Uninvited (Uninvited, #1)(63)

It’s in her, too, I think. The kill gene. A part of her is capable of terrible things even though she looks like a regular girl. I glance around the circle. There’s nothing about any of us that screams danger. No sign. No warning. A whisper slithers inside me. Except the few of us with imprints on our necks. Except me.

The counselor’s pen scratches something in her notes, and my heart stutters nervously. “What kind of things do you want to know?” I ask, vowing to be more accommodating.

The counselor’s eyes squint at me through the lenses of her glasses. “Well. For starters, what did you do to get imprinted?” She motions to my neck with her pen.

I’m sure she knows—that it’s in that file sitting on her lap. She just wants to hear me say it. I struggle not to fidget beneath her stare.

“I might have hit a guy.”

This gets me a few chuckles. Not Sean though. His expression doesn’t crack.

“Tell us about that.” The counselor angles her head, the tip of her pen coming to rest on her chin.

Again, I’m at a loss for words, wondering what it is she truly wants to hear from me. What the right thing is to say.

“How did you feel when you hit this boy?” she prods.

Furious. Hurt. “Shocked . . . that I did that,” I respond. Not a lie. It was mortifying to lose control like that in front of the kids I’d known all my life.

She scrawls on her pad. “No fear for consequences then? Were you worried about that?”

“Yes,” I lie because it seems like what she wants to hear.

“But remorse? For the boy? That wasn’t present?”

I see Zac’s face. Feel his hands roaming me, urging me to have sex with him . . . hear his words ruining the love I thought we shared.

She asks again. “Did you regret striking that boy?”

I snort. I can’t help the sound escaping. Or the words: “No. He deserved it.”

“And do you often feel like expressing yourself physically? With violence?”

I stare, thinking I’ve said too much already. This isn’t going well.

She sighs, her voice slightly louder as she asks, “Did it feel good? Hitting that boy?”

My mouth works. Everything inside me urges denial. An ordinary person would never admit to such a thing. It would horrify people. But I’m not here because I’m ordinary. They don’t want ordinary from me. But before I figure out what it is they do want and respond, someone else does.

“Hell. Doesn’t it always feel good to ram your fist in some *’s face?” A boy with hair like straw—the color, the texture, that way it juts all around his head—interjects. He stares at me. “Let me guess. It was some ‘normal’ kid, too? Right? Getting all up in your shit? Acting so superior. Like they’re allowed to do whatever they want to us.”

“And that justifies you lashing out?” The therapist glances down at her clipboard and flips a page. “Dylan, is it?”

“Hell, yeah, it justifies it.” Dylan nods. “I want to stomp all over them.”

She nods, and there’s no judgment in her gaze. Quite possibly, I detect a little gleam of approval.

“I see you have an imprint, too. How did you come by it, Dylan?”

Relieved that she’s moved on to someone else, I lean back in my chair.

“Last year, I was hanging out at an arcade with a friend, and the manager made us leave. Said we were too loud. I could tell he thought we were a couple punks.”

She waves her pen in a small circle. “And you hit him?”

He smiles. “You could say that.”

No one speaks for a moment, watching Dylan. His hand clenches in a fist on his lap and you can tell he’s battling his memories.

“What happened?” the therapist prompts.

“We waited for him that night in the parking lot. Cracked his ribs. Dislocated his jaw.” He chuckles. “Asshole was begging us to stop at the end.” His smile turns into something twisted. It chills my blood. “I had to serve six months in juvie, but it was worth it for the look on his face before we messed it up.”

I realize I’m holding my breath. I release it slowly, trying to look normal, unaffected by the story. Everyone sits quietly, scrutinizing Dylan. I wonder how many of them think what he just described is wrong.

The therapist’s voice scratches the thick silence. “Do you think you have a problem taking instructions, Dylan?”

He shrugs. “I never liked doing what my caseworker told me to do.”

She taps the paper. “Yes, you have a history of insubordination. But I see you were on your school’s football team at one time. You must have taken commands from your coaches.”

“Well. Yeah. But I liked playing ball.”

“So you did what they said because you wanted to play.”

“Right.”

“Hm. Interesting. And now you like stomping all over people.”

“I guess. I mean . . . you got to stick up for yourself.”

“What if . . .” She searches faces before pointing at Gil. “He insults you . . . calls you a name?”

Dylan looks Gil over, clearly unimpressed. “He’s scrawny. Wouldn’t take much for me to teach him a lesson.”

“What if you were teamed up together and he’s your partner on an assignment . . . would you still teach him a lesson then?”