You Should Have Seen This Coming

by Shani Michelle

Genres: YA Fantasy; YA Mysteries & Thrillers

Synopsis

A teen girl who sees visions of the past must use her gift to save a kidnapped classmate in Shani Michelle's high-stakes YA thriller You Should Have Seen This Coming!

Hayden sees the past. Just touching an object will occasionally give her flashes of the previous owner’s memories. And if that memory happens to be a deeply hidden secret, then she has no problem making you pay for your crime, in cash.

Cassie sees the future, and it sucks. Her dreams are filled with disasters that she feels compelled to stop, and could she please stop watching her boyfriend fall in love with someone else?!

But when Cassie tries to warn Hayden that her latest blackmailing scheme is a trap, she knows she’s really in trouble. Suddenly the upcoming kidnapping is all she can see, yet nothing she does stops it. And it’s all Hayden’s fault!

Can Hayden’s gift help her find Cassie before it’s too late?

Release date: April 12, 2022

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Print pages: 368

Sample

1caSsiE


“Almost got it,” Hayden Jefferies says. She’s crouched in front of the teacher’s desk, wiggling a straightened-out paper clip into the lock.

“We’re good,” Brody—my Brody—tells her, watching the hall from the window in the classroom door. “No sign of Donnelly.”

Hayden has some serious concentration going on. Nose scrunched, eyes lasered on the keyhole, hands steady. Her copper-brown hair falls in front of her face, but she doesn’t seem to notice or care.

“Yes,” she says as the lock gives a click and the drawer pops open. “That is how you do it!”

Brody rushes over to her.

“One, two, three,” she says, referring to the three phones sitting in the drawer. Mr. Donnelly must have confiscated them earlier in the day. He’s pretty much the phone police of Lightsend High. If he sees one, even gets a hint that someone has one out, he takes it and keeps it until the end of last period. No exceptions.

“You did it.” Brody picks up two of the phones in one hand and takes Hayden’s palm in the other. He gives it a light squeeze. “Thank you. This may be the key. We’re going to find her.”

Hayden gives a shrug and sucks in her bottom lip. She has one of those oh-it-was-no-big-deal-anything-for-you expressions.

I don’t want to see any more.

Their eyes are locked on each other.

I need to look away. Only I can’t.

The gaze they’re sharing is intense. Too intense.

Brody lets go of her hand and wipes a strand of hair off her face, his hand grazing her cheek. He lets it linger there.

They’re going to kiss. I know they’re going to kiss.

There’s a sound at the door, and both of them snap out of their love trance and turn to look.

I don’t see who it is.

My vision is over.

I’m back in my room, back on my bed, back to streaming Gilmore Girls. I hit pause. Why can’t my life be like Rory’s? That’s what I want. A mother-daughter wisecracking team, great boyfriends, where my biggest concern is whether to go to Yale or Harvard or that my mom doesn’t like that her parents are super rich.

I stand up and shake out my arms.

“Breathe,” I remind myself.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m holding the framed photo of Brody and me, tracing the outline of him with my finger. We’re at the town fair a few years ago. I’m carrying a colossal pink cotton candy. Brody had the guy make it triple the normal size because he knows how much I love the stuff. I’m laughing, my head thrown back, over something Brody said, and he’s looking at me, eyes filled with love.

He could always do that, make me laugh, smile, forget the otherworldly things I have to deal with. At least he used to.

Now when I think about Brody, all I see is him and Hayden. The constant visions of them that have been popping up since the start of summer and have been going strong ever since. The first one didn’t even feel like a vision. I was sure it was real, that I was living it. The second one almost got me. It still featured the two of them, only a different scenario. But now, having just finished vision number 888 of Brody and Hayden, I’m practically a pro. I know what I’m seeing is just a glimpse of what’s to come.

My phone buzzes. I know who it is, but I look anyway.

It’s Brody. A text.

Brody

Can we please talk?

My body clenches. I can feel my heart beating faster than usual. I’m tempted to answer. I want to answer. I still love him, but I ignore the message. He’s going to fall for someone else. I’ve seen it. I need to prepare for the inevitable.

Ice cream. That’s what Audra would say. Piles and piles of ice cream.

My best friend thinks junk food can solve everything.

I head to the kitchen but stop short when I see my dad there.

“Oh, Cassie,” he says, putting down the Wall Street Journal. “I didn’t know you were home.”

“I am,” I say.

“You doing okay?” he asks.

I nod.

“Good. Good.” He glances at me and then into his glass of brandy. My dad never looks at me too long. I’m not sure if it’s because I resemble my mom or because he thinks I killed her.

“School good?”

“Yep.”

He’s still studying his drink. “Brody treating you right?”

“He is.” I don’t explain that it’s over between us. I don’t want to get into it, and I know my dad doesn’t want to hear it. Especially not if I were to mention the word vision. I could use every four-letter word I can think of, and I don’t think he’d care, but try to talk about seeing the future and you’d think I told him I put poison in the school Jell-O. I learned long ago to keep my mouth shut around him about my visions.

“Invite him over for dinner one night this week,” he says. “Always like his company.”

