“Well, it’s not in the past, and it’s obviously not happening right now,” Ares says with a conviction bordering on desperation, and again I can’t fight the feeling that he wants the fire to happen. Butwhy? What did I ever do to him?
“It can’t be,” I repeat, louder. Even though the lake looks normal now, the images won’t stop flickering through my head: me, standing in that alley, bloodied and bruised, my mother caught in the fire, screaming. And Ares, the culprit at the center of it all.
The trembling has spread from my knees to my fingertips.
I’d figured that Ares Yin wasn’t my biggest fan, that Icouldn’t trust him, but if what I saw in the lake is any indication of the future, this changes everything. He doesn’t simply dislike me—he’s out to ruin my life, to hurt me and the people I love.
I stare at him, at those wild, dark eyes, the fine-angled face that holds no room for remorse, and I wonder if this is how prey animals feel, looking into the mouth of a beast right before they’re eaten.
“Chanel—” he starts to say.
I twist around, away from him, and I run.
3
Chanel
As the car swerves onto my street, I brace myself for sirens.
An ambulance, firefighters, the flames already spreading through the walls, eating away the fences and incinerating the rosebushes. The destruction promised by the vision. But as my house comes into view, lit up by the orange porch lights, it looks perfectly normal. It stands as extravagant and beautiful between the rows of villas as it always does, with its marble pillars and massive garden and five-story modern wood exterior, the glass lift gleaming from the ground level up to the turret roof. Easily the best villa in the area—my father had made sure of it when he bought the house as a first-anniversary gift for my mom.
My ears are still ringing when the driver parks outside the front gates and opens the car door for me with one white-gloved hand, reaching for my purse with the other. “Welcome home, Cao Nüshi,” he says.
“Thank you, Hong Shushu,” I tell him, my voice smooth and warm despite the quiver in my chest. Even when my boots landon firm concrete, I feel like I’m suspended in another reality. I should be relieved everything is the same as it was, but the clamp around my heart only loosens slightly.
The fire hasn’t happened. But that could just mean it hasn’t happenedyet.
I pause at the front door, taking care to smooth the fear out of my expression before stepping in.
My mom is upside down.
“...and hold for one... two... three... four... five...feelthe burn. Engage your core... ,” a smiling, serene-looking woman instructs from our TV screen. “Now, very slowly, lower yourself back down....”
My mom eases her famously long, toned legs off the wall, one at a time. Once she’s the right way up again, she dabs the sweat on her forehead and moves into squatting position. She looks like she could walk into the TV and take over the fitness instructor’s job at any second, with her perfect posture and purple activewear set.
“You’re home late,” she says. Totally oblivious to the fact that I’d seen this room on fire less than an hour ago, the white-oak cabinets behind her collapsing, the high ceilings black with ash, and her pounding on the doors, trying to escape. I swallow the lump in my throat and fight the urge to rush up and hug her and make her promise me she’ll stay safe, now and always.
It takes me a moment to even remember how to talk.
“I... was just out with a friend,” I say, unzipping my boots, my fingers quivering as I yank them off. “I’m going to go shower—”
The fitness instructor speaks over me. “We’re almost there! Just three more to go. Youfeelthat?”
I feel like I need to lie down and scream into a pillow.
“Three... two... one...”
My mom finishes her set, her face pink and dewy and somehow still photoshoot ready, then turns around. Looks at me properly for the first time since I entered the room. Frowns.
I’m wondering whether she’s sensed that something’s off when she steps closer. “When was the last time you got your hair done?”
I pat it self-consciously, try not to let my smile fall. “I don’t know. Like, three weeks ago?”
“Well, it’s lookingreallydry.” She picks up a strand between two crimson-painted fingernails to inspect it more closely, like it’s a frayed thread sticking out from her favorite blouse. A problem she needs to snip away. “Have you been swimming? Youknowhow badly chlorine damages hair—it’s already going yellow at the ends.”
“No, Mom. I haven’t been swimming. And I’ve been doing that treatment you recommended.” Honestly, I’d wanted to stop the treatment three days after I started it. It requires an hour to complete, from washing your hair to slathering it in products to combing it all the way through—gently,so the product has time to be absorbed—before washing it again. I’d rather go to bed an hour earlier, but my mom’s always said that beauty requires sacrifice.
“The treatment isn’t enough. You should still book an appointment to get it checked out,” she tells me, in the samesomber tone you’d tell someone to schedule a doctor’s appointment for a suspicious lump.
