Chapter 1

“Maddie, I don’t think this is a good idea.” I protest for the millionth time to my identical twin sister, who is older than me by just three minutes, as I watch her primp in front of the mirror.

Her long fiery red curls hang in perfect ringlets to the bottom of her back, stopping just above the jean mini skirt she is wearing. She has a black silk tank top on that shows her toned abs and her belly button ring. Her exotically slanted green eyes have black eyeliner perfectly applied around them making them pop in her heart shaped face.

Her full lips have dark brown matte lipstick that she forms into a pout as she gazes at herself excitedly in the mirror.

“Oh, come on Max!” She exclaims in irritation. “It is our eighteenth birthday and I want to do something adventurous for once! Going to The Ancient Tower tonight will be fun, I promise! You have heard all the rumors that it is a paranormal hotspot! It’s perfect for two psychics’ like us!”

“You know Uncle Lincoln will punish us big time if we get caught!” I try to appeal to her tiny responsible side. “Our fake ID’s probably won’t work anyways and who says they will even let us in the door Maddie? They have bouncers at the entrance!”

“I want to find other gifted people like us Max!” Maddie turns to me seriously.

“We live in New Orleans; the paranormal capital of the world and we have never met another person like us! How lame is that?”

“Alright, fine.” I drop my gaze from her earnest expression with a sigh.

I step up to the mirror now that Maddie has moved on to zipping up her knee-high black leather boots. Maddie and I are total opposites in every way. She is a bold extrovert that craves danger and excitement while I am so shy it is nearly painful. I am happy just curled up with a good book.

Unlike my twin, I am wearing a white lacy sleeveless dress that swirls around my knees. My makeup is in naturally flattering tones that give me a much more innocent look that my sister. On my feet are dainty white heeled sandals.

I have always been comfortable living in my sister’s shadow. She leads the way and I happily follow along next to her. She has always been fiercely protective of me, which to be honest, probably just enables me to be even more bashful.

Maddie dated a few guys while we were in high school, but I felt too different than all the other kids in school. The fact that my sister is telepathic and can read everyone’s minds doesn’t faze her at all. She uses it to her advantage when she is dating someone.

Me on the other hand, feel like a circus freak compared to other people my age. I learned from a very young age not to touch anyone or anything because it brings on a vision. How can I date someone when I can’t even touch them?

Maddie and I have always been able to communicate with each other telepathically. I just can’t imagine how other people get along without that ability. We aren’t telepathic with our Uncle Lincoln, but we aren’t that close to him. Our dad wasn’t gifted like us and we know next to nothing about our mother due to the fact that she died when we were born.

Our mother was attacked while she was pregnant with us and never survived it.

She was placed in a medically induced coma until our birth months later and Dad pulled the plug, letting her go.

Maddie says she doesn’t think Mom was gifted like us after listening in to Dad’s thoughts for so many years so we don’t know where our abilities come from. Dad never knew and neither does Uncle Lincoln.

My visions have saved one life and helped many others over the years. My visions have always come to fruition and have never led me astray. When we were in first grade, I had a vision that a girl in our class ran out into the street from the playground where she got hit by a car. I remembered hearing a boy on the playground scream the ‘F’ word just as the girl headed for the street. That is what saved her life. Maddie and I managed to push her out of the way of the car in time.

I have had visions of the same four men since I was just a small girl. The visions have never given me any information about them. I never hear them speak. I don’t know their names. I just know for a certainty that Maddie and I will meet them someday and that two of them want to harm us, I just don’t know which two.

Last night I watched one of them attack Maddie in a dream. I am still on edge after that vivid reverie because I have never witnessed them take action against us before.

Maddie, being telepathic, can see the same visions that I see by accessing my thoughts, so I couldn’t hide them from her if I tried.

I follow Maddie down the steps that lead down to the backyard from our third story bedroom quietly. Uncle Lincoln is in the living room watching television after taking us out to dinner for our eighteenth birthday and doesn’t know that we are sneaking out.

Maddie leads us around front and down the sidewalk to the streetcar stop. The nightclub, The Ancient Tower, is over a dozen blocks away in the French Quarter.

I can’t shake the feeling of foreboding that has been hanging over me all day as I watch Maddie fidget eagerly in her seat. We hop off of the streetcar just a block away from our destination and hold hands as we hurry up to the nightclub’s drab exterior.

There are not one, but two, bouncers at the door when we step up to it. One of them raises his eyebrow at us cynically when Maddie hands him her fake ID. The other one, after a strange expression crosses his face, snatches Maddie’s ID from his buddy and scans it briefly before handing it back to her with a nod. He opens the door for us with a beaming smile as he leans over and whispers something I cannot catch to the other bouncer as Maddie practically drags me inside impatiently.