Page 105 of A Violet Obsession

“How are you going to do that, Lily?”

Lily smiles. “I’ll ship it. The clock box. It’s right there and I haven’t sealed it yet. It fits snug if I push it deep in between the foam layers on the side.” A pause. “It’s safe in there. I did it. My parents are proud of me.”

A sick feeling turns in my stomach as I realize they used her grief and loneliness against her.

“Good job, Lily. You completed the task. The next time you hear your special song, you will enjoy it and relax. Your task is over. You were successful, and we are all proud of you.”

Lorelei continues speaking and doesn’t so much as glance up when Tate tilts his head toward Nora and they start talking about Lily like she’s a specimen.

“Well?” Tate asks Nora.

Nora doesn’t hesitate. The crystal at her throat catches the low light from the lamp as she leans closer to him. “It’s real. I’ve sat with hundreds of people who claim to have a gift. They were performing. Wanting it to be true.” Her eyes don’t leave Lily’s face. “She’s the opposite. She’s spent her whole life ignoring it, fighting her natural abilities.”

“Clairvoyance?” The word comes out of him almost desperate in its eagerness.

I turn to glare at the two of them, but I might as well be invisible.

“Perhaps, or it could be something else. She appears to have a sensitivity to a frequency that lets the messages come through.”

Tate exhales slowly through his nose, and I watch the calculation move over his face. “Could she channel it? Not simply receive, but direct it? Could she be the missing piece we need to help the others reach what they’ve been working towards?”

“With training.” Nora finally glances at him. “With the right resonance to amplify her⁠—”

“But is there time?”

Every alarm I have is going off in my head. They’re talking about using Lily. Experimenting on her somehow.

Keeping her.

Tate stands, gathering the oxygen line and Nora hovers in case he needs help. He pauses at the door and looks back at Lily, slowly coming out of her trance with Lorelei’s direction.

The warmth on his face is at complete odds with his words. “She’s going to be such an important addition.”

37

LILY

Surfacing feels like swimming through warm syrup.

I hear Lorelei’s voice, and then I’m blinking at the ceiling with a dry mouth and a headache blooming behind my eyes.

“Hey,” Finn’s face slides into view above me, and the careful blankness he’s been wearing for these people cracks just enough that I can see him underneath it. His hand finds mine. “You’re back.”

“No more secrets,” I try to joke.

He takes my hand and helps me off the chair. I’m surprised to find my legs are wobbly. My eyes scan the room. Tate is gone, and Lorelei is gathering her things in unhurried movements, already finished with us.

With a parting, “You did beautifully,” she’s gone.

Finn doesn’t say anything, but his expression is dark, which scares me, because I don’t know what he’s thinking or which part of what I revealed is the problem.

Probably that you blurted out you loved him in a room full of your kidnappers.

Finn presses a glass of water from the carafe on the table into my hands and watches me drink like it’s his sole purpose in life.

“My head hurts,” I admit, because instead of fading like it normally does at Dr. Williams's, it’s intensifying.

The door opens.