CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Caden swears as he pulls his phone out of his pocket and dials a number.

"Hey Rand?" he says, putting the call on speaker.

"Yeah?"

"Melissa just told me that her father sent her a text at 8:30 saying that he was stuck in traffic, just minutes after the car crash."

There's a few seconds silence on the other end, and then, "Where are you? I'm coming to pick you up."

"Just down the street from Melissa's place, but we'll head back and wait for you there."

"Okay, don't do anything stupid. I'll be there in five."

He hangs up and Caden shoves his phone into his jeans pocket as he starts walking quickly back the way we came.

A thought occurs to me then. "How do we know that the text wasn't delayed?"

"It doesn't matter if it was delayed or not. The only accident that happened on any of the roads in our area was theirs. They couldn't have been stuck in traffic because of an accident because there was no accident."

"How do you know?"

"Because..." He sighs. "I have the ability to feel the pain of anyone within a kilometre radius of me. Not small pain, like falling over and scraping your knee or cutting your finger with a knife, but severe pain, like breaking a bone, or losing a limb or dying. And I can tell you, the only pain I felt tonight was that of your mother."

"Jeez, that's...harsh," I say, but really I'm thinking, My mother's pain was severe?

He nods solemnly.

 "Does it hurt as much for you as it does for them?"

He shakes his head. "The pain is always dulled, but it can still hurt."

"So every time I had a heat attack, you could feel it?"

He makes eye contact with me for a moment and an expression passes over his face that I don't recognise, before saying, "Yeah," and looking away.

We walk in companionable silence for a minute and when we stop out the front of my house, he says, "About Friday. I'm sorry for what I did. I might have overdone it a tad-"

"A tad?" I interrupt calmly, doing my best not to suddenly explode at him. "You didn't have to go around telling everyone how pathetic I was and how you'd told me all this made up stuff and I'd believed it. All you had to do was keep your distance. My life is already hard enough, and you should have known that." I can't stop myself from being angry at him, even if he did have a justified reason for doing what he did, but I can try to conceal it anyway. Thanks to him, school on Monday will probably be that much worse.

"Listen, I really am sorry. At first, I was just going to keep my distance, but then Branden confronted me, and I don't know, I just started making stuff up so he wouldn't get me back for punching him the other day, and..." He sighs. "It got really out of hand. But I had noticed I was being watched and so I couldn't do anything to stop it."

"If you were being watched, why did you go after me at lunch?"

"Because of the wind. Your real mother has an ability known as aerokinesis, which is basically an affinity with the air. I assumed that you might have it too, since abilities are usually hereditary, and because I could feel them watching us, I knew we had to get out of there before they came after you. And they would have, because that was probably the first time they saw you use your powers after being swapped. So, anyway, I made up something about going to the bathroom and dashed after you."

I don't say anything until a minute later, choosing to abandon our conversation about Friday. "So, with the text message – do you think it was the people who have been watching me who sent it?"

"Yeah, and if it was, then they probably caused the car crash too."

"Why would they do that?"

"My guess is that they thought you were in the car. So they crashed it, and then they realised you weren't inside. I don't know why they sent the text. Maybe they saw your father's phone with the text you'd sent and decided they'd reply just because they could." He shrugs. "All I know for certain is that if they did cause that crash, it means they aren't gonna stick to the shadows anymore. They're done watching, now they're gonna try to kill you."

"Great," I say sarcastically.

Just at that moment, Rand's car pulls up in front of us and we both get in.

"Where are we headed?" Caden asks as we drive off.

"To the hospital," comes Rand's reply. "We need to find out how they crashed."

"So you think it was caused by those people too?" I ask.

He nods.

The drive is as silent as the night outside the car. Out my window, the world passes, obscured by darkness. Rain starts to fall a few minutes into the drive, and the drops of water roll lazily down the window. I am reminded of all the times I went for a walk on evenings when it was raining just so I could pretend that I could feel something.

Back then, I wouldn't have been able to imagine the truth behind my disease, and even though I had less to worry about than I do now, I still don't miss it. My life may be harder than it was, but at least I know what's wrong with me – at least I have things to aim for and achieve instead of just wandering ignorantly through life, striving to get through each day unscathed.

