“What felt familiar?” Leo asked.
The other three looked expectantly at me.
Did I tell them? Everything in me said, No! More than that. I could feel myself retreating inward and madly putting up walls behind me. I couldn’t seem to stop it. I wasn’t in control.
I needed to be alone.
“I have to use the bathroom,” I said, standing up fast. “Where is it? Never mind, I’ll find it.”
I headed for the door. I’d gone about three steps when I found Price at my back.
“Riley, what’s going on?”
“I need to pee.”
“You didn’t a minute ago.”
He put his hand on my shoulder, but I didn’t turn around. I felt . . . wooden.
“I’m a girl. This sort of thing happens.”
“What are you hiding?”
“Just—give me a minute. Please.” At that point I’d have said anything necessary to get him to back off and let me go. I was fighting off a paranoia attack, the kind that makes me want to change my name and find a new place to live. I thought these were over. I hadn’t felt one of these in a few years. After my dad left, I had them all the time, but once I’d settled into a routine—albeit a seriously paranoid one—they’d quit happening all that often. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had one. I stepped out of his hold, and this time he didn’t try to stop me.
I didn’t understand it. Why now? I trusted Price and Leo. Madison couldn’t hurt me, and Touray—I’d decided I was going to trust him, too. But reason didn’t make a difference to my panic. Chills ran over me, and my heart pounded as my lungs tightened into fists.
Adrenaline spiked. My skin was electric. Every instinct I had told me to run. But that was wrong. I had no reason to go anywhere! My brain fuzzed gray with static. I made myself stand still and leaned my forehead against the cool wall of the hallway, trying to think through the manic maelstrom in my head.
I was having a fight or flight reaction, which meant I was trying to protect myself. But I didn’t need protecting. Not here. I was safe. This wasn’t me.
If it wasn’t me, then who was it?
An invader.
A wave of gray rose up to smother that thought. I fought it back, feeling a sticky residue clinging to the insides of my skull.
“Riley?” Leo stood beside me. That look of helpless horror was back. He put a hand between my shoulders and rubbed. “What’s going on?”
I gave him a cracked smile and looked over his shoulder at Price. He no longer looked concerned. He looked sinister and dangerous.
No. That wasn’t real. Not real. Something deep in me resisted the possibility that Price was a threat to me.
“I—” Before I knew what I wanted to say, another gluey gray wave crashed over my mind. It was like someone didn’t want me talking, didn’t want me here. Maybe the same person who’d kidnapped me in dreamspace. Had he wormed into my mind then?
“Cass. Get Cass,” I gasped, then I lost all control and sprinted down the hall like an Olympic runner.
Chapter 15
I ran headlong into a bathroom, slamming the door behind me. For a long minute I leaned against the door, my body frozen in place. Finally, I unlocked myself enough to move again. Without thinking, I locked the door, then went to the sink. I ran the water and splashed my face. I stared at myself in the mirror. I looked wounded, somehow. Vulnerable. Needy. Weak. Deep inside I was shaking, trying not to crack apart.
This isn’t real.
Someone changed me.
Someone invaded my head and changed me.
The magnitude of that hit me, and my stomach jerked. I threw up in the toilet, heaving hard. I started to sob and crashed to my knees in front of the toilet. I curled up into a ball on the floor, lacing my hands over my head. It hurt. Pain wrapped my head in a spiky helmet. Smoke filled my head. My ears rang. I couldn’t hear beyond the clanging. I moaned.
What was happening to me?
I tried to remember if someone had touched my mind. Flames erupted. My body shuddered, and adrenaline roared through me. My brain went blank except for a need to run. Escape. Hide. Fight.
I wasn’t aware when I leaped to my feet. I kicked and screamed, clawing to get out the door. I ran into flesh walls. I bit and kicked and punched, and when I was subdued, I bashed my head and bucked and writhed. An image rose in my head. My dad. He was looking down at me, like I was lying in bed. He stroked my head.
“It will be all right, Riley. This is for your own good. It will help you to protect yourself. Sometimes we don’t always know who the enemy is. Better for you if everyone is. Now say the words again, slowly.”
Run.
Escape.
Hide.
Fight.
Forget.
FLAT. PAPER THIN. Paralyzed.
Riley? I’m with you. I don’t know if you can understand me right now, but you went rabid and flipped out. Like frothing at the mouth, head-spinning-around, biting-your-tongue-off cuckoo. Then you went into convulsions. They put a sleep charm on you until I could get here. They sent for Maya, too. She’s trying to keep you from stroking out or blowing your heart. She can’t find anything wrong with your body to cause it, and they hit you with serious nulls, so it’s not likely a spell. That means it’s got to be in your head somewhere. I know you hate having me muck around in your skull, but I think you’re going to die, otherwise.
Recognition. At last. Cass.
We took the sleep charm off and Maya’s making sure you don’t move. You have to be conscious for this. Damn, but I wish you could tell me what set you off. That would help.
