We're All Mad Here (Crossing Realms)
Date: 2016-06-20 00:00:00+00:00
Description: Sometimes the truth is best kept to yourself. Even if that means people think your crazy. Or you spend your junior year in a mental hospital. In the thrilling prequel to the Wraith series, learn about Connor's life before he figured out how to hide his secret from the doctors and his family. When he couldn't tell the difference between being mad and being lost. Before he met Jane Watts and the events that followed him from one world to the nex t. The Wraith series is an epic coming-of-age ghost story.

We’re All Mad Here

Angel Lawson

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Copyright © 2012 by Anna Benefield

Book Cover by Samantha Marrs & Anna Benefield

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Lawson, Angel.

Chapter 1

The counselor’s office has a wide window behind the shiny, wooden desk. Unlike the other windows in the facility, this window has no bars and is big enough to get my body through. You know, if I wanted to.  Not that I do.

I don’t think so, at least.

I consider the risks though, noting that the main drawback is that we’re on the third story of the building. Broken bones for sure, if not actual death. Leaving this hospital for another type of hospital (or the morgue) isn’t really my game plan right now.

Still, I like looking through the clear glass and the optimism it holds. I guess they figure no one will actually take the plunge right in front of the doctor.

“Still adjusting to your meds?” Dr. Cross asks, breaking me from my thoughts.

“Better, I think.” I shift in my chair. My legs are too long to sit comfortably in the space between the chair and the desk. “The dizziness is gone. And some of the spaceyness.” Not to mention the urge to kill myself. My apathy has become greater than my suicidal tendencies.

“Sleeping okay?”

I nod, watching as he scribbles in a notepad with his fancy gold pen. We don’t get pens in here. I have to draw with pencils, which is okay. I don’t mind, but when I see someone else using something as basic as a pen and then realize pens are off limits, it makes me feel crazy.

Of course, that’s why I’m here, right?

I wonder if he describes the bags under my eyes or my weight loss. I notice he looks well-rested. And has a normal haircut—not like the standard-issue, lice-preventing, buzz-cut that me and the other boys sport.

“Appetite?”

I pat my belly, eyeing the rumpled McDonald’s bag in the trash and coffee cup on his desk with envy. “Fine. If only there was something edible around here.”

Haha. My use of humor gets me a quick scribble. Plus one for me.

“How about hallucinations?”

“None.”

He nods and flips my folder shut. My case-file, they called it. I imagine all the dirt inside. Legal papers, doctor notes, counselor reports, school records. Everything in my life, bound between three inches of hard paper.

Almost everything.

“Marcy says you’ve been participating in group. How has that been?”

A large bird lands on the window sill, feathers shining bluish black. I lean to the side and its beady eye follows my movement.

“Connor?”

“Uh, sorry. Yeah, I don’t mind talking.” It’s easy when nothing that comes out of my mouth is the truth. The hard part is convincing a roomful of liars that I’m the same as them, when obviously I’m exactly the same as them.  “It feels…” I pretend to search for a word, like I’m seriously contemplating how speaking in group feels. “Liberating?”

The word earns me another jot on the pad. Another point for Slytherin.

“Good. Talking about what happened is the best way to get results. Exploring your emotions and feelings helps you understand why you took the actions that got you here. Why you put yourself and others in such risk. I’m happy to see you making progress.”

I nod in agreement, like everything he said made perfect sense. Which it would have, I guess, if my entire life hasn’t been one giant fabrication. I mean, I know why I set that fire. I know why I’d put myself and the rest of the family in harm’s way. I know these things. And trust me; I never, ever want it to happen again. That’s why I take my meds. And participate in group. And keep away from the kids huffing paint and rubbing alcohol in the back of the janitor’s closet. I want to go home. I want to see my family. I want everything back to normal.

*

On the way back to my dormitory, I witness a fight. Not unusual by any means—rage being a fairly common symptom or side effect here. When I still lived at home, before the meds, I had my own anger-fueled outbursts. My standard M.O. in situations like this has always been to keep walking, but not today. When I pass by the common area and see the wild, blonde hair, I stop dead in my tracks.

Girl fight.

“What happened?” I ask, sidling up to Max. He’s been my roommate since I got to Brookhaven. He bounces on his feet by the door, shadowing the moves of the girls.

“I don’t know. Ouch!” he cries, flinching in sympathy when the blonde pushes the other girl, Vera, to the ground. Even then she continued her assault, slamming her fists into Vera’s face. Vera struggled beneath her, finally grabbing a handful of that wild hair and yanking hard.

The blonde howls. Vera kicks her with her rubber-sole sneakers.

“Who is that girl?” I ask about the blonde, because she must have been new, as I’d certainly never seen her before. I definitely would have remembered.

“Bitch!” The blonde dodges her feet and jabs her elbow into Vera’s stomach.

“Crazy, devil-whore!” Vera shouts back. She’s breathing heavy—her cheeks flush.

“Oh man.” Max bites his fist. “This is awesome!”

There is nothing funny about a fight like this. The sound of skin and the grunts and cries. They’re real. People are getting hurt, but when you’ve been without real television for month, a fight is the best form of entertainment we can ask for. Toss in two girls and it’s better than cable.

“Well, who started it, then?” I ask.

Max glances away from the fight and licks his lip. “I was sitting at the table over there when they started going at it. I think that tiny one just hauled out and hit Vera. I mean, damn, look at her go!”

“That chick is crazy,” I say, watching the staff finally intervene, separating Vera and the other girl. It takes a minute to drag them apart, arms flailing, even with three guards and an attendant.

Max snorts. “Obviously.”

Bravo, crazy chick. Way to make an entrance.

“You ever see her before?” I ask, definitely intrigued.

“Nope, and it will probably be weeks before they let her back into the general population.”

Paul, one of our attendants, walks Vera past us. I stare at the forming black eye, all puffy, and the bloody scratch marks down her face. She’d probably spend the night in the infirmary. The blonde is on the ground, flat on her stomach while another guard straps her wrists in restraints. She bucks and twists until they pull her back on her feet. Like Max suggested, she’ll end up in solitary until she gets her shit together.

“She may be nuts,” Max said, “But she’s feisty. We need some spunk around here.”

“I room with you, remember? You’ve got plenty of spunk.”

He cups his crotch and I shove him off, before quickly moving out of the way of the guard heading our direction. I can’t help but smile when the new girl walks past us, mouthing off to the guard the whole time. That is, until she walks past us.

“What are you looking at?” she spats at me and Max when she gets close enough. She turns those ice blue eyes on mine, daring me to back down.

Not a chance.

“Nothing.” Max steps back.

I stand my ground and shrug, refusing to be intimidated. There is something behind those blue eyes that makes me nervous, though. I’m sure we’ll find out why soon enough.

*

“So what was that all about?” I ask Vera the next morning at breakfast. Her eye is swollen shut and she has bandages over the scratches on her face.

“Mother-f-ing puta,” she grumbles, spreading butter on her toast. Her knuckles are also bruised and red.

“Puta? What’s a puta?” Max asks, between mouthfuls.

Vera is Hispanic, with long, dark hair and cunning eyes. She came in around the same time I got here and we’d established a semi-friendly relationship. Half of what she says is in Spanish, so we’re always clueless to what she’s talking about.

“I called it like I see it.”

I eye her carefully. “What did you call her?”

“An evil whore.”

Max cackles with laughter. I shake my head. “Do you know her? Like outside?”

“No. I just know,” she looks to the side and back at her plate. “I can just sense it.”

“That she’s a whore?”

She shakes her head. “No, that she’s evil. The whore part is just speculation.”

Here’s the thing about Brookhaven and the residents inside: we’re all here for a reason. The judge and screening committee decided we would be better off in a treatment facility rather than detention. But that means everyone in here comes with a little extra baggage. Vera’s okay. She’s funny and typically easy-going, but there’s something unhinged about her. I definitely wouldn’t hang out with her—or Max even, on the outside. But in here, things are different.

Vera’s constantly going off about evil people and the devil, so taking her opinion on the new girl being an evil whore isn’t wise, but then again, who knows. I have a feeling she knows more about me than I want to admit.

“I, for one, am okay with the addition of some whores in here. It’s been too long since I’ve gotten any,” Max declares.

Vera glares at him and mutters, “Pervertido.”

No need to translate that one.

“Hey!” Max laughs, because really, what’s the point in arguing?

“I know you won’t listen to me, but don’t go near that girl. She’s got secrets. Big ones and she’ll get you both in trouble.” Her eyes flick to mine. “Especially you.”

“Got it,” I say, finishing off my milk while fighting off the shiver running up my spine.

Vera is weird.

The bell rings, letting us know it’s time to clean up and move on to our next activity. I happily hop up, looking for some fresh air. Crazy or not, Vera is right about one thing; I don’t need any trouble.

*

After days of gossip and assumption, she appears in group. Hair tame. Clothes straight and smooth. Her expression carries a firm, ‘out of fucks to give’ vibe.

Marcy, our group counselor, has just finished writing the inspirational message on the blackboard. In flowing letters, she’s written today’s cheesy mantra.

Think Happy Be Happy

“Settle down, guys,” Marcy says. I never understand why. There are only eight of us in here, and no one ever gets especially loud. The drugs make us slow and less likely to react. I think it just gives her a feeling of authority. Or maybe it’s just something to say to a room full of psycho kids.

Whatever. She can waste her breath however she wants. No one wants to be here. Although today, I’m admittedly curious.

“We have a new member. Charlotte, would you like to introduce yourself?”

I wait for the tantrum. I know she has one boiling in her, like the rest of us on the first day we each arrived in this room. Max spit in Marcy’s face the first time she asked him for his name. Carlos, never speaking, gave her the bird. Vera cussed her out in four different languages. I don’t think she actually knew all those languages, just the bad words. It was pretty hot.

When Marcy asked me those same words the first day I sat with the group, I flipped over my chair and kicked it across the room. I ended up face-first against the wall by the guard, feeling the cool cinderblock against my lips. I struggled even in my drugged-out state—hoping that maybe he’d get too rough by accident. That he’d finish me and do what I was too weak to do myself.

That was before the meds fully kicked in. Once they did, I realized being a dick wasn’t the way out of here, and I definitely wanted out of here. Sort of. Now I answer Marcy’s questions dutifully, even if it’s not with the truth.

Charlotte, though, she looks like she’s ready to take prisoners. I lean back in my seat and cross my arms, ready to watch the show.

“I’m Charlotte,” she starts, glaring at her white, lace-less sneakers. “I guess I’m here for some ‘attitude’ problems. Or, you know,” she made a face and used finger quotations. “'The drugs’. It could be the shoplifting, or that time I ran away. Twenty-five times, really. Oh, and my parents are worthless twats and completely incapable of taking care of even one kid.”

“Charlotte, we try not to blame others in group,” Marcy interrupts. “Your parents aren’t here. This is about you.”

Charlotte snorts. Unflattering, but the wicked grin forming with her lips reveals a pretty face. My eyes roam from her mouth down to her fully covered chest, to her standard-issue sneakers. Since when did I develop a thing for demented chicks? Before I left school, I’d spent a fair amount of time trying to get Allison Morgan to go out with me. She had a bit of a mean-girl thing going on, but she was pretty status quo.

To my surprise, Charlotte adds, “I’ll remember that; thank you, Marcy.”

The rest of group runs like normal.  How was your week? Anyone come to any revelations? Are you feeling any guilt? Would anyone like to share?

This is my cue.

I raise my hand.

“Connor?”

“Yeah, um…after some reflection, I uh, well, I realized this week that setting that fire was seriously stupid.”

“Duh,” Max says from across the room. I flip him a bird. He flips one back.

Marcy jumps to my rescue. “Maxwell, no interrupting.”  She levels a hard look between us. “And no filthy gestures. Please continue, Connor.”

“I was super pissed about some stuff going on at home and in my life, and it was just my first reaction.” Not exactly a lie. “I guess I wanted attention from my parents, because I was just so lost and confused.”

I glance up from my hands and spot Charlotte out of the corner of my eye. She’s paying attention. Close attention.

“What did you think would happen when you started the fire?” Marcy asks.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe that they would notice I was having problems?”

Lie.

“The lighter was just there, almost taunting me and the kerosene from the lamp. It was easy.”

Lie.

“I just had this impulse, you know, to see what would happen.” Not exactly a lie. I look at Marcy, who gave me an encouraging nod. “Which I now get was completely batshit—uh, wrong.  I now understand that I need to use my coping skills to get through stressful moments.”

“Like what?”

“Umm…” I stall, trying to remember the list she gave us a couple weeks ago. “Like counting, you know. Or walking away from the situation. Thinking it through—thinking about the consequences—writing them down before acting.”

Marcy smiles, her expression nearly euphoric at my confession. “Excellent, Connor. I think that shows real maturity and growth on your part.”

I offer a tight smile back, measured for what I know she wants to see.

“Anyone else?” she asks, looking eagerly around the room.

I relax back in my chair, happy the focus was off of me for the rest of the afternoon, and marvel in my success. It had taken me months to figure out how to navigate the group setting. Once I stopped fighting and decided to give Marcy what she wanted, things moved a lot smoother.

“I have something to share,” a small voice says from across the room.

Everyone turns to listen to Bethany, the klepto, talk about the rush she gets from stealing. Everyone but Charlotte.

All of her attention is on me.

Chapter 2

“Nice performance,” Max notes on our way back to the room. After group, we have twenty minutes of ‘reflection’. I’d planned on using it to take a nap. Unfortunately, Max seems chatty.

“Whatever it takes, man,” I reply. Max stretches across his bed, feet bouncing against the metal foot rail. “It’s all about giving them what they want to hear. Marcy wants to hear my plan and that I’m ready to deal with stress in the real world. I can do that.”

“You think that’s all it takes?” he asks.

“My sentence was for 90 days minimum treatment. I plan on being out of here by the minimum. I already spent three months in detention waiting for this space to open up.” There was no way I’m going to be here longer than necessary. It’s not like I actually have a mental disorder like the rest of these kids. I still wasn’t sure what I did have, but seeing dead people wasn’t listed in the DSM-IV. I checked.

I reach under the bed and pull out my pencil and notebook. Like I said, we can’t have pens and stuff in our unit. They watch us for the first couple of days in an intake unit on the first floor. No laces, belts, or objects we could harm ourselves with. Before I came here, I never realized a pen could be used as a weapon. Or that you can start a fire with a battery. That’s the interesting thing about programs like this; you come out with more bad habits than you entered.

“What about you, don’t you want to get out of here?” I ask, opening the book and handing Max a sheet of paper. I’ve learned it’s easier if his hands are occupied.

“Sure, but my sentence is a lot longer than yours, so it doesn’t matter how nice I am. I’m not getting out of here anytime soon. As long as I behave, take my meds and cooperate, I’m okay finishing my sentence at Brookhaven.” He takes the piece of paper.

When we first started rooming together, I encouraged him to draw or write, but he doesn’t have the interest—or attention span. Even on meds, this kid bounces off the freaking walls twenty-four-seven. Tapping on things. Humming. Pacing the room.

