Chapter Four Thus with a kiss I die
CHAPTER FOUR
Thus with a kiss I die
THE NIGHT WAS SOMBER. WITHIN the alleyway, faint lights from the sterile department stores cast haunting shadows around me. I fought back bile, my mind racing, my heart hammering in my chest. And yet, I drew closer to where the body lay.
The glimpse of Westfield’s signature colors was haunting, the final confirmation I needed that it was the Saint James heir lying before me.
I took a step forward and then another, and then another.
A part of me hoped it was someone else. But recognition caught me immediately; the rich, dark brown skin, almost like mine and just like Jojo’s, how it seemed to gleam like stardust across constellations.
The tapered fade and the lily emblem on his blazer.
But even from one glance at his outstretched hand, I could tell that his fingers weren’t calloused like mine.
He’d probably never worked a day in his life.
Not the way I had, dishwashing at restaurants to help make rent and having my nails caked with dirt and grime from sweeping floors at Gus’s.
Real labor had never brushed this man’s fingertips.
He was the rich Westfield University heir through and through. And now he might be dead.
“Saint James?” I whispered. “Are you all right?” My voice caught in my throat, so I said it again, louder now, as if raising my voice might startle him back into being the pompous elitist I’d met just hours ago.
“Hello?” I whispered again.
But he didn’t answer.
Part of me knew I should leave. The part of me that had survived years under media scrutiny and paranoia as a child star, the part that could recognize a trap, even if it wasn’t paparazzi or an old fan hiding in a corner.
I recalled the shouting match between Jojo and the Westfield heir’s bodyguard. Did Jojo know this man? Were they trying to find him and save him? Or, were they somehow connected to this?
I recoiled at the thought, retching against the side of the dumpster as a wave of nausea overtook me. When the burnt skin of my fingertips touched its cool metal surface, my powers churned in the back of my mind, a vision rippling there, ready to unfold.
A trickle of moonlight beamed off the dumpster, enshrouding everything in either shadow or a soft, milky glow of light.
From where I stood, all I could see of him was his slumped head and his left hand resting inside his blazer, like he was searching for something.
The pool of blood near him looked disturbingly fresh.
I needed to know what had happened to him. But most of all, I needed to be sure Jojo wasn’t involved. Hot tears pricked my lashes. I closed my eyes, pressed my palms against the surface of the dumpster. And then I channeled my powers.
My view of the present eroded. As it dissipated, in its place emerged my window into the past.
In the vision, I pushed back to roughly ten or fifteen minutes before I had stumbled into the alley. I scanned the area for any sign of the heir while keeping my hand pressed to the dirty dumpster so the vision wouldn’t break.
I’d always hated this part of visions, the waiting.
Sometimes the most salient parts of the past played out quickly before me.
Other times, it could be hours before anything useful would show up.
And now, I was even more impatient than ever.
But just as I was about to give up, the Westfield heir emerged from the shadows.
In Gus’s shop, and even here with him slumped in the alleyway, I hadn’t let myself admire him fully.
But in my vision, under the gleam of the moon, he looked like a painting.
Back when Jojo had been studying for his grad school degree, he, Louisa, and I had gone on a trip to one of the art history museums in DC.
The figure paintings there had this magnitude to them, like every brushstroke, every blot of oil pastel and acrylic, had been ordained to be.
The Westfield heir was just as graceful and imposing.
A tragic marvel caught in the web of manhood.
His figure was lean and possessed African features that spoke of kings and tribes from past dynasties, from his sculpted angular jaw and cheekbones to his soft, wide nose and piercing brown eyes.
He arched his brow in a scowl, and I flinched, as if my presence here in the past was an intrusion.
But he couldn’t see me. He shouldn’t be able to.
Channeling my powers was like peering through a looking glass while time unfolded.
And the people in my visions, they weren’t really people anymore.
They were no more than actors playing out a scene, all completely unaware that I was witnessing their performance in the present.
But even as I channeled my psychic powers, I could feel the weight of the present around me.
Cold nipped at my fingertips, and my stomach became a mess of knots.
