Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(80)

She tried to make sense of why she was so angry that Corinda had been the one to take all this to the police when Sunlight was going to do the same thing. Was it only because Corinda did it in such a showy way? What if Melissa was right and Corinda’s grandstanding had simply been a play to draw all possible attention away from Dana in order to protect her? She didn’t know. However, Dana felt that there was more to it, and not being able to figure that out might be driving her crazy.

“What am I missing?” she asked the empty kitchen. Whatever it was felt important, but she simply did not know where to look for an answer. The clock ticked loudly and the world seemed to lean away from the security of its hinges.





CHAPTER 73

Francis Scott Key Regional High School

7:39 A.M.

Going to school was a bad idea.

Dana knew that as soon as she got within a block of the big building. Everyone stared at her. No one said a word to her, but several times she saw girls leaning close to each other to say something she couldn’t hear. She heard the laughter, though. They all know she was the “girl at school” Corinda mentioned on the news.

Deputy Driscoll, the school narcotics officer, gave her a long, cold look that was filled with suspicion. No, it was more than that. He looked at her with the kind of contempt someone like him would have for the kind of person he arrested.

In homeroom the teacher did not look at her at all, not even during roll call. No one sat next to her.

There was a word she had read once. Pariah. It was used to describe an outcast, and that was how she felt, and yet she didn’t really understand why. None of this was her fault. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

Because they have to hate someone, she told herself. And it’s easy to hate a freak.

Why did she feel guilty, though?

Near the end of homeroom, the door opened, and the narc beckoned to the teacher. They both cut looks at Dana. She saw the teacher stiffen and then nod.

“Miss Scully,” said the teacher. “Please step into the hall.”

Every pair of eyes in the room snapped toward her. A few nodded as if whatever was happening made sense with how they had this all figured out. A few smiled at her as she gathered up her backpack and walked down the rows of desks. None of the smiles were encouraging, none were nice.

In the hallway, the narc took her backpack from her, pulling it roughly from her shoulders. “Principal’s office,” he said. “Now.”

The teacher went inside the room and closed the door.

“What’s going on?” asked Dana.

“Best thing you can do, little miss,” said the officer, “is keep your mouth shut.”

He walked beside her to the office, and Dana immediately realized that a bad morning had gotten worse. Dad was there, his face as red as it was last night. Mr. Sternholtz stood behind his desk, his face cold and hard. The school nurse was there, too, and the two detectives whose faces she’d seen in the paper, Nora Simpson and Frank Hale. She flinched, terrified of what she’d see in Uncle Frank’s eyes. Did he know about Ethan and the case folder? Was that what this was about? Her blood turned to icy slush.

“Dad,” began Dana, taking a step toward him, but her father actually stepped back from her.

“Sit down, Dana,” he ordered.

She collapsed onto a chair, crushed and terrified.

Detective Hale was on her left. He was a tall, thin man dressed in a navy-blue sports coat over tan pants and with a boring blue-and-tan-striped tie. Anyone could tell he was related to Ethan because he had the same wiry build, the same intelligent eyes. However, Frank’s eyes had a hardness to them, and a sadness, as if his job had made him look at too many bad things and he had reached some kind of personal limit on horror and pain.

On her other side was Nora Simpson, who wore a green tailored suit over a cream blouse. Low-heeled, practical shoes. She was a few years younger than Uncle Frank, and there was some of the same sadness, but it had not yet filled her to the top. There were still traces of optimism in her expression.

“Miss Scully,” said Detective Hale, “the blood test conducted by the school nurse has been processed and my partner and I obtained the results.”

“Um … okay?”

“Your blood contains trace elements of a controlled substance called Helios 5, which is the trademarked name for a synthetic version of a 5-HT2A receptor agonist. It’s an experimental hallucinogen developed for the treatment of schizophrenia. It has been showing up on the street under the name Eclipse.”

Dana stared into the absolute silence of the moment. This was the same compound she and Ethan had seen in the files. How did she have the same drug in her system as the dead students?

“Because the amount of the drug found in your blood is minimal,” continued Uncle Frank, “it is not clear whether you have recently begun using it or not. We would need to do more medical tests to determine the extent of your addiction.”

“No,” she said. “That’s impossible.”

“The test is very precise, Dana,” said Detective Simpson. “The court will likely have an independent lab run it as well.”

“No,” she insisted. “That is not possible.”

“Dana,” said her father softly. “The best thing you can do for yourself now is to come clean. Tell these detectives everything. How you got it. How much you took. Who gave it to you. Everything.”