Possession (22 page)

She frowned. “What kind of weird things would he
be thinking?”

Murder,
mayhem, and bloodied, beating hearts,
I thought. Instead, I just shrugged
my shoulders. “I know it sounds odd, but could you do it for me? As a favor?”

“You want me to tap into his thoughts?”

I nodded my head. “I do.”

“I’ll have to get closer.”

We walked over to Rachel and Dean.

“Hello,” Rachel said, giving us both a smile.
“Dean got permission for me to accompany him out here. It’s such a beautiful
spot.”

I plastered a smile on my face. “It really is. I
love working in a garden.”

“Do you have one at home?”

Home. I don’t have a home anymore
.
“I do. My mother and I spent time in
it every day.”

“You never really told me much about your family.”

For a second, I considered lying to her. “I don’t
like to talk about it. You see, my family—they’re all dead.”

She took a step forward, reached out her hand, and
took mine in it. “I’m so sorry.”

“It happened a while ago.” Dean was watching me.
“You seem to be getting your strength back,” I said to him.

“I am. I’ve been working hard. I think now I’m
capable of doing just about anything.” His eyes wandered toward the fence.

Wendy was standing next to me, her expression one
of pure concentration. Suddenly she let out a small cry and stumbled.

I moved quickly to stand beside her. “Are you all
right?”

Her hands went to her head. “I’m sorry, I’m not
feeling well.”

I looked over at Rachel. “I better help her back
to the room.”

Caroline started heading toward us, but Wendy
waved her away. “I’m fine. Just feel a bit ill. I think I need to lie down.” She
seemed unsteady on her feet.

I put my arm under hers and helped her back inside,
the nurse right on our heels. We made our way slowly down the hallway. The
nurse was walking close enough behind us that I couldn’t ask any questions
without being overheard.

I waited until we got into our room. The nurse
fussed a bit over Wendy. She helped her lie down on the bed, and she brought a
wet cloth from the bathroom and put it down across Wendy’s forehead.

“I’ll be back. I want to see if she has a
temperature,” the nurse said as she walked across the room and then out the
door.

I went over to Wendy’s bed and sat down. She
looked paler than normal, if that was possible.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

Wendy’s hand went back to her head. “I was
listening to Dean’s thoughts…when something…when there was a burst of orange,
and suddenly there was pain. An awful pain in my head and it…it pushed me
back.”

An orange light. Death dealer magic. Was it Luke? Did
she somehow tap into Luke, and feeling threatened, his power kicked in and
pushed her back?

“Before that happened, could you tell what Dean
was thinking?”

She averted her eyes.

“You made a connection with him. You were close
enough to him. You had to hear or see something,” I demanded.

“I could hear some of his thoughts,” she finally muttered.

“What was he thinking?” She didn’t answer. I
leaned in. “It’s important. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”

She sat up. “You. He was thinking of you. All the
thoughts running through his head were of you.”

He was
thinking of me?
I looked back at Wendy, feeling heat rising in my cheeks.

Before I could respond, Caroline rushed back into
the room. She had a bag with her, and she proceeded to take Wendy’s temperature
and blood pressure.

When everything checked out normal, the nurse told
Wendy to stay in bed until she was feeling better. She promised to check back
in a bit to see how she was doing.

Once we were alone again, I found myself reluctant
to ask Wendy more questions. Her answer had really thrown me. Dean had been
thinking of me—his thoughts had been full of me. I didn’t know how I felt
about that.

Wendy took the cloth off her head and sat up. “Why
did you ask me to spy on your friend?”

I got up off the bed and went over to my own. “I
just wanted to see if he was possessed.”

“He is…with your boyfriend.”

I might as well come clean and tell her what I’m thinking.
Chances are good that she’ll eventually pick it up out of my head. “No, I don’t
mean Luke. I mean by someone else.”

My answer surprised her. Her eyes grew wide. “Who
else do you think is possessing him?”

