“I just wanted to see if you were home,” I said.
“But the secretary told you I was in school, didn’t she?”
Tell me about it.
“I thought I heard something,” I said.
“You’re lying.”
“Kasey . . .” I said. “What exactly are you doing?”
She still didn’t look at me. “I’m thinking,” she answered.
“About what?”
“About something someone offered me.”
“Who?”
She didn’t answer.
“Do you mean drugs?” I found myself hoping it was that easy, but with every silent second that passed as I waited for an answer, my highly precarious sunny outlook grew cloudier.
“You don’t have any friends,” Kasey said, as if the thought had just occurred to her.
“I have a few.”
“I didn’t have any friends either.”
She turned away from the window, and her eyes searched the shelves of dolls.
“I do now, though, Lexi,” she said. “I have a new friend. She says I’m . . . special.”
I moved a halting step closer to the bed. “I’ve always been your friend, Kasey.” I moved forward and put my hand on her shoulder, but she yanked her body away as if I’d burned her.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried.
I didn’t want her to see my trembling hands, so I stuffed them into my pockets.
“Who is she, Kasey?” I asked. “Where did you meet her?”
She looked at me for the first time, her face in shadow. All I could see of her eyes was the light glinting off them from the window.
Did I even want to know what color they were?
Suddenly my sister was off the bed and right in front of me, holding on to my forearm so tightly that the skin around her fingers was turning white.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. Her voice was small and scared.
“I’ll help you,” I said. “Kasey, maybe your new friend isn’t . . . nice. Maybe it’s not a good idea to take . . . whatever she’s offering.”
“But you don’t understand,” she said. “When I do what she tells me to, it’s like magic. Nothing is scary. Even if people are mean to me, I don’t care. And everyone does what I say.”
Magic. My heart sank back in my chest.
“What do you mean . . . they do what you say?”
My baby sister was possessed.
She seemed to have forgotten that she was holding my arm. The pressure slowly increased as she spoke. “I mean I can tell people things, and they just want to listen to me. They believe me. Like the attendance lady at school. I called, Lexi, and I told her to mark me as present. And she did.”
“Who . . . who else have you done that to?”
“Officer Dunbar,” she said.
Oh no.
“I went to talk to him this morning about the car,” she said. “I told him he was wrong, what he wrote on that form about the brakes—so he changed it.”
“Oh . . . Kasey,” I said.
She let go of my arm and went back to the window. There were no cuts or burns this time.
“I did it for you, Alexis. They were going to arrest you.”
“So it was true—the brakes . . . ?” The “attempted murder” threat this morning—she was going to somehow pin the whole thing on me.
Kasey ducked her head and turned away.
“No, oh no, Kasey, please,” I said.
“It wasn’t me, Alexis,” she said. “I didn’t cut the brake wires.”
“But you know who did?”
She raised her hand to her mouth and started nibbling on her fingernails, then shrugged.
“Kasey, Dad could have been killed.”
“I know!” she said. “But that was an accident. It was just supposed to be a joke.”
“But you didn’t do it?”
She shook her head emphatically.
“Then . . . who did?”
“My friend.”
None of this made sense. I felt like I was talking to the Cheshire cat.
“Kase, who is this person?”
My sister’s voice went squeaky, and she covered her face with her hands as if she was embarrassed. “She’s just someone I met.”
“Can I . . . meet her?”
Her fingers fell away from her face. “Maybe.” A puzzled frown pressed her lips into a pout. “I mean . . . maybe you already have.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
But I was beginning to.
In the hallway the other day, with the dirty socks.
“Kasey,” I said, “do you remember coming into my room last night?”
She flushed pink. “Yeah,” she said in a tiny voice.
“How’d you get that bruise on your face?”
Now her eyes flashed and she raised her chin defiantly. “You threw a book at me.”
“No,” I said. “That’s not what happened.”
She started chewing on her fingernails again.
“You don’t remember,” I said. “Because it was your friend in my room. And it was your friend in the hallway with the dirty socks. And stealing the reports from school, right?”
“I guess,” Kasey said slowly.
“Listen to me!” I said. “You got that bruise because you hit yourself in the face.”
“You’re lying!” she cried.
“I never take off my rings,” I said, holding up my hand so she could see them. “If I had hit you, you would have scratches on your face.”
She touched her face, and her fingers traced the smooth skin of the bruise.
“Kase, there is no friend.” A thought dawned on me. “You have, like, multiple personalities. You just need to see a doctor and get some pills or something.”
She walked over to the window and put the palms of her hands flat against the glass.
“I know you’re lonely,” I said. “But I’ll be your friend.”
Not that schizophrenia was so great, but at least it was a medical condition. It had symptoms and a diagnosis and treatments.
She rested her head against the glass, then backed away from the window and turned to me.
“You fool,” she said. Her voice was low and hard and angry. “You cannot chase me away. I like it here.”
Then she dashed toward me, lifted her hand and gave me a shove that sent me flying across the room. I crashed into Kasey’s dresser and fell to the floor, the air completely knocked out of my lungs.
