The Evolution of Mara Dyer (41 page)

I
CLOSED THE FOLDER WITHOUT CEREMONY AND
handed it back to Noah.

“Why do you have two middle names?” I asked.

“That’s your question? After reading that?” Noah drew back, searching for something in my eyes. Disgust, maybe. Or fear.

“It’s not you,” I said to him, and softly.

The corner of Noah’s mouth lifted in a slow smile. A sad one. “Yes. It is.”

We were both right, I decided then. Our files were part of us—the parts that people wanted to fix. But they weren’t
all
of us. They weren’t who we were. Only we could decide that.

I swung my leg over Noah’s waist and straddled him. “Maybe the uncooperative part’s true. You’re very”—I brushed my lips against his—“frustrating.”

Jamie cleared his throat. I nearly forgot that he was there.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“If okay means ‘pessimistic, unstable, and manipulative,’ then sure,” Jamie said cheerfully. “‘Patient demonstrates extreme sarcasm and enduring bitterness; sees things in terms of extremes, such as either all good or all bad. His views of others change quickly, leading to intense and unstable relationships,’” he recited from memory. “‘Patient demonstrates conflict about sexual orientation and is preoccupied with the sexual histories of others. Demonstrates a classic pattern of identity disturbance—an unclear,
unstable self-image—as well as impulsivity and emotional instability,’” he said, suddenly sounding tired. He closed his file, chucked it like a Frisbee at the opposite wall, and leaned back with his arms above his head. “Ladies and gentlemen, Jamal Feldstein-Roth.”

I blinked. “Wait,
Jamal
?”

“Suck it,” he said with a grin. “My parents are liberal Jews from Long Island, okay? They wanted me to have a connection to my
heritage.
” Jamie made air quotes with his fingers.

“I’m not judging—my middle name is Amitra. I’m just surprised.”

“Amitra,” Noah mused. “Mystery solved.”

“What is that?” Jamie asked me.

“Sanskrit? Hindi?” I shrugged.

“Randomly?”

I shook my head. “Mom’s Indian.”

“What does it mean?” Jamie asked me.

“What does Jamal mean?” I asked him.

“Point taken.”

“I probably have about as much connection to my Indian heritage as you do to your African heritage,” I said. “My mother’s favorite food is sushi.”

“Latkes.” Jamie smiled for a second, but then it faltered. “This is bullshit,” he said suddenly. “We’re teenagers. We’re
supposed
to be sarcastic.”

“And preoccupied with sex,” I chimed in.

“And impulsive,” Noah added.

“Exactly,” Jamie said. “But we’re in here and they’re out there?” He shook his head slowly. “Everyone’s a little crazy. The only difference between us and them is that they hide it better.” He paused. “It . . . kind of makes me want to burn this place down?” He raised his eyebrows. “Just me?”

I grinned. “Not just you.”

Jamie stood and chucked me on the shoulder. Then yawned. “Rain check? I’m beat. You guys staying?”

I looked over at Noah. We hadn’t gotten what we came for yet. When our eyes met, it was obvious that he was thinking the same thing.

“Yeah,” I said.

Jamie picked up his file and dropped it back in the appropriate drawer. He reached for the door. “Thanks for the fun. Let’s do it again soon.”

I waved. Jamie closed the door behind him.

And then Noah and I were alone.

63

N
OAH LEANED BACK IN
D
R.
K
ELLS’S CHAIR
and watched me. I was still in his lap.

And suddenly self-conscious. “What?” I asked as I blushed.

“Are you all right?”

I nodded.

“You sure?”

I thought about it, about what was in my file and what it meant. “Not entirely,” I said. Not being believed about Jude would always hurt. Noah’s arms tightened around me, solid and warm.

“You can read it,” I decided.

He shook his head, his hair tickling my skin. “I showed
you mine with no expectations. You don’t have to show me yours.”

I looked up at him. “I want to.”

Noah’s hand wandered over the folder on the desk behind my back, and then he leaned back in the chair to read with me still in his lap.