Instead of being creative, he rips the paper into tiny strips before folding them back and forth into little accordions. I don’t care what he does with the paper, as long as he has something to busy himself with.

“Yeah, but you’re on probation right? If you screw up won’t they send you back to juvie?” One misstep and Dr. Cross can revoke Max’s residential plan. Then he’ll have to finish his time in long-term detention. I’m not really sure what Max did to get in here. I know he has ADHD and some impulse control issues. He mentioned a traumatic brain injury at one point and how it affects the way he makes decisions.  I get the feeling he likes to fight and basically can’t stay out of trouble. Although his wide grin and good looks probably take him further than he’s ever admitted. Whatever it is, his record was big enough for him to barely get accepted into this type of residential program to begin with.

I start my sketch. First the eyes and a small nose. I’ve just started shading the chin when Max asks, “So what do you think about that new girl?”

Without looking up I reply, “I think she’s dangerous.”

“Yeah, she seems like trouble.” He stops folding the paper and rubs his hand over his buzzed, white-blonde hair. “After that fight I thought she might throw a fit in group, but she was pretty calm.”

I’ve started in on the hair, curly and long. “Maybe she’s smarter than the rest of us and sees what it took me months to figure out. Things are easier if you play by the rules.”

“Fuck that.”

“Fuck you.” I glance up from my paper. “You’ll be in here forever if you don’t get it together.”

He throws a wad of paper at me. It arches overhead and falls through the air like streamers. He smirks and lies back on his pillow. “Who says I want to go home?”

And then there’s that. For some kids, it’s pretty obvious that living here is way better than what’s on the outside. If I’m honest, things have been better for me here as well. No visitors. No cool, shadowy spirits begging me to help them. The constant stream of medication in my system seems to keep them at bay, but then again, maybe it’s just this place.

The weird thing is how as much as I wanted them gone, now that they’re gone, I sort of miss them.

*

Since this is a hospital and not a prison, we have some freedoms that wouldn’t be allowed in detention. First, we don’t wear uniforms, like jumpsuits, but our clothes have to fit strict guidelines. No holes in our jeans. No low-cut shirts for the girls. No shorts except at recreation. Also, the male and female populations are allowed to mingle. With supervision.

Always supervision.

We also have work detail. The job changed weekly, on a rotating schedule, based on when we entered the program. I’ve already had my turn at grounds keeping, kitchen duty, and bathroom cleaning.

I’m mopping the hallway when Charlotte bumps into me. Literally.

“Watch it,” she snaps. We’re back to back at the corner where our hallways meet. She has her own mop and I see a visible trail of dirty water down the girl’s corridor floor.

I cut my eyes at her, not appreciating her tone. Sure, she has that crazy girl thing going on, but I’ve been here longer. Plus, in our own levels of seniority at the facility, I outrank her.

Fire starter > Runaway.

“They’ll make you do that again if you’re sloppy,” I tell her.

The look she gives me could cut ice, but after a second she relaxes. She leans on the top of the mop. “Good job in group today.”

“What do you mean?”

“That whole ‘figuring it out’ thing. Good work. Totally snowed that counselor.”

Not liking the scrutiny, I dip my mop back in the bucket and run it over the green tile, ignoring her comment. When I look up to wring out the mop, a tiny grin lifts the corners of her mouth. “What? You don’t plan on sharing your methods with me? Like how to get out of here a little faster? How to get a little extra now and then?”

I shake my head, because really, I have no intentions of sharing this or anything else with her. How is this any of her business?  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

We stare at one another for a moment, in a battle of sorts. I notice the three holes up the side of one ear where, outside of this place, she wore earrings. I see another empty one in her nose. Rebellion is in her nature, which is not part of my plan.

“Have it your way,” she says, dragging her mop and bucket back down the hall, leaving dirty shoe prints on the kind-of-clean floor.

“They’ll make you do that again,” I yell.

Without looking back, her response echoes off the hard walls and floor, “We’ll see.”

Chapter 4

“I need a couple of volunteers to carry some towels down to the desk in corridor G,” Paul says while standing in front of the TV, arms at his hips, blocking the movie.

“Dude, move!” Max shouts.

“Thank you for volunteering, Mr. Johnson. Anyone else?”

Max curses under his breath and gives me a pleading look.

“Fine,” I mutter to him and then say louder, “I’ll do it.”

Fifteen minutes later, we each have a hand in the handle of a huge canvas bag filled with clean towels. We’re hauling them down to the main desk of the girls’ dorm.  “Jesus, how many towels do these girls use?” Max grumbles.

We pick up the laundry bag down in the basement and ride the elevator up to the fourth floor where our residential hallways are located. Girls on the right. Boys on the left. Security in the middle. Each side has a supply closet behind a second security/nurse’s station. We take the towels down the girl’s wing. Just as we round the corner, I see one of the staff pushing a mop across the floor. He’s down by the other end of the hallway.

“What’s he doing?” I ask Max.

“Looks like.” He stops to take a breath. The bag weighs a ton. “Looks like he’s mopping. BFD.”

“It is a big fucking deal, because that new crazy chick was mopping the hallway earlier today. She did a shitty job and I told her they would make her do it again.”

He offers me two sarcastic thumbs up. “You were right.”

We drag the bag down the hallway, nearing the desk. “Yeah, but she should be doing it, right? If I crapped up my job, Paul sure as hell wouldn’t come clean up behind me.”

“Well, you’re not a hot chick. Even the guards have a soft—or err, hard spot for girls like that.”

“You really think she’s hot?” I ask, ignoring the pedo comment.

“Dude, we’ve been in here for months. No sex. Zero porn. All girls are hot.”

True.

We drop the bag by the desk and the nurse on duty points to the closet behind her. “Fold them neatly,” she reminds us.

“Yes ma’am.”

She makes a face and I bite back a smile. Her name is Eleanor and she’s about thirty. Cute with short dark hair and curves visible under her scrubs. She doesn’t like it when we call her ma’am or when I stare at her lips too long.

Max is right. All girls are hot when you’ve been in here long enough.

“Ugh, now we’ll never see the end of the movie,” Max complains, breaking my overanalyzing of Nurse Eleanor.

“You’ve seen that movie six times.”

“Yeah, but it’s my favorite.”

“Because you have a hard-on for Blake Lively.”

He grabs the front of his pants and laughs. “You know it.”

*

There are days when I wake up and think, just for a second, that I’m in my bed at home. Just for a flicker, I feel like I did before all this happened. Before the ghosts and the drugs and the fire.

Back then life was good. My parents are pretty great. My dad has an important job that made us a lot of money, but he isn’t a neglectful ass like a lot of my friends’ fathers. We live in a great house in a cool neighborhood. My younger sister is the best. I love her. I’m not even embarrassed to admit it.

Things went south when I was thirteen. I’d navigated puberty and middle school pretty well, but then one night everything changed. The voices and visions took over my life, and while I tried to sort it out, it was impossible. To the outside world I was losing my shit. In my personal world, I was barely hanging on by a thread.

Most of my dreams at Brookhaven—the good ones—are about home. If I keep my eyes closed long enough, I can almost smell the detergent my mom uses on the sheets. But then something breaks the spell, either a hard fist on the door, banging to wake us up or Max taking care of his morning wood, or something vague, like the scent of disinfectant or the squeak of shoes on the tile floor.  Most days, my first sight is the industrial tiled ceiling or worse, Max scratching his ass.

The other dreams—not nightmares exactly—push me in a completely different direction. I wake bathed in sweat. Gasping for air. I feel the heat from the fire. I hear their voices in my head, pleading for my help. Sometimes it’s so real I sit up and reach for them, unafraid but connected all the same.

Today the banging on the door wakes me with a jerk. I prop on my elbows, disoriented until I blink awake. Whatever I’d dreamed of is just out of reach, like tendrils of black smoke.

Max groans next to me, trying to wake himself up and yeah, it’s time for another day at Brookhaven.

Days at the hospital generally keep the same routine and schedule. The doctors think consistency is good for us. They’re probably right, assuming their goal is to keep us mind-numbingly bored.

Wake Up

Clean Room

Morning duties

Breakfast

Counseling (individual, boys’ group, coed group)

Classes

Blah, blah, blah.  The day is tedious on purpose, with the intent to present us with stability and comfort. It’s boring as hell and makes me itch with the desire for teen-angsty rebellion.

In the cafeteria, I scrape the dried scrambled eggs off my plate and into the compost bin before passing it through the window to the cleaners. I’ll shift over to the job of dishwasher next week but for now, I’m assigned dormitory clean-up. I happily leave those guys to the steam and funk of the kitchen and head toward the counseling rooms.  I’m a little early and Dr. Murphy hasn’t shown yet, so I pull out my notebook and sit on the floor, using the time to work on my sketch.

“What’s all this?” Charlotte slides down the wall and sits next to me.

I turn the paper away. “Nothing.”

“It’s something,” she says. “What? Naked chicks? Guns and bombs? Afraid I’ll turn you in?”

I’m not one of those guys with an art journal filled with my feelings. I’ve got talent—no one denies that. In fact, it’s probably the one thing that got me yanked from juvie and into this place. My legal advocate and letters from my art teacher all requested leniency from the judge and screening committee so I can pursue art school one day. I toss the notebook at Charlotte and wait while she flips through the pages.

“These are really good.”

“Thanks,” I say, shrugging.

“I’m impressed, not a single naked chick.”

I give her a tight smile. “I keep those under my bed.”

“I bet you do. But there are girls in here.” She turns a couple of pages. “Who’s that? Sister? Girlfriend?”

Ah, the girl. Of course she picks the girl. I know nothing about her except that she came to my room every night when I was fourteen and cried all night long, begging me to help her. Freaked me the fuck out.

“No one,” I reply, taking back the book. “I made her up.”

I didn’t, though. Maddie was real. Dead, but real. Eventually I figured that out, but not until after I thought I’d fully lost my mind. I helped her, which eased my concerns about my mental health a little and provided her with safe passage. Unfortunately, once she left another one quickly took her place.

Charlotte reaches in her pocket and pulls out a piece of gum. She pops it in her mouth. I smell the burst of mint and stare at her mouth.

“What?” she asks.

“Where did you get that?” Gum is one of those ‘things’ here. Off-limits.

Her chewing slows and she narrows her eyes. “I brought it with me.”

I shake my head. “No you didn’t.”

Without blinking, she retorts, “Yes I did.”

“No way. They search your stuff. All of it.”

She juts her chin out in defiance. “Are you calling me a liar?”

Dr. Murphy walks down the hall, coffee cup in hand, and unlocks the door to the meeting room. I stand and looked down at Charlotte, the lies twisting in her cold blue eyes.

“I’m calling it like I see it,” I say, following the rest of my group into the room.

*

That afternoon, I’m collecting trash from the boys’ rooms when I see her again. She has her own bag of trash, filled to the top.

“The dumpster is this way,” I tell her. I stand by the stairwell and open the door so she can pass through. See? I can be a gentleman.

She looks around. “We can go off the grid?”

“No way.” I point to the camera perched in the corner and then to another one at the top of the stairwell. “Smile.”

She doesn’t smile.

“Why do we have to do all this stuff?” she complains on the way down the stairs.

“It gives us character. Hard work keeps the minds and hands busy, you know, all that BS.” She doesn’t look convinced so I add, “Because we could be in jail right now, dodging gang members and shivs. You shouldn’t bitch about a little work.”

She rolls her eyes at my jailhouse description. Maybe she isn’t afraid of prison, but I had a healthy fear of lock-up. The three months I spent in juvie was enough for a lifetime. She rests her bag on a step. “But garbage detail is gross. Do you even know how disgusting these girls are?”

“I’m pretty sure they don’t compete with twenty-four foul-smelling boys.”

She makes a small grunt muttering, “That sugar and spice thing is inaccurate, you know.”

I look her up and down. “Yeah, I kind of figured that out.”

She picks up her bag and heaves it down a flight of stairs. She’s been dragging it since we got in the stairwell and I’m worried it’ll split the bag and spill all over the place if she’s not careful. When I see how close she has it to a nail on the edge of the landing, I pick it up for her.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to clean up the mess that was about to happen.”

She flashes me a grin but there’s something to it that doesn’t seem friendly. I push open the door to the loading area behind the laundry. A bird caws overhead and lands on the fence. The hospital property has a tall, razor fence surrounding it and acres of property the building sits on. We’re allowed to go outside the building with permission, but there was little chance of escaping the property itself.  I hold up the dumpster lid and throw both bags in. Charlotte studies her nails like they’re the SATs and frowns.

“Mother-fuck. I chipped one.” She holds up a jagged nail.

This girl is un-freaking believable.

“So are the stories true about you?” she asks.

“What stories?” We still stand by the smelly dumpster because it’s better than being inside.

“That you burned down your house.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Oh that? Yeah. I didn’t burn it all the way down, but yeah, I started a fire.”

“And that you hear voices and see things?”

Again I shrug. No one here knew the truth. No one knew about the lies. To them, I’m just crazy. Well, maybe I am crazy, but not the way they think. “Crack is whack.”

“That’s the truth,” she laughs. “One girl said you were a psychopath.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know her name. She’s fat with dark hair.”

I think for a second. “Meg? Ha, talk about crazy.” Which is the truth, but no one around here should throw stones. Pot meet kettle and all that. “Come on, it reeks out here and I don’t want Paul busting my balls for slacking off.”

I open the door and hold it open. Charlotte passes under my arm. “You still like to smoke?” I stop short and she continues, “Yeah, I heard about that, too. Sounds like you had all kinds of vices.”

“You can’t get that shit in here.”

That same dangerous smile flitters across her mouth. “Wanna bet?”

She brushes past me, deliberately pressing against my body. She’s up the stairs before I have the chance to say, “No.”

Chapter 5

A coffee cup from Starbucks sits on Dr. Cross’ desk today. I can smell the sugar and caramel from my seat across from him. That’s what deprivation does to you—makes your senses stronger.  My parents sit on the small green couch against the wall. My father looks like he’s on his way to a business meeting. Suit and tie. Slicked-back hair. His eyes hold concern for me, but also fear. He’d been the one that found me during the fire. He understands what I am capable of. What he doesn’t know is why.

Next to him, my mother looks picture-perfect against the industrial gray wall. Her hair and make-up expertly done, like she’s ready for lunch at the club. I don’t hate my mother, but I hate seeing her here. I hate having brought her to this tainted, terrible place. I hate what I’ve done to my family. Again, I considered how much it would suck if I jumped out that window. I’d probably come back and haunt myself.

“Mrs. Jacobs, why don’t you share some of your concerns about Connor returning home,” the doctor says, pulling my thoughts away from suicide missions.

My mom gives me an apologetic glance. “Obviously I’m worried about safety. The house and Emma. I have to know he has this…whatever it is, under control.”

“No drugs or skipping school,” my father interjects. “Except the ones prescribed, of course.”

All eyes focus on me.

“I’m worried about leaving him alone with Emma.”

Ouch. That one hurt. Emma is my little sister. She means the world to me.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone. I never did.” Lie. I wanted to hurt them. Not my family, but the ghosts following me around all day and night. I wanted to extinguish their voices and demands. God, they were so freaking demanding.

