Intuition Read Free Page B

only way to describe her. Luke found it hard
to breathe looking at her. It pierced him, 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. What the hell was she?
    Goose bumps spread up his arms.
    This was the scariest vision he’d ever
had.
    His eyes settled on the wide gold disc around
her neck. It was shaped like an Egyptian collar necklace and
inscribed with ancient-looking symbols. It lay flat against her
chest, wrapping all the way around her neck, the only adornment she
wore.
    He took a step back and noticed they were
standing together on a dais next to a sleek, dark stone throne. A
throne? Seriously? thought Luke. Where the hell was he?
    As Luke turned back to her, 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.
    No one else was here.
    He was about to witness his own death.
    In all of his seventeen years he’d never had
a vision about himself before—he hadn’t thought it was possible. If
it was, he wasn’t sure this was something he wanted to See. But
maybe if he didn’t look at her, it wouldn’t happen.
    His eyes scanned 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,
trying hard to not look back over at the hideous beauty. 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 in hell?
    Did hell actually exist?
    A slight movement in his peripheral vision
made him turn his head. He instinctively smiled at what he saw—his
twin sister Sera. But in an 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.
    “ The Children of the Prophecy must die!”
Her sudden cry filled the whole room.
    And then the woman’s gold necklace hurtled
through the air, slicing 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 threw himself back into his chair and 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 from coming true.
    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