Page 53 of The Obsession

“Okay, okay!” she said, laughing. “Oh, shit, what time is it?” She glanced at her phone and scrambled to her feet. “Crap, I need to go feed Lucy. This feeding day happened to fall on the weekend—total bummer.”

“That’s what you get for volunteering to feed the bio lab snake,” I said.

Aisha sighed. “I thought it would look good on my college apps. I don’t know what I was thinking. Anyway, you wanna wait here, or you wanna meet me somewhere?”

“Actually, can I come watch?” I said. Ugh. Why did I just say that? Who the hell wants to watch some poor rat being fed to a snake? But even as I thought that, I realized I did. In a hide-behind-a-cushion-and-squeal sort of way.

Aisha paused in the middle of putting on a pair of jeans and stared at me. “You wanna come watch me feed Lucy? Oookay. Don’t blame me when you pass out.”

“Asshole,” I muttered, elbowing her gently.

Weekends at Draycott gave me an unshakable feeling of being out of place. The vibe was so different—students were in casual wear instead of the gray or blue blazers we were required to wear on schooldays. We walked into Wheeler Hall, and the eerie silence of the inside of the building pressed in on me. Our footsteps rang loudly down the corridor, and I wanted to turn around and run back out into the sunlight but for a small part of me that found itself inexplicably drawn toward the idea of watching Lucy eat.

Aisha unlocked the biology classroom and headed to the back of the room, where the rats were kept. I perched at the edge of a table in front of Lucy’s tank and watched as Aisha picked out a large rat—a white male with a black spot on its head. She unlocked a small window at the top of Lucy’s cage with practiced efficiency and dropped the rat in without hesitation before brushing her hands off.

“All right, let’s go,” she said.

My eyes were glued to the tank. The rat had sensed danger and was perfectly still, one front paw slightly raised, haunches rigid.

“Hellooo, earth to Dee,” Aisha said, waving her hand in front of my face. “Come on, let’s go get lunch.”

“Can we stay?” I muttered. The coil of vivid colors was moving. Lucy had sensed prey.

“Uh, who are you and what have you done with my best friend?” Aisha asked.

When I didn’t reply, she stepped right in front of me, blocking my view. “Dude, it’s pretty gross stuff. You sure you’re up for it?”

It took a surprising amount of effort not to push Aisha aside. I willed myself to give her a reassuring smile. “Yeah, I’m really curious.”

Aisha stared at me for a few seconds, biting her lip, before shrugging and moving aside. She sat down next to me, took out her phone, and started scrolling through social media.

Lucy’s head had popped out from under the coils of her body, and she was moving with aching slowness, her tongue flicking out now and again to taste the air. My skin crawled, although I wasn’t sure whether it crawled to get away from Lucy or to move toward her. The rat’s whiskers twitched as Lucy slithered close. It raised its front paw ever so slightly, the two creatures moving slow and silent as molasses. Then the rat started, and Lucy’s head darted forward, impossibly fast.

I was still watching the spot where the rat had been when I realized it was no longer there. Lucy had the front half of the rat in her mouth. The rat’s back legs scrabbled madly, its tail swishing like it had a mind of its own. Lucy ignored all of its movements, continuing to swallow it, and as more of its body slid down her throat, the rat became limp. Soon, only its tail remained visible, and then that, too, was slurped up. As Aisha and I walked out of the classroom, I took one last look at Lucy. She was back in her favorite corner, her head tucked into a hollow log. Of the white rat with the black spot on its head, no traces remained.

The rat was me. Or rather, it used to be me. But not anymore. I wasn’t going to let Logan corner me and swallow me whole like I was some helpless prey. Step Three: be the snake.

Chapter Seventeen

Logan

“—man, hey, you okay? Logan?”

I blinked, and Josh’s face swam back into focus. It was wearing a very familiar expression—concern, tinged with uneasiness. I forced my voice to come out casual. “Yeah, what’s up?”

I could practically see the weight leaving Josh’s shoulders, the tension melting from his features. “The game, remember? Against those assholes from Applewood?” He rubbed his palms together, and the noise grated in my ears.

“Stop.”

Josh looked down with a surprised frown and that was when I realized I’d reached out and grabbed his hands, tight. So tight that my knuckles were white. I released him quickly and tried for a simple, harmless grin. Except I thought the grin came out looking manic. What the hell was up with me? The last few days, I’d felt really weird. I wasn’t sure how to describe it; but sometimes I’d feel incredible, like I could sprint and fly up and touch the fucking sky. Sometimes, the world felt like it was in the palm of my hand, ripe for the taking. And then suddenly I’d come crashing down, like now, and I just wanted to lash out at anyone who had the misfortune to be near me. “Sorry,” I mumbled to Josh.

“It’s fine,” he laughed, lying through his fucking teeth. I could punch those perfect white teeth straight out—

Whoa. Seriously, what the hell was going on with me?

My phone beeped with a text.

Delilah [2:47 p.m.]:

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