I realize my hands are clenched, and relax.

I have no idea why I thought the fire would eradicate the ghosts. Since when can a fire take out a ghost? The lack of logic is an unfortunate example of how out of control I’d been at the time. My time at Brookhaven has given me the opportunity to reflect on my ability. Reason some of it out. “I just didn’t know how to cope. Now I do.”

Dr. Cross nods. “I do think Connor has made huge strides here. He’s had zero hallucinations while under our care, which leads us to believe they were caused by the recreational drug use, which is more common than you’d think. The anti-anxiety medication and anti-depressants seem to keep his emotions level. If everything goes according to plan, I think he can come home at the end of the 90 days.”

“Just like that, he’ll get to come home?” my mother asks hopefully.

“We’ll have outpatient resources, obviously. Counseling, medication monitoring, and other follow-ups will be necessary, but as far as your safety, I think Connor has himself under control.”

“So you haven’t been hearing the voices anymore?” Mom asks like she needs to hear it from me directly.

“No. None.” I shake my head. This isn’t a lie, but I know there’s more to it than that. It’s not that the ghosts are gone, but that they, like so many other feelings, can’t get through the medicinal cocktail I take twice a day. I can barely feel my fingers right now. “And no fights or trouble in here, either.”

“He’s right,” Dr. Cross agrees. “Connor has become a leader among the kids here. He participates in the therapy sessions, does his work detail without complaint and Paul, the staff member in charge of Connor’s hall, says he has seen him make efforts to reach out to many of the newer patients and help them fit in.”

I smile back at my mother and think about Charlotte and her dare to get weed for the two of us. No way was I letting that girl interfere with my release. Even though I’d give my right nut for a hit. Something to numb the numb.

“So he could come home in about eight weeks?” my dad asks. I can hear the hope behind his guarded tone.

“I think it’s a definite possibility,” Dr. Cross agrees patting me on my back.

Eight weeks. No fights. No hallucinations. No trouble.

I look around the room at the cautiously optimistic faces.

I can do that.

*

Sometimes the Wrong Choice Brings Us to the Right Place

The knowing grin on Marcy’s face implies that she thinks this quote is clever. Our counselor sits in her back-breaking, plastic chair, wearing her light blue cardigan and thick-rimmed glasses. She always sits as if it was the most comfortable chair in the world. They’re not. They’re hard and curved awkwardly across the mid-shoulder blades and my whole body aches for an hour after we leave.

Her opinion may be influenced by the fact she probably goes home each night to a real bed, one without squeaky springs. She has a kitchen full of food and can use the bathroom solo. That and all the other privileges we live without. I try to keep my annoyance at Marcy in a manageable place, but now that my meds had leveled out it’s become harder. Once everyone is seated she looks at each of us eagerly, in hopes someone will volunteer.

To my surprise, Charlotte raises her hand.

Marcy beams, hands clutched in her lap. “Oh Charlotte, thank you for volunteering. Would you like to tell us how you’re transitioning here at Brookhaven?”

I watch this girl out of the corner of my eye as she pushes her lion’s mane of hair over her shoulder, crossing her legs back and forth, preparing to speak. I expect the same smart-mouthed girl carrying trash to the dumpster, but am surprised when Charlotte twists her hands in her lap and says, in the smallest of voices, “Being here is hard. Harder than anything I’ve done before, but,” she glances dramatically around the room. “For the first time in years, I feel safe.”

Marcy nods as though she’d been waiting for Charlotte to say this exact statement. “Feeling safe is one of the most important things we can have. Many people do not realize what a luxury it is to feel completely secure. Would you like to share more?”

“Well,” she starts, still wringing her hands. Her eyes never venture higher than her own lap. “Here there are locks on the doors. At home, anyone can come in. At any time.”

Bethany coughs nervously and Max shoots me a look and raises an eyebrow. What was this girl trying to say? That she felt threatened at home? That she’d been abused? That was the kind of stuff you save for the private sessions. Not group.

Marcy, who is too excited about having a new talker and doesn’t notice the discomfort of the group, gestures for Charlotte to continue. “It’s been hard, always being so much more,” she glances specifically at Vera, “attractive than other girls my age. People tend to take advantage of it. Of me.” In a quiet, tiny voice she adds, “People I’m supposed to trust.”

I waited for Vera to react, but she doesn’t. Let’s get something straight, Vera isn’t unattractive. In fact, she’s got an exotic thing going on that makes her pretty damn appealing. But she’s tough. Scary tough, and it’s clear that Charlotte is as intimidated as the rest of us. I learned from the meanest of the mean girls back home, if you feel threatened, go for the kill first. Charlotte just took a swipe.

She chokes back a sob and Bethany tentatively reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder. I wait, frozen, for the bomb to drop. For her to explode or burst out laughing at the weaker girl next to her. Something, but neither happened. She sits in her hard plastic chair sniffing and rubbing her nose with the end of her sleeve. Marcy hands her a tissue from the ever present box by her chair. Charlotte dabs her cheeks and then her nose but then she lifts her eyes just enough to make contact with my own. She winks.

Holy mother—

This crazy chick continues her gameplay, mustering up sympathy and luring in the whole group to think that under her tough exterior she’s a sad, vulnerable girl. Sure, her story may be true, but that doesn’t take away her evilness.

Vera was at least half right. This girl is definitely evil.

“Thank you for sharing, Charlotte. I know that must have been difficult for you.”

“No.” Charlotte wipes her eyes. “Thank you for giving me somewhere safe to be myself. For the first time in a really long time.”

While I try to keep my lunch down from Charlotte’s nauseating display, Marcy moves on and others take turns rehashing the same crap they bring up every group session. I keep my mouth shut for once, unsure of how to proceed. Charlotte took my shtick and upped it to an extreme level. Only one of us could use it at a time before Marcy picked up on it. If they figured out I’ve been lying, they may extend my time. That is not going to happen.

On the way out the door I grab Charlotte by the hand and whisper, “We need to talk.”

“Whatever,” she laughs, walking out the door with the other girls. Bethany shoots me a threatening look, as though Charlotte needed protecting. I raise my hands and let them pass.

“What was that all about,” Max asks.

“Nothing,” I tell him. “She just gets on my nerves.”

“Or under your skin,” he challenges.

“Not in the good way.”

Max scoffs. “There is no good way with a girl like that.”

I follow Max down the hall, plotting a way to get Charlotte alone.

*

Turns out I don’t need to find a way to get Charlotte alone. She figured it out first.

“Connor.” Paul waves me over, during our free period. “You’re on residence duty this week right?”

“Yeah.”

“Ms. Baker called. There’s some kind of mess in the bathroom.”

“Are you kidding? Now?”

“Yes, now. Oh,” he says. “You’d better take a mop.”

I curse Paul all the way up to our floor. How does cleaning up crap and other people’s waste make me a better person? Especially me? Manual labor definitely won’t make the ghosts go away. I stop at the janitor’s closet for the mop and bucket but come face to face with Charlotte, standing among the brooms and light bulbs. “What the hell are you doing in there?”

She grabs me by the arm and yanks me inside. “Waiting for you, dumbass. You said you wanted to talk to me.”

Obviously my whispered words weren’t the threat I’d hoped they would be. Is this girl scared of anything? “Yeah, well, I didn’t appreciate you pulling out the waterworks today during group. I’m the one that’s making progress in there, everyone else is supposed to make me look good.”

She laughs. “You’re joking, right? You’re not the boss around here, at least not of me.”

I’m about to tell her to shut it, but she reaches into the top of her shirt and feels around.  I can’t help but stare. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any kind of access to a pair of boobs.

After a second she pulls out a sloppily made joint, followed by a lighter, and catches my eye. Busted.

“Like what you see?”

I refuse to respond. Verbally, that is. My traitorous eyes will not stop looking at her chest.

“Yeah, you act all high and mighty but you’re a perv just like the rest.”

“Where’d you get that?” I croak.

Charlotte shrugs. “I have my ways.”

Mesmerized, I watched her lick her lips and place the joint between them. She offers me, the fire-starter, the lighter in her outstretched palm. I adjust the safety lever and the flame sparks between us. Charlotte closes her eyes and inhales before handing it to me.

“I can’t,” I tell her, despite desperately wanting to get high. “I’m out of here in less than two months and if they find out, I’m screwed.”

She doesn’t care, leaning against the supply room door. She returns the joint to her mouth and takes another hit. Her shoulders instantly relax. Surrounded by the haze of smoke, Charlotte’s features soften, and without the perma-scowl she’s prettier than before. I hate the fact I find her attractive, because that line of thinking can only lead to more trouble.

“What did you do to get this?” I ask, curiosity getting the best of me.

“One of the orderlies in the medical center. We hit it off when that bitch-Vera assaulted me a couple weeks ago.”

“Hit it off?”

She licks her lips and inhales once more. Her eyes pulse, dilating, and she reaches for the back of my neck, her fingers trailing over fuzzy shaved hair. Pulling me close, she pushes her lips against mine, exhaling a warm breath of smoke into my mouth.

“Dammit,” I say, pushing her off. “I said no.”

She laughs. “Yeah, we all know ‘no’ is subjective right? I mean, I could tell you really wanted it.”

She pointedly looks down at my crotch.

Dammit.

I’m in the middle of squashing my hormones when she offers me the joint. This time I take it and stub it out on the wall.

“Hey! You have no idea what that cost me.”

I look her up and down. “I don’t want to know.”

“I didn’t peg you for a chicken.”

I grab her by the arm. “I’m serious. I’m not letting you drag me into whatever craziness you have going on.”

She snatches the remainder of the joint and stashes it on the shelf behind her. “I wasn’t lying before. In group.” I must have looked skeptical because she adds, “I know you think I was making it up for attention or ass-kissing points, but I wasn’t.”

“I don’t care if you were making it up or not, but that blubbering cheese fest today will only go so far. Marcy may be lame but she’s not an idiot. You dumped too much too fast. It’s taken me months to work up to cooperative and emotional and I’m not willing to let you mess it up by going full Oprah your second day,” I seethe, pissed I can still feel the memory of the pressure of her lips on mine and the taste of weed on my tongue.

“Why do you think I’d do that?”

I pick up the joint up off the shelf holding cleaners and supplies. Lifting it to her face I say, “This is why. If you want to get high and break the rules—fine, but don’t drag me into it. Oh and keep your hands and your mouth to yourself. Not interested.” I drop the joint and lighter back down the front of her shirt and grab a mop, leaving her in the closet alone.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when I find the bathroom clean and orderly. She’d managed to manipulate Paul into sending me up here, which meant he knew I was meeting her, and if she gets caught I’m going down, too. I can’t help but wonder what she did to get him and the orderly downstairs to bend the rules.

Running my hand over my face, I throw the mop against the wall. It bounces off and falls to the floor with a clatter. If I’m going to survive the next eight weeks at Brookhaven and get home, I’m going to have to survive Charlotte first.

*

“So what’s up your ass this afternoon?”

I shoot Vera a glare. “What are you talking about?”

“You look constipated. There’s a line between your eyes. It makes you look deranged.” She points at my eyes with a wobbly finger. We’re jogging around the fence line. One of three approved activities for our required activity period. Basketball, running, or aerobics. Vera and I both picked running the first week we got here and at some point became workout partners—kind of.

“If I tell you, you can’t say anything to anyone, got it?”

“Sure. Who am I going to tell?”

True. Vera doesn’t have a lot of friends in here. I take a deep breath and say, “It’s that girl, Charlotte. She’s sort of messing with my head.”

“What?” She swings her dark eyes at me. “I told you to stay away from her. Specifically told you.”

“I know and I’m trying to. She…well she’s a manipulator. Totally tricked me into meeting her alone earlier today.”

Her eyes narrow. “What do you mean alone?”

“Like, in the supply closet alone.”

She stops and shoves her finger down her throat, mimicking gagging.

I rest my hands on my hips and catch my breath. “Are you done?”

“Are you?”

We resume jogging, passing one of two security check points. I wave to the guard and keep running. “Look nothing happened. Not really, but she makes me nervous. I am very close to getting out of here and for some reason she’s developed a fascination with harassing me.”

“Say something to Paul or one of the staff.”

I shake my head. “No good. She’s working on them too.”

Vera mutters something under her breath.

“What did you say?”

“Look, I told you she’s no good. Trouble.”

Two crows fly overhead and land in the middle of the field. Vera spots them and shudders.

“What? Scared of birds?”

“Not birds exactly but crows. They carry a lot of mojo you know.”

“Good or bad?” I laugh. This girl is so weird.

“Does it matter?” She makes a face at my laughter. “Crows are harbingers of death. I’ve been seeing that one for a couple of days.”

“That one? How do you know the difference?” But her statement makes me think about the one perched on the sill of Dr. Cross’ window.

She doesn’t answer my question but says, “Mark my words. That crow is here for somebody, about something. Either wants to warn someone or carry someone over. I can’t quite figure it out.” She rubs her temples. “The drugs make it all a little fuzzy.”

A pinch in my stomach makes me slow and ask, “Uh, make what fuzzy?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay,” I we slow as we’ve reached the end of our mile run and head to the water cooler. “Can you tell me what you mean by ‘carry someone over’?”

She fills her paper cup with water and gives me a wary look.

“I’m serious. I’d really like to know,” I say, sort of understanding her hesitancy.

“Walk with me.” I follow her at a slower pace around the field. “First you have to understand that my family is deeply religious and everything I’m going to tell you goes against what I was raised to believe.”

“Okay.”

“So as crazy as it sounds, my family traditionally practiced Brujeria.”

“What’s that?”

“A form of religion—paganism, I guess. This to me wasn’t that weird until my mother married a Pentecostal minister and went off the deep end with Jesus and turned into a submissive, skirt wearing, praying all the time, Stepford wife. Basically I’ve got crazy running in all sides of the family tree.”

I smile at her bluntness. In a place like this, where everyone is manipulating all the time and hiding things, it’s refreshing.  “Sounds like an intense way to grow up.”

“Oppressive is the only way to describe it; you can take the witch out of the coven, but you can’t take the witch out of a witch.”

“So you’re a witch,” I say, not sure how to feel about this. Again, we’re walking the grounds of a mental hospital. Anything Vera tells me falls under this warning, but who am I to question her sanity?

“Runs in my blood, I guess. No amount of evangelical church could beat it out of me,” she gives me look, “literally.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, they’re probably neck deep in a snake pit right now, yet I’m the crazy one.” She smacks a bug off her neck. “I was actually pretty into the whole Jesus thing myself but when I turned eleven things started changing for me. What I thought was the Holy Spirit was really the Goddess waking up. My parents sent me to my aunt’s house while they went to a week-long revival and it all clicked.”

“What happened?”

“It was mostly just a feeling—like I said, the power of the Goddess rising in me. My senses heightened. Normal things like,” she pointed to the crow patiently standing on the grass, “birds and people read differently than before. A bird isn’t always just a bird and a bratty rich girl’s motivations are sometimes pretty easy to read.”

“What are Charlotte’s motivations, you know, other than the obvious.”

“She’s a fighter. If she used that strength for good she’d probably be unstoppable. But there’s a darkness lurking under the surface that will ruin her.”

