Chapter 1: Hidden Messages

**Kait**

You might say I’m a bit of an outcast.

I’ve never really belonged to just one place. In fact, I’ve been to more places than I could care to count.

I used to live in the quaint but horribly boring Edmond, Oklahoma. The only thing to do there on the weekends was getting drunk and party. However, I would rather be caught dead than in a stranger’s crowded, loud house.

No, I stayed close to my books. There, I found peace and comfort in an otherwise unfriendly world.

My grandmother, Ruth, but I called her Nan, had no issues with me being a homebody. It was easier that way, I think.

After raising my mother and dealing with her b*llshit, I’m certain Nan was more than grateful to have a nice, quiet teenager.

Nan was tired. I could tell just by looking at her how her gray shawl would slide down her withered back, and she didn’t have the energy to pull it back up.

That’s when I knew she didn’t have long.

It’s my mother’s fault, really. Nan might have lived longer if Mom hadn’t left me to the aging woman to raise. No one should have to chase after a small kid when they are that old.

Of course, Nan was only about eighty-five when she passed. But, as I later found out, her life was much more chaotic than I knew before I came to live with her.

That was the main reason dear Mom left me with her. I was too much like the mother she hated and desperately wanted to forget.

When I was little, and I mean really little, I vaguely remember Mom complaining about Nan about how crazy she was and that anything she said was a flat-out lie.

Then, I started to show….symptoms.

What symptoms, you ask? Well, I’m not quite sure how to explain.

I suppose it began when I told my mom not to go to work. I said there would be a fire. I don’t know how I knew. I just did. I remember the look she gave me that day. It was the look of pure and utter hatred.

But it wasn’t until that night that she decided I wasn’t worth her love.

She went to work despite my protests, and sure enough, there was an office fire near her cubicle. That night, she dumped me on Nan’s front porch, and I never saw her again.

Just before she left and her headlights faded into the black gloom, I heard her arguing with Nan.

“This is your fault! You and your shitty genes ruined my daughter! She’s just as crazy as you are! What did you do? Did you talk to her when I didn’t notice? What did you tell her to say?”

Nan didn’t respond. All I heard was silence on the other side of the door.

Later, Nan said that whatever my mother’s reason for leaving me, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t worth craving love from someone who would never give it.

Whatever the case, that was the first time I seemed to sense what lay beyond the present. I don’t like to call it seeing the future. The future isn’t fixed. But I do get “feelings,” just a glimpse of what might be.

It didn’t often happen, not at first.

Nan would ask me here and there if I had felt anything or sensed something. Each time, I told her no. Until I had a “feeling” she would get hurt going to the grocery store.

She didn’t say anything then, but she had felt the same. She went to the store anyway and broke her ankle, tripping over a can of green beans.

She didn’t even care about the hefty insurance money we got. All she could tell me was that she was proud of me. My talents were rare, and she was worried they would be gone forever in our family.

But there I was, her little psychic with freak powers.

I tried to ignore those “feelings” after that. I didn’t want to be the very thing my mother hated and abandoned me for.

It couldn’t be helped, sadly.

I was thirteen when I had my first vision, and that would be the one to haunt me even now.

In it, I saw a golden wolf with silver eyes that seemed to blaze in the dark. The wolf would walk out of a field of fire and look at me as if it knew me. Then, right behind it, another slightly larger wolf would come up. This one was black with those same silvery eyes.

The black wolf looked at me with remorse, hatred, and something else. I used to think it was a form of love or affection. Now, I know it was longing. For what? I don’t know. But it scared me then, and it scares me now.

I woke up in terror that night, and Nan quietly rocked me back to sleep.

I’ve had that same dream every night since then, except for one, the night Nan died.

I was sixteen and had just returned from working a shift at Dan’s Diner on Main Street. Before I even walked into the house, I knew it. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name. Nan was dead.

I opened the door, and there she was on her chair, the TV still on in front of her. Her head was tossed back, her mouth open, and her eyes wide.

I thought she was simply inhaling to say something for a moment, but then, as her glazed expression lay motionless, I knew she was gone.

The doctor said it was old age. She had gone while watching her favorite TV show, The Twilight Zone. It was painless, he said. She never felt a thing.

As much as I wanted to believe him, something told me Nan didn’t go so quietly.

Instead of getting kicked into the system, I opted to be emancipated. I was given full custody of myself and got my GED as soon as possible.

I couldn’t stay in that house, the same house my mother abandoned me in, and the same one Nan died in.

I left in my little blue Volkswagen Bug and hit the open road. I didn’t pick a destination. I just drove. The one thing that gave me some sort of direction was that vision I could never shake.

There aren’t wolves like that in America, or at least none that big. I had no idea where the vision was placed or when. I just knew that I had to be there, and I had to be there on time, whatever that meant.

I ended up somewhere in Dallas, Texas. I know, Texas? Why there? To be honest, I don’t know. But I’m glad I wound up there because that’s where I landed a gig in a bar. I was still underage then, so I could only wash dishes and clean up in the attached restaurant.

But, as the months passed, I picked up on a few things. Pretty soon, I was upfront, passing a drink around along with the best of them. This, of course, was kept well under the table. Thankfully, I passed for someone in their twenties.

I stayed until I felt it was time to move on. Since then, I’ve been moving from one city to another, searching for that one thing that would answer all of my questions.

So far, I have more questions than answers.

Eventually, my travels took me to Michigan, where I found the sprawling city of Cumberland. I don’t know why I hadn’t heard of it before. It’s large, and I mean LARGE. It’s larger than Boston, Chicago, or even NYC if you ignore the outer neighborhoods.

Here, I found a bar tucked away into the dead center of the city called Shady Lane. Aptly named, the place is hidden in a shady alley, and the whole room is clouded with a dank mist that seems to seep from the walls.

It smells of smoke and liquor, but those are things I’ve come to love in my chosen vocation.

I’ve only been here for less than a month, and already, I feel as though I’ve come alive with the vibration of the city.

I’ve heard a few locals call Cumberland the “place for weary souls.” It’s a place where outcasts are welcomed, or so I’m told.

Well, I can certainly classify myself as an outcast. Crazy psychic with no home or family? Twenty-three and no idea what I want to do with my life? This place was built for me.

***

I’m tidying up the bar, lost in my own thoughts and having no idea what my surroundings look like, when I hear the sound of someone clearing their throat.

I look up and am stunned, speechless. A man, tall with blond hair, blue-almost silver eyes, high cheekbones, and pecks that stand out in his tight collared white shirt, stands in front of me. He has a black suit jacket swung over one shoulder lazily as he stares back at me.

“Well?” he asks in a mesmerizing deep voice.

I’ve seen many VERY attractive men in my life, but this one tops the cake.

I blink my eyes, forgetting who I am for a second when I remember to respond.

“Huh? I’m sorry, what did you say?” I ask.

“Can I get a martini, please?” the man asks, slightly annoyedly.

I look down at my trembling hands.

Get a hold of yourself, I think. He’s just a guy. Just another random guy in the bar.

It’s a Tuesday, and I’m alone at the counter. Not many people show up on a Tuesday, so my boss, Jeff, thought it would be okay for me to manage things independently. I had been okay so far, until now, at least.

I look back up at the stranger and give him my best smile.

“Of course,” I say. “Coming right up.”

I pick up a glass and prepare the drink while that man sits on a stool across from me.

He’s looking down at his phone, but I can still see his eyes and eyelashes as they lazily flutter with every blink. There is something about this guy I just can’t put my finger on. Something about his eyes…