be…sure.” He could see her in his mind, the vision of her clear. Leaning over him, yelling his name while blood fell like rain all around them. Shaking his head, he shifted a little further from her on the couch. “You killed me.”
Rosalie’s brow was deeply furrowed. She had never seen such a nervous person in her life. It was as though she had beaten the shit out of him, or tortured him. The way he was acting, it was like…
As those three words left his lips, confusion dominated the emotions on her face. She just stared at him, not understanding what had just been said.
“In my… my vision. The one I had at the store. The shop I mean.“ He could barely breathe. “In my vision, you… you kill me.”
Chapter Eight
“But… how? I mean… what? Why?” Rosalie was struggling hard to keep herself under control. Inside, she felt like she was floundering. What reason would she possibly have to take another person’s life? She barely even knew Elijah! Sure he was weird, but killing him was an insane and inconceivable thing to her. The only person she really wanted dead was her father’s murderer. “Elijah, that’s just…” She couldn’t finish her sentence. Her lips were opening and closing, but no words were coming out.
“Yeah... So I’m going to leave now. I don’t think the airport and the ferry are that connected.” Swallowing hard, he pulled himself up from the couch.
“Wait!” She stood, too, then reached out and grabbed his right elbow. Ignoring his flinch, she maneuvered herself in front of him. “Wait. What else did you see? How do I kill you in this vision thing? Do you have these…visions…regularly? How do you even know if it will come true?”
Elijah chewed on his lower lip, half tempted to pull away from Rosalie and just leave. He didn’t have any ties to this place at all, and certainly none to her. Aside from, of course, the fact that she was going to kill him.
“Rosalie…just get out of my way.”
The tone of his voice shocked her, and she almost took a step away from him. Her fingers loosened around his elbow, and her eyes grew slightly wider than normal. From what little she had seen of Elijah, he was always stumbling awkwardly over his words. But now, that tone… it spoke of more than a struggling confidence. It made her wonder what—if anything—had happened to make him this way.
“No.” Raising her eyebrows and falling out of her initial shock, she let him go and folded her arms across her chest. Her heart thudded against her chest, and for a moment it felt like she couldn’t draw air into her lungs. “You know me by now. I’ll just follow you.”
Elijah stared at her for what seemed like many minutes. In reality, it was just a few seconds. He lifted his hands up from his sides and shrugged his shoulders up. “What the hell do you want from me? I told you…you kill me. So, I’m doing what every normal person would do in this very awkward situation: I’m leaving and getting the hell away from you.”
This time, Rosalie’s lips parted and she was certain that her jaw was somewhere very close to the floor. What on earth had just happened? She stared at him, her frozen state clear indication of her astonishment. Straightening, Elijah rubbed his hands down across the tops of his thighs. His jaw clenched together, and then he gave her a small nod. There was awkwardness to the way that he sidestepped around her, like he wasn’t sure what had just happened.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I… I just… I want to go, okay? And you’re not…“ He sighed and half turned his body toward her. “You’re not making it easy.”
“No, I get it.” She blinked a few times and swallowed hard. “But maybe if I knew what you saw, I could avoid wearing a certain shirt, or not go to a certain place.”
“I uh… I don’t think it works that way.”
Rosalie sighed, then chewed on her lower lip. “Look. Just sit here with me, and tell me. It’s not hard.”