We were silent. His fingers wandered beneath my T-shirt, drawing invisible pictures on my skin. Distracting me, I realized with a smile. I was grateful.

Then he said my name, bringing me back. “Mara, did you see this?”

I leaned over to look. Noah flipped the file around so I could read it. Under my stats, the ones I’d skimmed, there was a handwritten notation beneath a section called CONTRAINDICATIONS that read:

Sarin, orig. carrier; contraindication suspected, unknown; midazolam administered

My heartbeat thrummed in my ears. “Sarin. My mother’s maiden name.”

My grandmother’s last name.

I wasn’t sure if Noah heard me. He handed me the file and shifted me up, off of his lap. He was up in an instant.

The rush of blood was loud in my ears. “What does it—what’s a contraindication?”

“It’s like,” Noah started to say as he began opening drawers. “It’s like if you have a penicillin allergy, the contraindication is
penicillin,” he said. “You shouldn’t take it unless the benefit outweighs the risk.”

“Like a weakness?” I asked. “What’s midazolam?”

“They use it at the clinic,” Noah said, thumbing through file folders. “They never told you they were giving it to you?”

“Wait, what clinic? The
animal
clinic?” I asked, my eyes widening.

“Most veterinary drugs started as human drugs, not the other way around. If it’s what I think it is, they use it for sedation, presurgery.”

“Why would I need to be sedated?” The idea made me shiver.

Noah shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Unless there’s a human indication I’m unaware of, which is possible.” He glanced at the clock. “They’re going to start waking up soon,” he said. He was silhouetted in the dark. “You look for Phoebe’s file, I’ll look for Stella’s.”

I looked without words because I couldn’t find any, not then. I kept searching, careful as I could be not to disturb anything as I tunneled through file cabinets and scoured the desk drawers. In the bottom-right one, on top of a pile of papers, I found something. But not what I had been looking for.

I withdrew the fine black cord with the silver pendants—mirror images, mine and his—that should have been hanging around Noah’s neck.

“Noah,” I said. “Your necklace.”

He turned to me, placing a manila file folder on the desk.
Benicia,
the label read—Stella’s last name.

I handed Noah the necklace and he fastened it around his neck. Then helped me search for Phoebe’s file.

I opened every drawer, looked under every pile of paper. There were a bunch of notebooks all stacked on a shelf—I looked between those, too, taking each one out and flipping through it—maybe her records had been stuffed inside?

He slid into Dr. Kells’s chair then. “Keep looking,” he told me, as he turned on the computer monitor on her desk. I willed myself to hold it together despite the panic that scratched below the surface, and resumed the physical search as Noah began an electronic one.

And then, just as my eyes found a notebook with Phoebe’s scrawl on the front, I heard Noah say my name in the most haunted voice I had ever heard.

His skin was pale, illuminated by the monitor’s light, which flickered over his face as he watched something on the screen, utterly riveted. I gripped Phoebe’s notebook and moved next to him to see what it was.

What I saw, framed in the glossy white monitor, was us.

An extremely high quality video on Dr. Kells’s computer screen of me on my bed. In my bedroom. At home. Of Noah straddled in my desk chair, looking at me. Talking to me.

I saw his artful smirk. My answering smile.

And a date in the corner, where a counter ticked.

It was filmed last week.

Noah did something, clicked on something, and I watched in horror as our on-screen selves appeared and disappeared in fast motion as seconds, minutes, hours of footage passed.

Noah clicked again and a window opened up, containing more files with more dates. He opened them in rapid succession and we saw my kitchen. Daniel’s bedroom. The guest bedroom.

Every room in my whole house.

Another click. The sound of Noah’s voice reached out from the speakers and out from the past.

“I won’t let Jude hurt you.”

Noah inhaled sharply. He fast-forwarded again and we watched his lean frame disappear. We watched me speed in and out of my bedroom, and then finally change and get ready for bed. And then we watched Jude walk into my bedroom that night. Watched him watch me as I slept.

Jude had hurt me, again and again and again. Noah blamed himself because he wasn’t there, but it wasn’t his fault. He was just as lost as I was, just as blind in this as me.