Her strength wasn’t the strength of an angry thirteen-year-old.
It wasn’t . . . human.
But that was impossible.
“Kasey—” I croaked.
“You are just jealous,” she snapped. Her voice grew thin and rasping.
I looked up into her burning green eyes.
“I want to talk to Kasey,” I said, trying to remember something, anything from the TV movies I’d seen about people with split personalities. “I want to talk to my sister. I know she’s still here.”
“You do not know anything.” But she turned away and rubbed her eyes with her balled-up hands. Her shoulders slumped, and her face relaxed into its usual pout.
Kasey was back. “Lexi . . . why are you down there?”
I stared up at her, unable to stop my body from shying closer to the floor. “You pushed me.”
“No I didn’t.”
Was it possible that she really didn’t remember? “. . . Your friend pushed me.”
She looked around the room, like I’d been talking about a real person. Then her eyes got a faraway look. “Oh,” she said.
“Who is she?” I asked. “What is she?”
Kasey hugged herself tightly and turned away.
“Please,” I begged. “Make her leave us alone.”
I saw the muscles in Kasey’s jaw clench up, then relax, then clench up again.
“Just tell her to go away,” I said. “She’s your friend, right? She’ll do what you wan
t?”
She thought about it for a few seconds. Then she lifted a hand and studied her fingernails. “I like it, Lexi,” she said.
She liked it? Liked messing with brake wires and stealing things from school and pushing people so hard they flew across the room?
“But . . .” My voice wavered. “I’m still your sister, right?”
She shrugged. “Yeah.”
“So we can . . . we can . . .” We can what? I didn’t know. If only there had been a poster in the clinic: HOW TO TELL IF YOUR SIBLING IS POSSESSED BY THE DEVIL OR JUST COMPLETELY MENTAL!
I was scared out of my mind and trying to keep her talking, keep her with me.
“Don’t worry, Lexi, I haven’t made up my mind yet. I have until midnight tomorrow.”
“Kasey, I promise I will be your best friend, I will do whatever you want—”
“That’s not friendship,” she said, her mouth pulled into a tight frown. “Friendship isn’t just about doing what the other person says.”
Oh, sure, now she finds a backbone. “But isn’t she telling you what to do?”
She shook her head vigorously. “Not all the time. Sometimes she listens to my ideas.”
I really didn’t want to know, but I had to ask. “The thing with the car . . . whose idea was that?”
Her blue eyes narrowed and there was a hard glint in them. “I told you, she cut the brakes . . . but it was my idea to talk to the police.”
That was a good sign, right? That meant Kasey still cared, on some level.
“Lexi, I’m not asking for your permission. I’m not even asking for your opinion.”
Clearly not.
“I just thought you deserved an explanation.”
“Kase, what if we talked to Mom about this?”
“Don’t.”
“But Mom and Dad probably wouldn’t want you to—”
“No.”
Tears splashed onto my cheeks. “What am I supposed to do?”
She cocked her head to the side. “Live your life, Alexis.” Her eyes suddenly flashed from blue to green, a vivid emerald that seemed to burn right into me. “Your pathetic, lonely life.”
Then she grabbed her schoolbag and walked out, leaving me alone on the floor.
The front door slammed shut, and I collapsed, laying my head down on the carpet, crying tears of rage and fear and helplessness.
After a few minutes of intense self-pity, I forced myself to stand. I grabbed my sweatshirt and my house key and stumbled down the stairs, ignoring the sharp ache where my shoulder blade had made contact with the edge of Kasey’s dresser.
The afternoon sun was blinding after the muted light of our dark house. I stepped out onto the front porch and looked around for my sister.
Midnight tomorrow . . .
As my eyes adjusted and the world faded into view again, my heart sank.
She was long gone.
There was only one option left.
I had to find Megan.
THE FOOTBALL FIELD WAS EMPTY when I arrived back at the school, and something inside of me deflated. All my courage had been used up during my confrontation with Kasey, and now I was alone.
And scared.
I sat down on the lowest bleacher and stared at my hands. Keep going, said the voice in my head. Go to her house. Find her.
But I just couldn’t. The longer I sat there, the more powerless I felt. Possessed or not, Kasey had almost killed our dad. With every passing minute she fell deeper under the power of whatever it was that was controlling her.
I heard chattering female voices and knew it was my last chance to get out of there before I was in it for real. I would have to face Megan, take whatever she dished out, and then grovel for her help—possibly in front of the entire Surrey High School cheer squad.
Did I have a choice? I could go home, break into the emergency cash jar, put some clothes in a backpack, and hit the road. Run away and leave the whole mess behind me. There would be plenty of room on the open road for new, smaller messes.
But it was too late to run away.
“What’s she doing here?” I recognized Pepper Laird’s voice, and the talking stopped short.
I looked up.
There they stood, toned, tanned, and all set to do high kicks and catchy chants. One thing was wrong with the picture, and I was it. If looks could kill, I would have been a charred pile of ex-Alexis on the bleacher seat.