“Like, she’s actually evil?”

Her forehead creases. “The universe and the Goddess are aware of her deceptions. Too many and they’ll decide she’s truly bad.”

“So she can change? She can save herself if she wants?” The whistle blows, alerting us to the end of our activity hour. We cut across the field and basketball court.

“I don’t know if she can change, sometimes we just are what we are, you know?” She gives me a pointed look. “The universe determines our fate long before we’re even born. It’s up to us to figure out how to use the talent given to us.”

Vera walks off, leaving me standing on the edge of the muddy field. That was either the craziest conversation I’ve ever had, or the most realistic. I watch her disappear into the building, still trying to figure out which one it was.

Chapter 6

The next couple of days are quiet. My job shifts from residential detail back to grounds duty and I keep to myself. The first days outside are spent mowing and raking the yard. The guys handle most of the mowing, but sometimes the girls help. Usually they take the raking part, but either way, both jobs suck. However, it’s better than cleaning bathrooms.

I assume I’ll see Charlotte outside that first day and have already practiced my avoidance methods. No eye contact. No lip watching. No mind-wandering. Definitely no boob ogling. It would be easier if she hadn’t infiltrated my dreams the night before, licking her puffy lips.

“Good God,” I mutter to myself, cranking my lawnmower in an attempt to drown everything and everyone out.

It doesn’t matter because Charlotte never shows to work detail.

I consider it a blessing, hoping maybe she’d been caught and asked to leave. Much to my distress, I see this isn’t the case during lunch when she drops her Styrofoam tray in my usual seat, across from Max.

I grunt, moving to the other side of the table.

“Dude, what the hell, you stink.” Max fans his hand in front of his face when I sit down.

“It’s 90 fucking degrees outside, asshole.” I open my bottle of water and drink half of it in one gulp. “I could eat lunch or shower. I chose lunch.” Charlotte barely suppresses a laugh and makes some kind of weird eye contact with Max. I flick my eyes in her direction. “Where were you anyway?”

“Oh I got my detail changed.” She makes a disgusted face. “I don’t do well with manual labor.”

“Of course you don’t,” I say, taking a bite of my grilled cheese, the cheese already hard and the bread greasy. I force it down with more water. “What’d they do? Put you back on residence?”

“Actually no, I’ve been assigned to the nurse’s station. Filing and stuff.”

Max and I share a look. Helping the nurse isn’t a job other residents work and sounds incredibly cush for Brookhaven.

“So how’d you work that out?” Max asks.

“I talked to Marcy and she talked to Dr. Cross. They both thought my skills would be better suited for a job like that.” She nibbles on the edge of her sandwich. I haven’t seen her eat a complete meal since she’d checked in.

“Right, you know, because I have amazing toilet cleaning skills,” I say through a clenched jaw. God, she’s infuriating.

“You know, Connor, not everything is about you all the time.”

Max laughs and chokes on a potato chip. I glare at him. He hacks and coughs for a solid minute before finally saying, “She has a point. You do get a little self-absorbed.” He smiles at Charlotte. “I think it’s the artist in him. Kind of emo and dramatic. He’s good. I just hope one day I don’t wake up and find him with his ear cut off.”

Charlotte giggles, like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. That or she’s high again. Whatever, I’m beyond done. I stand, scraping my chair against the linoleum floor, and grab my tray.

“Don’t be mad, man,” Max calls as I walk away from the table.

“Not mad, dude, just over it.” I shoot Charlotte a glance so she knows exactly who I’m over.

*

That night, in line for meds, I feel something soft press against my back. I turn to find Charlotte, a tiny smile on her face.

She has my sleeve in her hand, sniffing the fabric. “You smell better. Good even.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I get my tiny paper cup and pop the pills in my mouth. One red, two orange. I stick out my tongue, showing the nurse that I’ve swallowed them.

“It means you smell nice. Is there some kind of alternate meaning I’m unsure about?” She picks up her cup of pills and follows the same routine, crushing the cup in her hand.

“It’s just…” How do I tell her I don’t understand her quirky ways? Hot and cold. Manipulative then nice. And why does it matter? I have weeks left. Weeks. Then I can go home and be done with this shit forever.

“I like boys that smell nice. Like soap. None of that cologne crap you guys spray all over your body under the impression it attracts girls like a cat in heat. That’s bullshit. Girls hate that, you know. Soap and detergent. So we can smell that yummy boy scent underneath. That’s what we like.” She grabs the front of my standard issue white T-shirt and takes another deep breath.

“Um…” I glance around to see if anyone notices, but no one seems interested in the two of us.

“Oh, ugh,” she says reaching into her mouth, pulling out an orange pill. “I don’t like these.”

“You swallow them, not eat them. And you’ll get in serious trouble if they find out you’re not taking your meds.”

“Whatever. I’m not taking this crap. That’s why it’s so easy to manipulate everyone around here. They’re just a bunch of drugged out sheep,” she whispers. “Freaking hypocrites.”

She takes one more huff of my shirt and shoves the pill into the dirt of a nearby plant.

“Night, Connor.” She turns and walks off in the direction of her residence hall, leaving me more confused than ever.

*

Tap, tap, tap.

I shift and mumble, “Shut up, dude,” before pulling the pillow over my head and falling back asleep.

Tap, tap, tap.

Cracking an eye, I see it’s still dark and Max is quiet in his bed. I listen, but the room and hallway are both silent and there’s nothing but the faint glow of light under our door.

I roll on my back and blink at the ceiling, pissed that I’m awake. Sleeping 10 hours of the day is the only thing that makes Brookhaven bearable. I think about Charlotte ditching the drugs, wasting the opportunity for approved medicinal bliss. Why would she risk smoking weed in the broom closet when she could get a script to take away her pain? Especially with her persuasive abilities, Dr. Cross would probably give her whatever she asked for.

Damn. Charlotte. That girl is racking up a long list of violations; skipping meds, ditching work, bribing a guard, possession of contraband. Any of these could get her sent to long-term lock up. Is that what she wants?

The faint light in the room moves and I glance at the space under the door. Shadows pass back and forth.

Tap, tap, tap.

This time the echo comes off the door and I quietly get off my bed and walk over. I press my ear to the cool, metal surface and listen. Nothing but the faint hum of the building. We have a small window, barely a slat. It’s more for the guards to check on us periodically than anything else and I dare a look.

Nothing but the barely lit hallway.

Maybe, I tell myself, it’s just the air conditioner, like the way the furnace makes noise at my house. Or maybe I’m groggy with sleep. Or it’s the meds. Who knows? Who cares. I’m wasting shut-eye.

I’m heading back to bed when I feel a gust of cool air wash over my feet. I glance down and see what looks like black smoke twisting around my ankles. A shiver runs up my spine, either from the cold or from the fact I may have been hallucinating. If I’m hallucinating then…shit.

“No,” I whisper.

My eyes dart to Max, still soundly asleep, although snoring now.  I back away from the murky cloud, the back of my calves hitting the edge of my mattress. I sit. I wait for the ghost to appear. What will it be this time? Male? Female? Former resident? The transformation never comes—well not into a person. The black, inky smoke twists into itself, curling and molding until it begins to take shape.

I let out a long exhale when a fat, sleek black bird appears in the middle of my room.

“Who are you?” I ask, knowing in the pit of my stomach that it’s a who and not a what. The crow doesn’t respond. Its beady eye holding mine as it ruffles its feathers. It leans over and clicks the curved, black beak on the tile floor.

Tap, tap, tap.

“What do you want?”

The crow spreads its wings, as though it’s about to take flight in our small room, but the feathers curve and slip back into the less tangible wisps of smoke. The smoke forms a tight ball curling into itself, until it rushes upward with a sharp, cool gust of air. It blasts to the ceiling like a plume of water, disappearing on impact.

What the hell was that?

I blink, feeling the goose bumps on my skin from the cool air—from the whole, weird scene—and wait. Nothing happens though. It’s just me on my bed and Max snoring like a bear.

I lie back against my pillow and wait for morning.

Chapter 7

The sound of voices, panicked and rushed, wake me with the feeling I’ve just had the weirdest dream. I sit up on the bed and rub my eyes, “What’s going on?” I ask Max, who has his ear pressed to the door and is trying to see out the small window.

His position seems vaguely familiar, like a form of déjà vu. “I don’t know. It’s late though—past wake up.”

“We’re locked in?” This happens on occasion. During contraband searches or like last month when Jackson tried to hang him—“Shit.”

My dream (was it a dream?) comes back to me.

“What?” Max asks.

“Nothing. I just…I really need to piss.”

“Well you’re going to have to hold it, brother.” He peers out the window. “Here comes Dr. Cross.”

Dr. Cross only makes it down to our hall in an emergency. So does that mean Jackson or someone else is dead? Did someone kill themselves? Is that why the crow was here? Vera said they were harbingers of death. I’m not exactly sure what a harbinger is, but it can’t be good.

Whatever is going on, the staff moves quickly and soon a guard arrives to release us from our room. An hour later I pass Vera on the way to the cafeteria. She has dark circles under her eyes and looks as bad as I feel.

“You hear anything about the lockdown?” I ask her.

“A rumor. That Jackson tried to kill himself again.”

“Tried?”

She shrugs. “That’s all I heard.”

I reach for a carton of milk and a plastic fork. “I think I need to tell you something.”

She eyes me. “Yeah?”

The idea makes me nauseous. I’ve never told anyone about what I can do. What I can see.

“Yeah.”

*

It’s very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better-Jonathan Ive.

We troop past the quote of the day and settle in our seats.  All members accounted for except for Jackson. Max heard the rumor too, and obsessed over it during breakfast, trying to figure out if we could convince Marcy to tell us if it was true or not. She takes counselor-patient confidentiality pretty seriously.

I’m curious though, and figure we should just ask. What could it hurt? He’s a member of our group and asking shows our concern. Max disagrees, saying that if we asked and she says no, then we’ll have to drop it completely. Instead he painstakingly compiles a list in his wobbly handwriting of vague questions to bring up during group, hoping to trick her.

All his preparations go to waste. Charlotte sits on the other side of Max, (she’s always on the other side of Max these days,) and doesn’t even wait for Marcy to issue her standard, “Everybody settle down,” before she says, “I know we aren’t supposed to ask, Marcy, but we’re all so worried about Jackson. Not because he was successful, but because maybe he wasn’t. I know I’ve thought about…doing it before…killing myself. I knew it would be the only way to keep myself safe from…you know?” She takes a deep breath and works up a fresh batch of tears. “If death gives Jackson peace, I can’t fault him for that. I’m just glad that by coming here, I’ve learned new methods of coping. I’m just hoping I can use the skills I’ve learned so that I never get to that dark place again.”

She finishes and looks around to the rest of us with sincere, innocent blue eyes. I think, and not for the first time, that Vera is probably right. Charlotte may be the devil incarnate.

I try to follow Charlotte’s train of thought but it’s impossible. All I gathered is that at some point she wanted—or wants—to kill herself. Big deal, all of us had that desire at one time or the other. I know I did when I set that fire. Standing in my living room, watching the flames engulf everything but the ghosts. Yeah, suicide seemed like an entirely acceptable option. But the fact she took Jackson’s attempt and turned it back on herself to express how strong she is…I’ve never met a more narcissistic person in my life.

Marcy nods at her every word, even wiping away a tear.

“Jesus,” I mutter. Is no one above her manipulation?

“I’m not supposed to discuss Jackson’s case with you, but since Charlotte put it so well, that you’re all here to help him, I guess it’s okay to tell you that Jackson did make an attempt last night. A very serious attempt and he was nearly successful.” She holds up her hand up as Max jumps in to ask for specifics. Marcy brushes him off. “I can’t share anything else. But he is going to be okay. Thank you for your concern, Charlotte.”

I risk a glance across the room at Vera. Nearly successful? What did that even mean? She doesn’t return my look, but her eyebrows are furrowed and her mouth set in a hard frown.

“You’re welcome, Marcy.”

“Now, would anyone like to start today?” the counselor asks. She looks around the room until her gaze rests on me. I raise my hand dutifully and begin my routine of lies and ass kissing. Anything to get out of here. I keep my focus off Charlotte though, unable to swallow the reflection of my hypocrisy reflected back at me.

*

I think about what I’m going to tell Vera all day. The whole story? Part of the story? It doesn’t feel right. I’ve held this information so close to the chest for so long that revealing it, in any way, feels like a personal betrayal. It feels like a risk—a huge risk—one I can’t take so close to my release.

Especially if I’m seeing things again.

But I need to talk to someone, because (dammit, the sessions with Marcy may actually be working) I have got to learn how to cope outside of this place. Right now Vera may be the only one who has any idea what I’m going through.

Luckily she and I both have garden duty late that afternoon. Apparently, Dr. Cross is an avid gardener and believes we should try our best to be self-sustaining. So much of our fresh food comes from the garden on the west side of the facility. There are several rotating shifts a day, but in the summer he wants us to water and pick any ripe vegetables before the nighttime animals come out.

“So what did you want to talk to me about?” Vera asks while putting tomatoes into the basket she’s carrying.

I’m on my knees, reaching for green beans growing between the rows. “Remember what you said to me? About using the gifts given to us? I think I have a gift that I’ve really struggled to figure out how to use the right way. Like it’s always been overwhelming and I’ve thought the best thing to do was to ignore it—or if I can’t ignore it then figure out how to suppress it, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Did something happen?”

“I had a dream last night—about a crow.”

“Last night?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

I describe the dream to her, even though I know it wasn’t a dream. It had actually happened. I’m sure of that now. I stand and brush the dirt off my knees. “Do you think it had anything to do with Jackson?”

“My aunties would say so for sure.”

“What do you think?”

“Has anything like this happened to you before?” she asks, her eyes dart to my face and then back to her task.

I hesitate to answer. I’ve held on to this secret for so long that breaking my silence seems like an incredible feat. Vera doesn’t pressure me though. She just keeps plucking tomatoes off the vine with a swift twist and carefully placing them in the basket. Finally I say, “I’ve never had a dream like that before, but yeah, weird stuff has happened to me.”

“Like what?”

I rub my hand through my hair even though it’s brown with dirt. “People sort of trying to communicate with me.”

“What kind of people?”

She’s fishing. She knows. “The kind of people that use crows to communicate.”

Vera hoists the full basket with the crook of her elbow and looks me up and down. She’s trying to decide if I’m full of shit. I don’t blame her. I’m telling her a load of crazy stuff and half of it’s a lie to make me sound less crazy.

I’m no longer sure that’s possible.

The whistle blows and it’s time for us to head back in. I step in stride with her and she says, “So you think Jackson was trying to tell you something?”

“Maybe.” If he was, I’d failed miserably.

“Does anyone else know about this?” she asks, stopping to pick a couple of leaves from a potted plant, shoving them in her pocket.

I shake my head. “No one.”

“Good.” She reaches for the door. “I’m not sure how you’re supposed to handle this either, but maybe we can figure something out.”

“I don’t want to end up back in here again.”

She nods. “Me either.”

Chapter 8

“My bed.”

“Fast food.”

“Soccer.”

