“Here ya go, Rowan,” said the barista, Chloe. “Have you made any progress?”

I sighed as I brought the fourth latte to my lips. “I think my sentence count is now a grand total of five.” I’d been here for hours and managed five sentences. Yay. Look who’s winning.

The words were in my brain, but the second I tried to type them into my laptop, my mind seized up like it had performance anxiety. If only I could trick it into writing—sneak the words out without my brain realizing what was happening. Some kind of writing ninja.

“Well, that’s better than the four you had before.” Chloe smiled, the tips of her ears disappearing into her close-cropped blonde hair. “Hey, I’m gonna take a break. I’m not technically supposed to leave the bar empty, but… you know, new moms sometimes have to go, um, make a latte.” She laughed weakly.

World-class pun. Terrible timing. I eyed the drink in my hand.

“Anyway, it’s usually dead around now. It’s just you and that guy over there and he’s been camping here forever. I’ll be back in thirty minutes, okay?”

I nodded and turned back to my laptop.

Fine, I thought. Forget the chapter. I’ll just write a paragraph. My therapist would be thrilled. Set small, achievable goals every day, she says. It feels good to feel accomplished, she says. Blarg. Whatever.

It’s not bad advice. But accomplishment isn’t really my issue. It’s the rest of my senses.

The bell above the door chimed. A girl slightly younger than me stepped inside, long golden hair catching the light. She wore oversized white-rimmed sunglasses, a pink tank top, black shorts, and matching flip-flops with polished pink toes and fingers.

The familiar tingle started behind my temple, and I braced for what I knew was coming. Another premonition. 

Flicker. A man’s bare forearm. A gold Rolex and taut muscle.

Flicker. The blonde girl, screaming. Blood on her face.

Flicker. Darkness.

This. This is why I need fucking therapy. I kept seeing these things. My family on my mother’s side called us Banshees. I’m not super sure on that. Weren’t banshees just supposed to scream when people are going to die? 

Well. Okay, fine. My premonitions often make me want to scream because I see such awful things and there is usually nothing I can do about them. Not that you need trauma to justify therapy. I think everyone needs to have a therapist to talk to, but come on. I got stuck with one of the worst psychic curses imaginable: glimpses of awful futures I can almost never stop.

Except maybe today.

I flicked my eyes to the corner booth. The man with curly brown hair and loafers was standing again. This was the fourth girl he’d approached since I’d arrived. He hadn’t even glanced at me.

I let my black hair fall forward like a curtain as I sipped my latte. Too old for his taste, apparently. Each of the girls had been a little younger than me. Two were blondes. Only this one looked natural.

He murmured something to her. She smiled—hesitant, unsure—but didn’t walk away. He casually rolled up his sleeves, revealing the Rolex on his wrist.

Holy shit.

Screw the writing. This was it. I might actually get to stop a premonition.

I bolted up, abandoning my laptop, phone, and latte, and rushed toward her. I threw my arms around her shoulders and pushed away the arm the man was trying to snake around her.

“Molly!” I blurted, making up a name on the spot. “Oh my God, I didn’t even see you come in—I was totally zoned out.”

To her credit, the girl didn’t shove me off or cuss me out. I pulled back slightly, just enough to wedge myself between her and the man now gritting his teeth.

I laced my fingers through “Molly’s” and looked him dead in the eye as the bell chimed again. A large man built like a firetruck stepped inside. Perfect.

“Do you know him, too?” I asked my new friend.

“Uh, no. This is Tim. He asked me to help with his car.”

“Oh, interesting,” I said, louder than necessary. “Funny, he never asked me.”

She squeezed my hand. Thank God.

The beefcake guy behind Tim raised an eyebrow at the tension in the room.

“Oh good. Baby, you’re here,” I said to him with an exaggerated, syrupy smile. I yanked Molly closer and batted my lashes. “Tim here accidentally asked the wrong girl for car help, baaaby.”

“Yeah?” Beefcake rumbled.

“You know Molly. She’d probably make the car implode just by touching it.” I cooed. She squeezed my hand again—I wasn’t sure if it was thanks or protest.

