Airel - Aaron Patterson [50]
“You’re not making any sense, Airel! This is not a game. You could get killed! Is that what you want?”
I looked away. It occurred to me that the killer might be some other kind of villain that I had not yet considered. I let my imagination go for a sec. I wondered: what if I was some kind of freak science experiment gone wrong? God only knew what kind of research some of these big pharma companies were doing, and who knew what kind of things the CIA might be up to. I felt crazy, but what if this dude was sent to bring me in? What if he was my handler, my boss? Crazier things have happened. I looked back at my best friend.
“Kim?”
“Uh, yeah, crazy girl?”
“Never mind.” I couldn’t begin to explain and I dismissed her with a wave of my hand. She reacted by recoiling from me, mouth open, in disbelief as it dawned on her that I was totally shutting her out.
The school nurse walked in just in time. The last thing I wanted to do was inform my best friend that I couldn’t tell her what was going on. But I guess I just did that, only without words. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I decided right there to figure out what was happening to me on my own. Even if it meant putting myself in danger, I didn’t want to drag anyone else into it—especially Kim.
Kim stood up and stormed out in a huff. Oh boy. That will take some time to fix.
As I followed the nurse into the exam room, my heart was flipping around inside me, doing cartwheels. I had just trampled all over my best friend. But necessity, or survival, focused my entire mind. If I could only figure out how to go about figuring this riddle out. Airel, you really are nuts.
I felt like I was trapped inside a game I didn’t want to play.
Chapter XXVIII
The dream of the cage—now that I was alone—mocked me and haunted my every waking moment. I could feel the dust fill my nostrils with the stench of the demon as it hovered just inside the back of my mind. My world wasn’t very exciting on most days, but now it seemed that every turn I made brought me into a situation that might kill me; or maybe something worse. Much worse.
I sat on the exam table, wondering what it all meant. It was fitting, being on yet another exam table. Perhaps I was sicker than I knew. I felt really bad about Kim. She was a good friend and I was being unfair. But I wanted to keep her at a safe distance from this—from me—for a while.
Then—and this is where it gets crazy again—there was the voice in the back of my head, sometimes accompanied by the fluttering of a bird’s wings, or the sound of pages turning in a book. She, I called her. Like an extension of myself. No. Kind of like Mom, I guess, but not. Whenever I heard She speak, I felt like I was hearing wisdom. I knew that I was changing. She had told me as much and I accepted that somehow. She knew and reassured me.
I felt bad for keeping Kim in the dark, but seriously, what the heck was I supposed to tell her? And where in the world would I start? I knew that no matter what she was my best friend, but I hesitated.
Michael. I could tell him, couldn’t I? Not that I had any logical or sane reason to trust him other than the fact that I was beginning to fall for him. That wasn’t it though. There was something in the way he looked at me that made me feel like I could tell him anything without reservation.
Miss Parks, a youngish woman, flashed a bright light into one eye and then the other. The light brought me out of my daydreaming. I liked to dream, but lately, I seemed to have lost control of my thoughts.
“You look fine,” she said. “Nothing more than a bump on the head as far as I can tell. Are you feeling better? Do you have a headache?”
I didn’t have a headache or even feel bad. A terrible thought came to me. What if the nasty throbbing welt on my forehead healed and disappeared right in front of Miss Parks? I figured it would be smart to fake a headache