She turned slowly, her gaze unfocused. A weak smile cracked her face. “This sucks.” Then her eyes squeezed shut in a horrible grimace, and her whole body tensed.
I threw my arms around her, ignoring the cold stickiness of her skin. Kathryn moaned quietly and leaned into me. I could tell she was in terrible pain. Suddenly she gasped and pulled away, straightening her legs. They quivered, and she began to massage them. “Oh, it hurts, it hurts.” She gagged and reached for the bedpan. She tried to vomit, heaving and retching, but nothing came out. “So cold.”
I covered her with a blanket, and she curled up in a ball, moaning and shaking.
“Do you want me to come back later?” I asked. My voice cracked, but I bit back the sobs as best I could. Kathryn didn’t need to know how this was killing me.
She reached out, took my hand, and tried unconvincingly to sound like nothing was wrong. “So, how have you been? How’s Egon? Did you have a good time at the dance?”
“Worried. We’re all worried.”
Kathryn seemed to relax. She pulled herself to a sitting position, never letting go of my hand. “Rin, Munificent was so wrong when he said the drugs were poison. I’d take poison over Psychedone 10 in a heartbeat. Poison only kills you. But this stuff…I fractured my skull, Rin…that’s a pinprick compared to this. I can’t even describe how terrible—it’s like my whole body is tearing itself apart. Like the worst flu I ever had, the aches and fever and nausea, and the nastiest cramps, but spread it everywhere, even my toes. Multiply that by a thousand and it still wouldn’t be as awful as this. But the pain isn’t the worst part. You know what I want more than anything?”
I patted her hand. “What? I’ll get it for you.”
Kathryn’s face became bright for an instant. “Out. I have to get out of this hospital.”
“You’re sick. You can’t leave.”
“That’s just it. All I can think about is escaping so I can get more. It’s all I think about. It’s awful. See that window? It’s calling to me. It’s saying, ‘Open me and you’re free.’ Rin, I know I’m on the seventeenth floor, but if I did what this stuff is trying to make me do, I’d go right through that window. I want that high again, that awful, wonderful high.”
I just stared at her, shaking my head, speechless.
“It spread like cancer. It’s trying to take over my mind. It’s making me stupid. It wants me to do things I would never do. I have to fight it. I have to beat it so I can come to my senses. It’s hard, Rinnie.” She broke down in tears and curled up in a ball. After a few minutes, her breathing steadied, and she fell asleep.
Seeing Kathryn confirmed my worst fears. She was suffering through the most horrible withdrawal imaginable. If she didn’t have such incredible self-control, she would have broken out of the hospital by now to find more of that murderous drug. What I didn’t understand was how she could become physically addicted after one use. According to The Book of Lore, Kathryn shouldn’t have been dependent at all yet. It was extended use that led to addiction and a changed personality.
Kathryn must have been a guinea pig, a test case for a new version of Psychedone 10, because nobody else had been affected the way she had. Rubric was a long-time user, and no doubt addicted. But Erica Jasmine quit after a few weeks of use. And Mason. Even he had used it once. But poor Kathryn was physically addicted immediately after the attack. According to Bobby’s research, the base chemical—the chemical they made in the Class Project—would have had to be altered for that to happen. I suddenly wondered whether Miliron’s goof-nut act was a deception.
“She’s strong,” a familiar voice said. I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder, and turned to see Mason gazing at Kathryn as though he were viewing a body in a coffin, his face twisted with grief, his eyes wet and red. He reached out and caressed Kathryn’s hand.
“I didn’t know,” he whispered. “I would have stopped it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I should have listened to Bobby,” Mason said. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I even changed the formula. They lied to me, Rinnie. This is my fault.”
There it was. “Lied about what?”
“The Class Project. The formula. Everything. They turn it into Psychedone 10, just like Bobby said.”
“Who lied, Mason?” My fist clenched, but I forced myself to stay calm.
Mason shook his head. “I saw Mrs. Bagley today. She told me to give you a message if I saw you here.”
I looked into his eyes. Sadness stared back at me.
“She said, ‘Events of the sort in which you are involved can be misleading, but you know right from wrong. Trust your heart.’” Mason chuckled softly.
“Was that all she said?”
Mason nodded. “I used to trust my heart, but I don’t know what’s right anymore. I have to go. There’s something I need to do.”
Mason touched my hair delicately. He looked at Kathryn out of the corner of his eye.