Dr. Kells wasn’t blind, though. She saw it all. She saw everything.

“She knew he was alive,” I said, my voice sounding dead. “She knew he was alive the whole time.”

64

N
OAH WAS COMPLETELY SILENT.

My eyes hardened as I stared at the screen. “Evidence,” I said, and Noah looked at me, his expression chilling. “We need to copy the files, then tell everyone what’s going on.”

Noah clicked an icon and an electronic window opened—a picture of a yellow triangle around an exclamation mark appeared on-screen along with the words:

UNABLE TO CONNECT

“Fine, then,” Noah said, and kicked out of the chair. He took my hand. “We’ll leave.”

But we couldn’t. “Not without proof,” I said, thinking of
my file. Delusions. Nightmares. Hallucinations. “If we have no proof that Jude’s alive, that she knew, and we get out—I could just be sent
back
.”

My voice cracked on the word. I tried to swallow away the tightness in my throat and handed Noah Phoebe’s journal so I could keep rifling through the desk. For CDs, a thumb drive, any way to record this.

But Noah’s voice stopped me cold.

“Jesus,” he whispered, staring inside Phoebe’s notebook. I leaned around to see.

I could barely read her chicken scratch, but I did see my name in several places, along with sketches of a crude likeness of myself with my insides spilled out.

“Not that,” Noah said. He pointed instead to the inside cover.

Where Phoebe had drawn hearts with the initials J+P inside. Where she had written in flowery, cursive script:

Phoebe Lowe

Phoebe’s last name was Reynard.
Jude’s
last name was Lowe.

J + P.

Phoebe’s words rushed back to me—what she said after she planted the note in my backpack, the one that said
I see you.
They tumbled and spun in my brain:

“I didn’t write it,”
Phoebe had said, then lowered her eyes back to her journal. She smiled.
“But I did put it there.”

I heard her voice in my mind again as bile rose in my throat.

“My boyfriend gave it to me,”
she said in a singsong voice.

“Who’s your boyfriend, Phoebe?”
I asked.

But I never believed she actually had one. I just thought she was playing some crazy game. When she never answered, when she started singing, it made me think I won. But now I knew I hadn’t.

Jude did.

“He was using her,” I said, the fear fresh and raw. “He was
using
her.”

Dr. Kells knew Jude was alive and knew his connection to me. Jude was meeting with Phoebe, telling her who-knew-what and giving her frightening notes to pass along. Phoebe and I were Horizons patients. Dr. Kells was the Horizons director. And Jude?

What the hell was
he
?

“Fuck this.” Noah snapped Phoebe’s notebook shut and took my hand. “We’re leaving
now
.” He pulled me, tugged me toward the door. I could barely make my leaden legs move.

“What are they
doing
?” l whispered.

“We’ll figure it out, let’s just go—”

My mind was shutting down in fear and confusion and shock. I wouldn’t have known what direction to go in if Noah didn’t lead me. I followed him out of Dr. Kells’s office—the door closed behind us with a click. The halls were still empty and all of the dormitory room doors were still closed. None of the counselors had woken up yet. We might be able to slip out before they did.

Did they know everything too?

As we rushed through the hall, though, I noticed that there was, in fact, one door still open. One that I made sure I closed earlier on my way out.

My door.

I jerked to a stop in front of it, halting Noah along with me. “My door,” I whispered to him. “I closed it, Noah. I closed it.”

“Mara—”

I pushed the door open—a dim rectangle of light fell on the wall, by Phoebe’s bed.

Where there were letters.

Letters that formed words.

Words that were written in something dark and wet.

The salt-rust smell assaulted my nostrils and turned my stomach. Noah flipped the light switch but the light didn’t turn on. He moved deeper into the room, but did not let go of my hand.

Phoebe was tucked into her bed, the covers up to her chest. Her arms were by her side, and two dark, red balloons of blood burst from her slashed wrists, staining the white blanket on either side of her body. And on the wall, written in blood, were three words.

I SEE YOU

Jude was here.