Double Vision

  DEDICATION

  I dedicate this book to my incredible son, Cree, and my

  lovely and supportive husband, Cory.

  —Tia

  To my entire family—my mother, Darlene; father,

  Timothy; my brothers, Tahj and Tavior; sister, Tia;

  husband, Adam; son, Aden; and our sweet baby girl.

  —Tamera

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Cassie

  Chapter 2: Caitlyn

  Chapter 3: Cassie

  Chapter 4: Caitlyn

  Chapter 5: Cassie

  Chapter 6: Caitlyn

  Chapter 7: Cassie

  Chapter 8: Caitlyn

  Chapter 9: Cassie

  Chapter 10: Caitlyn

  Chapter 11: Cassie

  Chapter 12: Caitlyn

  Chapter 13: Cassie

  Chapter 14: Caitlyn

  Chapter 15: Cassie

  Chapter 16: Caitlyn

  About the Authors

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  CASSIE

  “ARE YOU KIDDING me?” I exclaimed as Mom pulled up beside a small, ramshackle house. “This so can’t be it.”

  “Stop it, Cass.” My twin sister, Caitlyn, turned and frowned at me from the front seat. “Mom’s stopping to check the directions. Right, Mom? I mean, obviously we’re not going to live here.”

  Our mother didn’t answer as she stared at the house in front of us. If you could call it a house. Neither our bug-specked windshield nor the hazy, late-September Texas air, thick as hot grits, was enough to disguise the ugly little place’s crooked shutters, the mold-spotted siding, or the overgrown front yard. Even the driveway was weed choked. It didn’t help that every other house on the block was perfect, with fresh paint and a tidy lawn.

  Mom’s silence confirmed my fears. “Oh, great. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse.”

  “Enough, Cassie.” Mom’s voice was clipped as she cut the engine. Her scarymama voice, Cait and I called it. “It’s been a long day, and I’m not in the mood. It might not look quite like it did online, but we’ll make it work.”

  “Yeah,” Cait said after a moment. “Um, it has potential. I guess. . . .”

  I blew out a sigh of annoyance. Couldn’t she admit just once that something wasn’t perfect? Cait had always been a glass-half-full kind of girl, but ever since Mom had announced this move—this stupid, crazy-bad-idea move—she’d become even more upbeat than usual.

  Me? I’d spent most of the past few weeks locked in my room. Mostly trying to figure out if the state of Texas would allow a not-quite-twelve-year-old to live on her own so that I could stay in San Antonio. Not that Mom would ever allow it. But a girl could dream, right?

  Anyway, it was no surprise that my sister and I didn’t agree on the move. We didn’t agree on much lately. Most people found it hard to believe that we could be so different, especially since we looked so much alike. As identical twins, we had the same big brown eyes, curly dark hair, and skinny legs. We had a few other things in common, too—we both loved dancing, spicy food, and singing in the church choir—but it stopped there.

  When it came to our personalities, we were night and day. Our differences hadn’t seemed to matter much when we were little; we were best friends and had shared everything. But the older we got, the less time we spent together.

  Mom unhooked her seat belt and climbed out of the car, stretching her arms over her head. It had been a long drive from San Antonio to the middle of freaking nowhere.

  I still couldn’t believe this was happening. When Mom had retired from the army a couple of years ago, I’d thought it was a good thing. No more worrying about her safety or moving every few years. She could even grow out her hair for a change, give up her boring army buzz and try some kinky twists or extensions, or maybe even a cool Afro.

  She had grown out her hair a little, but the rest of the plan wasn’t progressing quite the way I’d hoped. Mom had decided to go back to school—to the police academy. And when she graduated, it turned out to be harder than she thought to land a job in San Antonio, our home for the past two and a half years—a record for us. Instead she ended up getting recruited to fill a vacant spot in tiny Aura, Texas. Yeah, I’d never heard of it either. Like I said, middle of freaking nowhere.