Snow. Fog.
All right then. If and when you can, talk to me, okay?
Tug. Prod. Yank. Invasion.
Sink. Retreat.
Run.
Escape.
Hide.
Fight.
Forget.
Jesus. No wonder. . . . You’ve got serious landmines. This goes back a long way. Years. I’ve never seen anything like this. This is isn’t going to be a walk in the park. Hold on tight.
Ripping. Agony.
Sink.
Retreat.
Sink.
Snow. Soft, cold, sweet.
Gray nothing.
Disintegration.
Release.
RILEY? COME ON, girlfriend. Talk to me. I’m reaching my limits. You ran far, but it’s time to come back before all the testosterone chokes me.
Gray.
No.
FOR FUCK’S SAKE, Riley! Get your ass up and going, already. Time to get your shit together and quit lying around.
Pinch.
Feel that? I’ll keep it up until you can’t stand it anymore. If I have to, I’ll start singing Justin Bieber songs. You should know I can’t carry a tune.
Pinch.
Pinch.
Pinch, pinch, pinch.
What’s it going to be? Damn. I don’t know any Justin Bieber songs. Okay, I’ll just do “A Hundred Thousand Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” How about that? Get your shit together already, and come out of whatever hole you’ve dug for yourself. Dammit, Riley! What’s it going to take to get you to pull your head out of your ass and climb back up into reality?
Pinch, pinch, pinch. Prod. Pinch.
Move it, girl!
Itch.
Itch.
ITCH!
Yeah, that’s it. That’s getting to you. Wake up or it won’t ever stop.
Itch . . . itch . . . itch . . . itch . . . itch.
Stop it.
Riley? About fucking time! Come on, now. You’re still too inside. Keep coming to the surface. You’re going to have to stop doing this sort of thing to Price. He’s out of his g
ourd. Batshit crazy.
Memory. My dad.
What about your dad?
Did this. To me. Not supposed to tell.
Tell what?
I—
Try, Riley. I’ll help you. What aren’t you supposed to say?
I can touch trace . . .
I know. I’ve been in your head when you do.
When I do, trace dimension. Spirit dimension.
Pain. Recoil.
Sorry! Missed that one.
Release.
There. I got it. Better now, I think. Keep going. Tell me.
I can touch spirits . . . in the trace dimension.
I tensed, waiting for punishing pain. Nothing happened. Inside, I felt raw, and my head still throbbed. But my mind was clear.
Touch spirits? Cass repeated.
Why is that such a big deal? I wondered.
Can you communicate with them?
I’ve never tried. One grabbed me a few days ago. Maybe called my name.
Whoever put those triggers and blocks in your mind wanted to be sure you never said anything about it, even if it killed you. Not just that. I found memory wipes. Totally gone. Your father did this to you?
I—Yes. I’m certain. But—I never knew he had talent. Betrayal burned like acid. He’d messed with my head—programmed me. My own dad. For my own good, he said. That’s what people said to make themselves feel better when they stabbed you in the back.
Why would he do that? Didn’t your father like you?
I thought so. If I ever find him, if he’s still alive, I’ll be sure to ask.
What kind of father did that to his kid? Deep inside, something cracked. Everything I’d been sure about my whole life was now in question. I’d been lied to. I’d been tampered with. For your own good. He’d told me that. Like hell. I wasn’t sure what was real at all.
I’m real. Price is real. Your brother Leo is obnoxiously real and terrified for you. We’ll help you sort it all out. I promise. But now you have a little farther to go. I know you’re tired. I’m going to pull you up to the surface and let you wake up. We’ll go slow in case there are any other landmines. Remember that Maya is holding you paralyzed. I’ll tell her to let you go, but it could take a few minutes. Don’t panic.
I won’t. Maybe. No promises. But her words comforted me. I still had family, and I had friends, and I had Price. All of that was real. Those things helped me fight my father’s mutilations. I couldn’t think of another word for it. He’d mutilated me.
Ribbons of warmth fluttered around me. I fought the urge to resist as they clung and turned into muscular tentacles. I felt myself rising, expanding, stretching. I contracted, instinctively fighting.
Easy. You’ll be fine. I rooted out a lot of the trouble, but your subconscious is going to cling to the habits for a while. You’ll have to fight them. I’m guessing you already were and that’s what triggered your meltdown.
How? It was all I could squeeze out as I tried to make myself relax.
You had a series of behavior constructs, along with mental barriers set up. The behavior stuff focused on keeping to yourself, keeping hidden, not trusting people, and that sort of thing. The deeper it went, though, the tighter the mechanisms. So you could break some of your rules with only minor mental repercussions—fear, guilt, anxiety, nightmares. But when you started breaking more serious rules—or even thinking about breaking them—that set off a series of—let’s call them discouragements. When you broke through some of those, you hit crisis level and your blocks shut you down. Thing is, I’m not sure you’d have recovered. Riley, I know this is hard to hear, but those stops were designed to kill you if you pushed them too hard. They almost succeeded.
