Page 63 of Nineteen Eighty

“Aren’t you supposed to be on your knees?”

“Skipping right to the good part, are we?”

Johannes’ eyes flew wide as he took her meaning. “Well, while you’re down there…”

Evangeline kissed him. “Marry me, Johannes Gehring. I don’t want anyone else. You’ve ruined me for anyone else. I love you that much.”

“Took you far too long to ask.” He kissed her back. “I knew the day I met you.”

“That wasn’t an invitation to show off, sheesh.”

“Well, I did. I knew there was something different about you. Something I could love. I want a life with you, too, Evangeline.”

“So just say yes so we can have sex already!”

“Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” he cried, laughing, as he swept her into his arms. “But, we’re adults and adults don’t burn good salmon. Great minds learn to multitask,” he said as he settled her on the counter, flipping the fish with one hand, unbuckling her jeans with the other.

“I yelled at Olivia today,” Maureen said, sitting across the kitchen table from Augustus. She’d been so nervous, setting up what seemed like such a formal meeting with her own brother. He’d told her that Barbara and Ana were at Barbara’s mother’s for the afternoon, and Maureen knew then that today would be the day she worked up the courage to ask for help.

But first, small talk. She had to calm down.

“Why?” Augustus poured more hot water in her teacup.

“She’s… predicting things. Like Lizzy.”

“Oh. Wow.” Augustus leaned back in his chair. Yes, wow, she thought. They both knew what this meant. They’d both seen the effects on Elizabeth. “What did you say to her?”

“To never, ever do it again,” Maureen said. “Hell’s bells, what was I supposed to do?”

“I would’ve done the same,” Augustus said. “But I don’t know if telling her that helps. Elizabeth has never been able to turn it off.”

“A few months ago, she pointed at John Lennon when he was on the television and said he was going to get shot outside his apartment. She said those words, Augustus. Shot outside his apartment. I take it you saw the news a couple weeks ago?”

Augustus exhaled. “And that wasn’t the first time?”

“Oh, no. So far she only seems to do it with strangers, or celebrities. Not like Lizzy, who was always seeing bad things happen to us.” Maureen sighed. “But maybe she just isn’t telling me all of it. She knows how upset I get.”

“Maybe Elizabeth can help her.”

Maureen shook her head. “I want her to focus on other things. Living, for one. If she does that, maybe it will go away. Mine did.”

Augustus blinked. “You had an ability? All this time?”

She waved her hand. “Yes, but it’s gone and doesn’t matter now.”

“What was it?”

“It really doesn’t matter anymore, Aggie.”

“How did none of us know that?”

“Charles did,” Maureen said. “But… well, Charles is why I came over today. Why I wanted to talk to you.”

Augustus folded his hands over the table. “All right. What’s on your mind?”

“I don’t know how much you know. About my relationship with Soren LaViolette.”

Augustus looked down. “I knew about it, or at least, that there was one. I left it alone. It wasn’t my business. I was so sorry to hear he disappeared, though.”

---