A Need So Beautiful (A Need So Beautiful #1)(26)
Author: Suzanne Young

Monroe walks over and hugs me, resting his cheek on the top of my head. But I don’t squeeze back. Instead I feel the binding of his journal in his coat pocket.

“It’s truly beautiful,” he whispers. “A burst of bright light like nothing you can imagine. It’ll fill the world with a moment of unconditional love. Everyone you’ve touched will have peace.”

“And then I’m gone?” I slowly snake my fingers into his outside pocket and wrap them around the leather-bound pages. It feels like old skin.

“Released back into the universe,” he murmurs. “Sent home.”

“Well,” I say to him, sliding the journal under my sweater before backing up. I meet his eyes. “I think that destiny sucks.”

Without waiting for a reply, I slip out of the exam room and through the white-floored lobby. I’ll find a way to beat this. But right now I have somewhere else I need to be.

Chapter 12

Dell’s Drugs is on the bottom floor of an apartment building on the corner of Eighteenth Street. It’s in an old brick structure, but inside, Dell’s is as antiseptic as can be. White walls, white tiled floors—even the shelves are white. As I enter, the Need continues to burn me. Tearing me up from the inside.

The cashier glances at me, but doesn’t say anything. She pops her gum and goes back to reading the latest issue of Seventeen. Toward the back I see the sign for the pharmacy and a rush of air blows past me. I reach out to hold on to the nearest shelf.

“You okay?” I hear. I nod and look up, seeing the cashier staring at me. She shrugs and flips the page of her magazine.

I reach in my pocket and touch the journal, comforted by its existence. Monroe said he’s been documenting the Forgotten. If Onika’s like me, she must be in here. And it’ll say how she fought the crossover.

I slowly start to make my way down the aisle, feeling the pain increase as I go, but wanting to get out of the cashier’s line of vision. There is a searing pain in my shoulder, radiating under my arm and starting across my chest. I know it’s my skin. I wonder if the injection Monroe gave me can keep it from peeling off.

Holding on to a cool metal shelf, I look ahead to the small waiting area next to the pharmacy counter. Sitting in the chairs is an old couple—the woman looking very frail. And next to them a mother, holding a wiggling toddler on her lap.

Nothing about them strikes me, so I walk ahead, looking for my Need. Strong cramps turn my gut and I stumble a few more steps until I can see the counter.

And then a rush of wind goes through me. Standing there is the pharmacist. He’s maybe thirty, thinning dark hair, glasses. He looks completely average until a violent pain in my head starts to blot out my vision. And again, I am blind. Then in my mind, I see him.

Miles Rodan is in bed, moving beneath the sheets. The red-haired woman with him isn’t his wife. The scene changes and Miles is home, a pretty dark-haired woman is yelling at him, threatening to leave. Planning to take the kids. He begs her to stay, but she doesn’t. She knows he was having an affair.

The vision changes and I feel sorrow, as if I am Miles. I’m sitting alone in the kitchen, bottles of medication in front of me. I’m filled with despair and the most isolating loneliness I’ve ever known. It’s like drowning in a deep, dark lake.

And then I see Miles again. He pops a few pills into his mouth and chases it with a sip of Jack Daniels. His wife is gone, and so is the mistress. Everyone’s miserable. He holds the prescription bottle in his hand and shakes out a few more pills. It’s all his fault. It feels like my fault. He takes a few more. . . .

I’m pushed as my eyes fly open and I move toward his light. I hear the shuffle of the old lady who was in front of me in line, but I can’t see her. I can only see Miles, glowing from behind the counter. Sweat begins to gather on my forehead and above my lip. He has the medication now. Tonight he’s going to kill himself.

Invisible vines try pulling me forward, but I hold my spot in line, not wanting to draw attention. Behind the counter, Miles’s light pulsates. If I don’t stop him he’ll be dead by the end of the night.

The woman in front of me turns around and asks if I’m okay and it takes all of my concentration to tell her in a nearly normal voice that I am. But when she looks away, I cover my face with my hands. I don’t want this. Every Need makes me worse—brings me closer to disappearing forever.

Miles calls for the next person in line and the woman shuffles ahead. They talk as his fingers click on the computer, but their voices sound far away. Behind my eyes I can see Miles. How he’ll gag from the pills. How he’ll mix them with alcohol for a lethal combination. And how he’ll lie crying on his bed, twisting in agony before he dies.

“Next.”

I hear it but I don’t move. I almost can’t. But the Need is there, forcing me to do this. I gasp and step forward, keeping my eyes toward the ground.

“How can I help you?” Miles asks, but his tone is cautious. I wonder if I look like an addict. With incredible effort I lift my gaze and stare at him, his light.

“Don’t do it,” I murmur. A new pain burns into my back and I wonder if the skin there is peeling off. It makes me whimper.

“Excuse me?” Miles says. “Look, do I need to call the cops?”

Cops? My fists ball up and I feel angry. The Need puts me in these situations, makes me do these things. I’m not a drug addict and I’m not the one planning to kill myself tonight. So he can save his judgments for somebody else. Somebody who’s not melting away because she has to help him.

I lean in, my mouth tight. “I know what you’re planning to do, Miles. I know about you and Gillian. And about the pills you have stuffed in your pocket.”

And suddenly, unlike my usual Needs, who move away, staring and freaking out, Miles reaches to grab my arm and pulls me toward him. He twists my wrist at an odd angle and I fear he’s going to snap it as he hisses in my ear.

“Was it you? Are you the one who told my wife?”

“Let go,” I say, my head swimming, trying to find the words that’ll get through to him. “You need help.”

He drops my hand and steps back from me. His features are tense, scared. “Get out of here,” he says. But nothing has changed and I know I can’t leave yet.

“Please,” I start to say, when a new person walks into my line of sight. She’s illuminated slightly, just enough so that I can see her. The redhead from my vision. She’s working in between the rows of pills, a clipboard in her hand. She glances at me and I gape at her in surprise.