A Need So Beautiful (A Need So Beautiful #1)(43)
Author: Suzanne Young

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.