Teen Hyde (High School Horror Story #2)(29)

When she saw it was me, she visibly brightened. For all she knew I was still Miss School Spirit and, as far as I was concerned, there was no need to correct her.

I’d almost forgotten one very useful tidbit: Teachers adored me. In fact, though I hated to admit it, sometimes I suspected that even adults and, let’s face it, especially adults like Mrs. Petrie, wanted to be me.

“Shouldn’t you be in class, Cassidy?” She curved her mouth into a frown, but her eyes expressed no real disappointment in me. A girl like me must have a good reason.

“Totally.” I leaned in close like I was telling her a bit of juicy gossip. “Confession,” I said, and felt her drawing in even closer. Her strong, floral perfume stung my nose. “I procrastinated on this project for Ms. Langley and I need to knock out some of the research quick.”

“I can help,” she said too eagerly, picking up a pen.

I let out an exaggerated exhale. “Thank god. I knew you could. Okay, so I’m doing a project on the human brain and memory. Like…” I stared up at the ceiling, trying to think through the missing variables and the steps to solve them. “Like why we remember some things and not others and whether we can make ourselves remember things we’ve forgotten.”

She deflated. “That sounds … like a complicated project. Are you sure that’s for Ms. Langley?”

“God, I know, right? We, um, had to choose our own research topics. Stupid me chose the most complicated of the human organs—the brain.” I thunked myself on the head like I was one of the Three Stooges or something.

Mrs. Petrie’s mouth went pin straight. She turned to her old school desktop computer and began typing. “Brain could be housed in the science and anatomy section. But…” She punched another pattern of keystrokes. “I think what you’re looking for is psychology, which is in … Ah-ha! Row F, halfway down. Would you like me to help you look?”

“No, no.” I tapped the desk in front of me. “You’re very busy. Thanks, Mrs. Petrie!”

I couldn’t get away fast enough. The last thing I needed was ancient Mrs. Petrie Dish tagging along. But it felt good to act like myself again. Even if it was just that—an act.

I brushed past the rows labeled with the first few letters of the alphabet, slowing down as I approached F. I turned down the narrow rows until the words that were written on the spines began to catch my attention. Brain & Behavior: An Introduction to Biological Psychology. Understanding Psychology. Thought Manipulation. Psychopaths. I studied them all, trying to decide which one to choose.

As I scanned the shelves, I homed in on the fattest one. A leather-bound psychology reference book. I slid it from the top shelf. A puff of dust rained down on top of me, making me sneeze.

The library was fairly quiet. I lowered the tome to the ground and sat in front of it cross-legged, where I cracked open the spine and flipped to the index pages at the back.

I was dragging my pointer finger down column after column of tiny print words when I heard a small gasp, as if in alarm, and looked up to see the girl who’d introduced herself as Lena staring at me from the end of the aisle.

Her hair was pulled into two tight buns that perched on top of her head like mouse ears. She had her thumbs hiked under the straps of her backpack. It was like I was Medusa and the sight of me had turned her to stone and frozen her in that spot. It was like I was a ghost who’d jumped out and scared her when she least expected it.

We held each other’s gaze for longer than social niceties would permit. My mouth had gone dry. Was Lena another missing variable? Was she a piece that I needed to solve for? The thought of Dearborn kept flashing in my mind.

I broke our staring contest first, returning to the page, to the plan. And away from the weird girl who’d called me Marcy of all things.

As I scanned through another page of columns, I felt rather than saw her slink away. My finger traced the font and I found the entry I was looking for. Memory.

The tattoo on my wrist poked through from under the sleeve of my shirt, causing the metronome of my heartbeat to pick up its pace.

I was about to turn to the page of the first entry for Memory, page 187, when a word, spelled out as one of the subcategories, stood out in my line of vision.

I stopped thumbing through the pages and stared at the index. I hadn’t known it was a real area of study in psychology. But reading it now felt like a sort of suggestion. There it was. A step.

Hypnotism.

*

WHEN I LEFT Hollow Pines High, I’d had exactly two hours to get back and that was if I planned to only miss gym and Spanish, the two courses I thought I could most get away with skipping. Slipping off campus wasn’t hard. The faculty was already beginning to mentally check out in advance of the three-day weekend.

I pulled into the parking lot of the redbrick strip mall and checked the clock. I was down to an hour and forty-five minutes. A wooden sign that was attached to the side of the building had white letters that read: Dr. Crispin, Harmony Hypnotherapy & Transformation. I parked nearest to the tinted entrance underneath the sign and got out.

Dr. Crispin’s office was wedged between a row of sterile business fronts, next to an accountant and a mediator. There was no bell to announce my arrival and I found the squat reception desk completely devoid of human life. The legs of an anemically brown leather couch wrinkled the edges of a puke-colored oriental rug lying underneath it.