arms. “You’re hurt right now! I was so upset, I didn’t notice. Why didn’t you say? What happened to you, Rune?”
“I was in a car wreck.” It’s easier than getting into the rest. “But I’m fine. What are you doing here, anyway? How did you find me?”
Julia hadn’t come back to Sapphire Springs after the night I piled the monster’s belongings in his yard, set them aflame, and then threatened to torch him and his house unless he backed off. When he refused, I made good on my promises. He got what he deserved, both from me and from the court system. I didn’t regret it.
“You’re easy to find,” Julia says, giving me a watery smile. “I just went to the Peach Tree Grille—God, I can’t believe that place is still there!—and asked Mrs. Grant. She remembered me, gave me a free milkshake, even. There was a weird group of women sitting around a table, talking about”—she lowered her voice—“lap dances and sex toys. They were, like, seventy. But anyway, they all seemed to know you. And Mrs. Grant was super happy to tell me where you lived.”
“That’s the Sinsters.” I roll my eyes. “Don’t even ask. And yeah, I just bet she was.”
“You’ve done well for yourself,” Julia ventures. “This place is totally adorable.”
I snort, dislodging Valentine and sitting down beside her on the couch. “By which you mean, what a shock it is that I’m not living out of the back of a broken-down camper van.”
“No! Not at all,” she says, blushing. “I just…it’s beautiful, Rune. Really. And I’m happy for you. It looks like you’ve finally found some peace.”
“So have you, apparently. Looks like all those honors classes paid off.”
Julia blushes harder. “I do okay for myself.”
“Heard you went to Harvard,” I say, unable to resist needling her, the way I used to.
“I—um, yes, I did. And then Wharton, to get my MBA. I work in emerging markets now, empowering microbusinesses. My specialty is helping underserved women. Especially women who’ve been abused.”
Her eyes meet mine, and I see the resolve in them. “That’s your way of giving back, then,” I tell her. “It’s all the thank-you I need. But it still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
She looks away from me, smoothing the unused tissue out on her lap. “I—um, well. I came to warn you.”
Every hair on my body stands up. “About what?”
“Him.” Her voice falls to a whisper. “I…I keep tabs on him, Rune. He’s gotten early parole, for good behavior. They’re letting him out.”
My mouth goes dry. I try to swallow, but my throat makes a strange clicking sound.
“Rune?” She squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you in person. I hope he won’t do…you know, any of the things he was threatening that night. But you deserve to know.”
“Thank you.” I force the words out through the pinhole of my throat. No wonder I felt his hands on my shoulders today, rather than Cooper’s. Some part of me must have known.
“Don’t thank me.” Her voice is stiff. “Everything good in my life—the family I have now, my degrees, my career—I owe to you. This is the least I can do.”
She drops my hand and stands, snatching up her bag. “I have to leave. I have a flight to catch. But I just found out, and I wanted to make sure to tell you before I go.”
I walk her out, to my front porch. She wraps her arms around me, and I let her, even though I don’t ever remember us hugging before. It’s the tight, life-affirming hug shared by survivors who stand in the wreckage of an earthquake, afraid that the ground may begin to shake again. Standing on my beautiful, perfect porch, I watch her drive away.
And then the red haze of my third premonition in one day descends on me again.