Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
A fter telling her about what I’d seen in the yard, I can’t stop Reagan from marching outside with a kitchen knife she grabbed from the block in the kitchen and surveying the yard. Nothing I say or yell or threaten has any effect on the redhead, who just grins and tells me she’s not afraid of a guy most likely playing a prank.
If only I was so sure that’s what he was, but I don’t say my suspicions out loud. Especially with Scott here, leaning against me with poorly disguised fear.
No matter where she looks and how much she calls out, nothing happens. Roscoe even chills out and heads out to patrol the yard with Reagan like it’s some kind of game. The sight of them—a Doberman trotting along behind my red-haired friend who stands maybe five-foot-three—has me pressing my lips together to ward off a small, rueful smile. With how dramatic they’re both being, they could be auditioning for a new version of Scooby-Doo. Roscoe just needs to learn how to talk.
When she comes back in and slides the glass door shut behind her, Reagan grimaces apologetically. “Didn’t find anyone,” she tells me, putting the knife back where she’d found it. “Didn’t see anyone at all, actually. Not even Lou’s weird neighbors who always watch TV in their underwear.”
“The Blankenships aren’t weird.” I sigh, rolling my eyes and locking the door behind her. “They’re just old-fashioned.”
“Oh, yeah?” Reagan opens the fridge and scans the shelves, distracted. “Tell me, in what century was the fashion to dress in your granny panties and support hose while watching Jeopardy ?” She grabs the two-liter of Dr. Pepper out of the door and pours herself a glass. She’s been here enough to know where everything is by heart, but I still roll my eyes and put the bottle back when she leaves it on the counter.
“God, didn’t I teach you anything when I babysat you? Like, how to put things back where they belong?” I close the fridge door with my hip, watching her chug half a glass.
“Uh, yeah. You taught me how not to get in trouble. But it’s been years since you babysat me, Winnie. Pretty sure the lessons have worn off.” She wiggles her eyebrows at me, prompting me to fight another roll of my eyes.
“Are you staying for a while, Reagan?” Scott walks closer to her, a smile on his face. “We were watching a movie. And we have pizza!”
“Dude.” She ruffles his hair. “I am so down for pizza and a movie. So long as your babysitter says it’s okay.”
Both of them turn to look at me, their eyes wide and expressions pitiful. “That doesn’t work on me,” I remind them, putting away the few dishes that we’d gotten out and making sure the door is closed one more time. “But you can stay, Reagan. You aren’t on Lou’s banned list as far as I know.”
“She has one of those?” Reagan asks. At my look, she snorts. “Yeah, she definitely has one of those.” Quickly, Reagan drains her cup and sets it in the sink carefully. “Why can’t your sister be like the rest of us and get plastic cups that I can toss into the sink? Her kitchen feels so fancy.”
“It is fancy.” I shoo them out of the kitchen and clean up the rest of the small mess we made, listening to Reagan and Scott talk about what movie to watch next. But instead of going to join them right away, I head to the sliding glass door to press my face against the cool surface, fingers tapping out a small, soft rhythm. “I wasn’t imagining things,” I mutter, scanning the pitch black yard. “And I’m certainly not losing it.”
“Are you coming?!” Reagan yells from the other room, impatient. “We want to put a new movie on, but Scott says you have to approve it!”
“You’re not watching anything that’s rated R, Scott!” I call back, knowing what he’s trying to talk her into. “And I’m coming.” I let out a breath and watch as it fogs up the glass, and I wait another few seconds as if I’ll see something move if I just stand here and don’t blink.
But nothing happens. Nothing except Scott’s yell of impatience and Roscoe’s playful yip. They draw me away from the window and back into the living room, where I’ll probably have to deal with the two of them ganging up on me to watch something Lou would skin me for putting on.
“Hey.” Reagan’s soft voice from the recliner causes me to open my eyes, and I look at her in the flickering light coming from the television. Now that Scott is in bed with Roscoe snoring on his feet, we’ve changed from kids’ Halloween movies to something scarier, though I have no idea what ‘90s era slasher movie is currently playing. “You okay?”
