In the doughnut shop’s bathroom, I stared at my reflection, looking for any sign of the recent trauma. I ran my fingers through my hair and used a damp brown paper napkin to clean crusted blood from my arm. Which was when I realized my sleeve wasn’t long enough to cover the fresh wound.
I blinked into my bedroom and bandaged the cut, then pulled a three-quarter-sleeve cardigan from my closet to cover it. I was about to blink back to school when the bloodstains on my jeans caught my eye, reminding me to change them, too.
I arrived in the school bathroom two minutes before lunch, and since the room was empty, I was all clear to become corporeal again.
I’d made it halfway to the cafeteria, headed for my usual table in the quad, when Sabine rounded the corner in front of me. “Kaylee! Where the hell have you been?” She was whispering, but barely. “We’ve been calling, but you didn’t answer your phone!”
Because it never rang. I pulled my phone from my pocket and pressed a button to wake it up, but nothing happened. It was dead. Which made sense, considering that I hadn’t been home long enough to charge it the night before.
“We?” I pulled away when Sabine grabbed my arm with her good hand, but she only race-walked toward the quad, assuming I would follow. And I did. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Em had some kind of breakdown. She just freaked the hell out in the middle of third period. We heard her shouting in the hall, yelling for you, and the teachers couldn’t calm her down. They called in the nurse, and her guidance counselor, but she just kept shouting for you, so they let me and Nash try to talk to her.”
Fear for Emma froze my muscles and muddled my thoughts until I stopped walking and made myself focus. One thing at a time. First, find Emma. “Where is she? Is she okay?”
“The nurse sedated her. They took her away in an ambulance, and they wouldn’t let us go with her. They tried to call your dad—he’s her guardian on record—but of course, they couldn’t get a hold of him.”
“She’s at the hospital? Did you call Tod?”
“Nash did, but he didn’t answer.”
“He’s probably looking for his mom.” And after talking to Ira, I had an all-new grasp of just how dangerous the Netherworld had become, for all of us. “I’ll find her. Just...you and Nash watch out for each other.” I rubbed my forehead with one hand. “Wait, can you just...go home? To my house, with Sophie and Luca? Check yourselves out, or if they won’t let you, then just leave. I don’t think it’s safe for us here.”
Or anywhere.
Finally I was grasping what I should have understood much earlier—we brought danger to Eastlake, not the other way around.
Sabine nodded. “You don’t have to talk me into skipping school.”
I started to blink out of the hall, then turned to her again at the last second. “Oh, how do you feel?” In all the commotion, I almost forgot that she’d been poisoned only twelve hours earlier.
“Tired. But fine other than that,” she said, and I spared a moment to wonder if she’d actually admit to a weakness if she had one. Other than an unwavering devotion to Nash.
“Good. And thanks for finding me. I’ll see you as soon as I can get Emma out of there.”
“Okay.” Sabine frowned at my cardigan. “Did you change clothes?”
“Yeah. Long story. Gotta go.” I blinked out of school and into the hospital before she could ask any more questions.
The E.R. was nearly deserted, as it was most school days—Tod said the peak hours were always nights and weekends.
Invisible to all human eyes, I ran past rows of empty waiting room chairs, the lady at the check-in desk, and three different triage rooms, where nurses and techs took patients’ vital signs and typed their symptoms into computers. I jogged right through the electronic-assist door into the main part of the E.R., past the nurses’ station—a large square countertop with several work areas spaced out inside it—and made a quick round of the E.R. patient rooms, looking for Emma.
Four of the rooms were occupied, but Em wasn’t in any of them. Had she already been admitted or released? Could they possibly have done the paperwork that quickly?
When I couldn’t find her in the bathrooms or at the vending machines, I stopped in the center of the E.R. again, studying the nurses’ station. They would have the information I needed, either stored on computers I didn’t know how to access or printed in files I couldn’t pick up without freaking out people who couldn’t see me.
