When I got to zero, I glanced up one more time, then stepped around the corner into the boys’ hall. Scott’s room was open, and I could hear him talking, but I couldn’t see him, or whoever he was talking to. In a sudden burst of courage—or desperation—I dashed across the hall and into his room, then eased the door shut and stood with my back against it, sagging with relief.
“What’s she doing here?” Scott’s room was a single. He sat sideways in his desk chair, staring at me, and if I didn’t already know where he was, I might have thought nothing was wrong with him. He wore his usual jeans and a T-shirt displaying the logo of some band I’d never heard of. He looked the same, if a little thinner. And maybe he was a little paler than the last time I’d seen him—no more football practice in the sun.
But if not for the fact that he was in Lakeside and that he was talking to himself—or maybe to no one—I might have thought he was…sane.
“You see her?” Scott said, still staring at me, but clearly talking to someone else. He looked confused, but not really surprised, and I wondered how often girls appeared in his room without explanation. “She’s not real!” He closed his eyes and punctuated the last word with a blow to the side of his own head, and I sucked in a sharp breath. “If she’s not real, but I see her, does that mean I belong here?” Another self-inflicted punch, and I jumped, but didn’t know what to do. “No, no, no. It’s not seeing things that makes you crazy—it’s hearing things. So don’t talk to me!” he hissed, opening his eyes to glare at a spot near the right-hand wall.
“Scott?” I said, and his head swiveled so fast I was afraid he’d hurt his neck.
“Nononono, you can’t talk because you’re not here, and I can’t see you, and I can’t hear you, ’cause if I can then I’m crazy, but I’m not crazy. Right?” he demanded, looking at that same spot again. Whatever he heard must have made him happy because he nodded decisively, then turned to stare down at his desktop.
And my heart broke for him.
Scott Carter and I had never been close. In fact, before too much frost had cracked his sanity, I’d thought him shallow, rude, arrogant, spoiled and selfish. But he’d been my boyfriend’s best friend and my cousin’s boyfriend, so our paths had crossed fairly often.
But now, watching him try to convince himself that I was no more real than whoever else he was seeing and hearing, it was hard to feel anything other than pity and sympathy for the boy who’d been one-third of the social power trifecta at Eastlake High.
“I’m real, Scott. And I’m really here.”
He shook his head again and this time covered his ears with both hands, like a stubborn toddler. “That’s exactly what a hallucination would say. You think I’m gonna fall for that just because you look like Kaylee and sound like Kaylee? I see Kaylee Cavanaugh every day, and she’s not real, and you’re not real, either. You’re just another one of his tricks. So why are you talking?”
What? He saw me every day?
I wasn’t sure how to feel about being a regularly featured guest star in Scott Carter’s hallucinogenic existence. But it wasn’t his fault. Because of their hardwired connection, Avari could make Scott see or hear whatever he wanted, and the more Scott suffered, the better Avari fed.
And considering how messed up Lakeside’s newest resident obviously was, the psychotic hellion bastard was probably glutted on his energy alone.
“Shut up,” Scott said to the wall. “How can I freak her out if she’s not really here?” He moved one finger over the surface of his empty desk, like he was finger painting. Or trying to write something. And suddenly I realized why he had no pens, pencils, or anything else that could be used as a weapon—he’d tried to stab me the day he was arrested and he was later declared mentally incompetent. But surely they’d keep him somewhere else—somewhere more secure—if he was still considered dangerous. Would he try to hurt a hallucination?
Maybe I shouldn’t have come without Tod….
“I don’t know why,” he said without looking up, and I was starting to feel like a Peeping Tom, watching uninvited as he spoke to himself. Or Avari. “Her cousin’s hotter, but it’s always Kaylee Cavanaugh.” Scott stopped for a second, listening to something I couldn’t hear, his fingertip still on the desktop. Then he shook his head. “Nothin’. She doesn’t do a damn thing but stand there and watch me. Or she’ll sit on the toilet when I need to go. Or lie on the bed when I’m tired, knowin’ I’m not gonna lay down next to some ghost, or hallucination, or whatever the hell she is. Kept me up till three in the morning last time. But she never says a damn word.” And suddenly he turned to me. “You’re not supposed to talk!”
I could only stare at him. I don’t know what I expected, knowing some of what he’d been through, but this wasn’t it. And I didn’t know what to say to him. So I started with the most basic question, and one he was probably tired of hearing. “Scott? Are you okay?” I asked, my palms pressed against the door at my back. I wished I could melt through it, like Tod could, then wander around, invisible, until he came back.
“I’m crazy, how do you think I am?” Scott snapped. “Were you this crazy when you were in here? Did I come and stare at you all day, watching you sleep, and eat, and piss?”
I shook my head, and he stood, shoving his chair out with the backs of his legs.
“No. Because that wouldn’t make any sense, would it? So why the hell are you always here? Why does he put you here day…after…day? Because I couldn’t take you to him? That’s it, right? He wanted you, and I couldn’t deliver you, so now he rubs my face in you all…damn…day.” His words ended in a whimper, punctuated by three more blows to his own head, and when he came closer, fists still clenched, I inched away, desperately wishing I’d stayed with Farrah.
Then he glanced at the wall again, and his eyes narrowed.
“I can’t hurt her. She’s not here.” I stared at the wall, trying to see what he saw. Avari had messed with the shadows before, making Scott see and hear things in them, until he’d started screaming and cowering away from at the slightest shade. But the only shadows here were beneath the bed and dresser. Just like in the hospital, the staff at Lakeside kept his room lit from all four corners to chase away as many shadows as possible. Just to keep him functional.
He was staring at the wall again, his head slightly tilted. Like he was listening. “Why should he?” Scott asked no one. “He wants to know what’s in it for him.”
“For who?” I asked, and Scott glanced at me.
“For Avari. Pay attention!”
Crap! Did Avari know I was there? Could he see what Scott saw? Is that who Scott was talking to?
No, it couldn’t be. He was talking about Avari. Or maybe for him. But who was he talking to? Or was he completely imagining the other half of the conversation—not beyond the realm of possibility for someone who regularly saw people who weren’t there.
“Scott, I can’t hear whatever you’re hearing. I can’t see your hallucinations.”
He laughed out loud, and the bitter cackle caught me completely off guard. “You’re the hallucination. The rest of us are real.”
The weird parallel between his psychosis and Farrah’s chilled me from the inside out, but arguing with him would do no good.
“No way.” Scott shook his head, talking to the wall again. “He wants more. Something bigger.” He paused as the wall presumably answered, and the smile that crawled over Scott’s face then made me want to hold my breath and throw salt over my shoulder. “Now you’re talkin’.”