The heir drew his phone from the breast pocket of his blazer, where a tessellated version of Westfield’s lily flower emblem was hand-stitched. On his wrist, there was that flash of gold again; not a watch, I realized, but a bracelet.
It was the same one I’d found in Jojo’s car.
The realization was stifling, like my world had stopped spinning and the oxygen I breathed didn’t belong to me anymore.
Jojo hadn’t mentioned personally knowing any of the Saint James family from his time at Westfield. And if this man was wearing the bracelet just minutes ago, then Jojo must have…
No.
There had to be an explanation. And the only way to find out was here, in the past. So, I let the vision play out.
The Westfield heir swiped mindlessly on his phone for a bit, before hitting call on a number I couldn’t quite read.
“Hey. I think I’m going to be a little late,” he said. “No. It’s nothing. Just meeting someone.”
Then he reached into his blazer and pulled out a wad of cash, the same stack that he’d flashed at me earlier that day.
Quickly, he counted through it. I’ll be honest. I counted too, even though I already knew how much the amount would be from our previous encounter. In my head, I nearly got to two grand before footsteps interrupted him.
The person on the phone asked him if everything was okay.
But two figures emerged from the shadows.
One yanked him backward, covering his mouth and restraining him as the second figure punched the heir in the stomach.
He gasped, and even though I was safely in the present, I found myself recoiling too.
Hundred-dollar bills fluttered through the air, like leaves wilting in autumn.
Again and again, one figure landed hit after hit on his stomach and face while the other one restrained him from defending himself.
I fought back a scream and tried to make out their features.
But beneath their hoodies, their faces remained obscured.
All I could discern was the sound of their voices, and the anger oozing from them, the desperation.
It was the kind of sound that I knew would be seared in my memory forever.
The figures pushed him against the wall. Even as he collapsed on the ground, a third figure, one I hadn’t noticed, stepped forward. His face was hidden by the gray hoodie he wore. The figure drew a switchblade from his pocket.
Then he stabbed the Westfield heir.
Metal tore through flesh. Then came the wet, violent sound of blood splattering on the ground.
The figures shouted something at one another and then disappeared into the night.
I knew I should listen harder, I knew I should find a way to recognize them.
But I couldn’t look away from where he lay there bleeding, gasping.
There was a soft cry. At first, I thought the sound had come from my own lips.
But the cries grew to sobs. They were coming from his phone, which had fallen on the ground, just a few feet away from him.
The voice on the other end of the line belonged to a woman—the same person that he’d been talking to earlier.
She’d listened to the whole attack from the phone, and now she was sobbing and screaming for him to answer.
On her lips, his name sounded almost like a dirge. Kasem. Kasem. Kasem.
When I let go and pulled myself back to reality, I stumbled forward, rounding the corner to the other side of the dumpster, and there I was, facing the Westfield University heir as his attackers had left him.
His head was tilted back against the wall.
His eyes were shut. And the left side of his face sported a terrible purple bruise.
The switchblade was still there, protruding from the side of his stomach where he’d been stabbed.
All around, hundred-dollar bills lay scattered.
The attackers hadn’t taken even one.
The only thing missing from him was the bracelet he’d been wearing in the vision—the same one he’d had with him just this morning in Gus’s shop. The same bracelet I’d found in Jojo’s car.
A wave of nausea overcame me—a symptom of this new reality. But I’d seen the attackers, and none of them fit Jojo’s profile; not their builds or their heights—at least, not from what I could make out.
I couldn’t see if the heir was breathing, and I didn’t know if the attackers would return. I needed to focus. I needed to be calm. But even as I grasped at reason, ripples of fear trembled through every inch of me.
Suddenly, my gaze fell to his phone on the ground. It had cracked from when he’d fallen, but the call had never ended. Only a number was listed on the caller ID screen.
“Please, if you’re there, pick up. Just tell me where you are. I’ll come. Please, just answer me.”
It was the person he’d been talking with earlier. I reached for the phone, but stopped midway, just as the girl spoke again.
“Hello? Hello?”
But what was I supposed to say? Hi, nice to meet you. I saw your boyfriend getting stabbed in a vision. Or there was the alternative: I’m a stranger just passing by. But I can’t help because I’m in the middle of planning a robbery.