Alex

"Didn't realise Wrickenridge was such an appealing place for an English Savant," Zed frowned.

I straightened, eyeing his expression cautiously. Though I forced myself to keep calm on the outside, I could feel my blood begin to boil beneath my skin. Grace always told me that panic was too mild for me, that I always skipped straight to anger instead of thinking things through like normal people. I supposed she was right. I'd never tell her, but she usually was.

But right now, even I was smart enough to know that picking a fight with an unstable Savant like Zed Benedict in the middle of a school car park was a bad idea. There were too many witnesses for one, and far too many things that could go wrong, the main one being that Grace would immediately try to break up a fight if she caught us, and I knew enough about Zed to know I didn't want her anywhere near him.

"What's me being English got to do with it?" I retorted coolly with a small shrug.

"We don't get many tourists here," he replied in monotone, his alert eyes fixed on me like he was waiting for me to slip up.

"We aren't tourists," I pointed out irritably. "That would mean we'd be going back to England sometime in the near future."

"Which you aren't doing?"

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" I snorted, a little louder than necessary. The other guys cast a glance in our direction, and one of them, a tall, lanky boy named Sean who looked to me more like he was playing dress up and trying to act the tough guy than actually pulling it off, scoffed in Zed's direction with one eyebrow raised.

"You wouldn't be saying that if you saw his sister," he promised with a small smirk.

I felt my fists tighten by my sides and Sean's expression faltered when I glowered at him. "You want to say that again?"

Sean paled slightly, but before he could say anything, Zed straightened with a frown. "I didn't know you had a sister. The redhead you were talking to this morning?"

I almost laughed sourly at his description. Maybe I didn't need to keep Grace away from him. If she ever heard him call her a redhead, she'd probably kill him herself. If there was one thing Grace hated more than anything else, it was labels, especially ones that made her sound like she'd dipped her head in a bucket of red paint.

"She's off limits," I frowned. "No one goes anywhere near her, got it?"

Zed hesitated, his eyes flicking sideways. "You'll probably want to update my brother on that."

I felt my muscles tense as I followed his gaze. He was watching Grace and a tall boy with glasses step out of the school building, both of them in deep conversation. Zed's brother was quite a bit taller than Grace, but that didn't stop her shooting him a scowl on occasion. Luckily, he seemed to have enough sense to back off, holding his hands out slightly at his sides. She still didn't look impressed, her delicate eyebrows pulled together in a tight frown.

I sometimes wondered if she realised how much trouble she attracted. I knew very well that she was aware of how much trouble I got into, but I'd never had the heart to tell her that more than half of that was because I was keeping her out of it. She was constantly the centre of some idiot's attention, as proved by Zed, his brother, and Sean. With her dark red hair, slim figure and shockingly electric blue eyes, all inherited from our mother, keeping her away from the likes of Zed was almost a full-time job.

By the looks of it though, I didn't need to worry about Zed's brother. In fact, I almost didn't believe they were related. Despite the fact she obviously didn't like the topic of conversation, Grace looked comfortable enough talking to him. "I'm not worried," I shrugged eventually.

Zed cast a quick, irritable glance toward Sean and the others, annoyed they were here to stop him confronting me properly. "She's a Savant too?" he asked quietly when he'd determined the others had lost interest again.

My scowl was back. "What's it to you?"

He shrugged, but the look on his face was clear enough. A Savant girl had started his school, in his year. In one sense, I didn't blame him for being curious, even if the chances of her being his soulfinder were slim. In another, he was still an arrogant jackass and the thought of him being anywhere near my sister made my jaw lock angrily.

Still . . . was it my place to get in the middle of them if he really was her soulfinder? It went against everything I wanted for her, but I forced myself to think about it for a moment. Grace had pretty much shut herself off to the outside world after the disaster on our ninth birthday, and I was the first to admit it wasn't healthy. What if she needed this as much as Zed did?

"Can't believe I'm doing this," I grumbled to myself. "Wait here." Zed shot me a curious look, but said nothing as I straightened out and strode across the car park, ignoring the giggling cheerleaders to the side.

