I catch the bus back to the museum. When it drops me off a block away, I feel the Need hit me again full force. Even though it has been pulsating through my bones the entire time, the minute I’m outside it doubles me over. I’m struck with incredible pressure through my chest, my head. I stumble to the bench and sit.
There’s no relief. I decide to move, to finish this before it gets worse. Slowly, and still in heels, I limp toward the museum. The charity event ended a while ago, but now there are custodians cleaning up.
The front door is propped open with a trash can and I slip in without them noticing. My heels click on the tile floor of the lobby and I freeze before reaching down to slip them off.
I close my eyes and try to feel where I’m supposed to go. My body is hot—on fire—and it’s pulling me back toward the exhibits, back to the banquet room where we had dinner.
I’m pretty sure everyone is gone, but before I can second-guess it, it’s like I’m pulled forward and soon I’m walking, hoping that as I get closer the pulsing in my head will stop. I’m a puppet, moving on invisible strings as I pass through the main room and back toward the banquet room.
As I reach the huge double doors, my vision begins to blur. I look around, hoping no one is inside the room, but I can’t stop now. I pull open the door and walk in. Out of the corner of my eye I see a man in a light blue uniform.
“Miss,” he says, “you can’t be in here. We’re cleaning.”
I don’t answer him. I’m being pushed and prodded toward the table, toward where I was sitting.
“Miss!” The man’s voice sounds agitated but I’m still walking.
I pause at the table where Harlin and I sat. The room around me is becoming duller by the second; sounds are getting farther away. I think the man mentions something about calling the police.
I reach out and grab on to the back of the chair, squeezing it as I look for a sign. Then on the floor under one of the chairs, something glows. A rush of air blows through me. I bend down to grab it, bring it close to my face and into focus. It’s a business card. But the only thing I can read on it is PORTLAND POLICE BUREAU: CENTRAL PRECINCT.
Then, like being underwater for too long and bursting to the surface, I suck in a great breath with relief. I fall into the table but steady myself. The absence of pain is amazing.
“Do you need an ambulance?” I hear the man ask, and he seems closer. I turn and look at him, surprised by how young he is. His dark skin is dotted with acne and he’s wearing a name badge that says Raphael. And he’s watching me like I’m crazy.
“No,” I say. “I’m sorry. I just forgot something.”
He looks me up and down, pausing at my bare feet and then nods his chin at me. “All right. Well, you need to leave. Place is closed.”
I thank him and start walking, the business card clutched in one hand, my shoes in the other. I’m so relieved from the Need that I barely notice another worker as he enters the room after me.
“Who you talking to in here, Raphael?” he calls out. I turn around. But Raphael scrunches his nose and grabs a push broom leaning against the wall.
“What? I wasn’t talking to no one.” And as he begins sweeping, I lower my head and walk out. I’ll go to the police station later, and I’ll finish this Need. Maybe even fix that gray skin, get my gold back. And soon . . . that’s all I’ll be. Gold.
“Have to be kidding me,” I murmur as I’m forced off the bus by a compulsion. It’s barely eight a.m. and I’m on the sidewalk, the business card clutched in my hand, staring straight ahead at the police station. I’m pushed forward and I put the card into my coat pocket as I stumble up the stone steps of the gray building.
I can’t believe the Need is taking me here to counsel some criminal. Why not Sarah’s father? Maybe I could tell him not to be such a heartless bastard. Or what about Harlin’s mother? The Need could help her see that her obsession with her husband’s death is driving her son away. I just want to be able to help the people I know—
My sight starts to blur around the edges, focusing in like tunnel vision. Oh great. How am I supposed to get into lockup if I can’t even see? I’m about to panic when I notice a woman sitting in the reception area. She’s ultra-thin with an expensive black suit, high heels, and a slicked-back bun. Suddenly a wind blows past me and my vision fades, leaving me blind once again.
There’s a glow around the woman, a light golden hue. I’m here for her. An intense heat burns across my back. I hate this part. I hate everything about this.
Knowing that I have to get to the woman, I stumble in her direction. When I’m close she looks up.
“You okay?” she asks in a clipped tone.
I want to scream, No! I’m not okay! I’m dissolving in front of your eyes! But instead I whisper, “Yeah. Just bad cramps.” I grab the hard plastic chair next to her before sitting down on it. I’m trying to hold myself together, but I wonder if my skin is turning gray or gold. What would all the officers here do if it spreads to my face? Would they be scared of me?
“Are you sure you’re okay?” the woman asks. I look sideways at her, about to tell her again that I’m fine, but my eyelids flutter and behind them I see visions.
Kendra Rudolph. I see her growing up as an only child, happy. Her mother was an elementary school teacher and her father was a cop. But when Kendra graduated high school, she had a scholarship to Yale. Her parents had struggled to make ends meet her whole life, and even though they’d given her everything she needed, Kendra didn’t want a future like theirs, of barely getting by. She never married, never really had time to date. She’s ambitious. She’s incredibly ambitious.
I see Kendra sitting in a large office, phone in one hand, file in the other. She’s a hotshot defense attorney, but that means putting in lots of hours. But she’s willing to do it—because she wants to make partner.
