With All My Soul (23 page)

“That’s an interesting question. And for another taste of your
anger, I will answer it.”

“No deal.” I stood, and he stared up at me.

“Oh, little fury, do you really want to go away mad?” He
laughed at his own joke, and I tried to remember if I’d ever heard a joke from a
hellion. “Actually, that works for me, too. I look forward to our next—”

I swiped the sole of my sneaker across the bloody letters on
the floor, and Ira disappeared in midsentence. His surprised expression hung
there for a second in my mind, but that minor moment of satisfaction wasn’t
enough to soothe my anger or relieve my fear.

When the echo of his voice faded from my ears, I backed away
from the blood on the floor, suddenly horrified by what I’d done. By the fact
that I’d summoned a hellion again. That I’d put myself at risk again, and fed
him at my own expense again, and that this time, I had nothing to show for
it.

I was horrified most of all by the fact that I’d let him leave
without telling me where my father was or whether or not he knew where Harmony
and Uncle Brendon were. I was furious with myself for having the guts—the rash
stupidity—to summon a hellion but not to finish what I’d started. To pay, again,
for information that could have saved three lives.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I retreated from the red mess on the floor until my spine hit a
stainless steel countertop, then I slid down the cabinet doors to sit with my
knees tucked up to my chest, my arms clasped around them. Air slid in and out of
my lungs as I stared at the puddle of my blood, trying to get a grip on my
racing pulse and pounding heart. On the angry flush burning in my cheeks. Trying
to decide how big a mess I’d made of the situation. Trying to figure out how to
fix it.

How on earth was I going to find three missing parents when
multiple
hellions were also hunting them?

Then, when my body was finally under control—stupid leftover
physiological reactions—and I’d calmed to the point that I could at least sort
through my thoughts, I stood and did what had to be done. I found cleaning
supplies and wiped up all the blood, then threw my trash into the Dumpster
behind the doughnut shop. A glance at my watch showed that third period was
almost over. With any luck, no one had noticed me missing during my free period.
But my friends would notice if I skipped lunch.

In the doughnut shop’s bathroom, I stared at my reflection,
looking for any sign of the recent trauma. I ran my fingers through my hair and
used a damp brown paper napkin to clean crusted blood from my arm. Which was
when I realized my sleeve wasn’t long enough to cover the fresh wound.

I blinked into my bedroom and bandaged the cut, then pulled a
three-quarter sleeve cardigan from my closet to cover it. I was about to blink
back to school when the bloodstains on my jeans caught my eye, reminding me to
change them, too.

I arrived in the school bathroom two minutes before lunch, and
since the room was empty, I was all clear to become corporeal again.

I’d made it halfway to the cafeteria, headed for my usual table
in the quad, when Sabine rounded the corner in front of me. “Kaylee! Where the
hell have you been?” She was whispering, but barely. “We’ve been calling, but
you didn’t answer your phone!”

Because it never rang. I pulled my phone from my pocket and
pressed a button to wake it up, but nothing happened. It was dead. Which made
sense, considering that I hadn’t been home long enough to charge it the night
before.

“We?” I pulled away when Sabine grabbed my arm with her good
hand, but she only race-walked toward the quad, assuming I would follow. And I
did. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Em had some kind of breakdown. She just freaked the hell out
in the middle of third period. We heard her shouting in the hall, yelling for
you, and the teachers couldn’t calm her down. They called in the nurse, and her
guidance counselor, but she just kept shouting for you, so they let me and Nash
try to talk to her.”

Fear for Emma froze my muscles and muddled my thoughts until I
stopped walking and made myself focus.
One thing at a time.
First, find Emma.
“Where is she? Is she okay?”

“The nurse sedated her. They took her away in an ambulance, and
they wouldn’t let us go with her. They tried to call your dad—he’s her guardian
on record—but of course, they couldn’t get a hold of him.”

“She’s at the hospital? Did you call Tod?”

“Nash did, but he didn’t answer.”

