A Need So Beautiful (A Need So Beautiful #1)(16)
Author: Suzanne Young

But mostly I wish that I could save myself.

There are sounds around me, but whenever I try to open my eyes, I sink underwater again, submerged in the thickness of sleep that won’t let me go.

“I don’t know,” I hear Georgia say. “She was talking about getting hit by a car.”

“Is she dead?” Alex asks as I feel an arm wrap around my shoulders and tug me forward.

“You’re a damn fool. You can see her breathing right there.”

Alex gasps, and there’s a whisper of a touch on my head. “Oh, yeah. Look, she has stitches.”

“Let me see.”

“Right there.”

And then I’m out, surrounded in dark. But in the distance there is a small glow, a tiny light. Suddenly I’m standing alone, the space starting to brighten as the light grows.

“It’s going to hurt, you know?”

I jump at the sound of the voice and look sideways. Standing next to me in the dark is the woman in black. Up close she’s even more beautiful than I thought—icy blue eyes, pale porcelain skin. And her voice has the slightest hint of a Russian accent.

“That light”—she motions toward it—“hurts like hell. Worse than being burned alive.”

“Who are you?” I ask.

“I’m like you.” She grins widely. “Only more evolved.” She stops suddenly and looks around, as if she heard something that I didn’t. She meets my eyes. “We’ll talk more soon.”

My eyes flutter and I feel a jolt. I’m lying flat in my bed.

“Finally,” Alex says. I turn to see him sitting on the edge of the mattress, pushing my legs. “Thought maybe you did die.”

I swallow hard, startled by my dream . . . by the woman. The smell of bacon is in the air and I’m comforted by home. I’d know the lingering smell of Mercy’s cooking anywhere. Within a few seconds the dream starts to fade.

“No,” I say, my voice thick with sleep. “I’m alive. Got the bruises to prove it.” I reach up to feel my head, the stitches still poking out. “My brain hurts,” I murmur.

Alex chuckles and grabs a cup of water off my dresser and holds it out to me. “Your savior is here,” he says after I take the glass, and he tosses me a bottle of Advil.

“Hallelujah.” I down three pills, and then think better and take one more.

“Your man has been calling this house all morning,” Alex says. “You’d better call him back before he sends the SWAT team.” He picks at his nails. “And we don’t need that kind of trouble. Georgia might have someone tied up and gagged in her room.”

I burst out laughing and then wince, touching at my scalp. I kick him off the bed. “Georgia’s not that bad,” I say. “She and I had a sisterly heart-to-heart last night.”

Alex shrugs. “Oh, so you like her better now?” He says it jokingly, but I can hear the tension in his voice. Once you’ve been a foster kid, I’m not sure you can ever be loved enough. And although Mercy gives Alex the world, I think he’s still scared of being abandoned. I know I am.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“After ten.”

“Damn.” Classes started two hours ago, so it looks like I’m taking the day off. I hope St. Vincent’s hasn’t tried to call Mercy at work. I haven’t even told her I’d been in an accident yet. I gnaw on my lip, trying to count out when she’ll get home from her fourteen-hour shift.

Alex sighs. “I have to go. Today we’re doing highlights.” I make a face at him because he’s lucky. While I have to attend St. Vincent’s at eight a.m. every morning, he gets to take classes at vocational school—highlights and weaves from twelve to three. Really I just think he goes because he likes to have half days.

The house phone rings from my dresser, and Alex rolls his eyes. “Romeo again. Want me to grab it?”

“Will you?”

Alex snatches the phone and passes it over. I glance at the caller ID. “It’s actually Sarah,” I say.

“Ugh. Can’t stand that girl.” Alex flees because the sound of Sarah’s perky voice is like nails on a chalkboard to him. He thinks she’s a spoiled brat, she thinks he’s a bitter foster kid. They’re both sort of right, so I don’t get involved.

“Thank you,” I sing as he walks out the door.

I smile and click on the phone. “Hello, dear.”

“What. The. Hell. I’m at school, Charlotte. Where are you?”

“In bed.”

“Clearly. Now get up. I have major problems and I need you here.” I instantly feel bad for not being there for her. Sarah has a way of guilting me into things. It’s her gift.

I sit up, my head feeling like it’s two seconds behind my movements. But I’m thinking forward to the quickest way to school, bus or cab. “Are you okay?” I ask.

“What? I’m fine. Sort of. So last night at the charity event, something happened. And I cannot deal with this today. Not by myself.”

I relax a little. I realize that her voice isn’t frantic enough for this to be an actual emergency. This is a Sarah emergency, which means it relates to boys, clothes, or boys. “You scared the crap out of me, you know?”

She snorts. “Hello? You didn’t show up for school and Harlin’s been calling me like a crazed maniac talking about how you were hit by a car. How are you feeling, by the way?”

“Nice of you to ask. I’m fine.”

“Oh, please. If you were dead I would have found out long before now. Besides, I called Monroe the second I heard and he said you were fine. So don’t get all feel-sorry-for-me. Now are you going to help me or not?”

“Sarah, I’m ninety-nine percent sure that I can’t help you. But if you need me to listen while you complain, I can do that.”

“Awesome. Meet me for lunch at Frankie’s. My treat.”

“I just woke up. I have stitches in my head!” But somehow I know that even this isn’t a good enough excuse to miss lunch.

“See you in twenty,” she hangs up.

I put the phone down on my bed and rub roughly at my face. Sarah knows it will take me longer than twenty minutes to get to Frankie’s, and that’s if I don’t shower. But I sigh and climb out of bed, wincing once when I put weight on my thighs.

I pause, last night’s conversation with Monroe rushing back to me. The Forgotten. I stumble backward onto my bed, my heart racing. Quickly I shove my shirt off my shoulder and stare at the glowing gold beneath. My mind races through everything he said. He said it wouldn’t kill me. He said—