  “So where are the movers?” Caitlyn said, tightening her ponytail elastic. Several curly black tendrils had already escaped and were sticking to her forehead in the heat. “I thought we were running late.”

  “We are.” Mom sounded grim. “I guess they’re late, too.”

  For a second I kind of pitied the movers. Mom isn’t the type of customer who settles for shoddy service. Almost twenty years in the US Army had made her appreciate promptness. I mean, she was known to ground me and Cait if we were even one second late for curfew.

  Not that I would have to worry about that sort of thing anymore. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to have much of a social life in this remote town. This did not look like a place fun ever visited.

  Forget it, I told myself, kicking a pebble into the long grass. Play it cool, girl. Mom may have lost her mind, but I’m sure it’s temporary. After all, she’s a city girl, too. She’ll definitely hate it here, which means we’ll be back in San Antonio before Christmas.

  The thought made me feel only slightly better. I already missed my friends, my school, my cozy lavender-walled bedroom in our old apartment—my whole life, pretty much. I was sure Cait and Mom had to be feeling the same way, even if they wouldn’t admit it.

  “Let’s take a look inside,” Mom said, checking her watch. “The kitchen looked nice in the pictures.”

  The kitchen was small and dingy, and it looked like there was mouse poop on the stove. Yuck. That just goes to show that you shouldn’t believe anything you see online. I hoped there were some decent take-out places nearby.

  Mom started opening drawers and peering into cabinets. Dust was flying, making my nose tickle. I stepped past her to look into the living room. Like everything else in the house, it was teeny. The carpet had once been white, or maybe beige, but now it was just plain gross.

  “Look, a fireplace!” Cait exclaimed, coming to join me in the archway between the kitchen and living room. “That’s cool.”

  “Yeah, because a roaring fire would really feel awesome right now.” I rolled my eyes and wiped the sweat off my forehead. “So where are our rooms?”

  “Your bedroom should be at the back of the house.” Mom’s muffled voice drifted out of the refrigerator.

  I followed my sister down the narrow hallway as we explored the place. The first doorway we passed showed a cramped, puke-green-tiled bathroom that looked like it had been installed when my great-grammy Rose was young.

  “This is an epic disaster,” I muttered.

  “Don’t be such a downer, Cassie,” Cait said. “This isn’t the end of the world, you know.”

  “Whatever,” I said, opening the next door we passed. “This one must be Mom’s room.”

  There were two more doors left. When Caitlyn opened the one at the end of the hall, we saw that it led out onto a rickety deck overlooking the backyard.

  I opened the remaining door, and inside was a small room containing two twin beds with bare mattresses.

  “Wait,” Cait said. “Where’s the other bedroom?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s got to be better than this one,” I said. “I call dibs.”

  Just then Mom caught up to us. “Listen, girls,” she said, clearing her throat. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. . . .”

  Uh-oh. Even Cait looked worried. The last time Mom began a sentence that way was when she first
told us we were moving.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I tried to find a three-bedroom house,” Mom said. “But there aren’t many rentals to choose from, and we didn’t have much time to find something, and, well . . .”

  “Hold on,” I said. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “We have to share a room?” Caitlyn cried out, sounding almost as horrified as I felt.

  “Sorry, girls,” Mom said, but she didn’t sound that sorry. “There’s no need to overreact here. You two have shared a bedroom before.”

  “Yeah, when we were six!” I exclaimed. “Get real, Mom. I can’t live with her—she’s a total slob!”

  “Better than being an obsessive neat freak!” Cait shot back, her lower lip quivering.

  “Enough.” Mom sounded stern. “I don’t need a snit right now. You both need to buck up and deal with it.”

  “No way,” I blurted out, tears forming behind my eyes. “Seriously, this has to be a joke.”

  I could feel my face getting hot, and I knew I had to get out of there fast, before I totally lost it. Pushing past my mother and sister, I raced for the door and ran out.

  2

  CAITLYN

  I WASN’T SURE why Cassie was acting so crazy. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. Cass and I used to be like two peas in a pod, but lately I just didn’t get her. I mean, I wasn’t thrilled about sharing a room either. But it wasn’t the worst thing ever. It might even be fun, as long as she didn’t try to alphabetize my shoes or something.

