The Evolution of Mara Dyer (44 page)

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

T
HE 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.

I may not have known where I was but I remembered what she did. I watched her sit there placidly in the plastic chair next to the bed and flipped through memory after memory of her lying to my face. I saw images of Jude in my room, watching me as I slept while Dr. Kells recorded it. She
had known he was alive. She knew what he was doing to me. She let him into Horizons and she put all of us through hell.

Her expression hadn’t changed, but I saw her with new eyes.

“Do you know who I am?” Dr. Kells asked.

You’re the person who betrayed my trust. You’re the person who fed me lies and drugs pretending to make me better when all you really wanted was to make me worse. I know exactly who you are, I tried to say. But when I opened my mouth, all that came out was the word, “Yes.”

It was like I was pressed between two panes of glass. I could
see
everything, I could
hear
everything, but I was removed from myself. Detached. Not paralyzed—I could feel my legs and the scratchy sheets that brushed my skin. I could lick my lips and I did. I could speak, but not the words I wanted to say. And when I tried to order my mouth to scream and my legs to kick, it was like the desire was impossible to reach.

“I have some things I’d like to talk with you about, but first, I want to let you know that you’ve been given an infusion of a variant of sodium amytal. Have you heard of sodium amytal?”

“No,” my poisoned tongue replied.

“Colloquially, they call it truth serum. That’s not entirely accurate—but it can be used to help relieve certain types of suffering. We sometimes use it in experimental psychiatry to give patients a respite from a manic or catatonic episode.” She leaned in closer to me, and said in a softer tone of voice, “You’ve been suffering, Mara, haven’t you?”

I seethed in that bed, in my body, and I wanted to spit in her face. But I couldn’t. I said, “Yes.”

She nodded. “We think the variant we’ve developed will help with your . . . unique issues. We’re on your side. We want to help you,” she said evenly. “Will you let us help you?” She glanced over her shoulder at the mirror.

No,
my mind screamed. “Yes.”

“I’m glad.” She smiled, and reached down to the floor. When she raised her hand, there was a remote in it. “Let me show you something,” she said, and then called out to the air. “Screen.”

A thin white screen lowered mechanically from the ceiling while a portion of the wall near the mirror retracted, exposing a whiteboard that bore a scrawled list.

“Monitors,” Dr. Kells called out before I could read it. I heard something beep beside my head, matching the pace of my heartbeat.

“Lights,” she said again, and the room went dark. Then she raised her hand and the remote, and pressed play.

I watched shaky footage from Claire’s camera as she swung and panned over the asylum, over Rachel. I watched the scene that Jude left for me in my bedroom for me to watch before.

The image went dark. I heard myself laugh.

But where the video stopped before, the image now shook. Jude’s footage was spliced. On
this
footage,
this
screen, I now saw that someone was lifting the camera. And just before the image cut out, there was a flash of light.

Illuminating the face of Dr. Kells.

She had been at the asylum. She was
there
.

My mind wanted to throw up, but my body was perfectly still as the lights came on.

Dr. Kells pointed at the whiteboard. “Mara, can you read what’s written there?” I skimmed the words as my blood pounded in my ears. The machine, the monitor, beeped faster.

Double-Blind

S. Benicia, manifested (G1821 carrier, origin unknown). Side effects(?): anorexia, bulimia, self-harm. Responsive to administered pharmaceuticals. Contraindications suspected but unknown.

T. Burrows, non-carrier, deceased.

M. Cannon, non-carrier, sedated.

M. Dyer, manifesting (G1821 carrier, original). Side effects: co-occurring PTSD, hallucinations, self-harm, poss. schizophrenia/paranoid subtype. Responsive to midazolam. Contraindications: suspected n.e.s.s.?

J. Roth, manifesting (G1821 carrier, suspected original), induced. Side effects: poss. borderline personality disorder, poss. mood disorder. Contraindications suspected but unknown.

A. Kendall: non-carrier, deceased.

J. L.: artificially manifested, Lenaurd protocol, early induction. Side effects: multiple personality disorder (unresponsive), antisocial personality disorder (unresponsive); migraines, extreme aggression (unresponsive). No known contraindications.

C. L.: artificially manifested, Lenaurd protocol, early induction, deceased.

P. Reynard: non-carrier, deceased.

N. Shaw: manifested (G1821 original carrier). Side effects(?): self-harm, poss. oppositional defiant disorder (unresponsive), conduct disorder? (unresponsive); tested: class a barbiturates (unresponsive), class b (unresponsive), class c (unresponsive); unresponsive to all classes;
(test m.a.d.),
deceased.

Generalized side effects: nausea, elevated temp., insomnia, night terrors

“You’ve been a participant in a blind study, Mara,” Dr. Kells said. “That means most of your treating doctors and counselors have been unaware of your participation. Your parents are unaware as well. The reason you’ve been selected for this study is because you have a condition, a gene that is harming you.”

Carrier.

“It makes you act in a way that is causing you to be a danger to yourself and others.”

Side effects.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes,” my traitor tongue responded. I understood.

“Some of your friends are also carriers of this gene, which has been disrupting your normal lives.”

Stella. Jamie. Noah. Their names were on that list, right by mine.

And by J. L. Jude Lowe.

I had wanted to know what we were and now I did. We weren’t students. We weren’t patients.

We were subjects. Victims, and perfect ones. If we cried wolf, Dr. Kells would cry crazy, and there were hundreds of pages of psychological records to back her up. If any of us told the truth, the world would call it fiction.

The asylum, Jude, Miami—the people I’d killed, the brother Jude had taken. It all led to this moment.

Because it had been calculated that way. It was planned.

I wasn’t sent to Horizons—I’d been
brought
. My parents had no idea what this place was; they just wanted to help me get better and Dr. Kells made them believe I would. When they thought I
was
getting better, they decided not to make me go to the retreat; they would eventually pull me out of the program entirely.

And the day they decided not to make me go was the night when Jude made me slit my wrists. But not to kill myself.