With those cheery facts in mind, I showered and shed the pajamas I had been living in since waking in the med ward then slipped into a pair of the blush-pink scrubs that served as patient daywear. I sank onto my mattress and stared at the soothing whiteness of the wall while absorbing a substantially less cheery fact. Namely that Officer Carter Lam did not exist. He wasn’t real.
Here I was, thinking I had regained clarity, that I was in recovery, when what I had actually gained was an imaginary friend. Worse than that, I was so broken I had chosen to dress him up as a security guard to give myself that extra layer of comfort.
By the time the dayshift orderly arrived to escort me to the chow hall for lunch, I was grateful for the distraction. Unlike her nightshift counterpart, Jeanette drifted ghost-quiet down the halls as if her feet never touched the floor. For all I knew, maybe they didn’t. Her easy smile and soft voice made it clear why the staff had chosen her from the roster to be given special privileges.
Orderlies were all long-term patients without the black eye of violence bruising their records. The institution wasn’t breaking new ground by using high-functioning patients as menial labor. Prisons used the same reward philosophy with nonviolent inmates, making them trustees, giving them special privileges and granting them access to areas usually restricted to the officers on duty.
The system might not be perfect, but it offered competent patients in need of hope a chance to rise above their circumstances.
A warm breeze smelling of grilled cheese and tomato soup fanned the hair away from my face as I walked under a vent, and I pulled out of my thoughts to scan the lunch crowd. Only a dozen patients were allowed to mingle at any given time, and meals were no different. I walked through the door, rounding out the number. Women dressed in the same ensemble as me lined up to grab their meals. Two security guards kept watch, and Jeanette strolled the aisles too.
I took my tray from an elderly woman with kind eyes and snakes coiled under her hairnet. Usually I took a seat at the last table on the end, which put my back against the wall and gave me an unobstructed view of the room. Today I craved the company of others, so I located a group of women I had people-watched who seemed friendly enough.
Poised with my tray in hand, I aimed my question at the dark-skinned woman I had identified as the dominant personality. “Mind if I join you?”
“Manners. That’s cute.” Making short work of her apple, she slapped the table with her open palm. “Cop a squat, sweetness.”
I perched on the seat opposite her and picked up my fork to investigate the vegetable medley.
“I wondered when you’d give up the silent treatment.” She whirled the discarded core across the table like a top. “All it does is piss off the shrinks and extend your stay.”
I offered her my apple when I caught her staring at it. “I didn’t have much to say.”
“I’m Betty.” She bit into the fruit. “This is Cho and Advika.” She honored them with an introduction, almost as if they were her lieutenants, then gestured down the table. “The rest of the girls.”
“I’m Harlow.” I propped my lips up in a smile. “Nice to meet you all.”
“What are you?” Advika adjusted a pair of thick-framed glasses over her dark eyes, the same style as issued to all the other patients. “We always bet on the new girls.”
Admitting I was more human than fae struck me as one of the dumbest moves I could make. Well, other than the whole wandering-empty-halls-and-stumbling-across-murder-victims thing. “I’m a mermaid, a salty.”
The vibrant hair tended to be a giveaway, even if mine came straight from the bottle. Plus, if you knew to look for it, and something told me these eagle-eyed women did, I had a tattoo at the base of my neck that identified me as belonging to the pod stationed in St. Augustine, Florida.
Groans rose around the table, and plastic coins made from milk bottle tops got collected by the winners. While Betty was flush with her winnings and looking smug, I took the opportunity to test her touch on the pulse of this place. “Have you heard about the murders in the east wing M dorm?”
Seven pairs of eyes swiveled toward me.
Betty just kept counting her money. “Haven’t heard a peep about that.”
The way she avoided eye contact had me questioning the truth of her statement.
“One guy was left in the laundry room last night.” I glossed over the gory details. “The other was found in his room the night before.”
The women sitting to either side of Cho paled and leaned against her, making me wonder if they weren’t shifters of some kind searching for the touch-comfort found in even a temporary pack.
“Lunch is over,” a booming voice called down the table. “Gather your trays and get moving.”
The sudden appearance of the pale-skinned woman with piercing green eyes and freckles surprised me. What shocked me more was her fixation on me. I had never spoken to the nightshift orderly. Not once. So why was Troya glaring daggers at me?
“Sit with us again tomorrow.” Betty stood, and the others followed her lead. “You aren’t pack, but you smell like the seaside town where I grew up, and I could use a breath of fresh air.”
“Wait. I have one more question.” I rose with them in a rush. “Do you know Officer Lam?”
“Never heard of him.” She inclined her head, the gesture assessing, animalistic. “You’re full of all kinds of information, aren’t you?”
“I’m full of something,” I said, defeat thick in my voice.
I had no idea why I’d asked her when the staff had all but confirmed my crazy for me.
“See you tomorrow.” Her smile bared teeth. “We’ll talk more then.”
I fell in line behind the others, shuffling my way toward the trash bins where we dumped our trays. As I passed the head of the table, Troya’s arm snaked out and gripped my upper arm in a bruising hold.
“Careful, girl,” she growled. “I don’t share.”
