Page 103 of An Academy for Liars

“But you are,” said Benedict. “I know what you’ve done to Ian. I see the chaos and violence in your mind, eating away at it like a cancer. Admit it, Lennon, you’re out of control. You don’t even trust yourself.”

“You can’t do this,” said Lennon, her voice weak. “The gates will fall without me.”

“I’d rather take my chances with the greater world than entrust Drayton to you alone,” said Benedict, and his efforts redoubled. His will crushed her psyche.

Lennon raised the walls of her mind, fortifying her psyche in the safehold of her childhood bedroom, just as she had been taught to do. But Benedict’s will was inescapable. It compromised the doors and the windows, filled the room like a flood.

“If you resist, this will only be worse for you,” said Benedict. “I want this to be fast and painless, but you’re making that difficult for me, Lennon. And I don’t think either of us wants this to be difficult. Try to go to sleep.”

The letter opener blurred and doubled before her eyes. Her limbs felt heavy. She couldn’t speak. She realized that even if she’d wanted to stand up, she wouldn’t have been able to. She couldn’t feel her legsor arms or fingers. She couldn’t swallow or blink. Her eyes were burning, filling with tears. Her entire body was paralyzed.

Panic, real panic, seized her, even as logic told her—in an ever-softening whisper—that she had no reason to be afraid. She already knew the outcome of this clash. She would not die here, with Benedict, because she’d lived long enough to discoverhimdead. Because the only body they’d found in that house was his. Because he would—Lennon believed—never leave the chair he was sitting in, which meant that someone was coming to save her, that or Benedict would interrupt himself. Whatever it was, this could only end one way: with Benedict dead and her alive. So she decided to wait, to hold on for as long as she could, until someone or something intervened. Because she knew that someone had to.

“There you go,” said Benedict. “Ease into it. I promise it won’t be so bad. People make a big deal out of these things, but the reality is that our bodies are made to do this. It’s the most natural thing in the world. Surrender to it and it’ll be just like sleep. Better, even.”

Her heartbeat was slowing. But her brain was so suppressed that there was no panic, no adrenaline spiking through her veins. In fact, Lennon wanted to sleep, wanted to give in to it. She was so terribly tired; she had been for a long time, even before coming to Drayton. And there was nothing about Benedict’s presence in her mind that felt painful or sinister. To cave in to him would’ve been as easy as falling into the kind of deep sleep that Lennon had been craving for years.

“That’s it,” said Benedict. “There you go. Rest. It’ll be all right. I know you’ve wanted this for some time. I saw it in your eyes the day we first met.”

Lennon was about to give in when her slowing heart stuttered.

It was hard for her mind—weak under Benedict’s influence—toeven form thoughts. But in that moment, as her failing heart struggled to beat, these words crossed her mind:No one is coming.

She was out of time. Her vision began to fail.

Something had gone horribly wrong, and she was going to die.

Unless she saved herself.

Lennon’s gaze homed in on the desk, on the golden letter opener.

“I’m not going to do it with that, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” said Benedict, sensing that she was fighting him once again. “I wouldn’t hurt you in that way. I’m not cruel like that. I just want to keep you comfortable. That’s my aim.”

Lennon closed her eyes and all at once, she was back at Logos House, and it was Ian sitting across the table and not Benedict. And they each had a knife.

Lennon was surprised to hear herself speak: “You’re not going to hurt me.”

Benedict went very still. “What?”

Lennon was crying now, as she met Benedict’s gaze. “I said you’re not going to hurt me. You’re not even going to live to leave that chair.”

Benedict’s eyes went wide.

Lennon’s mind clamped down like a rattrap around Benedict’s, every part of her overcoming every part of him, seizing control when he least expected it.

“You’re going to pick up that letter opener,” she said.

Benedict’s hand twitched, like a thing possessed, and slid across the desk. He fought it, fingers fumbling, but Lennon forced them into a fist around the handle just the same.

“Stretch out your left arm.”

He extended his arm, stiff as rictus, his joint bending in such a way that for a moment Lennon thought his elbow would simply snap under the pressure of her will.

“Put the letter opener to your wrist.”

Benedict moved its sharp point to his forearm. His mouth was open. Tongue pressed against the backs of his teeth. His eyes were wide and wild with fear and shock. He tried to speak, to plead, but Lennon wouldn’t let him.

“Do it,” she said. “Do it and make it quick.”

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