“The madman killing people in this place.” I
didn’t know how long she’d been in solitary, so I explained to her all my
suspicions about the murders. When I finished, she didn’t say anything for a
long time.

When she finally spoke up, she said, “The beating
hearts…” and then looked off into space.

I waited for her to finish. When she didn’t, I
finally said, “His victims. He does some kind of ritual. One Luke has never
heard of before. It’s not death magic. We aren’t sure what it is, but it’s
powerful.”

She turned and focused again on me. “You hoped I
could tell you if the killer was inside of Dean.”

“Yes. And you couldn’t sense him?”

“No…but I’m not 100 percent sure. Something feels…
wrong
about him, but I don’t sense the
killer inside him.”

“Do you think Andrew could tell if he took off the
pouch?”

She shook her head. “I’m much stronger than he is.
If I can’t tell—”

I finished her sentence again. “No reader can. If
I can’t ask a reader, how can I tell? Who else would know?”

“Someone he killed,” she whispered.

“Another spirit? One of the dead? One of his
victims? In the garden, I had a vision—maybe the murdered girl sent it,”
I thought out loud. “And in solitary, the spirits were all around me. But those
are the only times they’ve contacted me in that way. I feel them. I hear the
words
‘help me,’
but they aren’t
communicating with me otherwise.”

Her eyes got wide again and she looked off into
the corner. “Maybe they’re afraid.”

“Of what?” The way she was acting was starting to
spook me. I glanced around the room. No breeze, no voices. We were alone.

“More like, of
who
.”
She got up and came over to sit down next to me. She leaned in and lowered her
voice. “I’ve heard it said that if many spirits roam in the same area,
sometimes a stronger spirit, a more dominant one, can sort of overpower the
others.”

“Control them?”

She shook her head. “No, not control them exactly.
But push them around. Bully them.”

“He’s inside a person now. He’s no longer on their
plane of existence. Why would they still be afraid of him?”

“If someone is hurting you and beating you up
every day, it’s hard to get over. Your reactions to him almost become a habit. If
the person walks into the same room as you, you can’t help but flinch.”

I was trying to follow her logic. “So to them, he’s
still around. He’s roaming around in their space, but just not as a spirit.
They’re still scared of him.”

She shrugged and looked away. “It’s just a theory.”

“Not a bad one. If you’re right, they’re scared
and won’t come to me. Won’t tell me what I need to know.” I don’t know how to
get them to communicate with me.

“You have to force them to come to you.”

I thought back to the spell Luke had done with the
Ouija board. The spell he’d used to call a specific spirit to him. The spirit
had no choice but to show up. “I need a Ouija board.”

Wendy gave me a half smile. “Not a problem.”

“How is that not a problem?”

“You would be surprised at the things patients
have in these places.” She pointed to my waistband. “How do you think your
friend got the runes in here?”

Mildred. I can’t believe I almost forgot entirely
about Mildred. “We have to find my friend. I can’t leave here without her. I
made a promise.”

“You’re going to escape tonight?”

That had been the plan, but now there was no way
we could leave tonight. I was not going to escape out of this place until I
knew for sure that
Weatherton
was not in Dean’s body.
And if I found out he was in Dean? I had no idea what I would do. I desperately
wanted to talk to Luke. To tell him all that happened. To hear what he thought.
I counted on Luke’s input. “We have to put off the escape, but the longer we
wait, the more dangerous it is. Someone else is going to die. In the next day
or two
Weatherton
will strike again…”

This time, she finished my sentence. “And as long
as we’re in here, his next victim could be one of us.”

* * *

Caroline came back to check on Wendy. Wendy told her she was
too ill to make it to lunch, so the nurse arranged for a tray to be brought in
for the both of us.

We ate our lunches in silence, but Wendy seemed
restless. Even though the upper half of her body was still, her leg swung back
and forth. I could almost feel the nervous energy bouncing off her.