Grace saw me coming. The conversation she'd been having with Zed's brother ended somewhat abruptly, and like every other time she'd ever sensed trouble, her hand latched around the handle of her bag, holding so tightly her knuckles went white. "Hi, Gracie," I managed to smile. "Making friends?"

My eyes flicked to Zed's brother, who regarded me in mild surprise. Grace pursed her lips. "Yves, this is my dear brother, Alex," she introduced sarcastically. "Alex, Yves Benedict. He's in my Chemistry class."

"Nice to meet you," Yves said, a little uncertainly, shaking my hand.

"Do you mind if I have a word with my dear little sister for a moment?" I asked him lightly.

"Err, sure," he nodded. "Are you still going to need a ride home, Grace?" I blinked at her in surprise, but she set her expression sternly.

"Yes, thank you. I'll just be a minute." Yves grimaced at her, stepping around the two of us and moving toward a car at the other end of the car park.

"Okay," I frowned at her. "What are you playing at? You know the Benedicts are Savants, right?"

A flicker of uncertainty ran across her face. "Yes. Yves told me. How do you know?" I hesitated, wondering whether or not to come clean about Zed, but before I could, she groaned loudly. "Oh God, Alex, please tell me you aren't on speaking terms with Zed Benedict?"

I almost laughed at her in shock. "You've heard about him?"

She rolled her eyes with a heavy sigh, jerking her head back toward Yves. "I haven't heard anything else," she complained. "The second Yves realised we were the same age, he wanted me to meet him. Apparently, he has the entire family worried he's close to breaking point which, in hindsight, probably means I should have guessed you'd be stupid enough to find him."

"How was I supposed to know there were Savants in Wrickenridge?" I scoffed at her. "Wasn't that part of Cassie's job description?"

"You can't be serious," she scolded irritably. "How is Cassandra supposed to know if someone is a Savant?"

"Mind reading?" I joked. Her face darkened, and I had to remind myself for the thousandth time that my sister had been born with an intolerance to humour. "So what are we supposed to do now then, Gracie? Move?"

She shifted, torn. I knew she must have hated the idea of living in walking distance of an entire family of Savants. We'd managed to separate ourselves from others remarkably well for a long time, mainly because they had a tendency to ask awkward questions and get us caught out. But we'd all gone to so much trouble setting up here, it would take ages to pack up and leave again, and we had the house and stables now.

"Let's look at it this way," I sighed, and she lifted an eyebrow questioningly. "We could play nice with the Benedicts and get on with our life, or freak out, start acting weirdly and making them suspicious, then spend the next few months to a year on the run again."

Grace shot me a withering look. "If only it was that simple."

"It isn't?" I frowned, puzzled.

"Not when Yves is determined to match me off with his little brother!" she hissed under her breath. "Do you realise how many times he's asked me to meet him?"

I shrugged. "So do it. Go over and talk to him."

She gawped at me. "You can't be serious."

"Gracie, the chances of you have anything to do with him are slim to none," I pointed out. "Maybe it's best to meet him and put their minds at rest. If you don't, it only looks more suspicious."

Her lips pursed thoughtfully for a moment, her eyes sliding sideways. "That's him, right? Leaning against the bike?"

I followed her sharp gaze to see Zed somewhat reluctantly talking to the head cheerleader, Sheena. From what I'd heard about her, she was a nasty piece of work, and had recently been determined to get her claws into Zed after he'd broken up with some cheerleader from out of town. By the looks of it, she wasn't doing too well.

"Yeah," I grimaced. "He isn't very talkative." Grace pulled a face, but something about her expression didn't sit right. She looked almost . . . nervous, and that wasn't something I often said about her. It usually took highly trained Savants with guns to worry her. "Erm, Gracie? You okay?"

She tore her eyes away from Zed and Sheena, frowning at me cautiously. "I get the odds are slim, Alex," she said, and there was something strange in her voice.

"Slim to none," I corrected.

She ignored me. "The odds are in our favour, but what happens if they aren't good enough? What happens if . . ."

I waited expectantly, but her gaze had become distant as it usually did when she was worrying about a future she couldn't see. "What happens if it turns out Zed's your soulfinder, you mean?" She nodded stiffly, and I sighed again. "Then that changes things, obviously. But we're talking about your soulfinder here, Gracie, someone who is literally your other half. How many of us ever get the chance to meet our soulfinders? Say it turns out that way. Would it really be that bad?"