  Mom was rubbing her temples the way she did when one of her headaches was coming on. “I swear, that girl . . . ,” she muttered to herself. She caught me looking and straightened up, shoulders squared, military style. “Follow her, Cait,” she ordered. “I don’t want her getting lost and needing to be brought home by one of the other town cops. Talk about embarrassing.”

  Going after Cassie was about the last thing I wanted to do. It was hot, I had to pee, and I was totally worn-out from the long car ride. But I wanted to help, for Mom’s sake. This move couldn’t be easy on her either.

  “Sure,” I said, forcing a smile as I headed outside. “We’ll be back in a sec.”

  When we were little, Cass and I used to play a game where we took turns guessing what the other was thinking. We called it twintuition. Cute, right? But sometimes it really did feel like we could read each other’s minds.

  Closing my eyes, I tried to guess which way Cassie had gone, but those days of twintuition were long gone. So I picked a direction at random and headed down the sidewalk. It was Monday afternoon, and the neighborhood was deserted. I felt like the only person in town. The only signs of life were a squirrel dashing across someone’s yard and the sound of the cicadas in the trees. I wouldn’t have been shocked to see a tumbleweed come rolling down the street.

  At the end of the block, I hesitated. If I turned left, I’d be heading back toward the highway. Cassie was upset, but I seriously doubted she would try to walk all the way back to San Antonio. Hitchhike? Also doubtful. Cass liked to act tough, but I knew better.

  Glancing in the other direction, I caught a glimpse of store signs in the distance. Jackpot! Cass loved shopping more than life itself.

  A few blocks later I reached what had to be the town’s main shopping district. Both sides of the street were lined with tall, narrow, old-timey buildings made of brick or stucco and painted in all kinds of fun colors: cream, red, mustard yellow, bright blue. Cute coordinating awnings shaded the glass doors and big picture windows. I spotted a hardware store, a pharmacy, and even a barbershop with an actual striped pole out front. Adorable! There was still no sign of my sister, but I saw several kids around my age hanging out behind a big folding table in front of the Adams General Store.

  My heart started beating faster, and for a moment I wanted to turn and run. It was one thing for me to decide that I was going to make the most of this move—that this was a chance for me to reinvent myself, meet new people, have adventures—but it was another thing to do it. We’d been in San Antonio for a long time—almost three years. That was almost three years without being the new kids in town, almost three years without having to figure out who was who and what was where and how to make friends fast. I wasn’t sure I was ready to start all over again.

  Still, I didn’t have much choice, right? So I forced myself to smile and walk right up to those kids. I tried to look as friendly as possible.

  “Hi there, want to buy some baked goods?” a boy called out. He was skinny, with a big, happy, crooked smile and bright-red hair that looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb in a while. “It’s for a good cause—we’re raising money for the sixth-grade class trip.”

  Sixth grade. So these were some of my new classmates. Cass and I were supposed to start Aura Middle School on Wednesday.

  Meanwhile the two girls next to him kept staring at me. “Who are you?” one of them demanded. She had wavy brown hair, a round face, and rosy spots on her cheeks, kind of like a cartoon character. If her expression wasn’t cool-verging-on-hostile, I would’ve called her cute. “I’ve never seen you before.”

  “I just moved here.” Everyone always says my smile is my best feature, so I made the most of it now, even though she looked about as welcoming as a hill full of fire ants. “I’m Caitlyn Waters.”

  The other girl looked a little friendlier. Or at least not totally unfriendly. She was very pretty and very blond. While the other two kids were wearing Aura Middle School T-shirts, she was dressed in an expensive-looking pink beaded tank and a delicate heart-shaped necklace.

  “I’m Megan,” she said. “That’s Lavender and Liam. So you really just moved here?”

  “Yeah. We’re waiting for the moving van right now, actually.” I pointed to a plate of pastries. “Is that apple strudel? Yum—how much?”

