Possession (19 page)

Dean nodded his head. “I always knew something was
wrong with that guy.” His eyes darted to Wendy, who was still braced as if to
run. “Maybe you should say something more to comfort your friend… She looks
like she’s about to scream for help.” He raised his hands as if in surrender
and smiled. “I come in peace. I promise.”

Wendy did not look amused.

I turned back to her. “I thought you couldn’t feel
the dead?”

“I can’t, but I
can
feel that he’s…wrong.” She didn’t look at Dean when she said
it. “Something about him is very wrong.”

Dean’s smile widened. “Thanks.”

“It’s not the killer. The spirit inside him is—it’s—”

Dean interrupted me. “It’s her boyfriend, Luke. He
died, and she decided she couldn’t live without him. I was comatose, so she
used me to bring him back.” He gave me a smile. “Unfortunately it hasn’t worked
out the way she hoped, because I’m back now and here to stay.” When I didn’t
speak up, he continued. “If Dr. Barton is the killer, then what do we do? We
have to tell someone. Call the cops.”

I let go of Wendy’s
hand. She didn’t seem as panicked, but she looked slowly back and forth between
Dean and me, her eyes wide.
The last thing I needed was for her to make
a scene. I looked around the room at the staff. “Who could we tell? Who would
believe us?”

Dean’s eyes scanned the room. “Yeah, that’s a
problem. No one is going to believe someone in a nuthouse.” His hand came down
hard on the table. “We have to do something. We can’t just let the wacko keep
killing.”

“We’re going to escape tonight.” This time my
words came out in a rush. “It’s not our concern. It has nothing to do with us.
Eventually, someone will stop him.”

“After how many more people die?” Dean demanded.

“We’re getting out tonight. That’s the plan.”

He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “And if
I say no? If I refuse to go?”

“You don’t have any say in the matter. Luke is in
charge at night,” I said, my voice hard.

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not going to be treated
like a puppet. I’ve told you: I’ll go along with this weird situation, but only
if I've got a say in the decisions regarding my body and where it goes.
It is my body
.” He emphasized each word.
“Even though your boyfriend is frantically looking for a spell to get rid of me
every chance he gets.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Wendy sat there,
silently watching us argue.

Dean continued, his voice now laced with anger.
“You can imagine how thrilled I am at the prospect of being torn from my own
body. It’s not going to happen, and I’ll do whatever’s necessary to defend
myself if the need arises.”

“Luke won’t do anything. I promise I won’t let
him.” I could tell by the look on Dean’s face that he didn’t believe me.

“And I’m just supposed to take you at your word?”

I was getting mad. No one likes to be called a
liar, and anger seemed to be my first reaction in most situations these days.
“I’ve
never
gone back on my word.”

“You aren’t willing to stay and help catch a
killer. You aren’t willing to put your neck on the line to save innocent lives.
Excuse
me if I don’t consider you a
model of goodness and trustworthiness,” Dean scoffed.

“I’m not going to risk our necks to try and take
down
Weatherton
.”

“Even if it’s the right thing to do?” he demanded.

This time
my
hand came down hard on the table. “I won’t risk losing Luke! Not again!”

Dean just stared at me before he looked at Wendy.
“Stop gaping at me like I’m some kind of freak. I promise I’m not going to hurt
you. I’m harmless, I swear.” He made an attempt to reinforce his words with a
nonthreatening smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, and the overall
effect was more awkward than reassuring.

Before Wendy could respond, the doors swung open
and a group of people came into the room. The breakfast crowd was here.

Dean got up from the table. “You guys going to
eat?”

“We have to wait for the nurse,” I answered.

He shook his head and gave me a lopsided grin, a
little more natural than the last. I got the feeling that the argument wasn’t
over, but he was willing to let it go for now. “You’re always getting yourself
into trouble.”

I started to argue with him, but Caroline appeared.
Dean walked away from the table and headed toward the line forming across the
room. I looked after him, smiling despite myself. He was hard to stay mad at.

The nurse looked down at me. “How are the two of
you getting along?”

“Swell,” I answered.