She’s expensive to hire, but she keeps her clients from going to jail. And in the past twenty years, she’s never lost. Not once. She’s protected both sinners and saints. But in the end, she doesn’t care which they are. As long as they pay her fee.
I open my eyes and see Kendra staring at me, asking if I’m okay. She’s never loved anyone in her life—only herself. Only success.
“It’s just money,” I whisper. Kendra’s aura flares up slightly at the mention of the word and I can feel her desire for it. Her obsession.
I fall back into a vision and suddenly I am her, three weeks from now. I’m in my office, phone at my ear. There’s an older woman rambling, promising to pay twice my usual fee if I defend her son. I smile, knowing that it means a new Jaguar, or possibly a vacation to Costa Rica.
But the case will be tough. I’ve read about her son in the paper. He killed a cop, and those cases are notoriously tough to win. I pick up the day’s newspaper again, and the man splashed across the front page is Phillip Windmere, a twenty-seven-year-old trust-fund kid turned addict. It says that evidence was just recovered tying him to the murder of a cop two years ago. It says he—
I gasp, pulled back into the reception area with Kendra. “Harlin’s dad,” I murmur.
“Excuse me?”
Heat prickles my skin, stinging just as the message comes to me. “You’ll win,” I say. I cover my mouth, horrified at the words. No! She can’t!
“Win what?”
I try to resist seeing anything more, but it’s like a nail is driven through my head. I scream out in pain and put my palms to my temples. I can feel the room of people watching me. But I can’t stop the visions—the Need won’t let me free this time. And after seeing what happens when I resist, I’m not sure I can go through it again. The pain. The Shadows.
“In three weeks,” I say quietly, unable to look up, “you’ll get a call about a client. His name is Phillip. You’ll be offered a lot of money to defend him.” Tears start rolling down my cheeks. I’m betraying Harlin. I don’t want to say another stupid word. I refuse to help the man who killed Harlin’s father. How could the Need put me in this situation?
I start to sob, almost unable to continue, but then I hear the message and pause. My eyes widen as I look up at Kendra. “You can’t take the case,” I murmur. “Even though it’s going to upset the partners at the firm.”
“What?” The cutting sound of Kendra’s voice tells me she’d never upset the partners, not when she’s jockeying for a position to join them.
A calm stretches over me and I give into the light, letting it form my words. I’m so tired now, but also relieved. I say what I’m supposed to. “You’ve helped many people go free, a few deservedly. But this is different. This man, Phillip Windmere, not only murdered a cop, he also killed a woman a few months back.” I pause. “Like Madeline.”
I know about a case Kendra won fourteen years ago. She had to defend a man who murdered a young woman named Madeline Strait. The man was so clearly guilty, but in the end, Kendra did her job. A mis-served warrant let that monster go free, and before he walked out of the courtroom, he smiled at Kendra and thanked her.
Left in the courtroom with Madeline’s weeping parents, Kendra has been consumed with guilt ever since. She wishes she had never taken that case.
“Madeline,” she repeats softly, obviously flooded with the same memories.
I nod, watching the light around Kendra glow and darken with her sadness. I reach out to put my palm around her wrist. “If Phillip Windmere gets off for this murder, he will kill again. In a few months time he’ll break into a home for drug money and discover a sleeping family there. Children, Kendra. You can’t let that happen. If you defend him, he’ll go free. You have to walk away from the case.”
“The partners . . .” she answers, but it’s robotic, like maybe she knows what she should do.
“It’s right,” I whisper. “You have to do what’s right. Even if it means losing the partnership bid. You’ll save lives.”
Just then the heat becomes intense and I feel my hand burn into her skin. She yanks away, but the colors of my vision are slowly returning. Her eyes are glassy, and I know she’s listening.
I bite down on my lip to keep from bursting into tears. The man who killed Harlin’s dad will pay. No one else will ever be hurt by him.
“It’ll be for Maddy,” Kendra murmurs to herself, staring past me. And in my head I can see that tonight she’ll go home and rethink things. She’ll lose the possibility of her partnership, but she’ll go to a new firm. And eventually . . . she’ll run it.
I don’t even care about the euphoria at this point, in fact, I’m not even sure it’s there. I’m just so overcome with gratitude; I slump down in the hard chair, cover my face and cry.
The Need has helped someone I love. This one time, it gave me a chance to help Harlin. And I can feel that Phillip Windmere will spend the rest of his life in jail.
A few minutes go by, and when I look up, Kendra is gone. She didn’t thank me or say good-bye. I know she probably didn’t even recognize me as she left. I take a deep breath and stand up, my body still shaking. No one so much as glances at me as I walk out, and for a second, I worry that I’m invisible. But I bump into an old man and he curses at me, reaffirming I’m still here.
When I get out into the cool fall air, I wipe at the tears on my cheeks. I notice my hands, the skin now missing from both of my palms. But it was worth it for Harlin, I tell myself as I go down the front steps, heading to the bus stop. Because now no matter what happens to me, things will be better for Harlin after this.
For once, I consider that it might be okay—my destiny. It might be okay if I go into the light. For so many weeks, I’ve fought the Need. And now . . . I’m just so very tired.