The drive to the hospital takes longer than it should due to low visibility on the road, and when we arrive, I hop out of the car and dash to the shelter out the front. A week ago, I probably would have taken my time, but back then, my parents hadn't had a car crash and there wasn't the potential threat of people watching me from the shadows.

The three of us enter the hospital soaked, and I roll up my wet sleeves. Sometime during the drive here, it started pouring.

 As we walk to the front desk, I can feel the eyes of the seated people in the room on me. No, not just on me – on us. The nurse at the desk watches us approach and silence falls upon everyone in the large room.

"We're here to see her parents," Rand says, gesturing to me and breaking the silence. "They were in a car crash."

For a few long seconds, the lady just stares at me – at my arms and legs, I presume. Everyone in the room is wearing layers and layers of clothing, and here I am in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I'm soaked through with icy rain, too, and while Caden and Rand can manage a shiver, I can't feel a thing.

"Down the hallway to your left. Turn right at the first junction, take the lift up to level three and continue down the hallway to your right until you reach a waiting room. The person at the desk there will tell you her parent's whereabouts."

"Thank you," Rand replies, and we walk off. The people around us don't stop staring until we're out of sight.

"Is that what it's always like for you?" Caden asks as we follow the nurse's instructions.

"Yeah, but it usually isn't that bad. I suppose a bunch of those people are there because of injuries related to the cold."

Caden senses my guilt. "Don't blame yourself, okay? You didn't ask to be swapped."

I only nod.

When we reach the waiting area, we head straight for the nurse behind the desk on the opposite side of the room. The people sitting in chairs around us don't stare – they don't acknowledge our presence at all – and it helps me to relax somewhat, despite the fact that my heart has started beating out of my chest because I'll be seeing my parents soon. They may not be my real parents, but seeing them hurt, hurts me too, and I'm scared of what I might find.

The nurse looks up and smiles. "What can I do for you?"

"My parents were in a car crash," I say. "Am I able to see them?"

"What are their names?"

"Louisa and Thomas."

She looks down at the computer screen in front of her and after a few second of clicking, she looks back up and smiles. "You must be Melissa."

I nod.

"Walk down the hallway to your right and then turn left at the first intersection. You father is in room 58 and your mother is in 64."

"Thank you," I say. We go to leave, but she stops us. "Oh, sorry, but only Melissa can go. It's family only."

I turn just as Rand speaks. "Okay, thanks." Then he looks to me. "Ask your parents about what happened."

I nod and leave as they each take a seat on a chair near them. I take the route the nurse instructed, and when I find door 58 and 64, which are opposite each other, I start feeling queasy. My parents are on the other side of those doors. On instinct, I turn right and open the door to my mother's room first.

I enter the room, eyes on the ground, my ears picking out the slow beeps that I know is her heart beat registering on a machine. I look up and my eyes have just landed on her – on her arm in a sling, on the bruises and cuts on her face, on the dripper attached to her arm, on the bloody bandage on her head – when I blackout.

I know instantly that I haven't fainted. For a few seconds, I'm inside my body but unable to control it as it falls to the ground. I feel a striking pain in my head when it hits the polished floor and then the world around me dissolves and I fade into a dream, or what I think is a dream.

It's dark. I watch from the trees on the side of a road but I'm not actually here. It's as if I'm watching everything through a TV screen, or as if I'm a spirit observing unseen.

To my left, a man dressed in black stands by a tree. I can't see his face, but I know that he, too, is watching the road. I look back at the cars racing by, their yellow headlights speeding closer until they pass me and their red taillights fade into the distance.

My eyes latch onto a silver car travelling down the road and I recognise it instantly as my parent's car. Suddenly, my eyes are on the man beside me as he steps forward and stands at the tree line. As my parents draw near, I feel my heart beat increase, already knowing what's about to happen.

The car is nearly upon us now. My eyes switch to the man just as it passes. He flicks his wrist and it swerves off the road, flipping and crashing full-force into a tree.