Like a swan gliding through lily pads, Megan sailed to the front of the pack and stared down at me. Her eyes were cool, emotionless. They had none of the passion that I’d seen in them earlier when she’d offered her help. I’d waited too long.
“Don’t worry, Megan, we’ll get rid of her,” Pepper said.
“I’m calling security!” someone else said. Four cell phones flipped open.
But Megan simply looked at me. And I looked at her.
Five seconds passed. Ten. No one said a word.
Finally Megan took a deep breath.
“Pepper,” she said, “please start the warm-up without me.”
Pepper stared in confusion for a moment and then obediently clapped her hands together three times. “All right!” she called. “Two laps, let’s go!”
And the cheerleaders, Pepper included, took off in two neat lines down the track.
Megan stayed. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and watched me.
It sounds silly to say, but seeing her standing there, I completely understood why she was so popular. There was something about her that was regal, composed. She was one of those people who never let you see them sweat. I had a vision of throwing myself at her feet, begging her forgiveness.
That was probably what it would take.
I stood up.
“I told you it would get bad,” she said.
Fair enough. “Megan, I’m sorry—”
“No, Alexis. Don’t apologize.”
I closed my mouth.
“I get why you hate us. What they did to Beth Goldberg sucked, okay? But if we’re going to do this together, you have to trust me.”
I shook my head in confusion, but Megan mistook it for a rejection.
“I never said anything, because it sounds like I’m making excuses. But I was in Ireland with my grandmother when they put that presentation together. I wouldn’t have let them do it.” She swallowed hard. “I swear, Alexis, on my mom’s grave.”
I did not want to talk about graves and mothers.
“You don’t have to forgive me, but you have to believe me. That I’m not messing with you.” She had her arms folded in front of her, hands gripping her elbows.
It was the first time I’d ever seen her look . . . not perfect. Not in control.
I believed her.
“Something horrible is going on with my sister,” I said. “And I’m not a hundred percent sure, but there’s a chance . . . you’re right. Or she might just be completely psycho.”
“Pyscho how?”
“Like hearing voices,” I said. “Multiple personalities. Doing crazy stuff. Only . . .”
She waited for me to finish.
“Only . . . superstrength isn’t really a symptom of a mental disorder, is it?”
Megan shook her head. “Sorry to disappoint you, but no.”
My head started to ache. “And, like . . . amazing powers of persuasion . . .”
She reached out and put her hand on my arm. “Trust your instinct, Alexis.”
I swallowed hard, looking at her perfectly polished red fingernails.
Her voice was gentle. “What do you really think?”
What did I think? “I think . . . she’s possessed.”
“I’ll help you,” Megan said immediately.
She grabbed my arm and started toward the parking lot.
“I want to know everything that’s happened,” she said. “And we need to go to your house. Whatever it is, it’s probably there.”
I looked up at the squad, almost done with their first lap. “Do
n’t you have to tell someone you’re leaving?”
“They’re smart girls,” she said, not stopping. “They’ll figure it out.”
A sarcastic reply made it all the way to the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it right before it slipped out. I grabbed my sweatshirt and hurried to catch up.
“So what happened?” Megan asked.
“She cut the brake wires in my mom’s car,” I said. Might as well lay all the cards on the table. “She was going to frame me for it, but somehow she convinced the police it was an accident. And she has some weird plan. She said something about midnight tomorrow.”
Megan led me to an ivory VW New Beetle. She was the only sophomore I knew who had her own car.
I glanced back at the entrance to the school. The double door began to open.
Carter walked out.
“Hold on,” I said.
Carter saw us, did a double take, then waved and headed straight over. “Where’ve you been?” he asked.
In spite of everything, I couldn’t keep a tiny smile off my lips.
Carter glanced at Megan questioningly, but didn’t ask. Instead he lowered his voice and looked right into my eyes. “Is everything okay?”
I shook my head.
“I’m sorry,” he said, touching my wrist lightly. The brush of his fingers against my arm would have made me melt in my shoes if Megan hadn’t been staring at us impatiently.
“You guys are going to have to do this later,” she said, flipping her cell phone open to check the time. “Alexis and I have things to do.”
Carter looked bewildered. “Where are you going? I’ll come.”
“No, you can’t,” I said, pulling my wrist away from him.
“You really can’t,” Megan said, turning toward the car. “Sorry. Come on, Alexis, let’s go.”
There wasn’t time to explain the whole situation. My heart ached—I longed to be wrapped in his arms again, pour out my troubles, make everything feel okay, even if it wasn’t.
“Call me,” Carter said, reluctantly taking a half step back.
“I will,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Get in,” Megan ordered from the driver’s seat. I sat down in the passenger seat and let my bag slip to the floor as Carter walked away.
I guess I sighed kind of melodramatically or something, because Megan gave me a sideways eye roll as she backed out of the parking space. I noticed how delicately her slender hands moved the gearshift, the way her fingers grasped the steering wheel, and I felt like a clumsy, galumphing oaf. As we drove away from the school, I glanced back to see Carter’s car pull out of the parking lot and turn in the other direction.
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