“What are you talking about?” I cast my mind back over lunch. “Are you and Betty…?”
One of the guards started walking our way, and Troya released me before she arrived. In no mood for yet another interrogation, I took the opportunity to escape.
That Edelweiss had kept a tight lid on the murders made good sense considering the volatile nature of their patients. Discovering those deaths weren’t part of my fantasy had been both a blessing and a curse. I didn’t wish either of those men dead, but it was a relief to know I hadn’t manufactured those scenes based on images he had implanted in my head. He had left enough psychic litter strewn through my mind as it was.
During the long walk back to my room, I turned the facts of the murders as I knew them over in my mind. Carter might not be real, but that didn’t make those men any less dead. The more I puzzled over the circumstances, the more frustrated it made me. The bizarre events occurring at Edelweiss were connected to me, at least on the periphery, but how?
Too bad I didn’t have a library at my disposal to do research. Outside information was restricted for patients. I couldn’t even borrow my imaginary friend’s phone if he reappeared since he didn’t exist. Plus, how could I trust the information knowing my brain generated it? Simple. I couldn’t.
Questions pinged around my skull, but I had no answers for any of them.
Why me? What made me special? The killer had stalked me across wards to free me the second time. That spoke of intent—to harm me? To share his or her kills with me? Was the killer grooming a target audience of one? Had they read my file? Was he part of the reason I had been chosen?
Even dead, Charybdis tainted every aspect of my life with fear and uncertainty, marking me easy prey for others looking to sharpen their teeth on tender meat.
Until this morning, I would have factored in the tidbit that I alone seemed able to hear the killer’s song as yet another defining marker. Except I couldn’t trust things Carter had told me when they were an utter fabrication. What did that leave me with? I had no friends
or enemies here to my knowledge. I hadn’t interacted enough to sway the other patients one way or another.
Troya might have snapped at me earlier, but that was a mystery in itself. What had I done, today of all days, to set her off? I couldn’t think of a single thing to warrant her aggression. For that reason, I moved her name to the top of my suspect list.
I had one more connection at Edelweiss, but it was reaching. My neighbor, Bianca, was a member of the Lorimar warg pack. Though we had never met, that fact gave us history. Camille Ellis, the Earthen Conclave agent who rescued me from him, had fallen in love with a warg named Cord Graeson after they partnered up to work the investigation. Their mating cemented Cam’s position as alpha female of Bianca’s pack.
I reached my room and strolled in, leaving the door cracked so Jeanette could perform a room check before shutting me in until group. I crossed the threshold, and a hard bump from behind sent me stumbling as someone entered the room behind me. Firm hands caught me around the waist, the punch of cherries ripe in the air, and I got whirled around to face the object of my consternation.
Carter pressed a finger against his lips then darted into my bathroom until Jeanette had locked the door and gone.
I stared at that door until I imagined designs in the brushed-steel finish, aware that what came next would define the clear lines of my sanity. I waited a full minute before storming the bathroom and couldn’t decide if what I felt was panic or relief at finding Carter sitting on the toilet with the lid down.
Dressed in the same style scrubs as me, wearing the same slippers issued to all patients, Carter and I might as well have been twinning. Only my baby pink to his faded sky-blue differentiated us. I wasn’t sure what insight I was meant to glean from this manifestation. And suddenly, I didn’t care. This proved I was bonkers. That meant I got to act like it.
“Get out.” I pointed a trembling finger at the door. “Now.”
“I can’t.” Hands facing palms out, he rose slowly. “I’m locked in here with you until group.”
“You’re a figment of my imagination,” I growled. “So I’m imagining you outside the door.”
“You’re not crazy.” He gripped my shoulders. “I’m as real as you are.”
“Not reassuring.” I shrugged him off me. “I’m a crazy person who invented a man to flirt with.”
“Come on, Pinks.” He indicated his reflection with a jerk of his chin, and I met his gaze in the mirror. “Your imagination isn’t this good.”
“Why am I imagining you with a huge ego?” I asked his smirking face. “That’s never turned me on before.”
He rested his chin on my shoulder and nuzzled my cheek, the rich vanilla-and-cherry scent rising warm off his skin. “You mean it is now?”
“What is wrong with you?” I elbowed him hard in the gut. “I’m not making out with you. That would be like—like making out with myself.”
“If that’s physically possible, I would just like to say now that I want to watch.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “Gods, my brain is so weird on drugs.”
Chapter 6
“What can I do to convince you?” Massaging his sore ribs, Carter strolled into my room and sat on my bed. “What will it take for you to believe I’m real?”
I trailed him, amazed by the vividness of my hallucination. “An explanation, for starters.”
He patted the spot beside him and frowned when I kept standing. “What do you want to know?”
“Who are you? What are you? Why are you here?” The rapid-fire questions barely dented my store of them, but I wanted those answered first. “Go on. I’ll wait.”
“My name really is Carter Lam.” His tone dipped low, as though he didn’t want me to hear what he said next. “I’m not a security guard, and I don’t officially work for Edelweiss.”
“What does that mean?” An insane idea popped out of my mouth before I had time to filter it. “You’re dressed like a patient today. Does that mean you are one? Is playing dress-up how you get your kicks?”