I blink, my attention shifting back to the movie. I’d almost been asleep, but her words chase away some of the drowsiness. “Yeah,” I say with a sigh. “I’m okay, Reagan. Thanks for coming over, by the way. And for checking out the yard.”
“Anytime.” She shifts, dragging the fleece blanket she pilfered from the hall closet over herself. “Seriously, you know? You’re my best friend. If you ever need a yard patrolman or co-babysitter, all you have to do is ask.”
“Best friend?” I repeat, eyes closing again as sleep tugs convincingly at my brain. I yawn. “I never knew you considered me your best friend.”
“Well, yeah.” She doesn’t say anything else, even though I expect her to. She just rolls onto her side, her knees drawn up to her chest in the recliner before letting out a huff and closing her eyes as well. “See you in the morning, Winnie,” she mutters.
“Yeah.” I glance at the television and pick up the remote to turn it off, plunging us into relative darkness lit only by the hall nightlight and the diffused light that seeps in through the living room curtains. “See you in the morning.”
Almost immediately I hear her snoring as I stare up at the ceiling, and I sigh ruefully, jealous of Reagan’s ability to sleep literally anywhere and at any time. Hell, I’m pretty sure if a tornado swept through the neighborhood, she wouldn’t wake up. Even if she herself was carried away.
But it takes a lot longer for me to drift off, despite being somewhat sure she was right, and what I’d seen in the yard was just some asshole playing a prank who’d run away after scaring me.
It’s cold in the janitor’s closet. Especially in my still-bloody t-shirt and denim shorts. Even though it's late summer, it feels freezing here. Still, the cold makes the bruises and my broken arm hurt a little less, if only because it gives me something to distract me from the pain.
Outside, I hear the rushing around and yelling of the Psych Hospital staff, and I can make out my name being said or yelled in desperate attempts to locate me in this huge, cold place. Not that I have any intention of coming out.
I don’t want anyone to touch me.
I’d be happy if no one ever touched me again, in fact.
When it’s silent, I get to my feet, leaning my ear against the door to listen for any sign of someone walking by. But when it’s been calm outside for at least five minutes, I figure I’m in the clear and they’re searching somewhere else for me. Slowly, I push open the door and peek out into the fluorescent hall, giving it a few seconds to make sure there really is no one waiting to pounce. When I’m satisfied, I walk out, my sneakers making no sound on the tile floor.
I don’t want to be here.
All I have to do is convince Mom and Lou that I don’t need to be here. That I’d be better off at home, even with everything that’s going on. I just have to make them see that I don’t need an evaluation, a test, or medical care now that my arm is splinted and my ribs have been x-rayed.
Maybe this time she’ll listen; once she sees I was desperate enough to get away that I’ve been hiding from the psych ward staff for thirty minutes and counting.
Trying to remember where I’d come from, I jog down the hallway and glance through the small glass windows set in each of the doors. Most of them are empty, and none of them are the way out. Not that I can tell, anyway. And my brain is so jumbled that I can’t quite remember which way they’d led me in before I’d slipped away in the ‘waiting room.’
Voices echo at the other end of the hall and I panic, pushing open the closest door without looking inside to get away from anyone who might find me and take me back. I know I’ll be in trouble for this, but it’ll be worth it if I can just go home.
It isn’t until I trip over a chair and go sprawling that I realize I’m not alone, thanks to the low, dry chuckle from the other side of the room near the windows. Getting to my feet, I look up at the person, eyes searching their face and taking in their plain, white clothes.
“I know you.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop myself, and I take a step toward him before hesitating.
He looks me over with pale blue eyes set under curly, unkempt, light brown hair and I see a spark of recognition in his gaze as he pulls one knee up to his chest. It occurs to me that he’s sitting in the middle of what looks like an activity room, against the only wall with windows, and he’s all alone.
“Are you allowed to be here?” I look around, as if other people are hiding behind the walls or under tables. But he and I are the only ones here.