"Yes," she scowled. "Alex, you know better than anyone else out there how bad that could go!"

I almost flinched, my muscles tightening abruptly to keep me in place. She was right, of course. Despite everything I'd told her, how I couldn't wait for the opportunity to meet my soulfinder, sometimes I wondered if Grace could be right. With our track record, our future didn't exactly look bright or risk free. Were either of us really selfish enough to drag our soulfinders into it all? With the odds of ever finding them against us, I'd never seriously considered it an option.

Grace sighed, running a hand through her hair with a small shrug. "I don't know, Alex, maybe I'm being paranoid. But I don't like the idea of dragging the Benedicts into our lives. However Zed appears, they're good people. They don't deserve the trouble we'd be bringing, and however good the odds are, they aren't good enough for me to agree to go anywhere near Zed. I can't risk it. More to the point, he can't risk it."

I scanned her expression, and for the first time I thought she might not have been entirely truthfully when she'd told me repeatedly that she never wanted to find her soulfinder. "Zed already knows you're here, Gracie. What if he decides to see for himself?"

I could tell she hadn't really ironed out all the details for her plan to avoid him. Since I'd been keeping her out of the lime light all of these years, she'd never really had to work at that part of her life. "Then I suppose we'd better cross our fingers and hope the odds are good enough," she muttered eventually. "Until then, I'm going home." Shooting one last strange look in Zed's direction – where Sheena was giggling flirtatiously at him – she turned on her heel and weaved her way through the other students, making her way toward Yves's car.

Great. So now I had to find a way to keep Zed Benedict from trying to find his soulfinder. Muttering about how it would have been so much easier if I'd had a twin brother, I made my way back to Zed and the other guys.

"Oh, hi, Alex," Sheena smiled with a sickly sweet tone. I nodded once. "Was that your girlfriend you were talking to?" Her nose wrinkled, almost in disgust.

Zed scowled at her. "She's his sister."

I tried not to let his strange over-protectiveness put me on edge, but I was slowly coming to the conclusion that I was missing something, and I had a funny feeling I knew what is was. Maybe Grace had been right to avoid him after all.

Grace's predicament with Zed Benedict got me wondering about my own soulfinder in the weeks that followed our first day. While my sister might have opted for the more self-sacrificing option of avoid her soulfinder for his own good, I didn't think I had the self-restraint, which irritated me. A lot. It was childish, but I'd always thought I was stronger than Grace was, but here she was purposefully hurting herself to keep someone else safe, while I couldn't even stand the thought of it.

"Alex!"

I shook myself awake roughly, blinking a few more times than necessary when Grace snapped her fingers in my face impatiently. She glowered. "Were you even listening to me?"

"Of course I was!" I defended with a frown. She lifted an eyebrow. "Would I lie to you?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

"You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were developing a sense of humour, Gracie," I grinned at her.

She sighed exasperatedly. "Sarcasm and humour are two very different things, Alex, the former being essential for life under the same roof as you and Cassandra."

"Ouch, Gracie," I winced, clamping my hands over my chest dramatically. "You really know how to get under a guy's skin, don't you?"

"Could you focus for one minute?" she scowled at me. She was stood in the kitchen, throwing together a stew of some sort since Cassandra was working late at the stables after one of the horses had been taken ill. Spread out on the breakfast bar in front of me were several maps of Wrickenridge, Denver, Colorado, and the whole of North America. After three days of awkwardly navigating the school to avoid Zed, her paranoia seemed to have been cranked up to a whole new level.

"Gracie," I started cautiously, and the mere tone of my voice was enough for her jaw to lock irritably. "I know you're a little . . . delicate at the moment, but don't you think this is a bit much? You know it always works better if we decide these kinds of things last minute."

"You say that like we've ever had enough notice to prearrange anything," she snorted sourly. "I want to know there's somewhere else we can go if things go badly here. Preferably somewhere as far away from Denver as possible."

I clamped my mouth shut before I said something stupid. Between her paranoia at home and Zed's slipping grip on his anger issues, I knew it had to be taking a lot for the two of them to keep their distance. I wasn't sure what Grace had said to Yves to make him keep quiet, but even he had stopped trying to put the two of them in the same room.

