FIA
Monday Evening
“DRUGS, DRUGS, PLEASE GIVE ME DRUGS.” I MAKE A face at my pale reflection. My arm hurts. My head hurts. I don’t understand anything that’s happened today. Annie put the hit on Adam. She’s helping Keane. Why? And thanks to Keane’s rules, I can’t visit her or even call her without being spied on. How could she do this to me? To us? She used me.
My arm hurts.
My life hurts.
“Drugs, drugs, drugs, I want some drugs,” I sing, dancing out of the bathroom and into my living room. It’s a beautiful apartment, Lincoln Park, impeccably furnished. James picked it for me when we got back from Europe and they decided it was dangerous for me to have easy access to Annie. One too many stray thoughts of grabbing her and running. Stupid Readers.
So she stays at the school and I get “freedom” that is as much a prison as Annie’s secure hall because they know I’ll never leave her.
As long as I do exactly what I am told I am perfectly free.
“Drugs, James, drugs, drugs—” I stop short, almost tripping, and let my anger (always on simmer, I keep it on simmer just for this) explode. “What are they doing here?”
Ms. Robertson and Eden are sitting on my couch—my couch—and James is by the window on his phone. Anger, anger, anger, Eden is already squirming, looking like she’s going to be sick. I turn to Ms. Robertson and mentally list every dirty, foul, obscene word I’ve ever heard or read. I start screaming them in my head, letting them bounce around inside my skull, the whole place a vast echo chamber of filth and bile and words, words, words.
Then, because her severe mouth is a single straight line but she hasn’t gotten truly angry yet, I smile, bare all my teeth at her, and think three simple words: Andy, Ashley, Ally. She gasps in horror and rushes from the couch straight at me, grabbing both my arms (my arm, my arm, pain pain pain) and slamming me into the wall.
“How do you know their names? How?”
Andy, Ashley, Ally. Andy, Ashley, Ally. ANDY, ASHLEY, ALLY.
“STOP IT!” she screams, and I sigh in relief as James pulls her off me. Oh, my arm; spots dance in front of my eyes, but it’s worth it.
Ms. Robertson is screaming at James and he’s talking, trying to calm her down. I sink along the wall to the floor and laugh. I knew it was a good idea to pick up her cell phone when she left it out on her desk the other day. I didn’t even have to sing pop songs, and my thoughts are safe.
“If she doesn’t have anything to hide, then why does she do that? You don’t know what it’s like, having to listen in on her thoughts! She’s a monster!”
“Rawr,” I say.
James walks her to the door. “I think everyone could use a break. Doris, thank you so much for your efforts, and I promise your family is safe and she doesn’t know where they are and even if she did”—he cuts a sharp glance my direction with his warm brown beautiful eyes—“she would never hurt them. She’s just disoriented and in pain. It’ll pass.”
“I doubt that.” She opens the door.
“Give my love to the kids,” I shout as the door closes, and I’ve never seen that shade of red on a face. It’s quite lovely, actually, I should aim for it more often.
Eden stands. Oh, Eden, why haven’t you gotten out of here yet? You could go, you could be free—why are you still working with them? They have nothing on you.
“She’s calming down,” she says, “but her arm hurts a lot and she’s very confused and angry. The last one goes without saying. She’s not going to kill herself, though. Can I leave now? I have a headache.”
James nods and I see the way she leans toward him, the hand she casually puts on his arm, before pulling herself back and walking carefully to the door. She is aware of how her hips look in those jeans—she wants him to want her. I wonder if he still does. I send a big burst of anger in her direction as a parting gift. I hate her.
“Fia,” James says, raising an eyebrow. His hair is somewhere between blond and brown, golden really, backlit by the last rays of sun sneaking through my huge picture window, and he is glowing and so very, very handsome. I’m glad Ms. Robertson is gone because I’m thinking things about James I don’t want her to hear. About tracing the broad line of his shoulders and his arms, about the way he walks. The curve of his lips. I’m thinking about running my hand down his stomach. He knows what my hands do, he knows about them. He’d still let me, I bet.
I wonder if Adam would let me touch him with my horrible hands, if he knew, if he really knew. I told him I killed people, but I don’t think he understands what that means. He can’t. If he could, he wouldn’t be Adam. Calm and steady and sweet. I wonder where he is, if he’s okay.
Don’t think about it. Thoughts aren’t safe, ever.