“He’s probably looking for his mom.” And after talking to Ira,
I had an all-new grasp of just how dangerous the Netherworld had become, for all
of us. “I’ll find her. Just...you and Nash watch out for each other.” I rubbed
my forehead with one hand. “Wait, can you just...go home? To my house, with
Sophie and Luca? Check yourselves out, or if they won’t let you, then just
leave. I don’t think it’s safe for us here.”

Or anywhere.

Finally I was grasping what I should have understood much
earlier—we brought danger to Eastlake, not the other way around.

Sabine nodded. “You don’t have to talk me into skipping
school.”

I started to blink out of the hall, then turned to her again at
the last second. “Oh, how do you feel?” In all the commotion, I almost forgot
that she’d been poisoned only twelve hours earlier.

“Tired. But fine other than that,” she said, and I spared a
moment to wonder if she’d actually admit to a weakness if she had one. Other
than an unwavering devotion to Nash.

“Good. And thanks for finding me. I’ll see you as soon as I can
get Emma out of there.”

“Okay.” Sabine frowned at my cardigan. “Did you change
clothes?”

“Yeah. Long story. Gotta go.” I blinked out of school and into
the hospital before she could ask any more questions.

The E.R. was nearly deserted, as it was most school days—Tod
said the peak hours were always nights and weekends.

Invisible to all human eyes, I ran past rows of empty waiting
room chairs, the lady at the check-in desk, and three different triage rooms,
where nurses and techs took patients’ vital signs and typed their symptoms into
computers. I jogged right through the electronic-assist door into the main part
of the E.R., past the nurses’ station—a large square countertop with several
work areas spaced out inside it—and made a quick round of the E.R. patient
rooms, looking for Emma.

Four of the rooms were occupied, but Em wasn’t in any of them.
Had she already been admitted or released? Could they possibly have done the
paperwork that quickly?

When I couldn’t find her in the bathrooms or at the vending
machines, I stopped in the center of the E.R. again, studying the nurses’
station. They would have the information I needed, either stored on computers I
didn’t know how to access or printed in files I couldn’t pick up without
freaking out people who couldn’t see me.

I’d have to look without touching anything. Or wait until no
one was looking to go through the charts stacked in a vertical organizer. But
someone seemed to be looking in nearly every direction. That’s the problem with
a room full of people.

I entered the nurses’ station and turned in a full circle,
watching the doctors and nurses all around me typing, chatting, and jotting
things on forms clipped to clipboards. Because I was faking life, I’d only done
the invisible-in-a-crowd thing a couple of times before—most of the time, my
incorporeity was a precaution, in case someone walked in on me—and watching
people talk and act like I wasn’t there felt more like a colossal prank
perpetrated by the in-crowd than a supernatural ability.

I was visually scanning some random form over a nurse’s
shoulder when another nurse—Anne, according to her name tag—sat next to her.
“You missed all the excitement,” the first nurse—Gina—said.

“Another eighty-year-old nudist?”

Gina laughed as I moved to the right, wishing I could open a
folder on the desk in front of her. “No. Remember the girl who came in right
before you went to lunch? Ambulance brought her from Eastlake?”

I froze. They were talking about Emma.

“The mumbler? Yeah. Dr. Cohen ordered a psych evaluation right
before I left. Did she get it?”

“She got more than that. You know Claudia transferred here from
Lakeside, right?” Gina said, and Anne nodded. “Well, she recognized the girl
from this morning as a psych patient. Get this—the girl was admitted to Lakeside
under another name
nearly two years ago. She
hardly said a word the whole time she was there, then, several weeks ago she
just
disappeared
from a locked ward. They have no
idea how she got out. All the exits were locked and video-monitored, and no one
saw her leave. Just
poof,
like Houdini.”

“Weird. They take her back?”

“Yeah. The psych ward took her off our hands fifteen minutes
ago. Her parents are on the way.”

Crap!
Em was at Lakeside. Next to
the Netherworld, the mental health ward was my least favorite place in either
world. Yet somehow, it had become my afterlife’s version of Rome.

All roads led to Lakeside.