“Good. Since both of you have to be watched, we
decided it would be easier if we kept you together.”

I wasn’t following what she was saying. I looked
over at Wendy, but her head went down again and her shoulders slumped.

The nurse said in a cheerful voice, “You two are
going to be roommates.”

I wonder what my new roommate will say when she finds
a human heart and blood-soaked sheets stuffed behind the toilet.

Wendy and I
were standing in line, trays in hand.

“You
seem very fond of him.” She gazed across the room. Dean already had his food
and was sitting at a table by the window.

I
followed her gaze. “Dean? It’s complicated.” I wouldn’t have used the word
fond
. When I was around him I felt
confused and suspicious.

“I’ve
learned that most things are. During the day, he’s Dean, but at night, he’s…”

She
seemed to be searching for his name, so I answered her. “Luke.”

“And
you and Luke are a couple?”

I
nodded my head. “We are.”

“Have
you been together long?”

“About…four
months.” Has it really been only four months since I first walked through the
doors of the magic shop?
In some
ways, it felt like a lifetime ago. How could I explain to a complete stranger that
I’d come to have such strong feelings for Luke, a guy I’d only known for such a
short time?

Luke
. I wished desperately he was with me right
now. Since coming to the asylum, it felt like Luke and I hadn’t had much time
together.

“It
must be hard,” she said, as if reading my thoughts.

She can do just that
, I reminded myself.

We
slowly made our way in line until we were in front of the food servers. One of
the ladies scooped up runny oatmeal full of raisins and plopped it on my plate.

When
the lady offered some to Wendy, she shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

I
watched oatmeal jiggle around the plate as I moved down the line. I grabbed a
stale muffin.

“Some
days I swear I think they’re trying to poison us with this food,” I said in a
voice low enough that only Wendy could hear as I grabbed a carton of milk.

She
didn’t answer. She headed across the room, and I followed close behind. As we
passed Dean, he looked up and gave me a smile. My eyes focused for a
moment on his mouth, and suddenly I remembered the feel of his lips against
mine. Dean had accused me of feeling something when he kissed me by surprise,
and for the briefest moment…I had.

I turned away, shaking my head and trying to force
the image of those blue eyes out of my mind. I only feel like this because I’ve
been kissing that body. It’s Luke I care for, Luke I love. I glanced at Wendy’s
back and wondered if she was picking up on my thoughts. She stood for a moment
and, when I came up next to her, she averted her eyes and looked uncomfortable,
which made me think she probably had. Wendy pointed toward a nearby table and I
nodded my head.

Wendy sat down at the table, and I sat next to
her. I put my tray on the table and looked down at my food, but all I could
think of was that kiss. It was natural I would feel something when I kissed
Dean. I’d been kissing those lips for weeks. I’d been kissing
Luke
for weeks. But I knew deep down
that when I’d kissed Dean, it’d felt different.
He
was different. Then why did I react? Why had I felt a rush of
heat race through me when his lips touched mine? Another thought slid into my
mind.
Maybe Luke’s right—maybe we
should be looking for a spell to help him take over Dean’s body permanently.
My
eyes went to Dean. Taking over would mean that Dean’s essence—his entire spirit—would
be forced into that dark place.

Dean would be a prisoner in his own body.

I knew how that felt. It had only happened to me
for a few minutes, but the terror I’d experienced during the possession ritual would
never leave me. How could I, in good conscious, do that to another human being?
How could I do that to Dean? He wasn’t a bad guy. He’d been trying to help me.
He’d done nothing but cooperate during this entire crazy situation. How could I
banish him forever? Dean looked my way, our eyes met, and he gave me another
smile. I blushed and looked away.

Wendy was watching me out of the corner of her
eye.
Who is this girl?
She seemed to
be picking up a lot about me, but I didn’t know the first thing about her.
“Tell me something about yourself.”

If she looked uncomfortable before, now she looked
like she was ready to bolt. But she didn’t; she stood her ground and let out a
little sigh. “There’s not much to tell,” she said, not meeting my eyes.

Why is she being evasive? What secrets does she
have? Too bad I can’t get a glimpse into her mind… “You said you were in
another asylum before this one?”