My father did that to me. I was trying to not feel the horror and pain of that realization, but it wasn’t working. It engulfed me in a tide of black tar. Sadness and exhaustion netted me, and I felt myself melting apart, dripping out of Cass’s embrace.
Shit.
Twist and scrape. Prickle and stab.
Hold on. This may sting.
Electric skewers plunged through me. A sheet of fire swallowed me. Nerves sang with pain, breaking and curling into ash.
Abruptly, the pain evaporated.
Sorry. Every time I think I’ve got it all taken care of, something new pops up. That last one was elegant. The dreamer who worked on you was an artist. Admiration resonated through her mental voice.
That artist was my father. Glad to be so entertaining.
All right, almost back up to where you’ll just be asleep. You know, your dad might have figured you’d be better off dead than revealing what you can do.
Not for him to decide, I said grimly. He mutilated me. My own father.
People sometimes love in stupid ways.
Was Cass trying to make what he did better somehow? It’s not love.
He might have thought it was.
He was wrong.
I’m sorry.
Yeah, me too. I’d always idolized my father, but after my mom died, he’d become the center of my world. Losing him had been—easier than it should have been, now that I was thinking about it. I’d cried, I’d mourned, but looking back, I’d moved on quickly. Too quickly? Had he arranged that, too? And if he had . . . did that mean he’d planned to leave me? Suspicion scraped claws over me.
Cass?
What?
Would it be possible for my dad to have taken my ability to see his trace away, like it never existed?
Say no. Please say no.
Sure. If I were doing it, I’d substitute a different trace memory so that even if you saw it, you wouldn’t know it. The other thing he might have done is selectively blinding you to seeing his trace. I’ve done that kind of thing before when working with mental patients. Helps with PTSD especially.
It didn’t really matter how, only that it was possible. Now I had the answer to one of the most painful questions of my life, and the assurance that I hadn’t failed to find my father. He’d made sure I couldn’t look.
Only now I’d substituted one painful question with another: Why had he done this to me? How was not finding him for my own good?
One thing was certain, if Cass could lift my blinders, I’d do whatever it took to find the answer, to find my father.
As if reading my mind, and likely she was, Cass spoke again. You need to heal a little first. In a week or two, I can see what I can do. It could take a little while to undo everything, though getting back memories will be impossible. They haven’t been buried, they’ve been wiped.
I couldn’t tell if I was more angry or hurt that my father had robbed me of those memories. Both emotions twisted through me like brambles on steroids. I pushed the emotions away, slamming them inside a little box, along with the billion other questions that kept popping into my head. I couldn’t handle them now. They were too big. It was all too big, and I still had Percy to deal with. At least I knew where to find him.
Thanks, Cass. I’m ready to return to the land of the living.
Good. I’m backing out.
The pain of her withdrawal seemed like nothing more than a bee sting compared to all that I’d been through. The next thing I knew, I felt myself wake.
Because Cass had warned me that I might not be able to move, I didn’t panic when my eyelids wouldn’t go up and the words I wanted to say piled unspoken behind my teeth.
“Give it a moment,” Maya murmured in her rich, husky voice. A Spanish accent melted the edges of her words. “I worked on your body while Cass worked on your mind. You should feel very good.”
It was true. I felt energized. She’d repaired whatever damage I’d done to myself when I’d flipped out in the bathroom. I was, however, back to feeling hungry and hollow, though the hollowness
surrounded the void in my soul where I’d hoarded all my memories and love for my father. That had all rotted into nothing.
Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes.
“What’s wrong? Why is she crying?”
Leo.
Price was notably silent. Where was he?
“She’s had a lot to deal with,” Cass said tiredly.
“What do you mean?” Leo again. “What the hell happened to her?”
“That’s her story to tell.”
Finally, I pried my lids apart. It was only a fuzzy crack. Maya leaned over me, her long dark hair loose around her rounded face. Her eyes were eerie white. She smiled at me, a merry grin. “There you are, querida. It is good to see you again.”
“You too,” I rasped. My throat and tongue were stiff and unwieldy. “Thanks for your help.”
“Anytime. Now others wish to see you.” She stood and moved away.
Next to fill my vision was Leo. Worry lined his face. He gripped my hand, and brushed at the tears rolling down the sides of my face. “How do you feel? Are you in pain?”
“No pain.” Not physical, anyhow. I glanced past him. Cass sat at the foot of my bed. They must have moved me here. As usual, she looked almost anorexic, her blond hair wispy and short, her face all sharp angles. Where was Price? I looked back at Leo, tightening my fingers on his. “I’m okay.”
“What happened?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t make the tears stop. They kept leaking out. How did I explain that my father—his stepdad—had tampered with my head, stolen my memories, and nearly killed me.
“Where’s Price?” I couldn’t stop the words.
“Here.”
I turned my head. He leaned against the wall on the other side of me, arms folded, face haggard and gray. Why was he so far away?
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