Intuition Read Free

said.
    Sera shook her head. “No.” She looked down
the trail where Ben had disappeared. “No,” she said again. Okay,
yeah, once in a while kids figured it out. Little kids who still
believed that everything imaginable was possible. They could see
the truth of her healing power and marvel at it without thinking
she was evil or some sort of freak. And she knew no adult would
take the kids seriously if they talked about it.
    But this was different. This was an adult
with all his childhood illusions long since gone. The reality of
his world made it impossible for him to understand what she’d just
done. Or, for that matter, say it out loud, let alone believe
it.
    And yet he had.
    Sera looked at Luke again. Their gifts had to
remain their secret, as they had for so long. If people found out
it could rip their lives apart. Like with their grandmother, who
hadn’t wanted anything to do with them since they showed her what
they could do when they were six. Eleven years ago. Yeah, they’d
already had a taste of what happens when people find out. It wasn’t
something they ever intended to repeat.

    Well, at least she’d been able to influence
him, make him believe his knee hadn’t been hurt. Thankfully that
had worked.
    “So, do you think you can still hack it?”
Luke said, and waved at the trail heading up the mountain. “Or do
we need to turn back for you, too?”
    Sera rolled her eyes and laughed. It was
okay. Everything was okay. She didn’t need to worry about this
anymore.
    She hoped.
    “All right, all right,” she said. “Let’s
go.”
     
     

     
     
    Sitting on top of a mountain cleared Luke’s
mind, and filled his body with a calm he experienced nowhere else.
The air seemed cleaner, more vibrant up here. And the view? The
view was amazing. All of Vermont spread out around them, and in the
distance, the Adirondacks.
    He sat on the boulder next to Sera and stared
out at the fall colors splashed across the trees. It felt so big up
here. Earth. The world. But it didn’t make Luke feel small—he felt
as if he were a part of it all. Connected. Necessary.
    And his heightened senses only made it
better. He could get used to this, he thought. In fact, he was
starting to thoroughly enjoy it. He might even have to rename the
feeling something other than impending doom .
    He turned and reached for a granola bar in
the backpack behind him, and the world disappeared.
    Luke was in a room that looked like it was
carved out of a mountain. A cave. Walls made of blood-red rocks. It
was massive. The biggest cave he’d ever seen. And empty. Why would
he have a vision about an empty cave?
    He turned, saw someone lying on the ground
halfway across the room. Still. No sign of life. As he slowly
walked toward the person, chills spread over his skin. The shoes.
Why did those shoes look familiar?
    He ran forward, fear gripping him. Damn it,
why wasn’t the person moving? And where had he seen those shoes
before? Whose were they? He was about to yell when he saw the blood
pooling out on the floor, and his voice, his breath, flew out of
him in a whoosh.
    Luke gasped and fell backwards, his head
hitting the huge rock he was on. He lay there for a moment, holding
his breath. He didn’t want Sera to know he’d had a vision. He
didn’t want to tell her about this one. Not yet.
    Holy crap. He’d just had a vision that
someone died.
    His head throbbed where he’d knocked it and
his eyes fought to focus. Clouds floated serenely in the sky above,
in complete contrast to the panic raging inside him. He had to pull
himself together before he looked at her. He breathed in short,
quiet bursts. He needed to slow his heart, calm his breath, wait
for the look of irrational fear to leave his eyes.
    Except it wasn’t irrational. It wasn’t
irrational at all. The thing about his visions? They always came
true. Always. And he’d never had a vision like this before. Someone
was killed. He was sure that’s what he’d Seen.
    Sure as he’d