Sensing the sudden awkwardness lingering in the atmosphere, Grace turned back to the stew, changing the subject with her back to me. "Do you know French?"

I snorted. "Is that a rhetorical question? Why'd you ask?"

"I was thinking Quebec next," she shrugged.

I pulled a face, hurriedly making sure it was straight again when she turned to scan through the recipe again. "Any particular reason?"

"It's a different country. Again. And I'm fairly certain we're limited to staying on this side of the Atlantic."

"I'd prefer Hawaii," I suggested with a small smirk.

She eyed my expression. "Um. And give you more of an excuse to do nothing, you mean?"

"Don't know what you're talking about, Gracie."

Figuring it was the best way to keep her happy, at least for that evening, I indulged Grace's paranoia while we ate, but when she quickly retired to her room afterward and started playing Bring Me the Horizon a little louder than necessary, I knew it would take a lot more than a few escape routes to keep her calm.

That night was the first night I saw the girl's face. I couldn't be sure of what was actually happening at the time; all I knew was that I'd never experienced a dream like this one before, and it unsettled me. Something felt . . . real. Too real. As though I was stood watching the world play out it's cruel tricks and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

The girl can't have been any older than me. She was slim and petite, definitely no taller than five and a half foot. Her waist length black hair had been hurriedly braided back down her spine, and her crystal grey eyes shone in fear as she staggered down a street, surrounded by bright lights that all seemed to merge together around her. Her tanned skin was covered in severe cuts and bruises, like she'd been held captive and tortured until she'd blacked out.

She kept stumbling down the street, lost in the sea of lights and people, not one of which slowed down to help her. Someone yelled angrily behind her, and she gasped in panic, forcing herself to move faster until she was running through the crowds, turning corner after corner until she was sure no one was following her.

Staggering into a walk, she took short, ragged breaths, tears streaming silently down her cheeks as she clamped her hand to her side, where her white vest top was stained a dull, thick red. She kept casting uncertain glances over her shoulder, but despite her obvious pain, she kept going until she'd found an abandoned street, deserted and dimly lit.

The girl hesitated on the corner, trembling as she stared into the darkness. Closing her eyes and muttering something to herself, she took a deep breath and forced herself to move forward. Without a seconds hesitation, she hurried to the first car she saw and grabbed the handle. As if the car had been left entirely unlocked, she yanked the door open and jumped into the driver's seat. The moment her hands touched the steering wheel, the car sprang into life and she sighed, a relieved sob escaping her lips.

Just as she'd started to relax, a gunshot rang through the air and the windscreen in front of her exploded.

"ALEX!"

I yelped in surprise, bolting upright with a hammering heart and short, sharp breaths. My eyes were wide and painful, my body quivering in shock. At the end of my bed, Grace stared at me in concern. She was still fully dressed, her eyes red and sore like she'd been trying to keep herself up. In her hands, she clutched a steaming cup of coffee.

"Alex?" she repeated, this time much more cautiously. I didn't answer immediately, staring at my sister as though she should've already been explaining what was wrong with me. Instead, she sat waiting anxiously for me to get myself together.

Closing my eyes with a tight scowl, I lifted my hand to my forehead, where a dull pain was beginning to grow behind my eyes. "W-What time is it?" I croaked, my voice hoarse.

Grace shifted. "Two o'clock."

"In the morning?" I groaned, risking opening one eye. She nodded once. "What are you still doing up?"

A flinch ran across her face, but she shrugged a shoulder. "Not really very tired," she lied. "Besides, I very much doubt I'd get much sleep anyway with the noise you've been making. It's taken me ten minutes to wake you up."

I stared. Ten minutes? The dream didn't feel like it had taken that long. Thinking about it, it was the first dream I'd ever had – other than a recurring childhood nightmare – that I'd been able to remember in its entirety when I woke up.

Grace pursed her lips, setting her coffee down on the bedside table next to me. "Wait here a moment." Frowning at me, she pushed herself to her feet and swept out of the room, hurrying down the stairs faster than I thought possible. Within a few minutes, she was back, carrying a tall glass of freezing cold water. "Drink," she instructed.

