It wouldn’t be at school, Asher had advised me.
If not school, then where? I didn’t want to think about the fact that the answer could have been “anywhere else.”
As inconspicuously as possible, I angled my screen away, pretending to avoid a glare from the window. In my periphery, I saw her eyes narrow.
As I entered Aaron Ward’s name into the search engine, I let my mind wander to the shoebox I’d found in Aunt Jo’s closet. In the faded picture, she’d been leaning up against a tree, wind whipping strands of her blond hair (there were no hints of gray in it then) loose from her signature ponytail. Aaron was leaning into her, his arm resting against the tree, a mischievous gleam in his eye—a touch of Rebel energy radiating from him. Whoever was taking the picture had caught them in the most private of moments. The moment right before a kiss, when the world is brighter and sprawling out before you, and anything is possible. She was smiling up at him, a full-body smile.
I knew Aunt Jo wasn’t ready to be reunited with Aaron. She would rather we did this another way, and part of me—the reluctant romantic—couldn’t blame her. I tried to put myself in her shoes, to wonder how I might feel if Asher and I had parted on worse terms. What if Cassie was trying to reunite us against my will? Would I be angry? Or would I be excited, and hiding that excitement to protect myself?
I held within my own secretly fragile heart the deepest and most unwavering hope that Asher and I would be together again. It was a hope I would carry with me always, and no one, not the staunchest skeptic, could take it away from me. How could Aunt Jo not want to find Aaron? What if in trying to bring together this blend of powers and celestial magic, I could also find a way for her to be happy again? I couldn’t think of anything more noble than reuniting two lost loves. Aunt Jo had done so much for me over the years, and given up even more. It was time I gave something back to her.
The search turned up eleven Aaron Wards in Colorado, which seemed like the best and most likely place to start. But how to narrow it down?
I’d been getting better at controlling my visions, when they struck. Could I make one happen on purpose? What if I could use one to figure out where in Colorado Aaron Ward was living?
I printed out the page and folded it into the pocket of my jeans. I still had half an hour until the bell and needed to go someplace private, someplace where I could have complete concentration and focus. Someplace where I could use my angelic powers, and still be back in time for class.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Blond Pixie still watching me. I couldn’t let her think I was up to something. I walked slowly to the library door—but once I was through it, I ran like lightning to the staircase that led to the roof.
The air was heavy; it was about to rain some serious spring showers if I didn’t act soon.
Did you forget you can control the weather? I reminded myself.
That bought me a little more time. I propped the door open with a brick and walked around to the side of the entrance. The ledge where Asher stood with his back to me, the place where Devin first showed me his wings, the water tower that I accidentally burst in a fit of uncontrollable power—everything about this roof held a special, supernatural memory for me.
If anyplace had the right energy to help me see the future, this was it.
I dropped my bag to the ground and sat cross-legged under the water tower.
Putting my hands in my lap, I closed my eyes and concentrated on an image—the photograph of Aunt Jo and Aaron. A stolen moment captured on film.
Thunder rumbled above me, but I didn’t want to break concentration to stop it. I let the mercurial silver slip through me, filling me with a bright, glowing energy. On the backs of my eyelids, my vision went cloudy. And then, as the edges of my sight began to take shape, to shift into clarity, I began to see things. A house. It looked a little unkempt, with paint chipping off the railings on the porch, window frames that looked like they needed replacing. It was shabby and worn, and not in the cozy, homey way. In a way that signified neglect. That made me think the owner no longer cared.
The image in front of me shifted, and I saw a girl sitting on the bottom step. She looked about six or seven, with light brown hair that was pulled up in two messy pigtails. Her chin rested in her hand, her elbow propped up on her knee, and she sighed a bored, comically dramatic sigh. I had an urge to toss her a book or something.
I heard the noise at the same time she did. The bushes along the side of the yard rustled. The girl’s head snapped up, scared. And my own heart pounded. Because I had seen what the girl hadn’t. A flash of white, between the leaves.
The wing of a Guardian.
“Look out!” I tried to yell to her, before realizing it was pointless to call out to a vision of the future. Besides, my visions never worked like that. I couldn’t interact with them. I could never change what was happening. All I could do was watch. Helplessly.
An engine roared in the driveway and the girl jumped to her feet.
“Dad!” she called. And then a man swooped into my sight. He put a brown paper takeout bag down on the porch steps, and lifted her up in his arms. She looked a tad too heavy and a bit too old to be held like that, but the way the man’s eyes darted protectively around the yard—lingering on the bushes where I’d seen the white wings—made me think he’d do anything to keep his daughter safe.
He turned to face me, and I caught my breath. His hair was dark, a perfect tangle of waves that fell into his slate gray eyes. Eyes that were locked directly with mine. For a brief moment, my heart stopped. Can he see me?
But as quickly as the thought popped into my head, I realized it was impossible. There was no way. His gaze shot straight through me, to something moving through the trees. He tracked it with his eyes until he must have felt satisfied that it was moving away.
“What did I tell you about waiting outside?” he said. I could tell he was trying to sound tough, mask the fear in his voice. “Come on, let’s go in.” When they got to the front door, he looked behind him one more time.
Something was out there.
Then he and the little girl disappeared into the house.
The edges of the picture dissolved into static, and I opened my eyes to find myself back on the roof of the school. Thunder cracked, but I held up my hand to silence it, and the sky went quiet. The clouds whispered away into nothingness.
That was him—Aaron Ward. It was the same guy from the picture. He had the same dark hair, the same Rebel attitude gleaming from his eyes. And he was definitely being watched by the Order.
I tried to pick out distinguishing features, to figure out which of the Aaron Wards I’d found on the white pages matched this one. The house and the neighborhood looked run-down, but they could have been from any number of run-down neighborhoods in the area. The number on the mailbox was obscured by bushes. There weren’t too many clues, other than the man, the little girl, and . . .
The takeout bag! It had writing on the side, and I closed my eyes again and tried to pull back the memory of what it said. He’d been carrying it, put it down on the front steps. I’d been more focused on the two of them than I’d been on the brown paper bag, but I focused hard and tried to remember what the writing had said. The letters were small, but a T and an R jumped out at me.
Could it be Tabula Rasa? That was the name of a café that Aunt Jo and I had stopped into once on our way home from Denver. It was about two hours west of River Springs, in a town called Rocky Pines.