Mind Games (Mind Games, #1)(22)

“To my mother,” he says, raising the bottle. “And to yours.” He passes it back to me.

“Mine’s dead.”

“Mine, too!”

He doesn’t seem sorry. Usually people are sorry about dead parents. I like that he isn’t sorry. “Both my parents died in a car wreck. My sister saw it before it happened. It still happened.”

“My mother shot herself in the head. Yesterday.”

I stare at him in shock and horror. Then I hand the bottle back and say, “Well, my dear boy, you win. This calls for a drink.”

He laughs, and I do too, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve laughed in six months. I think I’m in love with him. And I know I’m in love with this drink and the soft, fuzzy way it makes me feel.

“I broke in here tonight to see the reason my mother blew her brains out. I’m very disappointed it’s just a building. I’m less disappointed in the company.”

“I would burn this school to the ground if I could.”

“You’d be hurting the wrong people. It’s my father. You should burn him. I hate him.”

“To your father.” I take another few gulps.

“To burning my father to the ground.”

In the morning when they find us passed out next to each other on the floor, James is sent away but not before he salutes me. Clarice doesn’t say a word about it, but Annie is in a rage when I get back to my room.

My head hurts, hurts. I remember the laughing, though. And his face. And that he knows what I did and he still sat next to me and laughed and told me I had the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen but that I was far too young for him to kiss until he had had at least three more drinks.

I don’t know why Annie is talking so loud. Why is she talking? I want her to stop talking.

“Listen to me, Fia!” She grabs my shoulders and forces me to look into her face, even though she can’t see mine. I stick my tongue out at her. “Never drink again.”

“But it was fun,” I whine.

“Anything could have happened to you!”

My head agrees. She’s right, I know she’s right. “Fine.”

“And stay away from James.”

“Why? What does it matter? He’s gone. I’ll probably never see him again.” I want to, though. He was wrong, but it didn’t make me feel sick—it made me feel dizzy, that feeling you get on the edge of a very high place where you feel immortal and fragile at the same time, and I liked it.

“I promised you I wouldn’t tell Clarice about the new things I was seeing. You promise me you’ll stay away from James. He’s bad news; he’s dangerous, Fia.”

Not as dangerous as I am, Annie. I promise her anyway.





ANNIE

Monday Evening


“I NEED TO TALK TO MR. KEANE. NOW.” I TAP MY FOOT impatiently at Hallway Darren, who smells of mustard. I’ve tried to call Fia back, but it goes straight to voice mail. She’s going to do something stupid; I know she’s going to go dancing. Probably right now. She can’t mess up, not again. I’m getting so much better. I know I’ll see what we need soon, something that will get us free. Something that will atone for all the ways I’ve destroyed my sister.

I can feel it—it’s close, that future where we’re free. That secret future I’ve never told anyone about, that I don’t even know any details about other than the way I feel in it. I have to get things back under control so we can find that future.

Darren shifts in his chair. It creaks. “I’ll call his secretary and see if I can set something up.”

“You might want to mention I’ve seen his death. His imminent death. Just so they know who to blame when he doesn’t get warned in time.”

I’ve read of the blood draining from people’s faces when they’re scared. I like to imagine that’s what’s happening to Darren right now. I hear something thud to the floor—small, must be his phone, butterfingers—before he stammers to someone that I need an appointment with Mr. Keane immediately. He doesn’t say why. Probably doesn’t want to be culpable if something really does go wrong.

“He’s in the building.” Darren says, relief evident in his voice. No one knows where Keane will be at any given time, and he’s very rarely here. This is lucky. “I can take you up right now.”

“There’s a good boy.”

He tries to take my elbow. He always tries to take my elbow. I want to take my elbow to his face. Instead, I move it away and walk down the hall to the elevator on my own. As if I don’t know the confines of my prison. As if I am not aware of every square foot of space that holds me here, where no one can get to me and where no one can get me out. These walls hold Fia, too, even though she’s not in them.

I wish she could leave me. But I know she never will.

The elevator’s familiar hum and cheerful ding announce our arrival on the top floor. I’ve only been here one other time, just last week. It smells clean, perfectly clean, the air purified and washed and dried of everything that goes on underneath it. The rest of the school and dorms smell like women. This floor has not a single scent of perfume or floral shampoo or lotion.

I am the only woman here who Keane will see. I suppose I should be flattered, but he knows I’m the only one who can see him without seeing him. He won’t let Readers or Feelers within two floors of himself, and he never lets any of the psychics see his face, because if we don’t know his face, we can’t recognize him if we see him in a vision.