A Deep and Dark December(51)

“Witches,” Mabel whispered behind her hand to Graham.

“It’s late. Why don’t I take you and your father home?” he asked Erin.

“I don’t know.” Erin’s gaze roamed the room. “Someone should stay with my aunt.”

“You should go home, dear,” Mabel said. “Get some rest. Cerie wouldn’t want you to make yourself sick over her. I’ll take Donald in to see Cerie and then home and to bed.”

“Good idea,” Graham said, looking to Erin for agreement.

Erin mulled the suggestion over, then nodded. “All right.”

Erin said her goodbyes and they were on their way. She was silent on the elevator ride down to the parking garage and as they made their way to Graham’s car. He helped her in and then slid into the driver’s seat.

Erin spoke as they hit the freeway. “Will you stay with me tonight?”

He jerked the wheel, nearly crashing into the car next to them.

“I don’t want to be alone,” she finished in a rush.

Her face was turned away from him so he couldn’t be sure of what exactly she was asking. He adjusted his hands on the wheel and swallowed hard. “If you want me to.”

“I—” She shook her head. “Thank you.”

“Sure.”

After a moment of quiet in which a thousand questions bounced off the inside of his head, he asked, “Could someone be…doing this to you and your family?” As far fetched as it seemed it was the only possible explanation as to what was happening.

“I think that’s a strong possibility. The attacks—and that’s the only way I can describe them—feel deliberate, targeted. Controlled.”

He could only nod. He was so far outside the realm of his experience here. He’d been trained to think in black and white, absolutes, tangibles. What was happening to Erin and her family was anything but that. He let the thought that a person could be responsible for the attacks—as Erin had called them—flow through him. His mind wanted to reject it, but the more he considered it the more possible it seemed.

She picked at the seam of her jeans. It made a tick, tick sound like the countdown of a clock. They drove farther, leaving the stars and the moon behind them, the night sky blackening as they drew closer to the coast. The storm brewing over the open water would be upon them well before morning came. Cold warning licked up his spine. He repositioned his hands on the wheel, resisting the urge to fold Erin’s hand into his. Things were about to get a lot worse before they got better. This town was seriously f*cking with him. He’d never had premonitions before—didn’t believe in them—but he couldn’t seem to stop the rumbling sensation of a boulder full of bad shit barreling their way.

“He’s targeting our specific abilities,” she said, her voice hollow. She startled a glance out of him and he found her watching him, as though judging how much more he could take. “Turning up the volume,” she continued. “So Aunt Cerie hears every thought of every person around her as though they were screaming. A constant, never ending barrage of noise. I don’t know how much more she can take.

“And my dad… he’s losing the ability to communicate. Not just putting thoughts into people’s heads, but verbalizing. He’s slipping away. From life, from reality...”

“From you?”

“Yes.”

“How many people know about your power? I mean really know.”

“We call them abilities,” she corrected. “They’re a skill, not a tool.”

“Ability, then. Who knows about them?”

“My dad, my aunt, you…my mom.”

He remembered the gossip around town about Colleen December. And when she’d walked out on her husband and child. Her name, whispered like a curse, had been on everyone’s lips. Even now, years later, her name sparked hushed conversations and shaking heads. Instead of putting the blame where it laid—on Erin’s mother—the talk turned toward Erin and speculation that there must be something wrong with her or else her mother never would’ve left and not looked back.

“When was the last time you spoke to your mother?”

“Doesn’t matter. She wouldn’t be involved.”

Graham pondered her strange choice of words—wouldn’t be involved. “Maybe she told someone.”

“She doesn’t tell people about me.”

That surprised him. He wanted to know more but she was already changing the subject.

“I’ve worked really hard my whole life to keep my ability a secret.”

“Even from friends and boyfriends?”

“Until recently it’s been an easy secret to keep. I had control over the visions or at least control over when and what I saw. Now they come at me out of nowhere and it’s getting harder for me to climb out of them.”

“So you can call up a vision about a particular person or event. Specifically?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“All I have to do is concentrate on a person, decide if I want to see the past or the future, and then bam, I see it.”

Did she have visions about him? Did she know about what had happened in L.A.? He wanted to ask, but didn’t really want to know the answer. Something else nagged at him. “Do the people you have visions about know? I mean, can they feel it?”