There was a long silence before she finally
answered, “I was.”

“Were you there long?”

“A few years. It’s not something I like to talk
about.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, and her body language was making
it pretty clear that she wanted me to stop asking questions.

It’s okay for her to ask me things, but apparently
it’s not okay for me to pry a bit into her life? “Now that they let you out of
solitary, will your family be coming to visit?”

She cleared her throat. “My mom…she can’t visit.
She’s in an institution. An asylum.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. When I didn’t
say anything she continued. “I don’t really know her. They institutionalized
her when I was quite young.”

“And your dad?”

“He’s not around much. He’s a recruiter of sorts.
He’s always on the move, traveling around the country.”

I knew what it was like to be without family. But
I’d had my family around me for a good portion of my life. I wondered what it was
like to be raised without a mother, to be raised with an absentee father.

She seemed to realize where my thoughts were
heading. “I had a governess who took care of me. And a tutor.”

I’d never known anyone with a governess and a
tutor. Wendy must come from serious money. “Sounds like a lonely way to grow
up.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It wasn’t bad. It
didn’t get bad until a few years ago.” She started rubbing her wrist.

I forced myself to take a bite of food. After I
finished breakfast, we would be heading back to my room. I have to tell her
about the heart and the bloody sheets before we go in there. At the thought of
the gruesome mess, I lost my appetite. I dropped my fork and turned to her.
“There’s something I have to warn you about. When we get back to the room…” I
suddenly wasn’t sure how to tell her.

I had her full attention. She looked at me with
open curiosity. She might think I was nuts when I told her what happened, but
the only thing to do was come out with it. “I found a—well, someone left
a—”

“Hi.” Out of nowhere, Andrew sat down at the table,
interrupting me before I could finish. When he looked at me, he had a wide
smile on his face, but the moment his gaze turned to Wendy, the smile vanished,
only to be replaced with a pained expression. His hand went to the pouch around
his neck.

That’s weird. “Andrew, what’s wrong?” I asked
gently.

He pointed a finger at Wendy. “She’s a reader.” A
look of fear spread across his face. “Stay out of my head,” he whispered.

Wendy didn’t say one word. Her head was down, and
she seemed to be concentrating on the empty tabletop in front of her.

Andrew’s voice rose without warning. “Stop it!” He
stood and then screamed at her. “Get out of my head!” And with those words, he
turned and ran.

I watched him make his way across the room and out
the cafeteria doors. Focusing my attention back on Wendy, I asked, “What just
happened?”

Wendy shrugged her shoulders but didn’t bother to
answer. I looked toward the doors where Andrew had disappeared.

When I glanced back at her a few moments later, I
could have sworn I saw a smile slide across her face.

* * *

After we ate, Wendy wanted to go back to the room. I
reluctantly agreed, and we headed down the hall. An orderly followed us out of
the cafeteria. We had a shadow. What would I do if that shadow followed us into
the room? I had to tell Wendy about the human heart. There was no way to hide
it. She would see the bloodied bedding as soon as she entered the bathroom. If
the orderly didn’t follow us in, he would surely hear her screams when she
realized what a gruesome thing she was looking at. Maybe the best thing to do
was to show her and then tell her the story. At least that way she wouldn’t
stumble onto it. I quickened my steps, walked ahead of her into the room, and
made a beeline for the bathroom.

I went inside and closed
the door behind me. I turned around, looked down at the toilet, and—there
was nothing there.

The bedding, the heart,
the blood—it was all gone. The room was clean. Too clean. The floors
sparkled and even the toothpaste in the sink had been wiped away. And someone
had replaced the broken mirror.
I came out of the bathroom, still
in a bit of shock. We were alone in the room, behind a closed door. The orderly
had not followed us in.

“What’s wrong?” Wendy sat down on one of the beds.

I shook my head. “Nothing.” I pointed to the bed
she was on. “That’s mine.” I gestured toward the other bed. “You can have that
one.”

She got off the bed and went over to the other
one. She sat on the edge, her legs dangling, not quite touching the floor. She
was watching me now as I started pacing back and forth across the room.

