Chapter Seventeen

      I was going to die.

      Inside a little house with silver walls, I was going to bleed to death.

      Because Deirdre had a dream.

      “How will it happen?” An anxious dread settled in my stomach like a rock. From the counter, the knife flashed again.

      “I don’t know,” she said. “I just know that it will.”

      “What kind of house has silver walls?”

      “It doesn’t matter,” Dennis said solemnly, “because you’ll never be in a house like that. Deirdre’s dreams always happen, Tessa. The only way to keep them from happening is to change the course of events. She dreamed that you left Lilybrook because of your brother and sister. So, to change the course of events, you won’t leave. You’ll stay in Lilybrook.”

      “Tristan changes the course of events with his warning premonitions all the time,” I said. “So if he has one about me, I’ll listen. I won’t ignore him anymore. I’ll do what he says. Immediately. I promise.”

      “That’s not good enough,” Tristan said. He put his hands on either side of my face and caressed my cheeks with his thumbs. “You almost got hit by that ambulance in Tennessee because you had lifted the fog so high that you were lost in the visions. You walked right in front of it, even though I was yelling for you to stop. It wasn’t that you ignored me; you didn’t hear me. Or what if...” He grimaced, guilt shadowing his face. “What if something like Twelve Lakes happens again?”

      My shame was my parents; Tristan’s shame was his failure to keep me safe from Kellan in Twelve Lakes.

      “But what about Jillian and Logan?” I asked. “I can’t let a dream stop me from finding them.”

      “Aaron Jacobs is looking for them,” Dennis said.

      “I’m looking for them too,” Tristan said. “I may not be a human computer like Aaron is, but I’m still searching for matches for Brinda’s drawings, and I’m still contacting psychics around the country. I’ll find them for you, like I promised I would. I’ll bring them to you, here, in Lilybrook.”

      The tightness in Deirdre’s face turned from worry to anger. “Dennis spent eight years looking for you,” she said. “Tristan moved away his senior year and put off college for you. They risked their lives to bring you to safety. That you would even consider—”

      Dennis took her hand. “You can’t be with your brother and sister if you’re dead, Tessa.”

      From atop the fridge, Marmalade mewed.

      I stared at the Connellys, and they stared back at me. Deirdre: hurt and resentful. Dennis: decisive and stern. Tristan: distressed and determined.

      Tristan and Dennis were almost killed because of me. I owed it to them to stay alive.

      And despite the shame that crawled around inside me like a disease, despite my tainted blood, despite being Killers’ Spawn...I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live to see my brother and sister again. I wanted to give them happy, stable, peaceful lives.

      I couldn’t give Jillian and Logan happy,