The Masked Truth(35)

“So they kidnapped us by mistake?” Max says.

“I don’t mean that. I mean that shooting Maria was a mistake. Then with Gideon, it was because he shot their partner. It was panic. That’s all. Once they calm down, it’ll be fine.”

“No,” I say, as gently as I can. “It won’t. I heard them when they shot Aimee. This is all about cleanup. No loose ends. No witnesses.”

Her hands are shaking and I put down Lorenzo’s knapsack and pull her into a hug.

“The only way we get out alive is to get ourselves out,” Aaron says. “Focus on that. Finish up here fast and then check Aimee’s room.”

He opens the side pocket on Lorenzo’s backpack. As I sift through what I dumped, Brienne and Max look elsewhere. Aaron tosses the bag aside, and I hear an odd crinkling noise. I start going through the pockets again. He says nothing, just moves to the door to stand guard.

I find what made the noise. It’s a piece of paper shoved up against the side of an inner pocket, easy to miss. I take it out. It’s a photocopied blueprint of the building we’re in. A bunch of rooms are labeled in marker. Therapy. Aimee. Mine. Girls A. Girls B. Boys A. Boys B. Bathroom A. Bathroom B. Storage A. Storage B. Kitchen. Rec Room.

Max is looking over my shoulder. “Well, that’s handy in this maze,” he says.

“You’d think he’d have kept it with him.”

Max shrugs. “Memorized it, put it away. That’s what I’d do.”

Brienne is beside me now, looking. “Kitchen.” She smiles. “Where there’s a kitchen, there are knives. We’ll search Aimee’s room for that cell and then see if we can find a weapon.”

Maria’s cell phone isn’t in Aimee’s room. Nor are Max’s meds in his jeans. The moment he opens his bag, he stops and looks at Aaron and Brienne.

“Did you search my things?” he asks.

Aaron bristles. “No, *. I didn’t rifle through your crap hoping you’ve got something worth stealing.”

“I’m not asking if you nicked anything. I’m asking if you searched for a mobile or a weapon, which would be understandable. Someone has been in my bag.”

He pulls out his jeans and checks the pockets. I can tell by his expression they’re empty. He shakes the jeans upside down to double-check.

“They might have fallen out in your bag,” I say.

He empties it as I whisper for Brienne and Aaron to go check for weapons or anything useful in the other rooms. Once they’re gone, I squeeze Max’s arm. It’s shaking.

“I need them, Riley,” he says. “I really need them. Like”—a glance at his watch—“thirty minutes ago.”

“Do you feel okay?” I ask. “Do you need to lie down?”

“It’s not …” He shakes his head sharply. “I just need them. Now.”

I help him search his bag. We take out everything and shake it. Then we do it all a second time.

“Why would someone go through my bag?” He turns to me. “Check yours.”

I do, but it’s exactly as I packed it. Maybe one of the counselors went through Max’s, suspecting he’d smuggled in contraband—a phone or a game player or a bottle of booze. If the pills fell out, they could have mistaken them for a very different kind of drug.

I suggest this to Max.

“I did make a smart comment to Lorenzo when I arrived,” he says.

I sigh.

“He reminded me that all medications had to be turned in, even aspirin. I said I had some pot, but it wasn’t medicinal, so that was all right.”

I sigh again.

“Let this be a lesson to me about my smart mouth, right?” he says.

“I never said it.”

“You’re thinking it loud enough that you don’t have to.”





MAX: ANXIETY


Anxiety: a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.



The English language, one might argue, has far too many words. Sometimes, though, it simply doesn’t have enough. Anxiety is what one feels when walking into a test. That is, it’s what a normal boy feels walking into an academic test. Max never had that problem. A year ago, though, he discovered his own special brand of test anxiety, the one where he walked into yet another doctor’s or specialist’s office, searching for answers that never came.

Your son has schizophrenia, Mrs. Cross.

That can’t be. He’s too young.

Typical onset is young adulthood. Late teens is early, but not unduly so.

I’m precocious, Mum. Aren’t you proud of me? No? Right-i-o, then. Onward and upward. Or downward, because there’s really nowhere to go from here but down.

Stop saying that.

I’m being honest. You raised me to be honest, you and Dad. Face facts, son. And that fact is that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men …

Stop. Just stop. We just need to get you a proper diagnosis. Max can’t have schizophrenia, doctor. He’s not paranoid. He doesn’t suffer from delusions of persecution. He was confused with his friend, but he never thought he was in danger personally. Therefore, it can’t be paranoid schizophrenia.

We don’t use that term anymore. We now recognize schizophrenia as a spectrum of disorders, which often doesn’t include paranoia for someone Max’s age.