Tim scoffed. “It’s not that serious. Your crazy girl is blowing this out of proportion.” He tried to step around us.

The Beefcake stopped him with a hand to his chest. “Hold on. I’ll help you out, brother.”

“You should put a leash on your girl,” Tim snapped. “She’s being hysterical. I’d rather figure it out on my own than listen to her talk.”

Wrong move.

The big man grabbed a fistful of Tim’s baby-blue shirt and shoved him into a chair. “My girl doesn’t wear a leash. She can talk as much as she wants. You got anything else to say, honey?” He asked me.

Oh my God. If I were straight, that might’ve done something for me. 

“Only that this is the fourth blonde he’s approached for ‘help.’ Which, apparently, he doesn’t need that bad since he skipped me, the cops who came in earlier, and the two trucker dudes.”

Molly’s hand clenched hard in mine.

“You’re just a jealous little bitch,” Tim growled.

That’s when Beefcake shoved him harder, kicked a chair into place, and pushed him into it with a flumpf. “You have five seconds—”

Tim leapt up—and caught a solid fist in the throat.

“No, I don’t fucking think so,” Beefcake growled. “You’re staying right there.”

He slightly turned his head to us without taking his eyes off Tim. “I’m Micha, a firefighter.” Oh good, a real name. 

“I’m H-Haley,” the girl next to me said with a slight tremble.

Tim tried to get up again, but Micha kicked his shin, hard. “You’re not going anywhere. Did you know six other young women—around your age, all light-haired—have gone missing in the last six months?”

My stomach dropped. I hadn’t heard that. Haley collapsed into a chair, trembling. She didn’t let go of my hand, thought, and I sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“I’m Rowan,” I said to her and Micha.

“Where’s the barista?” Micha asked, eyes still on Tim.

“Uh… yeah, she’s… um, making a latte,” I said.

“You got a phone? Call 911. I know a detective who’ll want a word.”

“It’s over there,” I said, gesturing at my table.

Haley gripped me tighter, clearly not wanting me to leave.

“That’s fine. Take mine.” Micha turned so I could grab it from his back pocket. “1647,” he added, as I powered it on. “Look for ‘D.E.T. Carter’ in contacts. Tell her Micha’s made a citizen’s arrest.”

I did as told. Detective Carter sounded exactly like someone who doesn’t waste time. She was on her way before I’d even hung up.

Glass shattered behind us. Chloe stood at the counter, pale and wide-eyed. “What the fuck? Dad?”

“Detective Carter’s on the way,” Micha said, turning and taking his eyes off Tim for the first time. “Close the shop, keep anyone else out—”

Tim dove sideways out of the chair, slipping from Micha’s grasping arms and lunged, diving over the counter and seizing Chloe by the neck. She didn’t flinch. She just stared at Micha like she was waiting for him to finish his thought.

Haley screamed.

Micha growled.

Chloe yawned.

I blinked—and Micha was behind Tim in a flash, arm around his throat, twisting his other behind his back until the man slumped to the floor, unconscious.

I collapsed into a chair next to Haley.

Questions of ‘what was that?’ and ‘how’d he do that?’ would come to me later. They would also be answered later as I started to hear more about False-kin. But in this moment all I felt was relief. I’d done it. I actually saved someone. Usually, the visions came too late. I couldn’t change anything. But this time—

“You saved my life,” Haley whispered. “Both of you.”

Micha was tying Tim up with some cord he’d found. “Don’t mention it. She saved your life,” he said, chucking his chin at me. “I just happened to be here.”

The door chimed and a black woman in a crisp suit and tie stepped in with a man in an equally sharp suit behind her. “I’m FBI Detective Carter,” she said, sliding off her Ray-Bans. “Thanks, Micha. We’ll take it from here.”

Turns out, Tim was the man who abducted and murdered those six missing girls. He didn’t even have a name yet, so no wonder we didn’t know to be looking out for him. Haley and I are best friends now. Micha and Chloe host game night once a month while Chloe’s grandma watches her baby in the next room.

Adrenaline? Total fiber for the brain. I finished my book—after a genre switch and a few rewrites. It’s called Bystander Intervention by me, Rowan McDaniel. ‘See something. Say something. Save something.’