“Sex.”

“Weed.”

“Shopping.”

All eyes shift to me. One of our favorite free time activities is a game called, “What do you miss the most?” I run my hand over my buzz cut and say, “My hair.”

“Wow, Connor Jacobs is a little vain,” Charlotte teases.

“Ha! You should see this guy, he spends twenty minutes in the morning shaving and primping,” Max laughs.

“You’re just jealous because you’ve got nothing to shave.” I run my hand over my scratchy chin. I can already feel the stubble growing out and I’d only shaved a couple hours ago.

Charlotte reaches out and touches my chin. I bat her hand away in annoyance.

“What?” she asks. “I like your beard.”

Saturday afternoons have a way of dragging. The best day of the week at home is the worst here. We still have group but no school and an extended free period. I’ve grown tired of Max and Charlotte giggling like a couple of school-girls all afternoon and dodging the occasional flirtatious remark thrown my way by Charlotte.

“I’m going to my room. See you guys later,” I say, leaving them to whatever weird shit they had going on. Seven weeks. That’s all. Seven weeks.

I’ve been in my room for a while, sketching the hundredth black-eyed crow this week, when the loudspeaker crackles and Paul’s voice echoes down the hallway.

“Reflection in five minutes, everyone to your rooms.”

I’d lied earlier about what I missed the most. I miss going to The Ruins. The Ruins is the abandoned water-works property tucked back in the woods near my house. It’s a tagger’s paradise. So quiet. Nothing but the clink of the spray paint cans and the steady hiss of paint combined with the faint tinge of weed. My boys and I spend a huge amount of time down there—I have my own wall just for my work. The best part is that the ghosts don’t bother me there for some reason, but that definitely could have been due to the weed.  After getting locked up and medicated, it became pretty clear that something about the meds dull my senses enough to keep the spirits away, which is why I started smoking in the first place. Rebellion hadn’t been the reason I turned into a stoner. I’d turned into a stoner for desperation and relief.

Peace.

Max slips in the room moments after the announcement. I notice his flushed face and a weird expression but don’t say anything.  He flops hard on his bed, rattling the springs and turns to face me. I’m focused on my drawing, but his staring gets the best of me and I finally ask, “What?”

“You will not believe what just happened to me.”

“I probably won’t.”

“No really. After you left, Charlotte started acting all weird. So she gets up and whispers something to Paul, I don’t know what, but next thing I know, he’s telling me to go help clean up some kind of mess upstairs.”

My pencil comes to an abrupt stop. I glance up. “Go on.”

“So I go up to the bathroom, the one off the main lounge and stop to get a mop. I open the door and there’s Charlotte. Waiting inside.”

I force a shocked look on my face. “Really? Waiting for you?”

“Yeah man, she pulled me inside and reached down the front of her shirt—“

“Did she have a joint down there?”

“What? No, no man, she pulled that shit off. She took off her shirt in the supply closet!”

My jaw drops, no need to fake being surprised. “Wait, what? She took off her shirt?”

Max’s face almost splits in half, his smile is so big. “Yes! Just like that, man. She was all jacked up. One minute I’m cursing about cleaning up and the next minute we’re going at it in the closet.”

“Was she wearing a bra?” God why am I asking that? Why? Because I’ve been locked up too long that’s why.

“For a minute.”

“Holy shit.”

“I know.”

We sit on our beds, imagining Charlotte just in her bra or less. Or at least I’m imagining it—Max is remembering it. “What then?”

“Well, the closet is pretty small so there wasn’t much room, so she unbuttoned her pants and I just…,” he makes a gesture with his hand and I frown.

“I don’t even want to know what that means.”

“That means I made her happy.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Did she make you happy?”

“Nah, I just took care of that in the bathroom.” He has no shame. “No time or space, but man! We were right all along, that chick is crazy. Crazy hot.”

I lay back on my bed, holding my notebook over my head, looking at my sketch of a black bird, wings spread. “So you guys have been spending a lot of time together. What’s that all about?”

“Boredom? Convenience? I don’t know.” He takes one of my discarded sketches and wads it into a ball. With one hand, he tosses it against the wall. In between catches, he says, “I don’t really care either, you know? What happens in the hospital stays in the hospital.”

“Thank god for that,” I agree.

*

“Why do you take those?” Charlotte asks, following me out of the meds line.  I toss my empty cup into the trash and watch her ditch another orange pill in the plant soil. “You like feeling like a zombie?”

“Why do you ask so many questions?”

“I’m curious.”

“No you’re not,” I tell her. “You’re nosy. And you use information about people against them.”

She appears hurt. “No I don’t.”

I cross the lounge and start toward my dorm. “No? I heard about Bethany.”

She steps in front of me, crossing her tiny arms over her not so tiny chest.  “What did you hear, exactly?”

“That you told Dr. Cross you were afraid she’d take your things and you needed a room of your own.”

“Is that so unreasonable?”

“Yes, you told him all that stuff we share in group and went back and used it to make your life better. We all would love a single, I mean, do you think I want to listen to Max snore all night? Or see his ugly face first thing every morning? I don’t, but I’m not about to sell him out to get some alone time. You’re selfish and entitled.”

Charlotte narrows her eyes and clenches her jaw. “That’s not why I told on her! I was worried about her having a relapse and being near all my nice things would be really hard on her.”

I snort and push past her. “You’re un-freaking-believable.”

“You think you know me, Connor Jacobs, but you don’t,” she yells. “I’m not selfish.”

“Sure, Charlotte. Whatever you say,” I reply, walking toward the boys’ hall where she can’t follow me.

*

“I lied the other day,” I tell Vera during activity hour.

“About what?”

“About the crow dream.”

She stops her slow-paced jog. “What? Are you messing with me?”

“No,” I say, hand on her arm. “No. It wasn’t a dream. It was real. I think the crow actually came into my room. I think Jackson was trying to reach me.”

Vera shakes her head. “I knew it. You’re messing with me.”

I swallow and hold her eye. “No. I’m not.”

“So you think Jackson transformed into this bird and came into your locked room?”

“Maybe not Jackson specifically but like…his spirit.”

“To tell you what?”

“That he needed help?” She gives me a side-eye and I’m already regretting confessing this much. “Never mind, okay? I’m just being weird.”

Vera wipes the sweat off her face. “I already told you my story. I’m not judging you one way or the other. Maybe you’re telling the truth. Maybe you’re making it up. We’re in the nut-house, after all. What I can tell you is that I’ve learned to own my…ability. But it took a while and even then, look where I ended up.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to eff this up. It’s just really hard—“

“I get it. The whole deal about being here is convincing everyone we are sane and making progress. Anything else is a huge risk.”

“Right.”

“Here’s the thing, Connor. I believe that crow, or something looking like the crow, came into your room.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I can feel them too—the ghosts in this place.” My eyebrows shot up and she shook her head. “Okay, not exactly ghosts but the energy? There’s a ton of bad mojo in that building.”

“Not a huge surprise,” I say. “Considering the fact the building is filled with damaged, hormonal teenagers—some with serious problems.”

“I can feel it and well, maybe it’s not surprising you can see it?”

“Does that mean we’re crazy?” I ask, because honestly, I’d love someone’s opinion.

She picks up her pace and yells over her shoulder, “Probably.”

Not exactly what I wanted to hear.

Chapter 9

Your Life is Your Message to the World, Make Sure it’s Inspiring

No one makes a sound as the group shuffles out, single file, past the blackboard. Max acts out the shape of a halo over his head as he exits, letting me know exactly what he thinks of my behavior. I flip him off and start sweeping again, trying to avoid stepping on any of the glass.

Marcy had kept her emotions in check while everyone was still in the room, or at least the best she could.  I over-exaggerate my busyness in an effort to ignore the tears brimming in her eyes and pray she wouldn’t cry in front of me. There is a lot I’m willing to do to get out of this place, but consoling crying counselors doesn’t make the list.

“Thank you, Connor.” She drags the trash can closer to me. “I appreciate you staying behind and cleaning up this mess.”

“No problem.”  The mess amounts to a shattered window, bloody glass and an over-turned table. I sweep up the remaining large pieces of glass into the dust pan and dump them into the can with a clatter.

“Transition is hard,” Marcy says, as though that explains everything. I don’t need an explanation. We got a new kid today, Henry, who took Jackson’s place, and he made it more than clear he wasn’t into the program. After flipping the table, he busted the window with one of the chairs. Well, the chair and his fist. That’s where the blood came from. Paul dragged him out of here kicking and punching. On the way out, he spit in Marcy’s face and elbowed Paul in the gut, trying to make a run for it. Out of instinct, I’d jumped up and tackled him, keeping him on the ground until two more workers ran in.

The adrenaline felt like a hit of speed after weeks of numbed-down senses. I volunteered to get the broom from the supply closet and started cleaning up, unsure of what to do with myself.

“I think that’s good enough.” She reaches for the broom.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re doing really well here, Connor. Dr. Cross is pleased with your improvement. Today is the kind of thing that will only help you more. I’ll make sure he knows what a help you were.”

“Thank you.” My eyes dart to the ground. I hadn’t done it as a manipulation but it had been so long since I’d done something genuine for myself or for someone else that the feeling is unfamiliar and strange.

“Will you take the broom back?” she asks, giving me the dustpan and broom.

“Sure.”

I leave the room, feeling better than I had in a while, my mind clearer. Being in the hospital has a way of making us all too self-absorbed. Too much time, I guess, thinking about ourselves and not what it’s like outside, functioning with other people. Content for the first time in months, I swing open the closet and came face to face with Max and Charlotte.

Involved.

“Holy crap!” I shout. The dustpan hits the floor with a loud clang.

Charlotte narrows her eyes but makes no move to cover herself. “Shut the door, perv.”

I slam the door and pick up the dustpan, looking around, trying to figure out where to put them. I can’t take them back to my room, or leave them in the hall. Someone will notice and open the door and see them, and even though I don’t particularly care if Charlotte and Max get caught, they’re pretty much my best friends in here. I really don’t want to break in a new roommate before I leave.

Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and open the door again. I toss the broom and pan inside, eliciting an, “Ouch,” from Max.  I shut the door before they can throw them back at me.

“Jesus,” I say, shaking my head, turning to find myself face to face with Paul, my already-racing heart kick-starting again.

“Just putting up the broom,” I tell him, moving away from the door.

He nods. “Thanks for your help earlier.”

“Sure, yeah, no problem.”

“Dr. Cross is waiting for you. I told him you were cleaning up the mess and would be along shortly.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say, nodding. I move quickly around Paul, hoping to get away from the closet and Max and Charlotte and everything else that had happened today. Paul seems satisfied and walks in the opposite direction. Sighing in relief, I promise myself to look at the calendar in Dr. Cross’s office and confirm the number of days I have left.

I’ve got to get out of this place.

*

Two days later, while I’m carting a load of laundry down the hall with another resident, Carlos, we witnessed Paul dragging Max out of the broom closet. With his pants down.

“Holy crap.” Carlos looks to me for an explanation since Max and I are friends. I shrug but keep my eyes on the closet door, waiting for Charlotte to emerge.

“It was my idea!” Max yells, kicking and acting like a fool. “Blame me!”

“Oh great,” I say, rubbing my hand over my head. “He’s going to go down the hero.”

“A hero?” Carlos asks. “What are you talking about, Jacobs?”

I point to the still-open door as Charlotte emerges, straightening her shirt. She attempts to smooth back her hair, following Paul and a struggling Max down the hall.

Carlos howls so hard with laughter that he bends at the waist.  “He didn’t.”

“He did,” I assure him, kicking the bag of laundry with my foot. “More than once. Come on; let’s move this before we get in trouble.”

Paul and Max disappear around the corner with Charlotte following close behind. I stare at her as she walks casually, as though she hadn’t just been busted breaking one of the major rules of the program. Our eyes lock and I pretend it’s just my imagination that she winks before moving out of sight.

*

“What do you mean he’s gone?” I ask Dr. Cross. I had been brought down to a special meeting with my doctor. Apparently ‘special meeting’ is the name they give meetings when they have bad news to tell you. Our Special Meeting is to announce that Max is no longer in the program. “You kicked him out?”

“As you know, Max broke several program rules. There wasn’t much we could do.”

“What about Charlotte?” I ask, even though I have a feeling I knew the answer.

“Ms. Brady has been placed on probation but she’s still a resident and a member of your community.” Dr. Cross notices the frustration on my face. “I know you and Max were friends, but he admitted to coercing Charlotte into that closet. She said she went willingly but he insisted on taking full blame for his actions. He’ll finish the remainder of his time in detention.”

I start to argue about Charlotte and how this was her idea, but I stop short of saying anything that would implicate myself. If Max chose to throw himself under the bus, there wasn’t anything I could do to fix that. And at this point I only have five weeks before I get out of this nightmare. I’m not compromising myself for an idiot who can’t keep his pants on. Instead, I just mumble, “That sucks.”

Dr. Cross nods and ushers me out of the room. At the door he pauses. “The good news for you is that until we add another resident, you’ll get the room to yourself.”

Chapter 10

I wait a day before I confront her. I need a chance when we have some privacy but aren’t completely alone. I hadn’t trusted her much before, but now I knew my reasons were justified.

In the middle of my kitchen shift, a delivery arrives in the cafeteria. The manager, Martha, asks for a volunteer to take one of the boxes to the nurse’s station. I jump at the chance to get out of the hot, steamy room and possibly talk to Charlotte while she’s working.

“Martha asked me to bring this up,” I tell the nurse on duty. I catch a glimpse of Charlotte’s hair in the back hall.

“Thank you, Connor.”

“Do you want me to unload it in the back?” I offer.

“That would be great. Charlotte can show you where everything goes.”

I carry the box to the back and place it on the table. Inside are general medical supplies like latex gloves, bandages and cotton balls. Nothing dangerous.

“So,” she asks casually. “You here to thank me?”

“Um...what?”

“An offer of Seven Minutes in Heaven would be nice but I’m thinking that would be inappropriate right now. Instead you can stop being a moody, emo bastard and say thanks.”

I carry six boxes of latex gloves over to the cabinet and start stacking them. “What am I thanking you for, exactly?”

“For that single. It took a couple of weeks but I wanted to make sure Paul had enough evidence to kick Max out for real.”

I blink, processing her words, but they honestly make no sense.  “What the hell did you just say?”

“I got you a room of your own.”

“So you did get him kicked out on purpose? All that flirting and screwing in the closet, that was just a trap?”

“Duh.” She makes a face. “You don’t think I’d really hook up with a kid like that without a good reason, do you?”

I lower my voice. “Why the hell did you do that? I liked Max! Do you realize he’s in detention for at least a year now?” Assuming he doesn’t screw up and get more time added on—which if current events apply, that’s a bold assumption.

“You said you wanted a room of your own and not to see his ugly face every morning.” She lifts an eyebrow and shifts a hand to her hip. “I just helped you get what you wanted.”

“No, I never said that. And are you really just playing everyone here? Bethany? Max? Paul? Me?”

“Everyone here has something they want. Including myself. Including you. I simply know how to make it happen.”

I held my hands up and take a step backwards. “Don’t do me any more favors.”

