The Evolution of Mara Dyer

64

NOAH 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.

The room was sucked of all sound. I tried to swallow, to scream, but I couldn’t. It was an infinity before I heard my name whispered in the most familiar voice I knew.

Noah’s arms wrapped around me, vise-tight and perfect. He folded me into him. He lifted me up, the warmth of him warming me through my sweat-damp shirt. I wrapped my legs around him and buried my face in his neck and sobbed without sound.

He didn’t say anything as he carried me. Noah stalked swiftly and silently, through the hall with me in his arms; I didn’t know how he was doing it and I didn’t care. If he put me down, I wasn’t sure I would be able to stand on my own.

We reached the front entrance then. And he leaned back and looked up into my eyes.

“The resort is maybe twenty minutes, if we run. Can you run, Mara?”

Could I run?

The wolf was at my door and there was fire at my feet. I had to run. I would.

I nodded, and Noah set me down, my hand still in his grasp. He reached for the door.

But what about—

“Jamie,” I whispered, looking behind us. Looking back. “Jamie was with us in the office, Noah. He was with us.”

I was being watched and tortured. Phoebe was being used and had been killed.

Neither of us had been safe. Both of us were here.

Which meant Jamie wasn’t safe either. None of the other students were.

But of them, Jamie was the one I cared about the most. If I had to choose, he was the one I had to get out.

“We have to get Jamie,” I said, my voice clear.

Noah nodded once, his expression hard. “I will, I swear it, but I need to get you safe, first.”

Noah was choosing me.

I didn’t waver. “We can’t leave him.”

“Mara—”

“We can’t leave him,” I said, and tried to pull away.

“We won’t,” Noah said. But he placed his hand on the doorknob anyway, and he wouldn’t let me go.

It wouldn’t have mattered if he had, though, because the door didn’t open. The knob didn’t even turn.

We were locked inside.

“We’re trapped,” I whispered. I hated my voice. I hated my fear.

Noah pulled me away from the door and headed left. His strides were long and fast and I could barely keep up. I had no idea where we were going; the place was like a maze. But Noah’s perfect memory served us well—he led us to the empty dining room, which looked out over the ocean. The edge of dawn had begun to creep over the black horizon through the window. Noah tried the door that led to the kitchen.

It was locked too.

He swore, and then he was back by my side. He looked out at the dark water. Looked at the tables and chairs.

“Move,” he said to me, urging me away from the window.

I backed away as Noah lifted a chair. Launched it in fury at the glass.

It bounced off.

“All right,” he said calmly to the air, to no one. Then to me he said, “Let’s wake them up.”

Jamie. Stella. Everyone, he meant. We outnumbered the adults, and together, maybe we could do something that alone, we couldn’t. Maybe together, we could all find a way out.

We ran back to the patient rooms. Noah tried to open the first door. Locked. He banged his fist once, ordered whoever was inside to wake up.

He was met with silence. We tried another door.

Another locked door.

That was when I realized I’d never seen any locks on any of the patient doors. There were no latches to turn. No buttons to press.

That didn’t mean there were no locks. It just meant that we, the patients, weren’t able to lock them.

But now we were locked inside.

Trapped, my mind whispered.

We hadn’t seen or heard another living soul since we left Kells’s office. No counselors. No adults. They left us here.

Why?

My mind bent in confusion as Noah pulled me to his room, the one he shared with Jamie. The door was open.

Jamie was not inside.

My legs were string—I couldn’t stand anymore. I sank, but Noah caught me. He pulled me close, so close against him and wrapped himself around me until every point of my body made contact with his. Forehead to forehead, chest to chest, hips to hips. He loosened his arms and pushed the matted, damp hair from my face, from my neck. He tried to hold me together, but I still fell apart.

After my pointless sobs softened into silence, I spoke. “I’m so scared,” I said.

And so ashamed, I didn’t say. I felt so weak.

“I know,” Noah said, his back against the frame of his bed, his arms wrapped around me still. His lips brushed my ear. “But I have to go find Jamie.”

I nodded. I knew. I wanted him to. But I couldn’t seem to let him go.

It wouldn’t have mattered, though. A few seconds later, we heard the scream.