"Aww," I managed to smirk weakly. "I never knew you cared so much."

She pulled a face. "You need to calm down," she muttered, taking up her coffee and sipping it cautiously as she sat back down opposite me. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

I swallowed a gulp of water with some difficulty, wondering if I should come clean. After all, it was just a dream. What could possibly be wrong with a dream? Maybe her paranoia was beginning to get contagious. But then I thought about the girl, and the look of absolute terror on her face.

"Alex?" Grace questioned. "Say something. You're worrying me."

I met my sister's gaze. "It . . . it's just a dream."

She straightened a fraction, lifting an eyebrow. "The same one you used to get?"

I almost laughed. "No, Gracie, I think I've out grown nightmares."

"Oh yes, because you're ever so mature these days," she mumbled with a frown. "Besides, I think we can safely class this as a nightmare. I've never heard you so nervous before."

"This dream was . . . different," I admitted to her with a wince, and her face straightened instantly, suddenly serious. "I don't know, I can't explain it. It's never happened to me before."

Grace hesitated, scanning my expression closely. "What did you see?"

Taking a split second to thank whatever God was listening for possibly the only twin sister who didn't immediately make fun of her brother after waking him from a nightmare, I took a deep breath and recited my dream for her, feeling strangely concerned that she was just as worried about this as I was.

"And you think this was real?" she questioned cautiously after I'd done.

I shuffled on the spot. "I don't know. I . . . I think it could be. But how could that be possible? Last I checked, I didn't have the ability to have visions of somewhere that could be halfway around the world while I slept."

Her eyebrows tightened in thought. "No," she agreed. "But you have been known to borrow other Savants abilities without knowing it before."

I stared at her, realisation slowly sinking in as she frowned at me. "You're saying you think I've hijacked one of the Benedicts' powers? Aren't they too far away from that?"

Uncomfortable thinking about the Benedicts, she angled herself away and sipped her coffee again, shrugging one shoulder. "We've never really figured out how far away you can take another Savants ability, or if prolonged exposure to one Savant can have a lasting effect."

I figured that was her subtle way of blaming Zed. "But I've never had this with your ability."

She glowered at me. "Yes you have. Remember that incident in Aberdeen three years ago? You drifted off and ended up reliving the past ten seconds over and over again until I finally managed to wake you up."

I grimaced. "That was an accident."

"You were like that for an hour, Alex."

"And I had a pounding headache for my trouble, can we move past it please?"

She rolled her eyes at me, sighing heavily. "The point is, you haven't had an adverse effects from my ability because I make sure to block that part of my mind away as much as possible. The only other Savants the Benedicts are used to worrying about are each other. In a tiny town like Wrickenridge, I doubt they're as vigilant with that sort of thing. It's perfectly plausible that you're just experiencing one of their abilities like . . . like a contamination effect."

I snorted with a small smirk. "Are you saying they're contagious?"

"Grow up," she glowered. "You asked a question, I gave you an answer. Maybe I'm wrong." She hesitated a moment, frowning. "Zed sees the future." There was silence for a minute or two, and I was almost too stunned to ask how she knew that. Fortunately, I didn't have to. "Yves told me," she sighed, shrugging again. "Some sob story about how he has to deal with premonitions of the future as well as the effects of the rest of them since he's the seventh kid."

"And you're doing an excellent job of sympathising for the guy, sis," I scoffed sarcastically.

She shot me a dark look. "He doesn't need my sympathy, Alex. Just talk to him. Since you're around him most days, maybe that's what's causing it. It might all make more sense after you've spoken with him."

I nodded at her slowly. "Maybe," I agreed.

Without another word, she pushed herself off the end of the bed and slipped back out of the room, closing the door softly behind her. I thought I could hear the TV still going in the background downstairs. Obviously, I wasn't the only one having a hard time getting to sleep. But for once, the girl in my dreams seemed somehow more important than our trivial dramas. Grace might not be able to sleep while she over thought her current situation, but at least she wasn't black and blue.

Whether the Benedicts were causing these dreams or not, the more I thought about it, the more real the girl became. I had to find a way to help her, before she got herself killed. But, without any idea of where she was or even who she was, it was hard to find a good place to start.