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“She’s right,” Jude said, nodding at Stella. “I don’t want to kill Mara.” His voice was raw, but laced with delight. “Torturing her is too fun.”
Noah kicked him again; flattened him onto his back. Knelt. Pressed his forearm against his throat again.
Which was what Jude wanted. Adam made a wet-sounding noise; the tattoos on his arms stood out against his now-pallid skin. Megan didn’t make any sound at all.
“You’re killing them,” Stella said loudly.
Noah looked deceptively, chillingly calm but I knew he was out of control. He could only think of Jude dead and me safe, not the price he or anyone else would pay for it. If Jude had threatened anyone else, Noah could hold himself back. But he couldn’t not react when Jude threatened me.
I was his weakness.
Noah would never forgive himself if he gave in.
I said his name.
Noah’s expression had been viciously hollow as he waited for the oxygen to leave Jude’s lungs, but at the sound of my voice something changed. He leaned back, just slightly, releasing some of the pressure on Jude’s throat, enough so he could breathe.
I looked around the space hoping to find something, anything, to help us. But the garden was in the center of the compound and the walls around it were bare and sparse. No furniture, just a scrolled pedestal in the corner holding a green porcelain urn.
The object triggered a memory—of Phoebe smashing a vase to the ground.
And then I had an idea. “Hold him,” I called to Noah as I rushed to the far corner of the room. I tipped the pedestal forward and the urn smashed on the stone tile. I snatched one of the shards—maybe I could cut them loose with it? Was it big enough?
But then Stella screamed, shattering the scene in the garden, scattering my thoughts.
Jude was standing. Noah’s side darkened with blood.
A slow, lacerating smile appeared on Noah’s lips.
The two of them were locked in a silent stalemate and those of us who were still conscious watched. I was hypnotized in my private hell. Even knowing Noah could heal, even seeing his savage smile and knowing the pain didn’t bother him, that it electrified him—seeing him hurt still dipped me in acid. My hands curled into claws and I felt a sharp pain in my palm—
The shard. I was still holding it.
I forced myself to tear my eyes away from the boy I loved and darted forward to help my friends. Jamie was closest.
“This is so f**ked,” he said under his breath as I began sawing at the zip-tie that bound his wrists. The jagged piece of porcelain was cutting my skin but I kept sawing until Stella shouted Noah’s name and then I had to look up.
Jude had repositioned himself so that he was now nearer to me than Noah was; he moved when I moved to try and cut Jamie loose.
“Run,” Noah said to me, his voice almost a whisper. It was soft and desperate.
I couldn’t leave him. It would have been smart, maybe, but I couldn’t do it.
And I couldn’t leave Jamie and Stella trapped either. So I ignored Noah’s plea and attacked the tie on Jamie’s wrists and feet with an even greater fervor.
They came free. Jamie sprang up on startlingly quick feet and Jude dove forward, toward me, just as Noah lunged for him.
Jude knocked me down. The shard fell from my hands.
“Get them out!” I screamed to Noah as Jude’s arms snaked around my body. As a steel blade pressed against my skin. It would take nothing to break the flesh. To plunge it into my neck and bleed me out like an animal in front of Noah.
Noah, who watched me with an expression that others would take for rage. But I knew better.
It was terror.
A hot tear slid down my cheek as Jude lifted me up and held me tightly against him, my back against his broad, awful chest. I stared at Noah, his perfect face frozen, his limbs radiating tension as he stared back at us, motionless.
But Jamie had set Stella free and they stood. Stella cradled her broken wrist. Megan and Adam were unconscious, but alive. Jamie hauled Megan up beneath her arms, dragging her toward one of the hallways with Stella by his side. We were still locked in the building, but Jude would leave them alone now that he had me.
“Go,” I said to Noah, even knowing that he never would. His jaw was iron and his stare was fierce. I would miss it.
I was saying good-bye, I realized.
Noah saw it in my expression and shook his head slowly. His voice was calm and strong, just for me. “You’re going to be fine,” he said.
I will fix this, he meant.