When Wendy suddenly jumped off the bed, I almost
let out a yelp of surprise. She headed toward the door and motioned for me to
follow. There was no guard on duty. Caroline was supposed to shadow us, but
since she thought Wendy was sick, she had gone about her duties, which left us
free to roam the halls. If we bumped into her, we could always act like we had
been looking for her.

I still had no idea how Wendy thought she was
going to get her hands on the Ouija board. It was a few hours before dinner. By
now most of the patients had come back in from the garden. Many of them would
be wasting time in the common room, but a few were roaming the halls.

Wendy headed through the mazelike hallways,
exhibiting none of the confusion I always felt when trying to navigate. Maybe
the hospital only hated me, or maybe readers were just harder to fool. She
walked with purpose. She knew where she was going, wherever that was. In what
seemed like no time at all, she stopped in front of a room.

“Stay here, I’ll be right back,” she said, opening
the door and heading inside.

I leaned against the closest wall and tried to
look nonchalant. An orderly strolled by, but since it was daytime and in
between meals, he had no reason to question why I was there.

I was starting to lose my patience when Wendy
finally came back out.

“Success.” She held up a white crystal hanging
from a silver chain.

It was the last thing I expected. “You got a
necklace?”

She shook her head. “I traded for it. It’s a way
to find your friend.”

What did she have to trade? She didn’t have
anything with her when she left our room.

She looked away. “Some people place high value in
having access to a reader.”

She was reading my thoughts again. I wish she
would stop doing that—it seriously creeps me out.
“You what, tell them their future?”

“That, or pass on information. Information in a
place like this can be just as valuable as money.”

“Information you get from reading other people’s
minds.”

She turned without answering and started walking
down the hall. I had no choice but to follow her.

We headed to another part of the hospital. She
stopped again in front of a door that looked much like the last. “This one may
take a while. You’ll have to wait outside again.”

I pointed down the hall. Dean’s room was just a
few doors down. “I want to let Dean know about the change in plans.”

“When you’re done, come back and knock twice on
the door. I’ll come out as soon as I can.”

I watched her walk into the room, and before the
door shut, I got a glimpse of an old man dressed in a dark suit sitting cross-legged
on the floor. He turned toward Wendy with a sly smile and calculating eyes.

There was no furniture in the room. Glowing
letters in what looked like Arabic were scrawled in spirals on the walls. The
text seemed to become denser and fade away in the center, like one of those
light mirrors, reflecting away into infinity. I had a vague impression of
things hidden on the other side of the swirling spots of infinity.

I could force my way in and find out who the old
man was and what the text was or meant. But did I really want to know? Wendy
was doing me a favor, and she had made it pretty clear that she didn’t want me
to play an active part in her bartering.

* * *

I stood in front of Dean’s door, my hand on the doorknob. I
didn’t know if he was in his room. He might be off in the common area still
visiting with his mom. What would I say to him when I saw him? I hesitated
outside his room for a long time. Finally, feeling like an idiot, I took a deep
breath and pushed the door open.

Dean was looking out the window. He turned and gave
me a smile.

“It must have been nice spending time with your
mom.” I walked into the room and closed the door behind me.

“It was. She’s happy to see me up and walking.
When we get out of here, I’ll have to get word to her that I’m okay. If I don’t
let her know what’s going on, she’ll worry.”

I cleared my throat. “About that…”

“Is something wrong?” He took a step toward me.

“We can’t escape tonight. I still have no idea
where Mildred is.”

“The reader can’t help you?”

“Wendy thinks she can find Mildred. She just needs
more time.” It was true…it just wasn’t the
whole
reason.

“We can leave tomorrow night, then.”

I nodded my head. I can’t leave Mildred behind.”

“I understand. She’s your friend. You’re very
loyal. It’s something I really like about you.”

The way he was looking at me—like he was openly
admiring me—made me feel uncomfortable. I took a step back.

“Is something wrong?”

“No. It’s just…”