A scared click of my brain, and I suspected he meant Dwyer, who Kian had guessed must’ve been known as the sun god. “Make it fast.”
Pure bravado, because what would I do if he attacked? Before, when I tried to escape, he appeared in front of me in the blink of an eye. My heart pounded out a terrified rhythm. If I can’t run, maybe I can fight. Too bad I had no idea how.
“He is waiting. Waiting for you to breathe your last,” he rasped. “Your death is already written. But you cheated, pretty-girl skin. Now you’re a hole in the world, and you let other people fall in your stead. How long before you become one of us?”
With awful, empty eyes, he reached for me. This time, I understood the futility of running, so I did the only thing I could. I touched him first.
Madness. He doesn’t take your life. He steals your mind instead.
My brain spilled over with cascading flashes of pain and violence, red splatter, black dog, crawling maggots, a bird eating a fish head. The images twisted and bled, burrowed deep until I couldn’t think, and still it wasn’t finished. Despair, decay, dread poured into me, endless rivers of poison, until my vision grayed, replaced by shadows, echoes of footsteps running away, away. I tried to call out, but a bony fist about my throat choked my voice.
For a few seconds, I saw how this ended—me gibbering in a padded room while nurses shot me full of tranquilizers, and then I glimpsed the other end of the tunnel, where this vacant thing hunched, avid for my pain. Channeling everything toward me left a vacuum on the other side. Simple physics. Trembling, I fought the only way I could—with my own dreams and memories, hopes and longings. I shoved back hard, until slivers of me plinked into the empty well. Spelling bee, DNA model, trip to the Grand Canyon, first kiss, A+ in calculus—I swam against the toxic stream, carrying my life, my identity with me.
You didn’t touch me, I told him silently. I touched you. That makes you mine.
When I couldn’t bear more without screaming myself hoarse, the thin man vanished. My eyes snapped open; I was on the ground, surrounded by worried onlookers. A middle-aged woman I had noticed tending a garden nearby crouched beside me.
“Are you diabetic? Epileptic? Do you have medicine?” She spoke slowly, like I might not be able to understand her.
I shook my head, coming up onto my knees. “I’m all right, right and tight.”
Dizzy, I scrambled to my feet and rushed away, staggering with each step. I heard an older man say, “Probably a tweaker. Cops don’t patrol this place like they should. You know I’ve found needles down by the water?”
Sadly, being mistaken for a junkie was better than them thinking I was nuts. Near the exit, my legs went watery, I grabbed on to the fence and forced myself to stay awake through sheer force of will. With agonizing languor, the tendrils receded; my brain felt as if it had pinpricks all over it. But it was mine, wholly mine, and if I’d had the strength, I would’ve shouted in triumph.
Like a drunkard, I stumbled home, and it took me the better part of an hour, though I wasn’t far in terms of physical distance, but I kept having to rest before my legs gave out: curbs, benches, other people’s front steps. I didn’t realize I was sitting near Kian’s building until he strode down the street toward me. Rarely did I get the chance to observe him when he didn’t know I was looking; in this unguarded moment, his mouth was compressed into a grim, pale line, and his green eyes held the weight of a promise he refused to share. Women checked him out as he went by, but he never turned. Not once.
In fact, not expecting me, he hurried past and then whipped around, like he might’ve imagined me. I managed a weak smile. “Hey, way.”
“Are you waiting for me?” he asked, butterfly-tentative.
“Nope.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Sitting.” I sounded giddy, goofy, even, I couldn’t stop giggling. “Hitting.”
“Edie?” He crossed to me in a few steps, leaned in with a look of dismay gradually dawning. “Jesus Christ. I smell him on you.”
“True blue. I’ve been dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight, didn’t go down without a fight.”
His voice trembled. “Did it touch you?”
“Don’t fear the worst, I got him first. I can’t fight monsters with guns or knives, but it seems I can with my mind.” With trembling hands, I made dual finger-guns and fired. “I fought the law and I won. See, this is my wheelhouse, son.”
Why the hell am I rhyming all the things? That’s probably not a good sign.
“You can’t survive touching the thin man.” Kian seemed frozen with horror. “At least, not with your mind intact.”
I smiled up at him, though my face felt stiff and strange. After a few seconds, I shook off the Cockney rhyming daze, keeping my reply simple as weary pride bloomed.
“But I did.”
THE PAWN IN PLAY
It was nearly a week before my brain recovered fully from my encounter with the thin man. In the meantime, I flunked my first test ever. Ironically, it was in Intro to Japanese. Ryu laughed when I told him, while Vi was quietly concerned. I pretended to be nonchalant while panicking in secret. The truth was, I’d tried studying, but my mind was like a saturated sponge, incapable of absorbing any new information.
Slowly, however, the side effects wore off and my head returned to normal. Rather than have my parents find out, I begged my teacher to let me take a makeup test or do extra credit. She wasn’t on board with grading extra projects, but given the problems at Blackbriar recently, she cut me some slack because she’d seen me with Brittany and Russ. Now with Jen gone and Cameron MIA, she saw the writing on the wall. The second time I took the exam, I got a B. Not my usual A+, but I kept that score. Under the circumstances, I had to perform some triage, cut myself some slack for not pulling A + s when my life was imploding.
When word circulated that Cameron had taken off, I wanted to tell someone what I knew, but I had no idea what to say. The truth would get me locked up, and admitting I was with him when it happened might turn me into a murder suspect, though they couldn’t convict me without a body. The dog-girl video gave me clear motive, and gossip could be vicious. So I choked down my desire to confess and kept quiet.
Two weeks into November, things went from bad to worse at school. It started in first period; Nicole was sitting at her desk as usual. No matter how early I arrived, she was always there, and I was starting to wonder if she slept in Mr. Love’s room. He was talking to a couple of other students, but I sensed that he was aware of her … and darkly amused. Allison strolled in—why, I had no idea since she didn’t even have Lit—and propped a hip against his desk. In comparison, she was a tropical flower whereas Nicole had become a sepia photo.