He quirks a brow at me, a smile hitching on his face. “ Are you?” he asks in reply. “Because judging by how you’re acting, and your clothes, I’d say you aren’t, Winnie.”
When he says my name, I suddenly realize who he is. Cassian Byers sits in front of me, in the psych ward he’d been thrown in after killing his sister.
“Cassian,” I murmur, my stomach twisting nervously. I take a step back, but only one, as Cass’s lips twitch into a small, wry grin.
“Winnie,” he repeats. “Aren’t you going to run away? You know what I am and what I did better than anyone else here.”
I glance back at the door, hearing the voices in the hallway grow softer, then look back at Cassian. “No.” Being here with him is preferable to being caught, I think, and I decidedly sit down hard on the floor, wincing as I curl my legs up under me. “I don’t want them to find me.”
“So you’d rather be stuck in here with me?” His brow raises, and a look of interest crosses his face. “You must be in a lot of trouble if I’m your preferred choice.”
“I’m not in trouble,” I snap, before I can help it. But then I hesitate, not sure if that’s quite true. “I'm not…exactly in trouble,” I amend. “But I want to go home. I’m trying to find the front desk so I can find my mom and beg her to take me home. She thinks I need to be here, but I don’t.”
Something like guilt makes his blue eyes darken, and he settles back against the wall. “That PTSD from watching my sister get stabbed finally catch up with you?”
I shake my head slowly, though hearing him bring up that night so casually is…strange. It makes me nervous, for one. But it’s also sort of relieving. Everyone in my life tiptoes around the subject and never talks about it plainly.
Everyone but him, I guess.
“No. Mom put me in therapy, but I’ve done pretty well with that.” I drag my knees up to my chest and rock on the floor, shivering again. “Have you been here since then?”
“Yep.” He pops the ‘p’ in the word, eyes still on mine. “So why are you here, if it’s not because of me? This is a psych ward, you know. Not just a hospital or a clinic.”
“Yeah, I figured that out.” Absently, I run my fingers over the splint on my arm, and that draws Cassian’s attention to it. “My dad,” I say finally, not sure why I’m explaining things to a murderer when I’ve never even told my friends. “My dad he…he’s not so great.” I swallow, not sure how to go on.
“Did he do that?” Cassian nods at my arm. “And your face?” I know he’s referring to the black eye and busted lip that I have, and I anxiously lick over the newly closed cut with a wince.
“He did.” But I don’t elaborate. “I’m not here because of that, though. He’s been doing it for a while. Since before you…got here.” Something strange crosses his face, but I don’t let him say anything. Instead, I take a breath, the words of what I’d done tonight sitting heavily in my throat.
“It’s because I killed him.” I hold his eyes as I say it. “I killed my dad.”
His face falls in surprise, before he collects himself a second later and looks out the window. “How did you do it?” he asks, as if this is the most normal conversation in the world.
“I’m not like you.” My words are rushed, and I need him to know I didn’t kill my dad in cold blood the same way he’d killed his sister. But Cassian doesn’t reply right away, only raises a brow in my direction as he rolls his shoulders.
“You don’t know what I’m like, Winnie,” he tells me, a warning in his voice.
“I…” The words are on my lips, begging to be said. I haven’t let them free; haven’t uttered them out into the world. Because then it’s real. Then I really did this terrible thing that stained my sneakers red with blood. “I shot him with his gun,” I whisper, wondering if I’m quiet enough then the world won’t know and it’ll just be our little secret.
Cassian leans forward, though he’s not close enough to touch me. “Good.” His eyes are bright, and for the first time, I see him smile. “Good job, Winnie. I’m proud of you.”
But before I can ask him why, or what he means by that, the doors bang open and an orderly’s shrill voice makes me wince and scramble to my feet. I don’t get to say anything else to my ex-babysitter’s brother as I’m dragged out of the room despite my protests and my yells for my mom.
The last thing I remember is meeting his eyes over the nurse’s shoulder, his ghostly blue gaze sharp and his jaw set as he watches me go like he doesn’t want me to leave.
Even though that can’t be true at all.