I’d have to look without touching anything. Or wait until no one was looking to go through the charts stacked in a vertical organizer. But someone seemed to be looking in nearly every direction. That’s the problem with a room full of people.
I entered the nurses’ station and turned in a full circle, watching the doctors and nurses all around me typing, chatting, and jotting things on forms clipped to clipboards. Because I was faking life, I’d only done the invisible-in-a-crowd thing a couple of times before—most of the time, my incorporeity was a precaution, in case someone walked in on me—and watching people talk and act like I wasn’t there felt more like a colossal prank perpetrated by the in crowd than a supernatural ability.
I was visually scanning some random form over a nurse’s shoulder when another nurse—Anne, according to her name tag—sat next to her. “You missed all the excitement,” the first nurse—Gina—said.
“Another eighty-year-old nudist?”
Gina laughed as I moved to the right, wishing I could open a folder on the desk in front of her. “No. Remember the girl who came in right before you went to lunch? Ambulance brought her from Eastlake?”
I froze. They were talking about Emma.
“The mumbler? Yeah. Dr. Cohen ordered a psych evaluation right before I left. Did she get it?”
“She got more than that. You know Claudia transferred here from Lakeside, right?” Gina said, and Anne nodded. “Well, she recognized the girl from this morning as a psych patient. Get this—the girl was admitted to Lakeside under another name nearly two years ago. She hardly said a word the whole time she was there, then, several weeks ago she just disappeared from a locked ward. They have no idea how she got out. All the exits were locked and video-monitored, and no one saw her leave. Just poof, like Houdini.”
“Weird. They take her back?”
“Yeah. The psych ward took her off our hands fifteen minutes ago. Her parents are on the way.”
Crap! Em was at Lakeside. Next to the Netherworld, the mental health ward was my least favorite place in either world. Yet somehow, it had become my afterlife’s version of Rome.
All roads led to Lakeside.
Chapter Eighteen
My skin began to crawl the moment I blinked into the dayroom on the adolescent floor of the Lakeside mental-health unit. The psychiatric unit was associated with the hospital but was a separate building. A beast all its own.
I’d been there as a visitor—an invisible, unauthorized visitor—twice and made it out just fine both times, but on this third visit, as on the other two, memories of my involuntary residence at Lakeside overshadowed everything else. I was only a resident for a week, but that was one of the worst weeks of my life.
After a quick glance around to make sure no one could see me, I headed into the nurses’ station, an enclosed, locked room with windows set into the top half of the walls—very different from nurses’ stations in the main hospital. A room chart hung on the rear wall, the only part that didn’t overlook the rest of the floor, but Em’s name wasn’t on it yet. Neither was Lydia’s. She evidently hadn’t been there long enough to be penciled in. But the chart showed two empty rooms on the girls’ wing—surely she was in one of those.
I headed out of the nurses’ station, through the dayroom, past the dining room, and into the girls’ hall, trying my best to ignore the residents. And not to notice the familiar faces of several girls who’d been there when I was a resident almost two years earlier.
I couldn’t imagine living at Lakeside for two years.
Surely that was enough to drive anyone crazy—even the ones who were supposedly there already.
The first unoccupied room was the third on the right. The door was open, and a quick glance inside revealed that the room was indeed empty.
Four doors down on the left was the other unoccupied room, and I could tell from halfway down the hall that someone was inside—a human-shaped shadow stretched into the corridor, cast by sunlight streaming through a window inside. But that shadow didn’t look like Em’s new body. It was too tall—though that was hard to judge, since shadows stretch.
Em wasn’t alone.
My heart beat in sympathy for her, and my mind raced. Getting her out would be simple. Keeping her out would be more complicated. They knew what name she was living under, and what high school she’d been picked up from.
They’d called Lydia’s parents.
Balancing our human-world and Netherworld problems had just gotten much more complicated.
When I got closer to the open door, I could hear voices. I recognized Emma/Lydia’s, but the other was unfamiliar.