Spirit-me floats behind the man as he makes his way to the car. He pulls open the back door, looks in and then his voice reaches me as he mumbles, "She's not in here."

He's backing out of the car when he spots a phone on the ground. Picking it up, he turns it on. And there's my text message, displayed on the screen:

is everything ok? how long will u b?

He stands and replies to the message.

everything's fine. there was an accident and we've bin stuck in traffic. will b home soon.

His eyes lift as people start to rush over to the car. Then I spot Caden and Rand across the road. The man seems to notice them at the same time as I do, and he dashes into the woods, pocketing the phone.

But not before he passes under the nearest streetlight and I get a look at his surprisingly youthful face. He's probably only eighteen, with dull blue eyes, brown hair and a touch of stubble on his chin.

Then he's gone, and as frantic people reach the car, so am I.

-:-:-:-:-

When I wake, I'm in a hospital bed, like the one I saw my mother in. The room around me is startlingly white and it takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the amount of light in the room. Caden sits in a chair beside my bed, and I wonder briefly how he got in since he's not related to me in any way. The thought passes when he speaks.

"You're awake."

I sit up. "How long was I out?"

"I'm not sure, but I've been here for half an hour. What happened? A nurse said she saw you just collapse in a doorway. Did you faint?"

I shake my head. But when I go to speak, I find that I don't know what to say. What did happen? One moment I was perfectly fine, then I saw my mother, the world went dark and I was pulled into a dream. But it didn't feel like a dream.

"I don't know what happened. When I saw my mum, I sort of just blacked out. But it was weird, because at first I could still feel everything, I just couldn't control my body. And then I had this dream, except I don't think it was a dream. It was weird."

Caden's nodding. "I think I might know what is was. But to be certain, you need to tell me what the dream was about."

I relay the events to him, from standing in the woods beside the man to the crash and the text message. When I'm done, Caden just stares at me, looking slightly awed and disbelieving, and I start to feel uncomfortable.

"What?"

"So it's true."

"What is?" Why does everything he says have to be so god damn confusing?

"Hold on, I need to get Rand." He stands up and rushes out of the room, leaving me annoyed and by myself.

I sigh and get off the bed, locating my shoes on the floor and putting them on. Someone must have taken them off when they put me in this bed. I'm halfway through tying the laces on my second shoe when Caden returns with Rand.

"Tell him about the dream." Caden says and sits down on the single chair in the room.

For the second time, I explain what happened in my dream and when I'm finished, Rand says, "I'm pretty sure that most of us already knew it'd be her."

I roll my eyes and put my head in my hands. I can't talk to either of them for more than five minutes without them saying things that make absolutely zero sense.

"I wasn't sure it would be, but now we have proof," Caden replies.

I breathe in deeply, and pull my head out of my hands. "Can both of you please take a break from speaking gibberish and just tell me what's going on?"

Rand directs his attention to me. "What you experienced today wasn't a dream; it was a vision. We believe you have something called Chrono Vision, which allows you to see into the past, present and future."

Right. I think sarcastically. What am I? A seer?

"Okay...?" I say, hoping he'll explain further.

He does.

"About fifty years ago, there was a man – a member of council – who received prophetic visions. He had a vision about two people – a mother and a daughter. The mother had the ability of aerokinesis, but she also had a power that we don't have a name for. It was cross between necrogenesis and Death Vision – meaning she had the ability to look someone in the eyes and kill them, but only if she desired to.

"The daughter shared her mother's aerokinesis, but she also had Chrono Vision. And one day, she would receive a series of visions that would map out a set of immoral plans, and she would have to stop the immoral event before it happened. Unfortunately, the man was given no details about what the daughter would have to stop or who she'd be stopping."

He pauses. "Anyway, we believe that you and your mother are the ones mentioned in that vision."

Just when I thought my life couldn't get any crazier, it does.

"So, you think I'm gonna...what? Save the world? Do you know how ridiculous this all sounds?"

Rand shrugs. "I agree it's ridiculous, but it's true."

I sigh. "Can we not talk about visions and immoral events and what not for a while? It's doing my head in."

No one responds, so I stand up and make my way over to the door. "I'm gonna go and see my parents."