But Jude’s grip tightened, and the blade pressed into my neck. The breath I was holding escaped and he gripped me tighter. A trail of warm blood trickled down into my shirt.
“I will give you anything,” Noah said to Jude. His voice was quiet. “Anything.”
Jude spoke to Noah, but his lips were at my ear. My flesh rotted beneath them. “There’s nothing you have that I want. Not anymore.”
I met Noah’s eyes and watched as something in him died.
I couldn’t take it. I wasn’t afraid anymore for myself; just miserably, desperately sad. “He won’t kill me,” I lied to Noah. “I’ll be okay.”
Jude inched us up against a white, bare, empty Horizons wall, crushing me in his arms. He edged us slowly toward the hallway, flanked by patient rooms on each side. I was trapped by him again.
Trapped. The word triggered a memory. I remembered—
A different hallway. Illuminated by the flash of Rachel’s camera.
Jude and I walked together behind Rachel and Claire, sticking to the middle of the cavernous hall. Patient rooms flanked it, and I didn’t want to go anywhere near them. When Rachel and Claire disappeared behind a corner I sped up, terrified to lose them in the labyrinthine passageways.
I had been trapped before.
And I escaped before.
With nothing more than a bruise on my cheek, which wasn’t even from the collapse. I remembered seeing the blossoming purple stain on my cheekbone in the hospital mirror. It was from Jude. From when he hit me.
I brought the asylum down, but I made it out unharmed. Safe.
But Jude escaped, too, my mind whispered.
His arms gripped me tighter and I knew his eyes were locked on Noah’s. The blade edged into my skin and I felt a rush of warmth and pain. Jude was eliciting every last drop of malicious glee from hurting me and being able to make Noah watch.
I wanted to hurt him back.
And maybe I could. Yes, Jude escaped—but without his hands.
Which meant I could hurt him, but not kill him; I’d tried so many times to kill Jude before and it never worked, but I did escape. I brought the asylum down and maybe if I brought this building down, I could get free.
And Noah. He might be injured if the building collapsed but he was different, like me—so he would survive like me. Even if he was hurt when the building collapsed, he would heal. He always did. Noah would be safe.
But Jamie? Stella? They were different like us, too. Like Jude. Which meant they would probably survive, but they might be wounded.
Noah could heal them, though. He healed my father. If I hurt Jamie and Stella by trying to get us out, he could fix them.
Jude’s hot breath tickled my neck, making me turn my head before we edged into the shadows. I saw the blood-soaked girl in the garden. I saw Adam lying in the sand.
Me and Jamie and Stella and Noah would survive. But we weren’t the only ones here.
Adam was probably still alive. Megan was when Jamie dragged her away. There might be others locked in their rooms behind their doors, too.
If I brought this place down like the asylum, anyone who wasn’t different would die like Rachel and Claire. Adam. Megan. Anyone else, anyone normal.
But they could die anyway, I told myself. Jude might go through each one of them until they—we—were all gone.
My skin tightened and the blood rushed in my ears and I felt Jude inching us farther away. If he turned the corner, Noah would be out of sight.
I was running out of time. I would have to choose even though neither option was good. Maybe a hero could see another way out of this, but I was not a hero.
You always have a choice, Noah had said once.
I made mine.
I used every bit of force I had to slam us both into the wall.
Jude wasn’t expecting it. His head cracked obscenely and I imagined fissures spidering from where it hit up to the ceiling and down to the floor, to below, to the foundation. The arms around my chest loosened as Jude fell to the ground.
But I didn’t run.
I whipped around to face him. I could hear nothing but my breath and my heartbeat and pulse and they were loud and fast but not with fear. With pure, cold, rocking fury.
I felt a strong, disturbing tug in my mind, but I gave in to it and something came free. I pushed Jude’s slack body up, up against the wall. Pinned him, crushed him against it so firmly that bits of plaster seemed to shake off and fall to the floor. I was stronger than I knew. I couldn’t kill Jude with my mind but I would kill him with my body and he deserved to die.
I knew Noah was behind me but he didn’t move to help. He saw I didn’t need it.