“Do you remember me, Lydia?” The shadow propped hands on broad hips, and triangles of light showed through the loop formed by her arms.
“No.” Another shadow crossed in front of the counselor’s shadow, moving quickly until it was past the doorway. “I don’t remember you because we’ve never met. I’m not Lydia.” The shadow crossed again, in the opposite direction this time.
Emma was pacing.
“You don’t remember being here before?” The counselor’s shadow turned to track Em as her silhouette paced across the small room again. “You’ve only been gone a few weeks....”
“No. I don’t remember that because it never happened. I’ve never been here.” She paused. “Well, I mean, I’ve been here.” When she’d visited me. “But I never lived here.” Emma’s shadow had both hands pressed to her head the next time she crossed the doorway, and I groaned silently. She was making herself sound...unstable. But what else was she supposed to say? A few inaccurately answered questions would make it obvious that she had no memory of Lakeside, even if she gave them the answers they obviously wanted to hear. “And I know I’ve never met you. I’d remember such an unfortunate mole. Have you considered getting that thing checked out?”
I almost laughed out loud.
“Do you want to take a break and calm down?” the nurse asked.
I stepped past the last room before Emma’s and caught a glimpse of a large girl in her late teens sitting cross-legged on her bed. As I watched, she pulled her legs up to her chest and covered both ears with her hands, shaking her head slowly. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
“I am calm!” Em insisted from the next room. “I just don’t need to be here!”
“You’ve been here before, Lydia. Do you remember leaving? Can you tell me how you...left us? The doors were locked, and no one saw you leave your room, much less the ward.”
Em’s shadow stopped moving and merged with the counselor’s to form one dark blur on the floor of the hall. “For the last time, I’m not Lydia! And if you’d just take a closer look at me, I think you could see that for yourself.”
The counselor’s shadow shifted and stood straighter. “I’m looking. And you look just like Lydia. Exactly like her. How is that possible if you’re not her?”
“I don’t know!” Shadow Em threw her arms into the air. “Maybe I’m her doppelgänger. No, wait, she’s my doppelgänger. She has to be, because I’m older, and it’s not like I just woke up in this body....” Her voice faded into dismay when she realized what she’d said. But then she pushed on with renewed determination and volume. “Because that would be strange and completely impossible to prove. So I’ve totally looked like this my whole life, and I don’t...actually...know how old your Lydia is, but I bet anything she’s at least two years younger than I am. Because Lydia sounds like the name a fifteen-year-old would have.” Her shadow nodded emphatically. “That’s definitely the name of someone who can’t yet drive. And I bet she didn’t have brown eyes. I bet hers were, like, blue, or something. And if her eyes were blue and mine are brown, then I can’t be this Lydia, right? Which means I’m right, and you’re wrong, and also I think you might actually be the crazy one.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or applaud. So I tiptoed closer, sneaking out of habit, though no one could see or hear me. The corner of her room came into sight, but at first all I could see was an open doorway leading to a small bathroom, which I knew from experience would hold nothing at all. Residents had to check out a shower kit every time they wanted to bathe, then return it after each use.
“Oh!” Em shrieked, and I actually jumped, startled. “Also, I probably don’t sound like this Lydia, either, do I? I mean, my voice might, but not my speech pattern and vocabulary. She probably didn’t talk much at all, did she? And obviously I talk all the time. I love to talk. Unlike this hypothetical mental patient who stole my face.”
One step closer, and I could see the counselor from behind. She was a slim woman with dark hair, wearing a cream-colored blouse and a navy pencil skirt, ending just above her knees. She held something close to her chest, and with one more step I could identify the edge of a file folder, no doubt containing Emma’s—Lydia’s—file.
“Lydia—”
“Stop calling me that. I’m not Lydia, and I just proved it.”
