Page 17 of Beautiful Liar

“Tomás,” Dr. Shanahan said.

“Please,” I cried to Dr. Shanahan. “Please let me go.”

I liked Dr. Shanahan. She’d been nice to me. Except this wasn’t her. Shadows swirled around her. Her face morphed into something dark. An inkblot. I shut my eyes.

“Just listen to my voice, Tomás. Can you do that?” Her voice. Just remember her voice. “There’s a toxin running through your veins, a powerful hallucinogen. Something new. We need to flush it out of your system.”

I heard the words. I didn’t understand them. I didn’t take any drugs. I didn’t remember.

“We’re waiting on Maddox—”

Maddox. The rest of her words died in my ears. “NO!” I cried, struggling with my bonds. I couldn’t move. “He wants me dead! I hate him! I hate him!” My throat burned. My eyes burned. I was burning. “Make it stop! Please, make it stop!”

But nothing ever stops.

My mind never stops. The madness never stops. I heard Miguel laugh.“Welcome to my world,”he said, then he faded.

Everything faded.

Except the fire.

And my screams.

****

Thirty-six hours later I’d been taken off suicide watch and given the okay to be discharged. They’d freed me of the tether toHell and as I waited for my ride, I shut my eyes, clutching onto the edge of the bed.

“You don’t know what Hell is until you die. Right? Like me,”Miguel said.“You let them kill me just like you let them kill Jack. And then you go and fall in love with the enemy. Dad would be so proud.”

The mention of my dad made my eyes prickle.

“Tomás?”

I shot my head up to Dr. Casera walking inside my room. They’d already given me the okay to leave. The drugs in my system should be at safe levels now. I just had to let my body purge it on its own. I shouldn’t still be hallucinating.

“Not getting rid of me that easy, bro.”Miguel’s voice in my head pulsed inside of me like a toxic thing.

“Are you ready?”

I hopped off the hospital bed, my plastic shoes squishing on the gleaming tiled floor. “Yeah.” The one word made my throat burn. A reminder of the last thirty-six hours in this place. I was more than ready to leave.

I followed Dr. Casera into the elevator. Shifting. I couldn’t stop moving. I clenched my hands, sending feeling into them. The elevator spilled us out into the foyer. The admin building was quiet. Not that Arcadia had a bustling student body. There were only about a hundred of us, if that, but it felt too quiet.

The clouds made everything look gloomy, the sun gone. Dark shadows everywhere. Rain pelted against the ground in rhythmic sounds. I used to love listening to the rain in the trailer. I’d hide under the bed and just listen as the drops pounded against the metal roof. It felt like living inside of a shipping container. A box. I glared at Casera when he tried to hand me an umbrella. He took the hint and said nothing as I followed him to his car, already wet when I hopped inside. The cold made me shiver. As he drove slowly along the windingnarrow path, the steady vibration of the car’s engine under me, the soothing rain on the roof, and even the sound of movement as the tires spun on asphalt made the tension in my body melt off.

“Dr. Shanahan has prescribed antibiotics for your throat and some soothing remedies. You should drink plenty of water and rest.”

I almost snorted. But my throat hurt too much.

“She says the irritation won’t be permanent. You should be able to continue to sing after you heal.”

Sing.

I turned my gaze out the window. Because singing and dancing like a fool is what I’d always been good at. Useless skills, if they could even be called skills. “Does his family know?” I asked, my voice husky.

“We have contacted his sponsor.”

“Reapers. You mean the fucking reapers. What about his real family? The family he was taken from?”

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