Translation: He likes having a buffer so he can pretend he’s spending time with me without actually having to deal with me.

“Okay.”

He folds up his paper and picks up his drink. “I should go finish up some work and then call it a night. Don’t you stay up too late, it’s a school night.” It’s only eight p.m., but he wants to escape. “I’ll let you have some privacy. I know how you teen girls are.”

I force a smile.

I wish his words were true. Then he’d know that I just want him to be there for me.


2Hayden


No one does a good saunter anymore. I shake out my arms and loosen my body before I meander into the girls’ locker room Tuesday morning, doing my best to channel an old-timey sheriff in a Western film. Time to show the elite who’s boss.

Brooke Tamison and Fiona Gavini are standing off to the side. Both look up as I approach.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” I ask, stopping right in front of them.

Brooke’s whole body goes rigid. “We’re in the middle of something, Hayden. Get out,” she commands. Her dark green eyes narrow into slits and her nostrils flare. She’s perfected the look of someone in charge, I’ll give her that.

A for effort, but she’s not fooling anyone. She’s scared of me. The little tremble in her voice is a dead giveaway. I can’t really blame her. In my two months and change at Lightsend High, I’ve developed quite the reputation.

“Just what I need,” Fiona mumbles, throwing her head back, hitting the locker behind her.

I cringe. She couldn’t have meant to hit it that hard. I almost ask her if she’s okay, but then I remind myself that she’s the enemy. One of the school’s we-think-we’re-above-the-law-and-better-than-anyone crowd. The ones I can’t stand. The ones I’m taking down.

She lets out a sigh. One of defeat? Surprise? Disgust? It’s hard to tell.

“You know…” I shake my head. “If you’re gonna have a clandestine meeting, you really should come up with someplace more original. You’re making it too easy. It’s like you want to be caught.”

I take a seat on the wooden bench in front of them.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about or what you ‘think’ you know,” Brooke says, using her fingers to make quotation marks, “but this is between Fiona and me.”

She puts her hands on her hips and glares down at me, but regardless of our positions, we both know who’s in power.

I make sure to give her my sweetest smile. “Now it’s between the three of us, isn’t it?”

She knows she’s in trouble. They both do. I am the school’s self-appointed Robin Hood. Taking from the rich, spoiled, and corrupt, and giving to the poor—i.e., me. It’s the only after-school activity I find remotely entertaining.

“How do you keep doing this?” Fiona asks.

Now it’s my turn to play clueless. “Doing what?”

She sighs again.

We both know what she’s talking about. She wants to know how I keep finding out all this dirt on everyone. If I told her, she wouldn’t believe me, so I don’t bother to explain.

Not that this instance needed any noteworthy skills. Not with Brooke. She’s a special kind of egomaniac. The kind that doesn’t believe anyone will dare cross her. The kind where you just have to wait, listen, and watch, and you’ll have something on her in no time.

“You’re just as bad as all the people you hate,” Fiona tells me.

She’s saying this to me?

I don’t dignify it with an answer.

Not when the people she’s talking about told so many brutal lies about Leighton Chutney that she’s now being homeschooled. Or hit a dog with their car and just left it there. Or put laxatives in Kristoff McLeigh’s protein shake before his big football game with all the scouts watching.

Not even the same playing field.

I get justice. Or at least, a little revenge. So what if I pocket something on the side?

“Stop talking,” Brooke hisses at Fiona, before turning her attention to me. “You don’t have anything on us.” The glare she flashes could make blood turn cold.

“No?” I ask, plucking the thumb drive Fiona’s been holding from her hand. She really should have stashed it in her bag.

“Two cheaters for the price of one. Well, price of two. You can both pay up,” I say, lying back on the bench. I want to take in and savor every second of this. Sure, there are people at Lightsend who’ve done worse than Brooke, but this is personal. Brooke’s the one who went Mean Girls on me when I started school here. The compliments on my clothes that everyone knew were really insults. The whispers. Trash talk. Blocking my car in for hours. Spilling coffee on me. And little Miss Fabulous Fiona was always along for the ride. “Or if you prefer,” I continue, “I can let Mr. Thadwell know that one of the school’s top students got there by cheating, and another had a side business that helped her do it.”

“That drive proves nothing,” Brooke scoffs.

“Come now,” I say, matching her condescending tone. “Do you really think this is all that I have on you?”

Truthfully, yeah, it is. But she doesn’t need to know that. I’ll find something else. I always do.

I toss the drive up in the air and then catch it in my palm.

Right as it smacks my skin, my whole body shudders.

Now? Really??

There’s nothing I can do but watch.

A lavender bedroom. Cluttered desk. Books, papers, nail polish, makeup, laptop, some kind of trophy. I’m not quite sure where I am or what I’m seeing.

A hand pulls a drive out of the computer and shoves it into the pocket of her jeans.

“I have no choice.”

Of course. It’s Fiona’s voice. It’s her eyes I’m seeing through. I’m in her room. She’s on the phone, talking through her headphones.

“If I don’t give it to her, she’ll show the picture to everyone.”


Copyright © 2022 by Shani Michelle