“Okay.” The counselor nodded and flipped a page in her file. “It does say here that you—that Lydia—has blue eyes, and I remember that y—that she rarely spoke. So let’s table the issue of your identity until someone with more information at hand can sort that out. For now, let’s talk about the issue that brought you here. The report from the emergency room says your school nurse sedated you because you were ‘inconsolable and incomprehensible.’ Do you remember that?”
“No.” Em started pacing again, and I caught just a glimpse of her as she walked away, still wearing the jeans and blouse she’d had on that morning when we’d left for school. Her shoes were the same, too, except that now her sneakers were missing their laces, as per Lakeside policy. That way the residents can’t string a bunch of shoelaces together and try to hang themselves. Or one another.
“The last thing I remember is getting sleepy in third period, then there’s nothing until I woke up in the E.R. And honestly, I kinda wish I was still asleep, ’cause this shit is the stuff of nightmares.” Em paused, and though I couldn’t see her face, I realized what she must be thinking just a second before she confirmed it. “Sabine, is this you?” Emma shouted, her arms thrown out at her sides. “Are you doing this? Cut it out, or I swear I will kill you!”
That time I did groan, but no one heard me. That one outburst from Em had undone all the progress she’d made in convincing the counselor that she was neither Lydia nor crazy.
“Who’s Sabine?” The counselor pulled out the desk chair and sat, and suddenly I had a clear view of Emma. And as soon as I saw her, I realized that the feisty, fast-thinking Em who’d just tried to talk her way out of the mental ward was gone. This Em looked...distracted. Distraught.
“She’s a friend, kind of.” Em stared at the window, showing me her profile, and her hand slid into her hair and pulled on it, a gesture I’d never seen her use, and that she didn’t even seem aware of. “But only because she’d be so much scarier as an enemy. I need to get out of here. You have to let me out of here now!”
I was so distracted by how upset she was suddenly that it took me a second to realize what she’d said. She’d gotten sleepy in third period, and she didn’t remember anything that had happened after that. Had she fallen asleep? Had she been possessed when she’d freaked out at school?
“So, you don’t remember the ambulance? Or—”
“I don’t remember any of it, okay?” Em’s hand tightened around a handful of her hair and pulled so hard I winced. I had to get her out of there, but I couldn’t do anything until the counselor left. “I already told you that. I d
on’t know anything except that I’m not supposed to be here, so just shut the hell up!”
A high-pitched whining sound came from the room next door, and I retraced my steps until I could see the girl sitting on her bed, now rocking back and forth, clutching two handfuls of her own hair. Just like Emma.
And that’s when I understood. Em was syphoning this girl’s...whatever she was feeling too much of. Fear, maybe. Or panic. Or massive discomfort with...everything?
“This report says you didn’t know who you are,” the counselor continued. “You told your teacher you weren’t—” she glanced at the papers again “—Emily Cavanaugh. And now you’re telling us that you’re not Lydia. Would it be accurate to say that you’re still not sure who you are?”
“Do any of us really know who we are?” Em asked as I stepped into her doorway, and this time she was facing me. I didn’t realize she could see me—evidently I wanted her to—until her gaze focused on me. Her eyes widened, and she gasped out loud.
“Sorry!” I said, my voice audible to only her. “Pretend you don’t see me.” But, of course, it was too late for that. My interruption had made her look even crazier.
The counselor twisted and looked right through me, then turned back to Emma. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Em shrugged, visibly struggling to keep her focus on the counselor. She let go of her hair, obviously surprised to find herself clutching it, and closed her eyes. “I thought I saw something, but it was nothing.”
The counselor started to scribble something on her file, and Em’s eyes flew open. “Don’t write that down! I’m not seeing things. I said I thought I saw something, but I was wrong. I’m not crazy.” She tugged on the hem of her shirt, one of mine, which was a little baggy on her.
“Of course you’re not.” The counselor laid her hand across the file in her lap, legs crossed in her pencil skirt, her pen tucked beneath one finger. “‘Crazy’ isn’t a diagnosis.”
Soul Screamers Volume Two Page 24