“Too late,” she shrugs. “You’re already caught up in this.”

“What does that mean?”

She closes the gap between us. “That means that Paul knows you saw me and Max that day. He can turn you in for conspiring with Max to have sex with me, that you two were taking turns. And your real plan was to ultimately have me for yourself and also get your own room. I’ll tell them you told Paul how to find us so Max would get kicked out. I can make it so you get your maximum sentence, locked up here, with me.”

“You wouldn’t,” I challenge. She would. Will. I know it the second I say the words out loud.

She laughs, mocking me. “Dare me.”

A pause beats between us and I swallow. “What do you want from me?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll let you know when the time comes.”

My stomach twists. Partially at the thought that this could lead me to seeing her naked and I’m just enough of a deviant that I’d probably risk it. Otherwise, I’m terrified that whatever she wants will trap me here forever.

I back out of the room, wondering what kind of girl does this kind of thing and who made her so evil. I thought my problems with the ghosts trapped in this world were big, but this girl is something else. Unhinged—evil like Vera suggested. Something’s wrong with her.

The spirits and the way I handled them may have put me in the hospital, but I realize now that Charlotte may be the one to keep me here.

*

You Can’t Live a Positive Life With a Negative Mind.

Group feels strange without Max. He may not have participated much but he was always good for a joke. Charlotte’s presence takes up too much space, sucking the oxygen out of the room, leaving the rest of us to fight for any amount of air we can get.

In Marcy-approved psychobabble, Charlotte’s presence in group is toxic.

“It’s hard being so popular,” she tells us. “People always want something from you. Your clothes or directions about how you fixed your hair, or where did you get that necklace. They want your boyfriend because he wants you. They’re nothing but sheep, fighting over sitting next to you in the lunchroom. After a while the stress is too much, it’s easier to just tune it all out with a little weed or a shot of tequila.”

“What happens then?” asks Marcy, enraptured. I stare at the floor, my face a mask of indifference.

“Then I feel warm. Like I can handle anything.”

“But doesn’t being under the influence impair your judgment? Are the consequences worth a couple moments of getting high?”

“Why no—“

“No,” I cut off Charlotte’s pretentious bullshit. They both look in my direction. “It’s not worth it. Not in the long run.”

“Oh, so you admit that you’ve made stupid decisions?” Charlotte asks. “Because I thought you were Mister Moral High Ground.”

To my annoyance, at least three other kids laugh.

“Of course I have. Why do you think I’m here? But I’m not going to make some ridiculous justification that ‘popularity’ made me do stupid stuff. At least I accept responsibility for my actions.”

“Are you really judging me on smoking a little weed? You got so wasted you burned your freaking house down!”

“You have no idea why I did that,” I blurt, unable to control myself. “You know nothing about me.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Yeah, well you don’t know much about me either.”

“We all know more about you than we need to. Poor little rich girl, wah wah wah. So many people want to be me, I just can’t cope.” I use my fists to make a crying motion. Vera fights to cover a smirk at my attempt to mock Charlotte. At least someone is enjoying it. “Your life is so perfectly-perfect it made you into a train-wreck narcissist.”

“Let’s settle down.” Marcy uses her calm voice. “You both have different experiences and it’s okay to react to them differently, but please, let’s not drag each other down. We’re here to lift one another up.”

I snort at that, knowing full well Charlotte’s intention to drag everyone down with her.

*

My first plan for Charlotte is ignoring her. I’m good at this. I’ve spent years pretending my problems do not exist, especially pesky, annoying ones that drive me to the brink. With Max gone, I spend most of my free time with Vera. My alone time, or time separated from the female population anyway, is spent alone. No need to make new friends when the clock is ticking—plus look what happened last time.

“Tell me about your aunt,” I say to Vera one day over a game of cards. It’s raining and we’re stuck inside.

She lifts a perfectly manicured eyebrow. How do the girls manage to maintain their grooming in here?  “My aunt?”

“Yeah, you know, the one that helped you discover your true nature.”

“Ah, so I have this Aunt Lolly, she’s young-ish I guess, my mother’s youngest sister. There are two others that are older and they all practice as well, but Lolly seemed to be the most concerned about counteracting my religious upbringing.”

“I bet your mother hated that?”

“Totally hated it, but somehow she would talk my mom into letting her babysit. I figure they were desperate, you know, to get to church and all, so they let me go. She lived in this broken-down house, sort of out in the country that belonged to my grandmother. She had all these crazy little tokens and containers and crumbling books all over the place. Lolly let me rummage through them all—ask questions and stuff. I just thought it was weird crap left by my Abuelita after she died.”

“It wasn’t?” I lay down a card.

“Well, yeah,” she laughs, “it was, but it wasn’t just crap. It all had meaning and purpose.”

“What kind?”

“When I was younger I thought she was just cooking or maybe making crafts or something. It never made much sense. Later, when the Goddess awoke, I realized she was working spells.”

“Like magic spells?”

She shrugs. “Yeah. Lolly and the other women in the family performed spells all the time. Health, wealth, beauty. Sometimes they helped people find things. Other times they’d cast a spell for luck.” I try to keep the skepticism off my face, but it must not work because she shoots me a glare. “I know you think they’re just tricksters, but they weren’t. This stuff is real. As real as that crow in your room.”

I can’t argue that and I shouldn’t, since she’s the only one that believes me.

“Do you know why I’m in here?” she asks.

I think back to the group sessions. Vera is pretty quiet other than the occasional snarky remark. “No.”

“When I was thirteen I refused to go to church one week. By that point Lolly’s influence had taken hold and I felt ridiculous sitting through three hour church services, praying to a God I wasn’t sure existed, and if he did exist, he wasn’t the sexist jerk being talked about. My step-father went on a rampage and hit me. So I ran away from home, usually to Lolly’s house or one of my other aunties. My parents called the police. I got picked up, went to court and sent home. This happened over and over again for about 18 months. Finally my step-father sent me to a religious reform school.” She gave me a look. “Super religious. Skirts and dresses. Church every day. Beatings for going against the bible. It took me a couple months but I finally escaped and ran away—except I didn’t have anywhere to go and I couldn’t go back to Lolly’s house. We’d both get in trouble. So I ended up living with a bunch of squatters.”

“You were homeless?”

“Yeah, but I really didn’t want to go back. Things were okay. I traded with other kids doing some low level magic, like telling fortunes or whatever. Just little things Lolly had taught me, but one day this cop came around and rounded us all up. I thought I’d end up in detention. Instead he dropped all of us under eighteen at some guy’s house. He was pimp.”

“Woah.” This story is moving way past my comfort zone. “What happened?”

“Before he could send me out to work, I poisoned him.”

“What?”

She laughs, catching the attention of Charlotte across the room. The girl narrows her eyes for a second but then gives me a bright smile. I avert my eyes back to Vera who says, “It was supposed to be a spell to make his dick fall off. Seriously.”

Under the table I move my hand instinctively to protect myself.

“No shit.”

“Unfortunately, I didn’t actually know how to perform that spell. I mean, I kind of knew one to get rid of acne so I thought maybe it would work. I slipped it in his 40 and he slid off his chair and started convulsing. Someone called 911 and we all ran but the police had been watching the house already. I ended up back in front of the judge. He decided I may have some serious mental problems and I ended up in Brookhaven instead of long-term detention.”

She and I stare at one another. It’s only for the safety of my own dearly loved body parts that I don’t tell her that the judge may have been right.  Instead I toss my useless cards on the pile and say, “That’s some kind of story.”

“Right? Maybe one day I can write a book about it and become a famous author.”

I laugh. I really like Vera. A lot. “So how long did you get?”

“I got the max. I mean, it was basically attempted murder, but at the same time they viewed it as extreme distress. They think I’m super fucked-up. Maybe I am.” She gives me a sly smile. “But my plan is to ride out the sentence until I’m eighteen. I cause just enough trouble not to be considered for early release but not enough to get moved over to the detention facility. One thing’s for sure, I’m never going back home again. Once I’m legal, I’m free.”

“Sounds like that may be a good plan.”

As the hour wears on Charlotte gathers a group of admirers around her position on the couch. The weird thing is that she described her allure to people in group. Describing her popularity—people’s desire to be around her. She’s upfront about it, to the point that it sounds bragging but she’s not lying. Even in this environment everyone wants a piece of her.

Not me.

“Why do you think Max did it?” Vera asks, drawing my attention back. “You know, other than the obvious.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think it went much beyond that—but even I have to admit she seems to attract people.”

“What about you?”

I glance over. She’s hot. The kind that makes something instinctive rock my gut and my body wants to rule my brain. “I’ve already got enough danger in my life.”

Vera snorts, loud enough to get a couple of looks. This seems to prompt Charlotte to get louder, the kind of loud the guards usually put a stop to, but not her. Never her.

“God, she gets on my nerves,” Vera mutters, shoving the deck to the side.

“Tell me about it,” I agree. “She’s got some kind of thing with me. I don’t know what. She wants something, and she’s got everyone wrapped around her finger around here.”

“At least you only have a couple of weeks left.”

“Yeah, I guess.” But not knowing Charlotte’s motivation makes me nervous and when the hour is up I make an effort to keep an eye on her at all times.

*

I’m lugging two huge bags of trash down the stairwell when I hear footsteps behind me. “Wait up.”

I glance back and see Charlotte but continue walking. I have zero interest in what she has to say.

“Dude, slow down.” She runs beside me and grabs for the bag. “Let me take one.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Obviously, but I can carry one, too.”

I ignore her and continue down to the bottom floor where she scurries to push the door open for me. After heaving both bags into the dumpster I wipe my hands on my jeans and ask, “What do you want, Charlotte?”

“I want to make a truce.”

“Yeah, no thanks,” I sigh and start for the door.

“No really. I’m serious. This is stupid,” she says. “We’re obviously the two best-looking, socially appropriate, well-adjusted people here. We shouldn’t be at odds.”

I blink at her. “Did you really just say that? Are you trying to like, create your own A-List clique here at the freaking mental hospital? I mean, none of us are really fighting for captain of the cheerleading squad or anything.”

“I just…” she pauses. I can almost hear the wheels in her head spinning. Her expression switches from snobby elite to vulnerable girl. She drops her head. “Look, I need a friend. I screwed up doing that to Max. I liked him. But I’ve spent my whole life messing with people to get ahead. I couldn’t stop myself.”

She tries to look petulant, but I can see the glint in her eye. “What is this really about?” I ask.

“Why do you hang out with her all the time?”

Her.

Vera.

“We’re friends.”

“But we can’t be?”

“Uh, no. You’ve sort of burned that bridge.”

She frowns, this time it seems sincere, even if a little confused. “Well, how do I fix that?”

“You don’t. Not with me. I’ve seen you with your squad. They love you. You certainly don’t need me.” Or want me, I think. I’m just the shiny object out of her reach. “I have three weeks left, Charlotte, and I will not jeopardize that. I’m already going to miss the start of fall semester but I want to go home.”

“Can’t we be friends for the three weeks, then? Or at least not enemies? I promise not to mess anything up for you,” she offers me an awkward smile.

“I don’t trust you.”

The light in her eyes dims but a smile forms on her face. “How about I tell you why I’m here. Why I’m really here. You’ll know something about me—the real me. No one else knows.”

“I don’t know, Charlotte. I’m not really into secrets and stuff.” I have enough of my own.

“Think of it as collateral. If I fuck up your release you’ll have something on me. It’s big enough to get a lot of people in trouble,” she says.

“I’ll think about it,” I tell her. “But I’ve got to get back. They’ll be looking for me upstairs. You, too.”

She nods. “That’s all I want. Thanks, Connor.”

I follow her up the stairs with a tight knot in my stomach. I don’t trust her, but I have a feeling if I don’t accept her proposition, then the other, evil side of Charlotte will appear and I’ll regret my choices, again.

*

After dinner, but before meds, Paul passes around mail. My mom is pretty good about sending me letters each week. If I’m lucky I’ll get one from Emma. Today I’m lucky and am unfolding her latest drawing when Vera sits next to me, unsealing her own long, white envelope.

I nudge her and show her Emma’s artwork, a character she’s created named Roscoe. It’s a bunny with long ears and weird anime eyes. “I have no idea where she got the name Roscoe,” I say.

Vera gives me a small smile but focuses on her letter. I notice her hands have a slight tremor and I ask, “Is everything okay?”

“It’s from my mother. My auntie is sick.”

“Your aunt? The one you told me about?”

“Yes.” She sighs heavily. “Lolly. It doesn’t sound good. Especially if my mother is letting me know.”

It’s hard to explain what it’s like in here, knowing you have no real contact or control over what happens outside. A bomb could go off, a war could start, your family could fall apart and there’s nothing we can do or any certainty that we would even know unless someone told us.  So the automatic words in my throat are, “What are you going to do?” but I don’t say it. She can’t do anything.

Charlotte strides into the room, a thick stack of envelopes in her hands.  Even across the room the loopy, girlish handwriting is visible on the paper. Her friends from home still keep in touch. I wish I could say the same. None of the guys are going to write anything much more than a text or a doodle in spray paint on any given day. Again, I wonder what they’ve been doing since I’ve been here, and what will happen when I see them again in a couple of weeks.

“I’m going to my room,” Vera says, eyes glaring at the girl across the room. Charlotte’s laughing at whatever she’s reading, and it only packs a punch to the news Vera’s just received.

I grab her arm. “I’m sorry about your aunt. Let me know if I can do anything.”

“Thanks, Connor.” She gives me a weak smile.

“Sure.”

We both know I can’t do anything.

Chapter 11

I start kitchen duty the following day. The room is hot and steamy, sweat pours down my back and neck. It’s worse than garden duty or any other job on campus. Midway through my shift, Vera passes through the room collecting rags and other items to take to the laundry.

“Hey,” I say, scraping caked-on grits from a plate.

“You look like a drowned rat.”

I angle the sprayer in her direction. “Yeah?”

She lifts an eyebrow—daring me. We both know I’m bluffing.

“Do me a favor?” she asks.

“What?”

She looks around but Mrs. Carver, the kitchen manager, is helping another kid near the refrigerator. “I need a couple spices from the pantry.”

She pulls out a small piece of paper. “Nothing big. Just a couple of pinches of each.”

“How am I supposed to get that?” I glance over the list. Most items are normal. Sage, rosemary, salt, but it’s not like I’m carrying Tupperware containers with me.

“Use your imagination,” she says dryly. “Look, you said you wanted to help me with my aunt thing. This is how you do it.”

There’s a sense of panic in her eyes and obligation sets in. “Okay, I’ll figure it out.”

“I need it by tomorrow night.”

“Why so fast?”

She looks to the ceiling. “Don’t blame me, blame the moon.”

I’m about to tell her she’s speaking jibberish, but she grabs a towel off the counter and shoves it in her basket. Her eyes flick over my shoulder and I go back to work, pressing the piece of paper into my pocket. Mrs. Carver appears seconds later.

“You’re a little early,” she says to Vera. “The rest of the towels won’t be ready for another thirty minutes.”

“I’ll come back.”