Chapter Eighteen

My skin began to crawl the moment I blinked into the
dayroom on the adolescent floor of the Lakeside mental health unit. The
psychiatric unit was associated with the hospital but was a separate building. A
beast all its own.

I’d been there as a visitor—an invisible, unauthorized
visitor—twice and made it out just fine both times, but on this third visit, as
on the other two, memories of my involuntary residence at Lakeside overshadowed
everything else. I was only a resident for a week, but that was one of the worst
weeks of my life.

After a quick glance around to make sure no one could see me, I
headed into the nurses’ station, an enclosed, locked room with windows set into
the top half of the walls—very different from nurses’ stations in the main
hospital. A room chart hung on the rear wall, the only part that didn’t overlook
the rest of the floor, but Em’s name wasn’t on it yet. Neither was Lydia’s. She
evidently hadn’t been there long enough to be penciled in. But the chart showed
two empty rooms on the girls’ wing—surely she was in one of those.

I headed out of the nurses’ station, through the dayroom, past
the dining room, and into the girls’ hall, trying my best to ignore the
residents. And not to notice the familiar faces of several girls who’d been
there when I was a resident almost two years earlier.

I couldn’t imagine living at Lakeside for two years. Surely
that was enough to drive anyone crazy—even the ones who were supposedly there
already.

The first unoccupied room was the third on the right. The door
was open, and a quick glance inside revealed that the room was indeed empty.

Four doors down on the left was the other unoccupied room, and
I could tell from halfway down the hall that someone was inside—a human-shaped
shadow stretched into the corridor, cast by sunlight streaming through a window
inside. But that shadow didn’t look like Em’s new body. It was too tall—though
that was hard to judge, since shadows stretch.

Em wasn’t alone.

My heart beat in sympathy for her, and my mind raced. Getting
her out would be simple.
Keeping
her out would be
more complicated. They knew what name she was living under, and what high school
she’d been picked up from.

They’d called Lydia’s parents.

Balancing our human-world and Netherworld problems had just
gotten much more complicated.

When I got closer to the open door, I could hear voices. I
recognized Emma/Lydia’s, but the other was unfamiliar.

“Do you remember me, Lydia?” The shadow propped hands on broad
hips, and triangles of light showed through the loop formed by her arms.

“No.” Another shadow crossed in front of the counselor’s
shadow, moving quickly until it was past the doorway. “I don’t remember you
because we’ve never met. I’m not Lydia.” The shadow crossed again, in the
opposite direction this time.

Emma was pacing.

“You don’t remember being here before?” The counselor’s shadow
turned to track Em as her silhouette paced across the small room again. “You’ve
only been gone a few weeks....”

“No. I don’t remember that because it never happened. I’ve
never been here.” She paused. “Well, I mean, I’ve
been
here.” When she’d visited me. “But I never
lived
here.” Emma’s shadow had both hands pressed to her head the
next time she crossed the doorway, and I groaned silently. She was making
herself sound...unstable. But what else was she supposed to say? A few
inaccurately answered questions would make it obvious that she had no memory of
Lakeside, even if she gave them the answers they obviously wanted to hear. “And
I know I’ve never met
you.
I’d remember such an
unfortunate mole. Have you considered getting that thing checked out?”

I almost laughed out loud.

“Do you want to take a break and calm down?” the nurse
asked.

I stepped past the last room before Emma’s and caught a glimpse
of a large girl in her late teens sitting cross-legged on her bed. As I watched,
she pulled her legs up to her chest and covered both ears with her hands,
shaking her head slowly. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

“I am calm!” Em insisted from the next room. “I just don’t need
to be here!”

“You’ve been here before, Lydia. Do you remember leaving? Can
you tell me how you...left us? The doors were locked, and no one saw you leave
your room, much less the ward.”

Em’s shadow stopped moving and merged with the counselor’s to
form one dark blur on the floor of the hall. “For the last time, I’m not Lydia!
And if you’d just take a closer look at me, I think you could see that for
yourself.”