  “Two dollars.” Lavender sounded kind of aggressive, like she was expecting me to start haggling.

  “I’ll take one, please.” I fished some money out of my pocket and handed it to Liam.

  “I made these myself,” Megan said as she offered me one of the sticky strudels. “Old family recipe.”

  “Cool,” I said. “I love family recipes. My Maw Maw Jean makes the best hush puppies you ever—”

  The rest of the comment caught in my throat. Because right then, as Megan handed me the pastry, something weird happened. Her fingers brushed mine, and my vision suddenly went funky. I found myself looking at two shimmery versions of Megan, one layered on top of the other. One version was dimmed away almost to nothing, as if someone had turned the brightness level on a computer screen all the way down.

  The top version was much brighter, almost too intense to be real. And instead of looking calm and normal, this Megan was red-faced and sweaty, her blond hair disheveled. She seemed as if she was screaming, her mouth open so wide it twisted up her whole face, yet I couldn’t hear anything except for a loud buzzing filling my ears.

  I gasped as I felt Megan yank her hand out of mine, and the buzzing sound disappeared instantly. Now instead of seeing double, I was face-to-face with all three kids. They stared at me, baffled expressions on their faces.

  “Are you okay?” the boy, Liam, asked me.

  “Whoa. Why’d she grab your hand, Megan?” Lavender asked.

  “I don’t know.” Megan stepped back, glaring at me with wary blue eyes. “She just went all psycho all of a sudden.”

  I staggered back a few steps, too. The strudel was lying on the sidewalk. I’d totally lost my appetite.

  “S-sorry, it was, uh, the heat,” I blurted out as I backed away. I’d never been as good at talking my way out of trouble as Cassie was, and right then my mind went completely blank. “Um, I was, you know . . .”

  I mean, what could I say? I had no idea what had happened.

  I only knew it wasn’t the first time.

  “I—I have to go,” I mumbled. I felt my foot slip on the strudel as I spun around, but I caught
my balance just in time and took off without a backward glance.

  3

  CASSIE

  WE’D ONLY LIVED in Aura for two full days, but I was already over it. I dragged my feet—as much as I dared in my cute new shoes—as I walked to school with Caitlyn on Wednesday morning. Yes, that’s right, I said walked. You know all those old people who talk about walking ten miles to school every day, uphill in the snow? Well, switch that to a little over a mile in the soupy, steamy Texas heat. It makes walking feel like swimming in mud. Welcome to my new and not-so-improved life.

  “Good thing we won’t be here long,” I muttered, trying to psych myself up.

  “What?” Cait glanced over at me.

  “Nothing.”

  She shrugged and kept walking. We hadn’t talked much for the past two days. Not since I’d bolted from the house and discovered there was really nowhere to go. I’d wandered around the pathetic collection of outdated buildings that Aura called a downtown until I ran into Cait. Literally. I’d stepped around a corner just in time for her to practically bowl me over.

  Naturally, I’d assumed that Mom had ordered her to track me down, and of course my twin had obeyed, like the good little soldier she is.

  Weirdly, though, Cait had barely glanced at me. She hadn’t even apologized for plowing into me. Instead she’d muttered something under her breath and hightailed it back to the house. Bizarre. But I’d followed her anyway. What else did I have to do? Besides, if we were going to have to share a bedroom, I wanted to get back in there first and claim the bed by the window.

  By the time we’d arrived, the moving van was idling out front and we got busy—sweeping, scrubbing, carrying heavy stuff around, hanging pictures, the works. Mom didn’t so much move into a new place as invade it, battering every inch of it into submission. Though actually I didn’t mind the work—when I was busy, it was easier to avoid thinking too much about our new life. For now, I tried to focus on the idea that this was temporary. Besides, our new rental needed all the help it could get.

  Almost two days later it was time for school. And if my short stint in Aura had convinced me of anything, it was that us living here was so not going to work. Mom would have to come to her senses soon and move us back to civilization.