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“Josie freaked out. That was the only word for it. She screamed, cried, attacked.” His lips puffed out. “The teachers were shocked. The food they gave us—some magical blend maybe? Or a science experiment?—assured that we were good students. Good prisoners.” Tears welled in his eyes once more, and I watched as one slid down his cheek. “They took her with Olivia. By the time we were able to look for them, they were gone. Vanished. Disappeared.”
The only sound was the wind howling against the windows. I wrapped my arms tighter around my knees.
“Her room remained empty for months…until you showed up. The girl that haunted our…” he trailed off, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he was going to say.
I, myself, didn’t know how to respond to such a story. In a way, it confirmed exactly what Tanner had told me. That the school was some sort of…paranormal academy? Hell? The verdict was still out on that one. It also conjured up images of my dream with Kelly, the professors, Ali, and the monster.
Unless…
The prospect of it being more than a dream very nearly had me collapsing. It unraveled me, greedily grabbing at a thread and pulling until I was nothing but a puddle of string. I could hear my breathing turn shallow.
“Was Tanner telling the truth?” I whispered. I hated when my voice cracked.
Kace, finally, turned his head to meet my eyes. Those auburn streaks in his hair caught in the minuscule shaft of sunlight.
When he didn’t answer right away, I continued, “What day is it today?”
Understanding dawned quickly.
“The rest of the school thinks it’s Saturday or Sunday,” Kace answered. His eyes watched me intently, gauging my reaction. “But time moves differently here. The food they give us warps our perception of reality.”
No. No. No.
“This better not be a sick joke,” I managed to sputter out. My hands gripped at my hair, pulling on the strands as if I could physically remove them from my scalp.
Kace’s expression turned sympathetic and then mocking. Cruel. Not toward me, I realized, but toward himself. Self-loathing emitted from him in waves.
“Maybe it is. Maybe this entire thing is one sick joke.” He turned to face the ceiling once more. “If that’s the case, then we’re all the butt of this joke as well. Fucking hilarious.”
I scrambled to my feet, grit and other unsavory substances sticking to my legs and butt. I helplessly wiped my hands down my sides in a pathetic attempt to remove them. I felt dirty, disgusting, as if I was plunged headfirst into a pile of garbage. There was no eliminating the sickly sensation creeping down my arms, across my chest, settling inside of me, bone-deep.
Wariness crept over me, and all I could do was stare at Kace. “I’m losing my mind.”
Broken. Pathetic. A slight hitch to my voice.
This school was slowly breaking me in a way I had never allowed Dylan to do before. These men were. I no longer knew what was real and what was some twisted game. My head throbbed, unable to collect and articulate every damn answer to the numerous questions I had.
And Kace…
Crying in an abandoned shack at the edge of the school, directly adjacent to a fence. His predicament was just another question with no answer. Or perhaps it was an answer with no question. I didn’t even know where to begin with this, with him, with everything.
I could feel the beginning tendrils of anxiety and depression snaking its way to my heart, clasping the organ in its meaty embrace and holding it hostage. It had been too long since I felt like that, felt like the world and everyone in it was killing me. Months.
Now, it came back with a vengeance.
“Wait,” Kace whispered as I backed up. The backs of my legs collided with the work table, and I heard something clatter to the ground.
With a strangled gasp, I spun on my heel and ran as fast as my legs could carry me.
In the wind, I could’ve sworn I heard Kace’s voice cry, “Don’t leave me.”
But that was probably my imagination as well.