The counselor’s shadow shifted and stood straighter. “I’m
looking. And you look just like Lydia. Exactly like her. How is that possible if
you’re not her?”

“I don’t know!” Shadow Em threw her arms into the air. “Maybe
I’m her doppelgänger. No, wait, she’s
my
doppelgänger. She has to be, because I’m older, and it’s not like I just woke up
in this body....” Her voice faded into dismay when she realized what she’d said.
But then she pushed on with renewed determination and volume. “Because
that
would be strange and completely impossible to
prove. So I’ve totally looked like this my whole life, and I
don’t...actually...know how old your Lydia is, but I bet anything she’s at least
two years younger than I am. Because Lydia sounds like the name a
fifteen-year-old would have.” Her shadow nodded emphatically. “That’s
definitely
the name of someone who can’t yet drive.
And I bet she didn’t have brown eyes. I bet hers were, like, blue, or something.
And if her eyes were blue and mine are brown, then I can’t be this Lydia, right?
Which means I’m right, and you’re wrong, and also I think you might actually be
the crazy one.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or applaud. So I tiptoed closer,
sneaking out of habit, though no one could see or hear me. The corner of her
room came into sight, but at first all I could see was an open doorway leading
to a small bathroom, which I knew from experience would hold nothing at all.
Residents had to check out a shower kit every time they wanted to bathe, then
return it after each use.

“Oh!” Em shrieked, and I actually jumped, startled. “Also, I
probably don’t sound like this Lydia either, do I? I mean, my voice might, but
not my speech pattern and vocabulary. She probably didn’t talk much at all, did
she? And obviously I talk all the time. I
love
to
talk. Unlike this hypothetical mental patient who stole my face.”

One step closer, and I could see the counselor from behind. She
was a slim woman with dark hair, wearing a cream-colored blouse and a navy
pencil skirt, ending just above her knees. She held something close to her
chest, and with one more step I could identify the edge of a file folder, no
doubt containing Emma’s—Lydia’s—file.

“Lydia—”

“Stop calling me that. I’m not Lydia, and I just proved
it.”

“Okay.” The counselor nodded and flipped a page in her file.
“It does say here that you—that
Lydia
—has brown
eyes, and I remember that y—that
she
rarely spoke.
So let’s table the issue of your identity until someone with more information at
hand can sort that out. For now, let’s talk about the issue that brought you
here. The report from the emergency room says your school nurse sedated you
because you were ‘inconsolable and incomprehensible.’ Do you remember that?”

“No.” Em started pacing again, and I caught just a glimpse of
her as she walked away, still wearing the jeans and blouse she’d had on that
morning when we’d left for school. Her shoes were the same, too, except that now
her sneakers were missing their laces, as per Lakeside policy. That way the
residents can’t string a bunch of shoelaces together and try to hang themselves.
Or one another.

“The last thing I remember is getting sleepy in third period,
then there’s nothing until I woke up in the E.R. And honestly, I kinda wish I
was still asleep, ’cause this shit is the stuff of
nightmares.
” Em paused, and though I couldn’t see her face, I
realized what she must be thinking just a second before she confirmed it.
“Sabine, is this you?” Emma shouted, her arms thrown out at her sides. “Are you
doing this? Cut it out, or I swear
I will kill
you!
”

That time I did groan, but no one heard me. That one outburst
from Em had undone all the progress she’d made in convincing the counselor that
she was neither Lydia nor crazy.

“Who’s Sabine?” The counselor pulled out the desk chair and
sat, and suddenly I had a clear view of Emma. And as soon as I saw her, I
realized that the feisty, fast-thinking Em who’d just tried to talk her way out
of the mental ward was gone. This Em looked...distracted. Distraught.

“She’s a friend, kind of.” Em stared at the window, showing me
her profile, and her hand slid into her hair and pulled on it, a gesture I’d
never seen her use, and that she didn’t even seem aware of. “But only because
she’d be so much scarier as an enemy. I need to get out of here. You have to let
me out of here
now!
”

I was so distracted by how upset she was suddenly that it took
me a second to realize what she’d said. She’d gotten sleepy in third period, and
she didn’t remember anything that had happened after that. Had she fallen
asleep? Had she been
possessed
when she’d freaked
out at school?

