Page 28

Callum

Four years ago…

The skyscrapers of New York loomed large over me, making me feel like the miniscule cockroach that I was as I walked down the street to the jewelry store that I’d found online last night.

The past twenty-four hours had completely turned my world upside down, and I felt like the heel of fate was set to crush me under the weight of the expectation of things still to come.

Just like a cockroach.

Not looking where he was going, a man walking in the opposite direction bumped hard into me, his exposed forearm brushing against my bare hand.

“Watch where you’re fucking going!” he snarled angrily out loud, but in his head, he fretted, “—I’m sure I put that report on his desk—”

I winced at the two competing moods, my fingers curling into a fist to avoid further contact with strangers. I’d been gaining so much more control over my mental barriers over the past few years that I’d gotten used to not having to wearing gloves anymore, but ever since I’d shaken his hand, all the protections I’d methodically built up had shattered and were now lying in pieces around my tortured mind.

Did I still have my old pair of gloves hidden away in my dorm room? Or did I need to buy a new pair? Hopefully, I wouldn’t need to wear them for long. There was no way I could go back to wearing them constantly, like I had when I was younger. I needed to focus; rebuild my mental fortress to prevent a repeat of that .

My heart stuttered at the thought of him , the confusion in his eyes as I’d gripped his hand so hard that I swear his bones ground together. Of course, Mam hadn’t told him about what we could do. No wonder he’d been confused out of his poor mind.

She hadn’t told him by then, at least. She’d told me last night before I’d left that she and Barry, his dad, had explained everything to him after I’d fled to my room like the Devil himself was after me.

In a way, I supposed he was.

Joey.

My own personal devil come to torment me with visions of the future.

God damn it. Why?

I’d never had a vision of the future before. It wasn’t possible. Not until I’d held his hand in greeting, something I’d done with other people hundreds of times before and had never had a single issue. Very occasionally, I’d get a glimpse into the other person’s current state of mind, but that just meant that I had to shore up my mental defenses again. Mam’s old boss, George, had trained me well over the years, and he’d warned me that no defense was impenetrable. Some people simply talked louder than others, and I’d need to compensate accordingly as and when I met them.

But with Joey… It was like he’d obliterated every single guard I’d created over the past decade into dust, all for it to be blown away by the whistling cyclone that was left of my mind.

Sitting down opposite him at dinner last night was torture. Literal torture.

Every single time I looked at him, my body boiled in a murky soup of rage that he’d so easily gotten past my defenses and desire from what I’d seen.

I wasn’t angry at him . How could I be? It wasn’t his fault that he’d triggered an evolution of my abilities. No, I was angry, because no-one in my family had thought to warn me that just maybe, possibly, perhaps there might be a teensy-tiny chance that my powers could maybe, possibly, perhaps evolve in a frightening new direction.

As far as I knew, everyone in my family that had psychic abilities could only listen in to other people when they touched them or read an item’s history by touching it. Some lucky members of the family, like my mam and me, could do both.

But no-one, at least those of us who were currently alive, had the ability to see the future. There were rules in place to stop that from ever happening.

That was George and his family’s purview, not ours.

I’d fobbed Mam off easily enough when she’d come up to see me before dinner, assuming that I’d heard something in Joey’s head that I’d been shocked over.

To be fair, she wasn’t that far wrong.

She’d asked me if it was anything that she might need to approach Barry over, like school issues, drugs, or alcohol, but once I assured her it wasn’t anything like that, she’d nodded and basically told me to suck it up and strengthen my defenses.

And I tried. I tried so damn hard. Thank fuck I hadn’t told her how, after a single touch, he’d obliterated them. She would have freaked even more than she did later when I told her what I’d seen.

But then I sat opposite him at dinner… and every time I looked at him, I was overwhelmed with the need to hug him, kiss him, protect him, and love him just like I’d seen in my vision of our future.

And then I had to mentally smack my brain, because he was fifteen years old . Sure, I was only three years older than him, but that age difference could have been as high as Mount Everest for all the good it did me. He was a minor and would remain a minor in the eyes of the law until he turned eighteen.

Could I really trust myself to be around him over the next three years and not act on what I felt?

I honestly didn’t know, and that terrified me.

I’d fled from the table as soon as I possibly could and prayed to the old gods that Joey would never know how deep the hurt that I saw in his eyes devastated me. If my vision was to be believed, we would have plenty of time to grow closer, for him to forgive me for what I was putting him through now.

But I couldn’t stay.

As soon as I got back to my room, I paced back and forth until I nearly wore a hole in the carpet, tossing up numerous pros and cons between me staying like I desperately wanted to and leaving like I knew I needed to.

