You Should Have Seen This Coming
Shani Michelle
Published by: Swoon Reads
Publication date: April 12th 2022
Genres: Thriller, Young Adult
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. She will randomly wake up from dreams filled with disasters that she feels compelled to stop, and she would really like to 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. All her visions warn her of the upcoming kidnapping, 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?
Excerpt
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.
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Author Bio:
Shani Michelle is the author of YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING. She also works in TV news. When she’s not writing, she loves spending time with her husband, family, friends, reading, watching way too much TV, and coming up with new story ideas. (She’s also written several rom-com and middle grade novels as Shani Petroff)
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