Mind Games (Mind Games, #1)(45)

“That’s nice.” I stand and walk to the window. It’s a beautiful day outside. Clear and blue, and the trees have almost finished budding with new green life. The street is wide and lined with other blank office buildings and the odd chain restaurant. “Can I leave?”

“What?”

“Right now. Can I leave? Can I walk out the door?”

Sarah’s voice is soft. “Do you want to?”

“I’d like a hot dog. Adam? Will you go for a walk with me?” I turn and look at him and hope. Hope that a boy like Adam will go for a walk with a girl like me.

“Oh, uh, sure.” He stands, sticks his gentle hands in his pockets.

“Would you like a jacket? And shoes?” Sarah asks. I smile and nod. She takes her own off and hands them to me. The jacket is black and warm. The shoes are too big but only just. She is really going to let me walk out. Free and clear. With her prize Adam, no less.

I think it’s all true. Everything she said.

Adam and I walk down the street; the breeze is cool but the sun is delicious. Adam tells me how he was so scared when Cole walked up behind him in the library that he tripped over his chair and fell in a huge heap and the librarian got mad at him.

I laugh. It doesn’t feel like a lie bubbling out of my throat.

We buy hot dogs and they are disgusting but it was our choice to buy them. Adam talks nervously and quickly about where they’re going. Sarah moves around a lot, but she said there’s a bigger, permanent house with lots of medical research equipment. I like the way he gestures, forgetting his hands are full and flinging relish from his hot dog onto the sidewalk. Other normal people doing normal things pass. I steal a phone out of someone’s pocket (I feel like I should have a phone), and we find a bench on the edge of the grassy area surrounding the arch. It’s huge and silver, dancing through the sky, and I cannot tell if it is taller than it is wide or wider than it is tall.

I tap tap tap on my leg because I am not sure what I am supposed to be doing.

I am not sure.

Nothing is right or wrong here. How am I supposed to make a decision when nothing is right or wrong?

“…and they’re getting funding for new MRIs in hospitals around the country so we can run tests. With real-world data, I could do so much.” His voice gets faraway and dreamy. I laugh. I am sitting next to a cute boy on a bench and he is dreaming of MRIs and research data.

He smiles, and then he reaches out and takes my hand. I look at our hands, together. He has seen some of what my hands can do. He is still touching me. “Fia, I…I think you should stay. You don’t have to go back. Ever. You never have to work for this Keane again. We’ll figure out a way to get your sister out, and you can both stay with us, with Sarah and the Lerner group. We could help so many people.”

I can see it. I can see a happy life with a happy boy. I can see the person he thinks I am when he looks at me—this wonder, this strong and brave and strange girl. He is half in love with his idea of me, and if I stayed…

Maybe I could heal. Maybe I could turn back into the sister Annie wants me to be. Maybe I could leave the last five years behind me and never have to think about them again. Never have to be that girl again. Maybe, maybe, maybe I could really be loved by someone like Adam.

That would be nice. And easy.

I can’t feel, though. There is no right or wrong. What am I supposed to do when there is no right or wrong?

I look at our hands again and I know my hand doesn’t fit in his like it should. Someone else’s will. Someone else whose hands aren’t impossibly broken. Someone else whose soul isn’t impossibly broken.

But I want to pretend to be her.

I take my hand out of Adam’s, smile at him, and I don’t know if the smile is a lie or not. “I’m going to walk around for a little while. To think. I’ll meet you back at the building, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, and his eyes, his mouth, his words are hope.

As soon as he is gone I pull out the phone and dial Annie. It rings and rings and I tap tap tap and no one answers. I dial James. It rings and he picks up.

“Who is this?”

“Is Annie okay?”

He swears, and it makes me feel homesick. “Fia? Where are you? We know you’re in St. Louis. Give me a location.”

“Is Annie okay?”

“She’s fine. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

“Bring her with you.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to do anything unless I can see that she’s with you and she’s safe. If I see you here and she’s not with you, I’ll disappear forever. You know I can.”

“Fia, please.”

“Please nothing. Do you know what they’re offering me? They’re offering me me. Free. Whatever, whoever I want to be.”

He is quiet and I wonder what his face looks like right now, whether he can still feel my lips on his like I can feel his on mine. “You can’t have that.”

“I could.”

“No, you can’t. You don’t get to choose that. I need you.”

“You use me.”

“I—yes. I use you. I need to use you. I can’t let you go; I can’t do this by myself.”

“I think we both know you are never by yourself.” The words come out stinging and petty and I hate hate hate the jealousy ringing in my voice.