Mind Games (Mind Games, #1)(43)

“Whoopsie,” she slurs. “Annabelle? ’Zat you?”

“Yes. I wanted to talk to you. About Sofia.”

“Sof-ya. Glad she’s gone. Hated her thoughts. Bad things. Always bad things.”

“Why does Keane want her? Shouldn’t he have gotten rid of her after she killed Clarice?”

Ms. Robertson snorts loudly. “Clarice got what she had coming. Told her, I told her, but she was always right. Going to be the first Seer that Keane promoted to his personal aide. Nobody was sad to see her gone. She was brutal.”

“Was she going to kill me?” I ask. My heart is in my throat. I’ve wondered, for so long. Was Clarice the one who was going to kill me? If she was, all Fia did was kill a killer. It would change everything.

“Who knows? You wouldn’t’ve been the first. She hated you, too.”

I frown, hurt. I always thought Clarice liked me. She was kind to me, helped me figure out my visions. “She did?”

“Hated any other Seers. Satota—satoba—sabotaged them. Didn’t want anyone else Keane could depend on. I say the lot of you are pointless. Everything’s always changing, can’t see what you’re supposed to, blah, blah, blah. Now reading, that’s different. That’s a real skill. But do I go anywhere besides this school with thoughts floating all around me, battering me, pounding in my skull? No. Do I get sent to a CEO or a senator? No. I have to live with teen whining all day every day. If I weren’t putting three of my own ungrateful kids through school, I’d leave in a heartbeat. A heartbeat, I’m telling you. I’d leave. Leave.”

She trails off, and I hear a soft thud against wood. Her head on the desk, I think. CEOs and senators. Is that where the other girls are going? Working for important people, stealing the very thoughts out of their heads?

“But what about Sofia? Why is she so special?”

“’Snothing. She can’t make a wrong choice. Perfect instincts or intuition or whatever. Stocks, fighting, picking out liars, tricking people. Almost invisible to Seers, too, ’cause she’s always changing and switching around.” She snorts a harsh laugh. “Whole thing’s silly. What good’re perfect instincts on a crazy girl?”

“She’s not crazy,” I hiss.

“She’s—wait, what’re you doing in here? I can’t hear you so well. Mebbe I had too much this time.” Or mebbe the pills I added to your bottle yesterday were a bad combination.

“Go to sleep, you old bat.” I turn and walk out of her office. Tracing my hand over the wall, I’m troubled. So what if Fia has perfect instincts or intuition? Why does that make her so valuable?

Then again, if you had someone who could make the best choice in any given situation, turn anything to her favor—if every gut feeling you had, every reaction you gave was always exactly right—the possibilities were even more intriguing than a Reader or a Feeler or Seer could offer.

But what Ms. Robertson had said still bothered me. Fia wasn’t crazy, she wasn’t, but she had been pushed so far. What would that do to her instincts, to whatever it was in her that was so attuned to everything? How would it twist her intuition?

Clarice, dead on the floor, a snap decision on Fia’s part.

Clarice! Clarice, evil Clarice, who would have killed me. I have to tell Fia. This will change things, I know it will. She’ll feel better, she won’t have to be consumed with guilt. I run down the hall, up the stairs, wait impatiently for the guard outside the residence wing to open the door for me.

In my room I feel the list of numbers by my phone. James gave me his before they left. I tried calling a few times, but Fia didn’t talk, not really. It was too depressing to try and keep up a conversation all by myself.

I dial and it rings and rings and I’m so nervous it’ll go to voice mail I almost shout, then I hear James’s voice. “Hello.”

“James! I need to talk to Fia!”

“Annabelle? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! I need to talk to her.”

“About what?”

I let out an exasperated breath. “About Clarice. She needs to know what I know.”

“And what do you know?”

I’m too excited to lie. “Clarice was evil! We never knew if Clarice would have been the one to kill me, but I’m pretty sure it would have been her. And besides that, she did all sorts of other things. Even Ms. Robertson thought she was evil, and that’s saying something. Where’s Fia?”

There’s a long pause, and I wait, buzzing, to tell Fia. But then it’s still James on the line. “What do you think knowing this will change?”

“Everything! Fia doesn’t have to feel guilty, she doesn’t have to let it eat her alive!”

“I don’t think you understand your sister. She didn’t kill Clarice because Clarice was evil. She killed Clarice to protect you. Clarice could have been Mother Teresa and Fia would have done the exact same thing.”

“But…if she knew—”

“It wouldn’t change anything. Fia made her choices based entirely on you, and it didn’t matter who was on the receiving end of the death sentence. She chose you, Annabelle. Over Clarice. Over anyone. Even over herself. Nothing will change her feelings about what she did, because she knows she’d do it again. That’s what she can’t live with.”