When I look at him, the roar in my brain becomes even more frenzied. But I don’t think the anger is directed at me. I’m pretty sure it’s aimed at Lucas.
One at a time. I need to take them one at a time and push them behind the back wall. I’ll have to deal with them all eventually, and I don’t think even the wall will shut out all of them entirely. But it will at least get the bedlam down to something manageable, something that might allow me to think without this whirl of distraction.
I close my eyes again and try to find some coherent thread to follow. Finally, I sort Jaden’s voice out of the roar, answering the question before I can ask.
Will, Oksana, and two other women. Only four.
ONLY four?
I draw a few calming breaths as I try very, very hard not to freak out. Molly isn’t even fully assimilated yet, and counting Jaden, I now have five additional voices in my head. At once. And I can’t exactly call Kelsey to schedule an emergency appointment.
But in another sense, Jaden is right. I sensed way more than four others when the walls crumbled.
Yeah. Oksana and the other two were chosen as . . . representatives, I guess? The rest held back.
Why?
They were thinkin’ too many voices might . . . be counterproductive. And they want to help, not make it harder.
Help . . . with what?
With getting you out of here.
Really? That’s it?
Well, umm . . . no, actually. They might also be plannin’ a bit of payback.
I open my eyes and look back at Lucas, who’s still on the phone, staring through the window at me as he talks. It only takes that brief glance to get a reaction out of my new hitchers, who seem pretty keen on sitting Lucas down in here and adding a fourth corpse to the room.
If I have to kill Lucas in order for me and Deo to escape, I won’t shed any tears. Given what he did to my hitchers, what he did to Molly, and what he would have done to me if Ashley hadn’t showed up, I seriously doubt I’d lose even a single karma point. I might actually gain a few.
What they’re envisioning would be an execution, however—murder, plain and simple. If I could, by some miracle, force Lucas to sit down so that I could duct-tape him to a chair, I’d grab his security badge and focus on getting us the hell out of here. My new hitchers don’t seem to care much whether I approve of their plans, however. That means we’re going to need to have a little group chat.
But first, I need to get my head together enough to speak to Deo, to let him know that I’m okay. I can’t hear him, but he’s clearly saying my name. Tapping my cheek gently.
I try to put up another wall, to drown out the noise, to close the new hitchers off in some corner of my head. But it’s no use. I’m too scattered, too divided, to function. My head feels like it’s on the brink of exploding. As a group, they are stronger than I am, and that terrifies me.
QUIET!!
I don’t have much confidence that mental bellowing will work, but it’s all I can do. I’m not even sure how well some of them understand English, given the cacophony of different languages I’m hearing.
Jaden echoes my plea for quiet, and the furor dies down a bit.
Anna can’t function if we’re too close . . . to the front. Everyone needs to pull back. Give her some room!
Two voices I don’t recognize join him. One is male, which must be Will. That kind of surprises me . . . I guess I’d expected him to be mute. The female voice is halting, and I think she may not be accustomed to thinking in English. Both echo what Jaden said. Back off. Give her room. Chill.
Gradually, the crowded room that is my brain grows silent enough that I gain control.
“I’m okay, D.”
He lets out a sigh of relief. “You passed out.”
“How long was I out?”
“I don’t know. Ten minutes, maybe longer. Long enough for him to notice and start making phone calls. And then your eyes were open, but you weren’t answering. It was like you could see me, but you couldn’t—”
“How did I get back over here?”
“I carried you. Do me a favor and lay off the Doritos, okay?”
“Funny. Ha-ha. Maybe you need to hit the gym.” I give him a playful punch in the arm. “But really, thanks.”
His face darkens. “Wasn’t going to let that bastard touch you.”
“Did I . . . say anything while I was coming to?”
“Not a word. Why? Did you manage to pick up that Will guy?”
“Uhhh, yeah.” I look up to where Lucas was sitting. He’s no longer there, but I still can’t really say much more when they could have every inch of this place wired. “This could be very interesting. He’s . . . strong. That could be a prob—”
I’m outside and I’m running. Deo is a few feet in front of me. It’s cold, but he’s not wearing a shirt. Only sweatpants.