Eventually, I came to the realization that the longer I stayed, the more risk there was to me doing something I shouldn’t, so I began packing my bag.

By the time eleven-thirty had rolled around, I’d finished stuffing my duffel bag, leaving the room exactly as I’d found it. I stood in the doorway, broken-hearted at my decision to leave like this, but I couldn’t trust myself.

Looking down at the leather jacket I’d put on, a wave of grief overcame me. Joey and I had barely said two words to each other, but leaving him with nothing felt so utterly wrong that something in my body rebelled violently at the idea. Without consciously thinking about it, I took my jacket off and draped it over the back of the lone chair in the room before I startled when realization dawned on me. This was how Joey got my jacket; why he wore it in my vision. Knowing that he would take good care of it, I let my hand linger on the soft leather of the collar for a moment, letting it know that I’d see it again someday, before sniffing deeply, turning around to pick up my duffel and walking out the door.

I stopped outside Joey’s room to debate whether it was too risky for me to poke my head into the room to look at him one last time before I left. A loud snuffling snore echoed from the other side of the room enough to make me chuckle but also realize that if he was sleeping that deeply, he’d never know if I peeked in.

So, I opened the door.

Lying on his back, he was sprawled on his bed, sleep rumpled and adorable. He’d obviously fallen asleep watching TV, as the only light in the room came from the set sitting on the dresser opposite his bed, the sound turned down low enough that I’d not heard it through the closed door, especially from under the noise of his snoring.

I felt myself drawn closer to him, creeping two steps into the room before I’d even realized. I took a deep breath and immediately regretted it when his concentrated scent filled my lungs.

If anyone was to ask me later why I did what I did next, I’d tell them I was drunk off his scent. There was honestly no reason in the world why I thought approaching him while he was asleep, leaning down to kiss him in the middle of his forehead to whisper, “Goodbye, mo lus na gréine . Until we meet again.” was a good idea.

But that’s what I did, and I regretted it almost immediately when he snuffled in his sleep, moaned softly, then murmured, “Callum…” all with a soft smile on his face.

After I’d frozen in fear that he was waking up, only to have him roll over so his back was to me and start snoring again, I bolted as quietly as I could, grabbing my bag as I went.

Before I left the house, I spoke to Mam and Barry. Mam was shocked when I told her I’d seen something in both Joey’s and my future. She’d pressed me to elaborate on what I’d seen, but I couldn’t tell her.

Not everything, at least.

I gave her a portion of what I’d seen, enough to ensure that she would let me go. Enough to keep Barry on my side and not have him end up hating me for what was to come.

It was a tough conversation, but it had to be done. For everyone’s sakes and sanities.

But I did it.

And then, with tears streaming down my face, I walked away.

The only thing that got me through those dark few hours was the thought that the future owed me for the heartache of today. All I had to be was patient and let it happen.

Now, here I was, wandering the New York streets looking for a tiny jewelry store so I could purchase something that I’d seen in a vision of the future, trying very hard not to knock into any other pedestrians while I was swept up in my thoughts and memories of both the past and the future.

I was jolted out of my reverie when my phone started buzzing with an incoming call. I glanced at the screen and let out an amused sigh. Of course he’d call.

“Hello, George.”

“Hey, buddy,” came the gruff but warm voice of my mam’s oldest friend. “I gather you’re going through some things.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” I dodged another pedestrian, but at least I didn’t touch this one. “Did Mam call you? Or should I ask how much you saw?”

“Naw, she doesn’t know I’m calling.” I heard rustling on his end, like he was settling in for a long chat. “I saw enough to know that you’ve had your first vision.”

Pausing in the street to the annoyance of the people around me, I looked up, closed my eyes, and sighed deeply in resignation. “Yeah.”

George didn’t respond for a moment, letting the gravity of the situation speak for itself. “I’m guessing your defenses have exploded, huh?”

Surprised that this was the first thing out of his mouth and not the sheer impossibility of me getting a vision in the first place, I opened and narrowed my eyes before looking forward and walking with the flow of traffic again. “How did you—”

A burst of laughter reverberated through my earbuds. “I’m older than you, bud. A lot older than you. And my family is riddled with seers. I know how much visions can demolish your shields, especially when you’re not expecting to have one.”

“Considering that no-one in my family has ever had a vision, I’d say that’s a fair assumption.”

He kept chuckling. “About that. I did some research and consulted with some friends of mine.”

“Hm?” I raised an eyebrow as my interest increased.

