lace lingerie.
Dad walked into the room and she stood up.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Dad yelled as he spun around. "I'm giving you five minutes to get dressed and get out of my office. When I get back, you better be fucking gone."
Axel tugged me away from her and the onslaught stopped. He brilliantly played it off as tripping, glancing at nothing on the hardwood floor and cursing. "I'm sooo sorry. Lost my balance there for a second. Must be something spilled here." He didn't give her a chance to say anything before he started walking away, towing me with him.
Holy shit. Did I just see what I thought I saw?
I spotted mom and pulled on Axel's hand. When he turned, I motioned to her. She was already heading our way.
Mom was super cute with her short, wavy dark-brown hair, and looked ten years younger than she actually was thanks to her daily power yoga routine. A boldly printed Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress showed off her curves, and got her quite a few stares from the male contingent as she walked through the crowd.
"You decided to come down on your own?" she said to me. I raised an eyebrow. "Not likely."
She smiled, and it wasn't a totally happy one. "That's what I thought. Thank you anyway. I know that your father will appreciate you making the effort."
Before she could leave, I stopped her and leaned close. "That lady talking to Dad—the one that's about to have a wardrobe malfunction—totally tried to come on to him. She's thinking yucky things. Fifty shades of things…"
Mom laughed her big, booming laugh.
Not the reaction I was expecting from her. "Don't worry though," I whispered into her ear. "She hasn't gotten anywhere with him."
Mom sobered and stepped back to look at me. She seemed to realize something and then shook her head. "Of course she hasn't. That's one thing you don't have to worry about. Your father and I are one of the few who have a forever marriage. Your abuela made sure of it." Growing up with my abuela made Mom able to block everything but what she wanted me to see. No one else I knew could do it. So when she reached out to cup my cheek, I relaxed my head into her hand and closed my eyes.
I was flooded with the twenty or so times that they'd said they loved each other today. She kissed my forehead, and I heard the echo from her mind that she loved me.
I opened my eyes and smiled. "Thanks. Love you too, Mom."
She gave my cheek a couple of light pats before looking at my brother. "Be good, you two."
Axel scoffed. "Are we ever not good?"
"Yes. Frequently." With that, Mom slid back into her role as hostess. "Let's go before anyone else stops us," Axel said.
We made our way to Dad's office and locked the door. Thick law texts were haphazardly stacked in his now mostly empty shelves. Bankers boxes were piled high to the right of his large oaken desk. Two long file cabinets sat along the wall behind the desk. I had no idea where to even start to look for the St. Ailbe's stuff.
"You find the file, and I'll touch it." I took off my right glove and stuffed it in the back pocket of my jeans. "I'm not touching anything I don't need to."
He dug through some drawers, and then started in on the Bankers boxes. My palms were sweating. The longer Axel took, the better chance there was that Dad would look for us, even if that was ridiculous when we had half of Hollywood in our house.
"Got it!" Axel stepped around the mess he'd made and handed me a folder. I grabbed it and my father's office disappeared.
An image flashed through my mind. Five red brick buildings in a circle, surrounded by forest. Teenagers. Students carrying books walking through the center of them. Wolves running through the forest around the buildings.
Why weren't the students scared of the wolves? Were they tame? Or maybe they were just large dogs. Or maybe it was a farm school. A giant-sized, wolfish- dog farm school.
Wind blew against my face. The scent of the trees and dirt filled my every breath. I'd never had a vision so vivid before. Usually it was just one or two senses, but this was all of them.
Someone brushed past me, and before I could react, my vision shifted to a one-room cabin. It was nighttime now. The two men—one about my dad's age, one maybe a few years older than me—were sitting at a table discussing something. No, they were arguing.
"Trusting some unknown outsider with—" The younger one stopped, and looked straight at me.
I froze. He couldn't actually be looking at me, could he? "We're being watched."
No way. This was impossible. When I touched something, I only saw echoes of the past that had imprinted in the object. There was no way I could actually interact with a vision.
I had to test it. I had to know if he could see me. "Hello?" My voice cracked. The younger guy stood up. "There's someone here. In this room."
"Can you see them?" the other one said. The younger guy shook his head.
Then how could he hear me? Or could he hear me? Maybe he could just sense me? But how? I was looking into the past, wasn't I? There was no way I could've linked with whoever signed the papers. Because that would be way messed up.
The younger one continued to stare in my direction. The look he gave me made my pulse race; it was like he was seeing through my soul. His muscles strained against his black T-shirt as he stepped toward me. His inky black hair
made his amber eyes seem brighter. Holy shit. He was way sexier than my favorite Scotsman.
"They're not going away. They're still here," he said. "Do you know who it is?"
"No. But it feels familiar. I don't know, but whoever it is, it's like I know them." He ran his fingers through his short black hair. "That doesn't make sense."
No. It didn't. I'd never seen that guy before. I would've remembered meeting someone that hot.
The older man turned to me and said something in a language that I couldn't understand. And then it was like something shoved me out of the vision.
The next thing I knew, I was on the ground in my father's office.
Holy shit. What the hell was that? My vision actually interacted with me.
The people in it knew I was there. That could mean only one thing.
Axel leaned over me. "Are you okay?" "I'm not sure."
"What did you see?" he asked. "What's the story?"
I swallowed. There was only one logical conclusion, but it seemed impossible. But Occam's razor hadn't failed me yet. The simplest explanation was usually the correct one. And if that were true, then holy shit. I connected with whoever signed the papers.
Out of all the visions I'd had in my nearly eighteen years, nothing like that had ever happened before.
Not only that, but the older guy pushed me out of my own vision.
Could there actually be more people out there like me? And if so, then how did I not realize this sooner?
There had to be something to draw Dad to his new job. If St. Ailbe's was a school for the gifted, I wanted in. Maybe. Probably.
This was insane. I had to talk to Dad before I got my hopes up, but there was no chance of that happening tonight.
Axel was asking question after question, but I ignored him. I needed air. And fast. That sensory overload had blown my mind. Possibly literally. Well, not technically literally. But still, all rational thoughts had fled.
I hopped up and swung the door open. "Wait. Let me pick up—"
I left Axel to clean up the mess he'd made in Dad's office. I probably looked as crazed as I felt
, since I somehow managed to get to the backyard without