My mind was racing. Who had come in and taken the heart?
If the staff had found it, I had no doubt they would have come into the
cafeteria and dragged me out. There would have been a big scene, a lot of
shouting and blaming, and I was sure restraints and drugs would have soon
followed. If it wasn’t the staff…then who? It couldn’t have been Dean. He was
still in the cafeteria when we left.

“Are you okay?” Wendy asked.

I stopped pacing and looked over at her. “I’m
fine.”

“Clearly you aren’t.”

If I didn’t tell her, she would just pull it from
my head eventually, especially since I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it.
“Someone left a pool of blood and a human heart in my room last night.”

The news didn’t seem to upset her at all. She
looked around curiously, and when she could find no evidence of blood or gore,
she looked at me quizzically. “Where is it?”

“It was in the bathroom, but I just went in there
and…it’s gone.”

“Someone came and got it?” I looked at her, ready
to defend myself from what would be perfectly justifiable doubt, but I saw in
her eyes that she believed me—that she had seen the truth of my story in
my mind.

I was trying to work it out in my head. I started
muttering to myself. “It wasn’t a nurse. No way they’d let unwilling organ
donation slide.”

“It was the janitor.” She said it in a matter-of-fact
tone.

“How do you know?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I just do. Sometimes
I know things. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. I can’t always turn it on or
make it work.” For a moment she seemed to forget I was there. This time she was
the one talking to herself. “Sometimes when I need it most, it won’t work at
all.”

The janitor. The old man who talked to me in the
common room. Why is he protecting me? None of this makes any sense. “It just
seems odd that he would take it away without telling anyone. I mean, I don’t
know him. I’ve only seen him a few times in the hall.”

“Good thing he did. I can’t imagine a human heart with
bites taken out of it would go over well with the staff.”

“I never said anything
about the heart being bitten
.” As crazy as it sounds, for one second I
actually wondered if it could have been Wendy. Did she leave the heart in my
room? But why would she do it if she didn’t know me? She hadn’t been let out of
solitary until that very morning. I was seriously starting to lose it, being in
here. I was starting to get paranoid. The sooner we got out of this place, the
better.

“Can you tell me who did it?” I demanded.

She shook her head. “It’s not something I can
control. I just know things and then sometimes I don’t. It’s hard to explain.”

She seems to have an easy enough time picking up
my
thoughts.

“Because they’re easier to read—your
thoughts, I mean—because you broadcast them so loudly.” She looked
apologetic.

I was starting to understand Andrew’s reaction.
All I could think at the moment was,
get
out of my head
. The scary thing was that Andrew was wearing a protection
pouch, but it didn’t seem to stop her. How strong is she?

“Thoughts are easier to read, especially when I’m
physically close to a person.”

Without realizing it, I took a few steps back.

But then she’d read the runes and foretold my
future. “How do you know things before they happen?”

She shrugged her shoulders again. “I don’t know.
Mainly I get glimpses.”

“Do they always come true?”

“Mostly.”

I thought back to what she had said to me.
Surrounded by flames…bound to someone…evil
and death
.

As if following my thoughts again, she said, “Runes
help focus the images. Runes, tarot, and those types of things sort of focus
your abilities—heighten them or narrow them in. Like, maybe I see you and
have no ideas or images of your future, but you ask me to do a rune reading and
you touch the stones and then I do the layout, and I can see something in your
future.”

“But sometimes you’re wrong?”

“Sometimes.” She looked away when she said it.

I didn’t believe my fate was already written. I’d
always believed you could change fate. Take a different road or open another
door, and things would shift and the path you went down would be different. As
far as I was concerned, you crafted your own fate every day with each random
decision you made.

I looked at the closed door. “I guess our
bodyguard will be following us the rest of the day.” My worry was that the
orderly posted outside would stand watch over the room at night. But why would
he? They lock us in. Besides, no one knows I have Mildred’s keys. My fingers
drifted over the thin lump in my waistband. “I usually go into the common room
to play checkers with Andrew, but I guess now that you’re with me, that’s out.
He didn’t seem too happy to see you.”