Page 45 of Visions of Darkness

I’d made it one more day.

Chapter Eleven

Aria

It was not fun spending your day wondering if you’d see tomorrow. If today would be cut off. If your hours were numbered.

Scanning the cafeteria from where I sat next to Jenny, I searched for anything ... familiar.

A hint of the malignant.

An innuendo of ill intent.

My spirit remained calm, feeling no threat.

Whoever had been in my room last night must have left with the 6:00 a.m. shift change.

Counselors stood around the cafeteria, two men and one woman, casually observing us as we ate breakfast.

Again, I pushed the food around on my tray, lost in the subdued mood.

Most ate quietly, boys on one side of the room, girls on the other.

I found myself drawn to those hurting around me, and I kept having to fight the urge to reach out and touch.

To see if it happened again.

To find out if it was a fluke.

A mistake.

If I was really losing the sanity those around me thought I didn’t possess.

A girl sat to my left. Her hair was chopped short and dyed jet black, and her face was drawn, the inside of her left arm crisscrossed with old scars in the shape ofx’s. The scars were covered with fresh wounds in varying stages of healing.

Even though her expression remained flat, her thoughts swirled around me, almost palpable.

Harrowing and haunting.

Riddled with confusion and grief.

The compulsion to touch her was almost as strong as it’d been with Jenny last night. My hands tingled with the impulse, and energy rushed to my fingertips, so intense I could feel it glowing inside.

I gulped and tried to force it down.

Contain it.

Honestly, I didn’t know what to do with it. How to handle this change that I didn’t understand. How to harness the power. How to wield it and how to control it.

Did it really even matter if I was only going to be hunted down anyway?

After breakfast, I went into the tiny bathroom in the room I shared with Jenny. I stripped out of my clothes and peeled the bandage from my back, hissing as I did. It still burned, the lash fiery and inflamed, but it was finally beginning to heal.

I showered, then changed into a pair of jeans and a soft, fluffy black sweater my mother had packed. It felt like another hug. Another embrace. The same as the bear she’d hidden at the bottom of my bag.

I held on to the truth of her care when the anger threatened to surface.

She didn’t understand.

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