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A roar, and Raymond charges the bartender. He hits him in the side … and the bartender disappears. Raymond crashes to the floor, screaming and clutching his stomach. Henry races over. Raymond keeps screaming and thrashing.

The bartender reappears behind the bar, casually takes down another glass, and starts polishing it.

“Stop it,” I snap at the bartender. “You’ve made your point.”

A bored wave, and Raymond stops thrashing, and for a second, horror fills me, the certain horror that he’s “stopped it” by killing Raymond. But when I run to where Henry crouches, Raymond lies on his back, breathing hard.

“What happened to him?” Noemi asks.

“Acid indigestion,” the bartender says, and I spin on him, but Noemi grabs my arm.

“Fine,” she snaps at the bartender. “You aren’t answering, so we’ll stop asking.”

“No, you won’t. Every time something strange happens, you’ll start up again. Oh my God, what’s going on? Scream. Cry. Bellow in rage.”

The slap of a door has us all going still. We look over to see the front door closing, and then we look each way, tensed as if someone walked in and we missed it.

But there’s no one else here.

Just us, circled around Raymond—

“Caleb!” Noemi screams, and she runs after him.

TWENTY-SEVENCALEB

When the bartender sends the man flying out the window, Caleb doesn’t want to care. Or, if he does, he supposes he should care about the fact that the man went flying without the bartender laying a finger on him. But the man—Ravi, that was his name, as much as Caleb has tried to forget it—is dead. Has been dead for years, and yet he was up and walking, and resurrection seems like a bigger mental hurdle to jump than telekinesis.

Caleb wants to cling to the “nightmare” explanation. Sit his ass down, close his eyes, and wait for it to all be over. But when you’re in a nightmare, do you ever realize that’s what it must be? All Caleb can think about is the bartender mocking them for saying the same things over and over.

What’s going on?

Am I hallucinating?

Is this a nightmare?

It should be a nightmare, but it doesn’t feel like one.

Caleb shouldn’t care that the man—Ravi—is lying on the ground, bleeding out, but he does.

He cares because Noemi cares. Just like she cared about the old man. Caleb still stings from the guilt of that. Noemi wanted to make sure that the old man couldn’t be alive, and he’d stopped her, and deep down, he knows that was the right thing to do, but he’s scared he made a mistake. So goddamn scared.

Scared of losing a girl who’s too good for him, who has always been too good for him.

If people have a lifetime allotment of luck, Caleb used most of his when he won over Noemi, and he keeps waiting for that allotment to run out. For her to look over, shake herself as if from a dream, and say, “What are you doing here?”

He’d fallen for her within a week of living in the shared house, and he’d barely even spoken to her. But he’d seen her, and more than that, he’d heard her, talking to others, always kind, always generous and so damn smart, and he fell hard. Then she’d realized he was struggling with the transition to college life and offered to help, and that sealed the deal. This was his perfect girl.

Caleb had one high-school friend at the same college, and so he’d confessed his feelings in hopes of getting advice.

“Uh, I really hate to say this, buddy, but she is miles out of our league. Look at her.”

“Yes, she’s pretty, but she’s also smart and really nice.”

“Which means she’s never going for guys like us. Not to mention the fact her parents are loaded and she owns the house you’re living in.”

“It belongs to her mom actually—”

“Noemi is hot, smart, nice, and rich. You’re … Well, you’re nice, obviously, and smart but…”