“Turns out that someone in my family, way, way back, married someone in your family.”

I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk again, much to the continued annoyance of those around me. “But I thought—”

“Yeah, so did I,” George said, cutting me off. “She was a normie, but we think she must have been a carrier. We don’t know how it never manifested in your family until now, but here you are.”

“Here I am…” I muttered, then sighed. Pressing my lips together, I said, “You’re goddamn lucky I’m gay and have no intention to breed, George.”

“Indeed. We’re going to have to run blood work on everyone in your family to see how far the gene got, and if it’s anywhere else, how diluted it’s become. It does explain your mother’s impeccable gut feelings, though, so I’m guessing the potential has always been there but never manifested fully until it got to you.”

Frustrated, I ran my hands through my hair and scratched my scalp, not caring how doing so would affect my hair. “How much more training am I going to need, George?”

He hummed as he thought. “Not sure. You’re an anomaly, bud. We’re going to have to play it by ear for a while.”

“Fantastic,” I said sarcastically. I thought back on all the training I’d had with George when I was growing up and how ecstatic I’d been when I’d finished. Well, thought I’d finished. Add in my upcoming course load for college and I couldn’t say I was thrilled about the change in my situation.

George chuckled. “Come on, now. You’ve got the basics down. We’ll just need to tweak things a bit to cover both abilities. You’ll be fine.”

“Hmph.”

“Eh, stop your moaning,” he said with a chortle. “It won’t be as bad as you’re expecting.”

I groaned. “God, don’t say that! Now it’ll be ten times worse!”

His laughter increased into a hearty roar. “You’ll be fine, Callum. I know it’s Christmas Eve, but if you could drop in for an hour, we could work on some meditation processes to get you through until after New Year’s.”

I mentally calculated how long it would take me to get to his place from where I was, sighing with relief when I realized I still had plenty of time to get what I wanted from the jewelry store. “Yeah, I can do that. How does seven tonight sound?”

“Perfect. I’ll get Mary to make her famous meatloaf.”

My mouth started salivating immediately. “That sounds positively divine, George. I’ll bring some of her favorite cheesecake for dessert.”

“Ah, bless. You’re a good soul, Callum. We’ll see you at seven.”

“See you then, George.”

By the time I hung up, I was standing in front of the jewelry store, staring up at the sign over the door and wondering for the millionth time if I was doing the right thing. I knew what I’d seen, but was I only ordering it now because I saw it in the future? Or was I always supposed to get it now?

Running my hands through my hair again, I tried to wrap my head around how knowing what could happen in the future would affect my decision-making abilities in the present.

I gave up, reasoning it was far too early in the day to be thinking about that sort of thing. Even if it was three in the afternoon.

Just as I was about to gather my courage to finally go in, another call came through on my phone. I frowned at the name that appeared on the screen.

“Hello? Xander?”

“Hey, Callum. You got a minute?”

“Uh, sure,” I said, wondering why I was getting a call from one of my frat brothers. Xander was one of those lucky students who lived off campus with family, but he’d recently lost both of his parents. Our frat had banded together to support him and his stepbrother, who was also a member of our frat, but we could only do so much when they were both still suffering through so much grief.

“I heard that you’re taking Professor Henderson’s class next semester?”

“You heard correctly.” I frowned. “Everything okay?”

He sighed. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m shifting to part time next semester, so I won’t be able to take Henderson’s unit until next year. But I’ve already bought the materials for next semester, so I wondered if you wanted to buy them off me? I mean, if you haven’t got them already, obviously.”

“Oh, damn! Yeah. Yeah, I’ll definitely get them off you.” Well, that was a stroke of luck I hadn’t expected. “You on campus between Christmas and New Year’s?”

“Don’t have any plans to be, but I can meet you. Message me on this number with a day and time?”

“Will do. Thanks, Xander.”

“Nah, thank you , Callum,” he said with a very relieved sounding sigh. “This helps me get out of an unexpected bind. I appreciate it, man.”

“Anytime, dude. Anytime.”

We hung up and with a bit more of a spring in my step due to one less thing on my to-do list and a healthy and much needed reminder that the world still continued to turn outside of my own complicated little bubble, I finally entered the jewelry store and, after a quick look around to find what I was looking for, approached an attendant.

“Hi. I’d like to order that,” I said as I pointed at a particular piece they had on their racks. “But with some added engraving. Is that something you can help me with?”

“Certainly, sir. Let me grab the order book. When would you like to pick it up?”

I scratched my chin as I thought. “Would a week from today be workable?”

The attendant smiled. “Perfectly. Let’s get you sorted.”