Later, sitting in the hallway waiting for group, I’m considering asking Bethany the best way to steal something from the pantry. I’ve got my sketchbook open in my lap but not drawing, trying to figure out if whatever Vera is asking me to do is worth it. This is the kind of thing that could wreck my release in a couple weeks.

Is it worth it?

I don’t even know what she wants it for. A couple of kids head my way, including Charlotte. It’s about time for our separate girls and boys groups. Vera emerges from behind Charlotte and from my spot on the ground I see her hand off a slip of paper into her hand.

Huh.

Charlotte doesn’t flinch but tucks the paper in the waistband of her pants. They both pass me by, disappearing into their meeting room. Vera ignores me completely and Charlotte giving me a quick wink.

My question pops back in my mind.

Is it worth it?

If Vera is asking Charlotte for help, then yeah, it must be worth it.

*

“I’ve got most of what you need,” I tell Vera the next day as we jog around the field.

“Already?” she asks, a bright smile gracing her face.

“Yeah, I had to act like a total clumsy dumbass, and there may be a little dirt in it from the dust pan but I got everything on the list except the lemon peel. But I think maybe I can get some of that tonight.”

“Wow, Connor. I totally thought you’d fail at this. Bravo.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Not really. You try to play up the bad boy but it’s pretty clear you’re more emo-damaged. Stealing isn’t really your thing.”

“Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’ll try to get it to you tonight during free time, okay?”

“That should work. I just need it by midnight.”

We trot around the field. It’s September but it hasn’t cooled off much. At least the bugs aren’t so bad. “So any desire to tell me what this is all about?”

“I’m making a spell. Those are some of the ingredients.”

“A spell.”

“Yeah, I need to get in touch with my Aunt.”

“Can you write her or call?”

“My mom put her on the no-contact list, you know, since she’s the devil.”

“Right.” I wait a beat. “So you can do a spell to contact her another way?”

“Yeah, I think so. I have to sort of fudge the ingredients a little. Nothing here is exactly standard.”

“Is Charlotte helping you?” Her eyes cut to me. “I saw you pass her something in the hall.”

She sighs. “As much as I hate it, I needed her to get me some Vitamin E from the clinic.”

“That was a risky move.”

“I know. But I don’t have a choice. I have to talk to my Aunt.”

I’m still not sure what ‘talking’ means in this situation. I’m not sure I want to know. My own experience with communicating with people not exactly ‘here’ is unnerving enough. Messing with this stuff—the supernatural or whatever—doesn’t feel right.

A shadow passes overhead and I glance up at a large bird—a hawk I think, flying over the field. Something falls as it passes and I jump back, thinking we’re about to get crapped on. Instead a feather floats slowly to the ground. Vera lunges for it, snatching it out of the air. A pleased smile crosses her lips.

“Oh.” She tucks the feather into her hair. “I need one more thing.”

“What?”

“Charcoal. Like from your drawing pencils. Do you have any?”

I nod.

Her grin grows, tinged with what seems like relief. “Bring it with the rest tonight. We’re at a quarter moon. The timing is perfect.”

*

I manage to slip Vera her supplies and from what I can gather, so does Charlotte. I don’t like her involvement. There’s no way something won’t go wrong, but Vera is determined. Desperate even.

I’m restless that night, the quiet of my room a little much. I miss Max and the incessant noises he made. The constant movement. The rip and tears of paper. No wonder I’ve been hanging out with Vera so much. I’m lonely as hell.

I’m ready to go home.

When I first hear the sound I think it’s the click of a cart rolling down the hall. For a brief second I fear it’s another crow and sit up, panicked in my bed. But it’s not the tap of a beak that I hear. Something different. Softer. I get up to look out my tiny window and see a shadow cross the wall.

It’s not a bird. It’s something bigger. Lankier.

I drop to my knees, my heart pounding in my chest, knowing full well the last time I had a dream—or a vision—or whatever it was, Jackson was on the brink of death. Does Vera need me? Is this about her spell? Against the crack at the bottom of the door I whisper her name.

“Vera?”

A rush of smoke pushes under the door, white and cool. Instinctively, I grab at it with my fingers, but it’s not solid and I grasp at nothing but air.

“Vera? Is that you? Are you okay?”

The smoke rolls together, twisting until it takes form.  A pure white cat emerges and strides in my direction. I feel its soft fur rub against my ankles.

Real. This is real.

I panic.

Jumping across the room I lunge for the door, banging my fists against the metal.

“Help! I need help!” I cry, looking over my shoulder for the cat. It waits patiently; tail swishing in the middle of the room.

The shadow of a person crosses my window but I keep pounding until the lock unbolts and the door opens. Paul stands in front of me, eyes wide and worried. “Connor, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“It’s Vera,” I say, pushing out the room. He holds me back with two hands. “I’m worried she—“

“She what?”

“Just check on her okay?”

“Did she say something? Make a threat?” he asks. Before I can answer an alarm sounds—shrieking through the hallways. The doors to my left and right auto-unlatch and my hall mates stumble sleepily from their rooms.

“Single file!” Paul shouts. “Fire alarm. Everyone out the emergency door.”

I push past him toward the girls’ hall while Paul’s Walkie-Talkie crackles to life. Carlos ambles by, heading down the hall.  In the chaos I glance back and spot the cat, so white it’s nearly translucent, dart out my door.

“Do you—," I clamp my mouth shut. No. I already know. No one can see that cat but me.

At the cross point of the girls and boys dorms Paul stops me at the nurse’s station, where a flurry of activity fills the halls. Nurse Eleanor waves us away from the residence halls, but I see movement down the hall and Vera’s door is open. Three staff members go inside.

I move down the hall against traffic, terrified of what I’ll find, just as the emergency door swings open and everyone files outside. It’s there just for that—emergencies—and leads out the back to the parking lot. The instant the door opens, a flash of white disappears outside.

“Connor?” Charlotte calls as she’s shuffled past. Her hair is wild from sleep. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. Have you seen her?”

Charlotte shakes her head and is pushed toward the exit by Eleanor.

“Jacobs! Get outside!”

I’m swept along with the crowd, staff leading everyone to safety. I search everyone for Vera’s familiar face, but she’s nowhere to be found.

A fire truck rushes up with the wail of its siren. The fighters rush, fully dressed, into the building. We’re directed to go out to the field and everyone huddles into small groups, sleepily talking it over. I wait as close to the entrance as they’ll let me, and Charlotte comes to stand next to me, hands shoved in her hoodie’s pockets.

“Do you know what happened?”

“No idea.”

“Do you know what she needed that stuff for? I gave her matches. When I passed her room it smelled like fire.”

“I saw, um…” Yeah, I can’t actually say it. That I saw a cat that I think was maybe Vera, slip into the night. Nope. Not saying it. I’m relieved when two staff members, carrying clipboards, start calling our names, checking roll.

Only one person doesn’t answer.

Charlotte gives me a look and I shrug. A sick feeling rolls in my stomach. Before I can ask, Dr. Cross steps outside and waves me over.

“Good luck,” Charlotte whispers.

I’m going to need more than luck.

Chapter 12

I follow Dr. Cross down the hall and stop abruptly in front of the Vera’s room. The door is open and Paul, along with two other staff members, stands over a circle drawn in charcoal, the scent of sulfur strong in the air. A pile of smoldering ash bubbles against the floor like tar.

“Where’s Vera?” I ask. “She wasn’t outside.”

“Paul noted you were concerned about Vera before the fire alarm went off,” Dr. Cross says. “Did you know she was planning something?

I swallow. “Not really—not this. She just said something…”

The words get stuck in my throat. Everything from here on will be a lie. A lie that, if I get caught, will keep me here longer. The truth? That will cause even more trouble. I’ll never get home.

“She asked me for some stuff from the kitchen.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Salt. Lemon peel.” I scratch my neck but then stop because I think it must look like I’m nervous. I’m way beyond nervous. “I thought she was doing some kind of girly-face scrub stuff or something.”

I have no idea what I’m even talking about.

Paul bends over the mess on the floor and I notice markings of some kind in the charcoal. Words or symbols or something. He holds something thin and charred between two fingers and asks, “What about the matches?”

“I don’t…uh…”

“I gave them to her.”

Paul and I both look at the doorway where Charlotte is standing, red-eyed, with Marcy.  “I gave her the matches. And the oil she used to start the fire.”

Dr. Cross frowns. “How did you get access to these things?”

She shifts on her feet, but juts her chin defiantly. “The oil came from the clinic. I stole the matches.”

Paul has stopped moving entirely, eyes focused on the floor.  I’m sure the same can be said for at least three more staff members in the building. Charlotte has her hands in everything, but for some reason she’s taking a hit for me. I tilt my head and watch her closely.

“I didn’t know why she wanted the stuff but I was just trying to make friends, you know? I thought if I did something nice for her she’d hang out with me.”

Marcy steps forward and places a comforting hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. Jesus. This girl takes the effing cake.

Dr. Cross sighs and rubs his forehead. “It’s been a long night. Now that the building is secure I think everyone needs to go back to their rooms and we’ll discuss this tomorrow.”

“Yes sir,” Charlotte says and I mumble the same, trying to assess how much trouble we’re in.  The doctor doesn’t give an inch so I head to my room, too exhausted to worry any further.

*

The next day is a series of interrogations. They ask the questions and we answer them. I still haven’t figured out exactly what went on but from what I can gather, Vera managed to escape the facility last night.

Charlotte and I are held in opposite rooms, interviewed by Dr. Cross and Marcy. Later, the police. I tell the same story over and over again, hoping Charlotte does the same. If she doesn’t I’m screwed. If she does…well, I’m still not sure.

Dr. Cross sits across from me with a police officer lurking in the corner of the room. “Why exactly did you call out for help last night?”

“I just had a bad feeling—honestly, I may have just had a bad dream that got jumbled up with some comments Vera made yesterday.”

It’s nonsense. Not the kind of thing a sane person says. Not the words someone who is ready to integrate back into regular society would use, but it’s the only thing I can think of with both of them staring at me like I hold the key to the truth.

“Are you aware of Vera’s history with the occult?”

“The occult?” I ask. He doesn’t say anything else, but the mess she’d left on her floor reeked of witchcraft.

“Do you know anyone in the building that would help her escape?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“What about Charlotte?”

I laugh. I can’t help myself. “Those two were always fighting. The fact Charlotte helped her at all is a surprise.”

Dr. Cross nods. The officer looks bored.

“Thank you, Connor,” he says. “Please let me know if anything comes to mind, okay?”

“Sure.” I stand, more than ready to get out of this room—away from the scrutiny. I stop and rest my hands on the back of the chair.  “Am I in trouble for giving her the stuff from the kitchen?”

Dr. Cross removes his glasses and rubs his red, tired eyes. “Although it was unwise for you to take items from the pantry and give it to another resident, I can’t see that you would have nefarious motives for passing along a little salt.”

“No sir, I had no idea what she was using it for.”

“You’ve had an exemplary record while you’ve been at Brookhaven. You have two weeks left. Please make them pass smoothly.”

I nod. “I will. Thank you.”

“Head to group.”

Charlotte steps into the hallway as I shut the door.  When we’re far enough away she says, “Where do you think she went? How did she get away?”

Still unwilling to confess or maybe just unwilling to admit what I know, I reply, “Maybe the magic worked.”

*

The following days are weird. I sleep on the edge, waiting for shifting animals to appear under my door.

They never arrive.

I jog alone, eyes peeled for hawks—for a sign, but there’s nothing other than my labored breathing and a sense of sadness. I’m down two friends. There’s nothing left for me to do but focus on getting out of here.

Charlotte spends the week on punishment, only coming out for meals and group. She’s lost her free and activity time. Her medication is delivered to her room. She sits at a table alone during meals. The other residents whisper about her—about Vera for a day or two—but the novelty wears thin due to limited details.

To my surprise, the devious glint I’ve become accustomed to seeing in her eyes is gone.  I’m shocked she took the fall for Vera. No seriously, shocked. As far as I can tell, she keeps her mouth shut and her story straight. She accepts her punishment.

I’m impressed.

*

It’s my final week. I should be excited but mostly I’m just filled with dread. Charlotte is back with the rest of the residents helping me in the laundry room, folding towels and sheets. Bethany and Carlos are close by, loading the industrial-sized washers.

The machines make enough noise to block most conversation, so I’m skeptical when she moves close to me. “So remember how, before everything with Vera went down, you said you’d think about us being friends?”

A quick peek over the towel I’m holding reveals her strangely eager face. “Yeah.”

“Have you thought about it?”

“Not really.”

“Oh.”

I sigh. “What’s this all about Charlotte?”

“Honestly?” she asks, with a surprisingly clear voice. “I’m carrying a pretty big boulder on my shoulder and I need to tell someone. I’m not sure what will happen with me while I’m in here or when I finally get out. I’d like someone to know the real me.”

“You can’t tell Marcy? She loves this kind of shit.”

“No. It’s real stuff. Like whatever it is that brought you here. Or whatever the hell happened to Vera.”

I think about it, matching up the edges of the towel. I know what she means. We’ve all got a boulder—a weight pressing down on us. Talking to Vera helped. Charlotte had proved herself, at least a little. Listening to her wouldn’t kill me, and maybe it would be good for her.

I toss the towel into the pile and say, “Alright.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, go for it.”

“Now?”

“I’m leaving next week. It may be now or never.”

“Okay.” She exhales and starts talking. “All that stuff I said in group was true. I am very popular at home. I could have any friend I wanted—any boy I wanted, but it’s not because I’m nice or a good person. It’s because I can control people. I can make them do what I want. They’ve put me on this pedestal, for good or bad.”

“What do you mean good or bad?”

“As you can probably guess, my reputation isn’t great. Guys want me because they think they can screw me. Girls are terrified to be left out of my clique. If you’re out then you’re a target. No one wants to be a target.”

I think about Allison Morgan and her crew of cheerleaders. It isn’t much different with them, but why did Charlotte seem so much more dangerous? “So big deal, you’re a mean girl that uses her powers for evil and not good. That’s not much of a secret or even that unusual.”

She makes a stack of washcloths, piling them up, one by one. “I guess there’s a reason I’m like this. The real reason, one that I’m not about to share in a group of losers.”

I narrow my eyes. “Go on.”

Charlotte squirms a little, shifting on her feet. Obviously the truth made her uncomfortable, and after the last month of living with her I have no problem pushing her buttons a little. This is her idea, after all. “I used to be normal, okay? Like a typical kid. Sure, my parents are self-absorbed twats, caring more about personal time and spa dates, but I had everything I wanted. A fairly close family, toys, games…friends. But all that changed one night and nothing has ever been the same for me.”

“I can relate to that,” I laugh.

“You can?”

“Sure. I was coasting along fine, too, and then…well, right. This is your big reveal, not mine.” We stare at one another. “So what happened?”

“What happened is my uncle is a disgusting pervert.”

That gets my attention and turns my stomach queasy. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he tried to mess with me when I was a kid.”

“Tried to?”

“Yeah, tried to,” she repeats. “I used to be nicer and less of a thief and partier, but I’ve never been one to sit back and let someone take advantage of me. It’s not in my nature.”

