But when the alternative was dying?

Precognition.

Extrasensory perception.

Witchcraft.

It didn’t matter what anyone called it: In Meena’s opinion, as a skill, it was totally useless.

Had it been particularly helpful when she’d finally managed to convince her longtime boyfriend, David, about the tumor that she could sense was growing in his brain?

Sure, she’d saved David’s life (had they found the tumor any later, it would have been inoperable, the doctors said).

But David had left Meena immediately after his recovery for one of his perky radiology nurses. Brianna healed people who were sick, he’d said. She wasn’t a “freak” who told them they were going to die.

What had Meena gotten out of saving David? Nothing but a lot of heartache.

And she’d lost half the down payment on the apartment that they’d bought together. Which she still owed him. And which he was being a total jerk about her paying back on her pittance of a salary.

David and Brianna were buying their first house together. And expecting their first baby.

Of course.

Meena had learned from that experience-and all the ones before it-that no one was interested in finding out how they were going to die.

Except her best friend, Leisha, of course, who always listened to Meena…ever since that time in the ninth grade when Rob Pace asked her to that Aerosmith concert, and Meena told her not to go, and Rob took Angie Harwood instead.

That’s how Angie Harwood, and not Leisha, ended up getting decapitated when the wheel of a semi tractor-trailer came spinning off and landed on top of Rob’s Camaro as it was cruising down I-95 on the way home from the concert.

Meena, upon learning of the accident the morning after it occurred (Rob had miraculously escaped with only a broken collarbone), had promptly thrown up her breakfast.