Jude was unconscious and limp and time seemed to slow down as spots of black and red crowded into my vision, as a colorless scent invaded the air. I crushed Jude’s throat with graceful hands that didn’t feel like my own. The sight brought a rush of savage joy. I felt myself smile.
Mara.
I heard my name whispered in a loved, familiar voice, but it was far away and I didn’t listen. I would not stop until this thing beneath my grip was dead—I would not allow it to escape or heal. I wanted to watch it die, to turn it to meat. The thought filled me with hot pleasure. The doors were still locked and I was still sealed inside but I would bring this place down, I would claw at it with my mind and my fingers if I had to. I would get the boy I loved out. I would set myself free.
That was the last thought I had before everything went black.
67
BEFORE
Port of Calcutta, India
THE CROWD GREW AND THICKENED AROUND the wild creatures at the port, where they did not belong. A loud blast sounded from one of the ships and small monkeys chittered and screamed. One man hit the top of a cage with his fist—a large, bright-colored bird shrieked inside. He smiled and peered closer as the bird beat its wings against the bars and jewel-colored feathers fell to the ground.
Another man poked a stick through a different cage at the large, brown monkey. It pulled its lips back and bared its fangs.
The small boy with small black eyes I had asked for help had darted back to the others, who kept running sticks along the tiger’s cage and kept dancing back. The largest boy, clothed in dull red, spit at the tiger. It roared.
The people laughed.
My breath was quick and my small chest rose and fell with it. My heart was beating fast, and I crushed the doll in my fist.
The large boy bent down. He picked up rocks—one, two, three. The rest of the children did the same.
Then each of them hauled their arms back and threw the stones at the tiger. Rattled its cage. Struck its fur.
I swelled with loathing, brimmed with it. Dark thoughts swirled in my mind and time slowed to a crawl as the tiger snarled and shrank back against its cage. The boys laughed and the people cheered.
The animal did not deserve this. I wished it could get out and I saw it in my mind: Bright metal bars falling to the earth. Claws and teeth meeting skin instead of rocks meeting fur. I closed my eyes because that was the picture I would rather see.
A scream pried them open.
The creature had pushed up against the back of its cage—which fell. I watched as it lashed out at the nearest boy, the biggest one. Its claws split open his side in a widening red gash.
The other boy, the one with small eyes, had gone white and still. He was not looking at the tiger. He was looking at me, and his mouth formed the shape of the word that would one day become my name.
Mara.
The tiger pushed the large boy down and he screamed again. It moved over him, grabbed his throat in its mouth, and bit down. The boy’s screaming stopped.
Others began, but it did not matter. The animal was free.
68
AFTER
I AWOKE ON THE MORNING OF SOME DAY IN SOME hospital to find Dr. Kells sitting in my room.
Everything was clear: the IV stand towering over my bed. The rough, bleached cotton sheets. The commercial ceiling tiles and the embedded fluorescent lights. I could hear them hum. But it was as if I was looking at the antiseptic room and everything in it through glass.
And then, in a flood, everything came back.
Jude, limp while I drained the life out of him with my hands.
Stella and Jamie, hurt and bruised and dragging Megan away from the torture garden.
And Noah, watching him die inside while I lied to him, when I told him that I would be okay.
But it wasn’t a lie. I broke out of Jude’s arms and Noah was near me, beside me, before I blacked out. He called my name. I heard it. I remembered it.
Where was he now? Where were they? Where was I?
I tried to sit up, to get out of bed, but something held me back. I looked down at my hands, which rested on top of the light blue cotton blanket covering the bed and tucked in over my feet, expecting to see restraints.
But there were none. My hands still wouldn’t move.
“Good morning, Mara,” Dr. Kells said. “Do you know where you are?”
I felt a splintering fear that I would look up and see words on the wall informing me that I was in a psychiatric unit somewhere. That I had never left. That none of the past two weeks, six weeks, six months, had happened. That was the one thing she could say to me, after everything I survived, that would make me break.
But I was able to turn my head both ways and look around. There were no windows in this room. No signs. There was nothing except the IV stand, and a large mirror on the wall behind Dr. Kells’s head.