“I’m a gancanagh.” He ducked his head. “And I was a patient here, yes.”
“A love talker?” I backed up a careful step. “That explains the lure.”
Love talkers made addicts out of the women who fell for them. One touch and the gancanagh owned them. Their lips secreted a drug so addictive their lovers died from withdrawal once the gancanagh lost interest and moved on to his next conquest.
As the only daughter of an overprotective merman, I had been well versed in dangerous predatory males of the dry-land variety before being allowed to leave home.
“I can’t help what I am.” He settled his hands on his knees. “No matter how good my intentions, there will always be a part of me that is true to my heritage.”
“That’s why I trusted you so quickly, isn’t it?” I startled when my back hit the door. I hadn’t noticed my retreat. “The lure made me more susceptible to your charm.”
“No.” He snapped his head up, jaw taut. “I haven’t manipulated you.”
“How can I trust a word you say?” I thumped my head against the wall. “You’re either a dream or a liar.”
“You don’t understand,” he said softly. “You’re the first girl I’ve let myself get close to in…a long time.”
“None of the others would know if you’d tried, would they? You can do whatever you want, and no one bats an eyelash because your brand of magic allows you to erase a person’s choice.” Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. “You were in my head from the start, weren’t you?”
Carter didn’t answer, just stood and indicated he wanted me to take the bed. He had gambled by locking us in together and lost. I’d already had one fae rip into my mind without consent, and I didn’t want another. Manipulations and mind games. Well, I wasn’t playing. Afraid of putting him between me and the door—I could at least scream until help arrived—I plastered my spine against the comforting exit.
“Stay where you are,” I warned him. He obeyed, but another sobering thought occurred to me as he sat. “Turning you in wouldn’t do me any good, would it? No one knows who you are, and you could keep it that way.”
“No one can hold me when I don’t want to be held.” He made it a simple statement of fact. “You can, however, speak to Josiah Duncan, director of the institution, if you want me punished. He’s aware of what I am, what I can do. He’s the one who offered me sanctuary here.”
Josiah Duncan. Had I heard that name before? If Carter wasn’t real, how good could his intel be? Unless I had seen a portrait on the wall in one of the therapists’ offices or maybe glossed over a brochure with the credentials and didn’t remember. “He doesn’t care that you’re running amok in his institution?”
“I’m not running amok.” He spoke his next words with care. “I’m helping people.”
“FYI, scrambling people’s brains is not helping. Making me question my sanity? Also not helping.” A chill I couldn’t blame on the tile beneath my bare feet left me shivering. “Why are you in the women’s ward?” I locked down the fear threatening to paralyze me. “Easy prey. We’re easy prey. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he answered with an earnestness I didn’t anticipate.
“You expect me to believe that the head of Edelweiss is okay with a predator feeding on the women under his care?”
“You don’t understand,” he snarled, light spilling from his eyes onto his cheeks. “You can’t.”
“Make me understand,” I dared him. “Convince me you’re not every bit the same as the monster who put me here.”
“I can’t,” he said, voice hoarse. “I am a monster.”
I bit my lip to give myself a second to process. Hurting Carter hurt me too. I wanted so much to believe in him, in the goodness I had glimpsed in him, but trusting a predatory fae with skill so similar to his tested my limits.
Carter hadn’t hurt me, yet. But the potential was there. And if he decided to make a meal out of me, I would be at h
is mercy. No one I told would believe me. No one else had been allowed to know he existed. The director, if he was in on this, wasn’t likely to admit his involvement either.
“Why yes, I greenlighted this fine young man to feed on innocent women in a mental health ward.”
Yeah. No. Even if Carter was telling the truth, no director who enjoyed having a job would cop to that.
“I was thirteen when I first experienced the hunger.” The raw words sounded ripped from his soul. “I let it get bad, real bad, before I found myself a girlfriend like a good little gancanagh. My father used her as a teaching example, showed me how to administer my toxin to hasten the addiction, taught me to bring her pleasure, though that’s not a requirement. She would have crawled through broken glass on her hands and knees to reach me had I crooked my finger.”
Nausea roiled in my stomach, and I covered my mouth with my hand.
“Weeks passed as our courtship deepened. I lost my virginity to her, and she lost her mind to me.” He studied the floor tiles. “She died, Harlow. We dated for two months, and she died at the end of them.”
Carter had never called me by my given name, and I wondered if he realized he had just now or if he meant to give me space by separating the man I thought I knew from the one before me.
“Your father—”
“He was proud.” Carter wiped a hand over his mouth as if to clean the words from his lips. “He said it took most novices six months or more to break their first, but I had done it in a third of that time. I had broken a record for our clan.” His fingertips dug into his pants legs. “People cheered for me, clasped me on the shoulder, told me what an asset I was to the clan. How one day I would take the reins like Da had done.”
The urge to offer him comfort itched in my fingertips, but he wasn’t done, and I didn’t want to spook him. Pissed I might be, but a hypocrite I was not. I had made the worst mistake of my life while pretending to be something I wasn’t, the end result just as lethal. How could I condemn him for the same?
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