“So you fought him?” I wasn’t exactly sure where this is going or if any of it is even true. Charlotte always had a little bit of a disconnect thing going on. It may be because of all this, that she was trying to protect herself, or it could have been that she’s just a big, fat liar. I can’t tell.

A wicked grin appears on her face. “Yeah, I fought him. And then I blackmailed his ass, to keep my mouth shut. He caved and I learned that everyone has a price. Anyone can be bought and sold. Especially men.”

“Like Paul or Max.”

She nods. “I admit sometimes I get ahead of myself. The lies just happen and I get a rush from the manipulations. Plus, guys are so easy. You’re all perverts. You only want one thing.”

“That’s not fair,” I say, shaking my head. “I’ve got no interest in being with you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She didn’t look convinced. I wasn’t going to insult her by explaining how she didn’t exactly fit the criteria for my type. Maybe she had some delusions about her own attractiveness, but she had a point. Most guys are pigs.

“How did you blackmail him?”

“He’s a big-wig in his church and community. I threatened to tell everyone, including my aunt, if he didn’t cooperate.”

“Cooperate how?” I ask.

“Money, trips, clothes…whatever I wanted. All of the things he bought me pushed me into a higher level of popularity. My parents didn’t buy me those things. Blood money did. To the point that it spiraled and I ended up here.”

“So no one else knows this?”

She shakes her head. “Nope. No one.”

I load the stacks of towels into the large basket we will use to carry them upstairs. “Thanks for telling me, I guess.”

“So does that help? You know, getting to know me a little better?”

I want to tell her to piss off, that no it doesn’t matter, but what Charlotte didn’t point out was that in addition to being perverts, men have one other thing that we fall for every time.

Vulnerable women.

Chapter 13

The sunlight streams through Dr. Cross’ window. I watch as he makes notes. He asks about my medication and general well-being. I feel fine, I tell him. My moods are stabilized. My participation is excellent. My behavior continues to be above the rest of the patients. Obviously.

“I see no reason why you shouldn’t anticipate going home on the twenty-sixth.” He gives me an approving smile. “You’ve done very well here, Connor. I think that if you maintain your medication schedule and avoid triggers like drugs and alcohol, you should be fine when you get home.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, nodding in agreement. None of those will be a problem. Well, in reality, they weren’t the problem in the first place. The ghosts are held off by the anti-depressants, which is fine by me. I don’t want to risk that anyway.

“Any concerns about your release?”

“No sir. I think I’m ready.”

“School will be back in session so you’ll have some catching up. You will also be required to see the school counselor as well as a psychiatrist to monitor the medications.”

“Sure, no problem. I can handle all that.” I run my hands over the top of my thighs. “I think.”

“You’ll be fine.”

Since I’ve been lying for the last three months and no one here has any idea what I’ve been dealing with, I can only hope he’s right.

*

Your life is the result of choices you make, if you don’t like your life it’s time to make better choices.

“Settle down!” Marcy stands in front of the chalkboard, her voice barely penetrating the volume of the group. “On the rare, but exciting occasion we have someone graduate from the program, we get to have a party. So in honor of Connor successfully completing his ninety days, we get to have snacks with our group today!”

Most of Marcy’s excitement seems to be about someone actually graduating from Brookhaven instead of being kicked out or being sent somewhere else. That or she really likes cake, because she almost trips over a chair while passing out the paper plates.

“So Connor, what are your plans once you get home?” she asks me through a mouthful of icing.

I smell that trick question a mile away. I’m not out of here yet.

“School and seeing my friends. I’ll have after-care and follow ups with the counselors, though.” Avoiding haunted houses and cemeteries have a central spot on my list, too. “I’ll use the methods you taught us.”

“You’ll continue with your art?” She smiles at my answers.

“I’ll sign up for art at school. We have a pretty good teacher.” And buy a dozen cans of paint. Maybe silver and gold. I had a whole sketch book of ideas to work on at The Ruins back in my dorm room.

“Excellent. I know you’ll do so well.” To my relief, she focuses her attention on the rest of the group. Party time is over and everyone else still has to earn their release. Everyone seems content to think today is my last full day, but I won’t feel relief until my feet are out the door.

*

“How many people know what you told me the other day?” I ask Charlotte the night before my release. It’s a rainy Saturday and everyone lounges around the recreation room. Charlotte and I share a table and pretend to work on a puzzle that had been sitting on the game shelf. The box had a thick layer of dust coating the top. One swipe with a finger revealed a faded beach scene, complete with a red and white striped light house.

“Just you,” she says quietly. “And my uncle. Fucking bastard.”

“Do you think you could ever tell your friends about this? About being here?” I find two pieces of the edge and fit them together.

“No freaking way. They think I’m in rehab.”

“So rehab is better than the alternative?”

“What? That I spend my life manipulating everyone and everything because my uncle couldn’t keep his hands off me? That I steal and drink and smoke weed to forget that no one in my life really cares about me? Yeah, rehab sounds way better than admitting that to the sheep.”

To her surprise, I nod in understanding. “No one knows why I’m here.”

“No one?”

“Nope.” I find two more pieces, linking a row together. I notice Charlotte has her own section and pull it toward mine and snap them into one long section. Over the last couple of years my secret has become an overwhelming burden. The lies piling up to keep my story together, but I decided late last night I should tell Charlotte. She trusted me with her story, can’t I do the same?

“Ready for your own revelation, Jacobs?” she asks, nudging me with her foot.

“Well,” I said. “It’s not really my story, but it happened to a friend of mine.”

“A friend?”

“Yes. Not me, because what I’m going to tell you is crazy. And crazy people do not get out on release to go back into society. They just don’t.”

Charlotte stops her hunt through the puzzle pieces and gives me a wary look. “Okay, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Keeping my eyes on the table, I snap another piece in place. “So I have this friend, that when he was about thirteen, he started seeing things.”

“What kind of things?”

“People? Spirits? Ghosts, I guess.” She doesn’t respond so I keep going. “At first he didn’t understand what was going on. The first ghost was a girl searching looking for her family. Then there were more and more.”

“No shit.”

“Yep. Ghosts or whatever you want to call them. All the ones that can’t get to the other side or whatever.”

“Were they scary?”

“Sometimes. More like overwhelming,” I pause. “Or so he says.”

“Did he tell his parents?”

“He tried but no one believed him. So he kind of dealt with it on his own. But it didn’t work. He stopped sleeping and going to school. Eventually, my friend tried some weed out of desperation. Surprisingly, drugs helped block the spirits. So he kept using, more and more, until that didn’t help either.”

“That’s kind of how getting high works. It helps for a while but then it stops,” Charlotte agreed. “For the record, I would totally get high right now.”

I laugh. “I know what you mean. Maybe they’ll up your meds.”

She clicks her tongue. “It’s not the same, you know?”

“When the drugs stopped working, he got really desperate. His parents were exasperated and scared. The therapists thought he was just seeking attention. They put him through all these tests but none of them came up with any real diagnosis. All he wanted was for those ghosts to go away, but they wouldn’t, so instead he wanted to go away. So in one fogged, crazed moment he lit a fire in his house hoping to just burn it all down. Ghosts, himself, everything.”

I feel Charlotte’s eyes on me but I continue working, fitting another puzzle piece together. The brief relief of telling her the whole story is instantly replaced with the fear that I’ve made a horrible mistake. She’ll tell someone and use it against me and I’ll be trapped here, or somewhere worse, forever.

“So basically, there’s nothing the doctors can really do to help your friend,” she says.

“Basically. The medication seems to dull the visions. He hasn’t had any since he started taking them. We’re not sure why.” I finally look up. Charlotte’s eyes are wide and a little panicked. Shit. If I’ve freaked Charlotte out then my story must really sound crazy. “Things are better for him. I think he’s going to be okay.”

We work on the puzzle in silence for a while. Together we piece together the border and the sandy beach. Halfway through the lighthouse, Charlotte presses her foot down on mine under the table. Awkwardly she says, “You know, I think your friend is going to be okay, too.”

I smile at her attempt at kindness. “I think we’re all going to be okay.”

Chapter 14

My mother cries during my discharge. She signs the papers for my release, taking turns hugging me and writing her name on a dozen sheets of paper. I fight my own unexpected tears and give Paul one last fist bump before leaving the building. I don’t see Charlotte that day and I don’t really care. I figure I’ll never see her again, and that is definitely okay with me. Her secret is safe with me and I hope mine is safe with her.

In the car, my father gazes warily at me from the rearview mirror, but I have my cocktail of meds in my bag and I know I’m safe. The ghosts can’t get through the shield of prescription medication. Leaning back against the leather car seat I listen as my parents discuss the renovations at our house, leaving out the fact they had to be done due to my destruction. My mother now has her dream kitchen. My father has his own den. See? My brief flirtation with arson worked out for everyone.

At home, I pick up my sister and hug her. She clings against me, happy, her unconditional love enough to push past any fear she may have of me. She makes fun of my short hair and I pull her long braid. I promise to see her paintings, first thing, right after I check out my room.

My room, my God, how I missed it. The comfortable, supportive mattress. The soft sheets. The privacy. Real privacy. I lay on my stomach, realizing how exhausted the hospital made me, and how much I just want to sleep it off like some kind of bad dream.

“Connor,” my mom calls from the hallway.

“Yeah?”

“Matt’s on the phone, he’s been calling all week.”

I roll over to the edge of the bed and pick up the phone off the floor, eager to hear my best friend’s voice. Sleep can wait.

*

They give me three days. I use them primarily for sleep, food, and setting up my aftercare.

My mother orders my prescriptions, arranges doctor’s appointments and picks up my school schedule. I plot growing out my hair and wondered how long it will take to grow a beard. If I can’t get high anymore, I can at least rebel in the little ways.

My mom drives me to school the first day back, even though my car is sitting in the driveway ready and waiting. Being a senior, I feel like an idiot, but I know better than to argue. I’d overheard my mother discussing private school with my father and I’m well aware that I’m on a short leash. I can risk a little social suicide by riding with my mom to school the first day back.

“Have a good day, honey.” She frowns at the scruff already forming on my jaw and chin.

“Thanks, Mom.” I give her a kiss on the cheek.

The hallways are familiar but loud. I’m unaccustomed to being around more than two dozen kids at a time. Here the lockers echoed with each slam, and the voices seem echo-y and distorted. I’ll adjust. Dr. Cross and I had discussed this very thing. The noise and chaos are nowhere near the biggest distraction, though. It only takes a minute to realize that.

Girls.

I haven’t been around this many females in months. Their perfume assaults my nose. I can’t stop looking at their arms and legs. Their hips and shirts reveal more skin than I’ve seen in forever. I recognize a few, all of them older and prettier than the last time I saw them. Jesus, it’s going to be a long day.

“Hey man.” Matt waves from his locker. “What class do you have first?”

“English with Ms. Bates.”

“I’ve got calculus.”

I look over his shoulder and feel my eyes bug. “Holy crap, is that Allison?”

Matt glances back. “Yeah, man. Big change, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

Allison spots us and interest sparks in her eyes. She walks over, leaving a trail of girls in her wake. “Connor Jacobs, I heard you were back.”

“I’m back,” I say, unable to form a more coherent sentence. Luckily, vague and aloof works for me.

“You look good. The short hair suits you.”

Instinctively, I run may hand over my head. “Oh, yeah, I’ll probably grow it back out.”

The bell rings, cutting the awkward conversation short. Thank god.

“See you guys later,” she calls, walking off to join her friends. The whole group looks over in our direction, laughing.

Girls.

“Is she seeing anyone?” I ask, following Matt down the hall.

“Nope. I think you’ve got a chance.”

“Maybe.” Assuming Allison is into guys with a reputation. Which I think she may be.

We walk to where the hall splits into different directions. Language Arts to the left, Math and Sciences to the right. Before he walks away, Matt touches my arm. “Oh, before I forget, we’re meeting on Sunday at The Ruins. You in?”

“Definitely.”

I enter the classroom, away from the curious eyes and whispering voices and hand my schedule to Ms. Bates. I’d been enrolled in this class last year but failed it when I’d missed so many classes.

“Welcome back, Connor,” she says with a genuine smile. “I hope this semester will be a little more successful than the last.”

“Me too, ma’am. Where should I sit?”

She points me to one of the two free desks in the room. One is next to the window and the other behind a girl with short, blonde hair. I take the one by the window.

At my desk, I pull my notebook out of my backpack. The class material is similar enough to last year’s that I tune Ms. Bates out and I flip past the images of wild blonde hair and another of dark soulful eyes. The birds, sleek-winged crows and the curved tail of a cat. I start sketching my next project for The Ruins. I have an idea about these big eyes, watching all the time. That’s what the hospital felt like. That’s what today feels like. Constant scrutiny.

I glance at the board and see the reading list for the year. First up? Catcher in the Rye.

Oh, the irony.

Someone across the room shouts out, an abrupt and out of place, “Ha!” and then tries to cover it with a fake coughing fit. I search the room and spot the blonde, red-faced and apologizing to her neighbor. The other girl-- Amanda, a girl I’ve known since elementary school—sneers in reply.

Okay, so there are things I really didn’t miss about public school.

I refocus on my drawing, scratching the back of my head in concentration, trying to avoid eye contact and the occasional whispers from my classmates. There’s been a soft murmur coming from the middle of the room off and on all during the class. I’m aware it was about me and even though I try to ignore it, with every passing minute I can’t help but become more agitated.

Someone else coughs and I look across the room, hoping to catch the person talking about me. Is it Amanda? Maybe that jerk Carl, whose house I teepeed in middle school? He’s always carried a grudge about that.

But Amanda is focused on Ms. Bates and Carl has drool rolling down his chin. He’s asleep. The new girl, though, I catch her looking at me. She blushes and looks away, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve already shifted my attention behind her.

The empty desk from earlier has someone sitting in it.

A boy.

Blonde, curly hair. Ripped jeans and a silly grin on his face. He leans close to the girl, whispering something in her ear. I stare and his gaze turns onto me. A blast of cold air rolls in my direction and I blink.

He’s not there.

That desk is empty.

It’s empty, I tell myself, recognizing the tell-tale static around the kid’s edges. But it’s not. I know then that it’s happening again. Despite the medication. Despite everything.

A sickening feeling emerges from my stomach, but I don’t look away—not when she stares back at me, or when she turns around to see what I’m looking at—who I’m looking at.

Because she sees him, too.

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Follow Connor’s story in the Wraith Series when he meets Jane Watts. Together they navigate the mysteries and danger lying between this world and the next.

Angel Lawson Books

Creature of Habit Series:

Creature of Habit (Book 1)

Creature of Habit (Book2)

Creature of Habit (Book 3)

The Wraith Series:

Wraith

Shadow Bound

Grave Possession

The Lost Queen

Vigilant

Contemporary Romance:

FanGirl

For the Win

About the Author

Angel Lawson lives with her family in Atlanta and has a lifelong obsession with creating fiction from reality, either with paint or words.. On a typical day you can find her writing, reading, plotting her escape from the zombie apocalypse and trying to get the glitter out from under her nails. To find out more about Angel Lawson subscribe to her mailing list or visit her Amazon page.

Table of Contents

- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14