“So, you don’t remember the ambulance? Or—”

“I don’t remember any of it, okay?” Em’s hand tightened around
a handful of her hair and pulled so hard I winced. I had to get her out of
there, but I couldn’t do anything until the counselor left. “I already told you
that. I don’t know anything except that I’m not supposed to be here, so just
shut the hell up!”

A high-pitched whining sound came from the room next door, and
I retraced my steps until I could see the girl sitting on her bed, now rocking
back and forth, clutching two handfuls of her own hair. Just like Emma.

And that’s when I understood. Em was syphoning this
girl’s...whatever she was feeling too much of. Fear, maybe. Or panic. Or massive
discomfort with...everything?

“This report says you didn’t know who you are,” the counselor
continued. “You told your teacher you weren’t—” she glanced at the papers again
“—Emily Cavanaugh. And now you’re telling us that you’re not Lydia. Would it be
accurate to say that you’re still not sure who you are?”

“Do any of us really know who we are?” Em asked as I stepped
into her doorway, and this time she was facing me. I didn’t realize she could
see me—evidently I
wanted
her to—until her gaze
focused on me. Her eyes widened, and she gasped out loud.

“Sorry!” I said, my voice audible to only her. “Pretend you
don’t see me.” But, of course, it was too late for that. My interruption had
made her look even crazier.

The counselor twisted and looked right through me, then turned
back to Emma. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Em shrugged, visibly struggling to keep her focus on
the counselor. She let go of her hair, obviously surprised to find herself
clutching it, and closed her eyes. “I thought I saw something, but it was
nothing.”

The counselor started to scribble something on her file, and
Em’s eyes flew open. “Don’t write that down! I’m not seeing things. I said I
thought
I saw something, but I was wrong. I’m
not
crazy.
” She tugged on the hem of her shirt, one
of mine, which was a little baggy on her.

“Of course you’re not.” The counselor laid her hand across the
file in her lap, legs crossed in her pencil skirt, her pen tucked beneath one
finger. “‘Crazy’ isn’t a diagnosis.”

“No, I mean I’m not...” Em exhaled, and her shoulders slumped.
I motioned for her to sit on the low, narrow bed, hoping that would make her
look calmer, and she did. “Never mind.”

The counselor was quiet for a minute, watching Emma. Waiting to
see if she’d say anything else. Then, when nothing else came, she tucked a
strand of dark, curly hair behind her ear. “Do you feel like seeing your family
now? Your parents are eager to see you.”

Crap.
She still thought Em was
Lydia. Perhaps an even crazier version of the Lydia who’d escaped.

“No!” Em’s brown eyes flashed, not in anger but in fear. Her
hand snaked toward her hair again, but I shook my head and motioned for her to
put her hands in her lap, which she did. “I told you, they’re not my parents. I
don’t want to see them. If you make me, I
swear
I’ll
kill myself.”

I shook my head, trying to tell Emma she was taking the wrong
approach—threatening suicide in the mental health ward
never
goes well—but I only caught her attention and made her look
crazy again.

“Lydia, no one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want
to do.”

“I don’t want to
be here.
” Her
voice rose on the end, and the whining from the room next door increased in
pitch and volume. One of the two of them was about to lose it, and if Em was
that one, we were all screwed.

“Well, that’s out of my control, at least for the moment.” The
counselor clicked the top of her pen repeatedly, retracting and exposing the
ballpoint over and over. “But I do have several more questions for you.”

Emma scowled with Lydia’s face. “I don’t want to talk anymore.
Go tell my parents to go home.
Please.
”

“We’re not really finished here....”

“
I’m
finished.” Emma stood, staring
down at her. “I’m not going to say another word to you until you get rid of
Lydia’s parents.”

“Do you really think that’s the best tactic to take? I’m trying
to help you, Lydia.”