“Which rules?”
“All of them,” I said, not wanting to single out the dating rule.
She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about your classmates. Do you like them?”
“Yes.”
“Even Emma? I hear she hasn't spoken a word to you.”
“She's not bad,” I answered truthfully. I didn't know what else to say. I didn't dislike Emma. There was something about her that struck a cord inside me. Sympathy, maybe? I knew what it was like to be the girl everyone hated.
Angel shifted in her seat. “I heard you fought a group of Sybilins a few days before you arrived at camp. Is that true?”
“Apparently you hear a lot of things,” I muttered. She made me feel like I'd been spied on. Hello. I probably had been. “If you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about that night.”
“Phoenix.”
That was it; that was all she said. But I found myself sitting up, shoulders squared, spine straight. “Yes?”
“You want to answer my question.”
Yes, I thought, a little dazed, I wanted to answer her question. “I did fight a group of Sybilins,” I found myself saying. I frowned.
“Did you feel guilty afterward?”
I shook my head, bringing myself out of that strange bemusement. “For?” I relaxed against the couch. Thank God she hadn't asked about Ryan. If I admitted to being attracted to him, would I be ordered to stay away from him?
“Did you feel guilty for hurting another living thing?”
“No. I didn't.” Truth.
“Why is that, do you think?”
“I had to stop them. They were evil and would have killed my friends.”
Again, she arched a brow. “And not you?”
“No.”
“Interesting.” She lifted a digital notebook from the table and balanced it on her lap. Typing, she muttered, “That's very interesting.”
“Not really,” I said.
Pausing, she glanced up. “And why is that?”
“I wouldn't have let them.”
Slowly her lips stretched into a smile. That smile lit up her entire face and made her…beautiful. Somehow more beautiful than even the perfect Le'Ace. Her skin glowed, her eyes became alive. Liquid amber. This woman was mesmerizing. “Good answer.”
“Honest answer.”
She typed something else in the notebook. “Let's talk about your mother's rejection of you the morning after the fight.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. No way. I was not going there. “She didn't reject me,” I managed to say. Lie. She had. She'd practically pushed me out the door and hadn't cared enough to say good-bye. That knowledge still cut deeply. She'll love me again. Once I've made something of myself.
Angel frowned over at me. “Yes, she did and you know it. She kicked you out of her house and out of her life.”
“So?” I jolted upright, pinning the doctor with a fierce stare. A wave of dizziness hit me, and I rubbed my temples. “What do you want from me? What do you want me to say? Yes, she rejected me. Yes, she kicked me out. Happy?”
She gave no outward reaction to my fury. “Why the hostility? I merely asked you a question.”
“And I asked you a question. What exactly do you want from me?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, showing no mercy. “I want to hear about your mother and how you felt when she called the camp.”
Fine. She wanted to hear, she'd hear. “Like shit, okay? I felt like shit. She knew how my father's abandonment hurt me, and yet she treated me the same way.” The words poured from me, and I didn't even try to stop them. “I'm her daughter, but she couldn't wait to get rid of me.” Tears filled my eyes, burning. I angrily swiped them away. “Happy now?”
“Yes,” she said, surprising me. “Anger is good, Phoenix. Anger is very good.”
“Why? Aren't we supposed to let go of our anger?”
“Only after you've dealt with it. Besides, if you'd felt nothing, that would have meant you were suppressing your emotions. If you were suppressing your emotions, you would one day have a breakdown. And when an agent has a breakdown, bad things happen, to the agent and to everyone around her.” Angel dug in the pocket of her suit jacket and slapped something on the coffee table between us.
I glanced down, and my jaw fell open. Need and fear raced through me. A tremor traveled the length of my spine. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“How do you feel, looking at that?” she asked, remaining in her seat.
I tried to look at her, but I could not tear my gaze from the vial of Onadyn lying so innocently in front of me. It was small and clear. Beguiling. My mouth watered. “I feel…thirsty,” I said honestly, hoarsely.
“And?”
“And I hate myself for that thirst.” The words tore from me.
“Why?”
“I told you. I know what happens when I use. My brain begins to malfunction and I can't think clearly. I do such stupid, horrible things.” God, did I do stupid things. Sadly, that day on the school steps wasn't an isolated incident. I'd degraded my mother in front of so many people, time and time again.
More than that, I'd once woken up in bed with a boy I hadn't known. Hadn't wanted to know, really. And I hadn't been able to remember what we'd done. I'd once stolen a bottle of scented enzyme mist from a store and was arrested within minutes.
The list could go on and on.
“Take it away,” I said weakly. “Please.”
“No. I want you to pick it up.”
“No.” Violently I shook my head. Tendrils of hair slapped at my cheeks, but didn't tear me from the Onadyn's spell.
“Pick it up,” she commanded. It was the first time she'd used such a stern, unbending tone of voice with me.
“No!”
“Pick it up, Phoenix, or I'll recommend that you're kicked out of the camp.”
The one thing that could make me obey. I liked this camp. I didn't want to leave yet. Still I hesitated.
“Pick. It. Up.”
“I hate you,” I hissed, finally reaching out. My fingers closed around the vial. “What kind of mind doctor are you, torturing me like this?”
She ignored my question. “Smell it.”
My hands didn't hesitate to obey. Without thought, I brought the vial to my nose and sniffed, savoring the scent of dew-kissed rain. Hmmm, so good. So delicious.
Poison, my mind said.
Sweet, my body replied. One taste. One little sip. What could it hurt?
In the end, I tossed it at Angel. The plastic vial nailed her in the shoulder. “You hold it,” I snarled at her.