I wondered why I hadn’t felt that world-shifting pain warning me that Zo had changed something in the river. Was it because Dr. Blair had been his focus this time, and not me? Or were Dante’s fears that the barriers were weakening justified? Were the changes becoming more commonplace, and therefore less worthy of notice? Or had Zo figured out that I was noticing in the first place and learned to disguise his touch? None of the questions made me happy.
The longer I stayed quiet, the wider Zo’s smile grew, as though my silence merely confirmed something he thought he knew.
He strolled toward me. I wanted to get up and bolt for the door, but his eyes held me in place. I felt like a mouse trapped by a snake, and I didn’t much care for the comparison. I remembered Dante’s conviction that it would be my choices that would make the difference in stopping Zo. I had faced Zo before and survived. I could do it again. So I shoved aside the fear that threatened to well up inside me and made a choice. I would be the snake instead of the mouse. If Zo wanted to play this game, then fine, I could play it too.
Zo sat down next to me, exactly where Valerie had been a moment ago. I wondered where she’d gone. V said that he loved her. If he could still be trusted, then I hoped he had taken her someplace safe. And if he was still following Zo’s orders, then I hoped he had taken her someplace where I could still find her.
Zo slung his guitar from off his back, laying it across his lap like a bared sword. “It’s good to see you again, Abby. I’ve missed our little chats. But then, I suspect you’ve been busy.”
“What do you want, Zo?”
“So impatient,” Zo tsked. He reached out to stroke the neck of the guitar. The strings whined a little under his touch, a lost puppy begging for attention.
“Don’t,” I snapped. “Just . . . don’t play anything, okay?”
“Impatient and suspicious. A bad combination.” Zo tightened his hand around the instrument.
“It’s not a suspicion. I know what you do with your music.”
“Do you?” Zo arched an eyebrow at the same moment he strummed the guitar. “Are you sure?”
“I can guess.”
Zo raised his eyebrows and inclined his head, inviting me to speak.
“We both know your music can manipulate emotions. My guess is that you’ve been practicing.”
“Have you been spying on me?” Zo teased. “I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be.”
Zo laughed. “It was a good guess, Abby, but not quite right. Yes, I have been practicing, and yes, I can still manipulate emotions. But now I can manipulate memories as well. And my music can do more than simply make you recall a specific memory. It can also erase it.”
“So you didn’t change something in the river,” I said, swallowing hard, “you changed something in Dr. Blair? You erased her memory? Permanently?” If Zo was telling the truth, things were worse than I’d imagined.
He shrugged as though I’d pointed out he was wearing one black sock and one blue instead of suggesting he had tampered directly with a person’s mind. “She had outlived her usefulness, so I wiped her memory. When I leave, her mind will return, but she won’t remember me being here at all. She won’t remember you, either, for that matter. Or anything else that happened today. And any record of Valerie will be gone as well. I don’t like to leave a trail, you know. It’s too much work to clean up. It’s much easier to toss out the old and start fresh.”
Zo leaned forward, his mouth hovering close to my ear. “Tell me, sweet Abby. Is there a memory you wish to forget?”
“That’s not possible,” I said. I clutched at the edge of the fountain, feeling the rough skin of the stone, refusing to let myself contemplate an answer to Zo’s question.
Zo withdrew with a smile, settling back comfortably. He smoothed his palm over the curves of the guitar, a caress of possession. “That’s what I love about you, Abby. Your certainty. After everything that has happened, you can still say without hesitation what is and is not possible.”
I shook my head. “Dante knows what you can do. He would have told me—”
Zo opened his mouth, but I didn’t give him a chance to speak.
“Dante would have told me,” I repeated. “And I trust Dante.”
“Really? Are you sure?” Zo strummed a dark chord and something deep inside of me responded to the resonance. “Or do you just remember trusting him?”
“I know I don’t trust you,” I said.
Zo looked hurt. “But you should. I’ve been more open with you than with anyone else. I want us to be able to trust each other.”
I edged away from him, shaking my head. “There’s nothing you can say that will make me trust you.”
“Not even if I tell you that I can restore Valerie’s sanity?”
I thought of Valerie, sitting alone in her room, looking out a window that was covered with an unbreakable diamond pattern, watching and waiting for something only she could see. Waiting for her Pirate King to come save her. My heart seized up.
Zo touched the strings of his guitar again, coaxing a strange note to life.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t—”
But that was the only word I managed to say before the landscape froze around me, locking me in place. The gray stone of the conservatory floor folded in on itself, turning from an ocean into a rippling wave before narrowing into a line of midnight black. At the same time, the plastic plants rushed toward me, only to flatten into two-dimensional cutout triangles atop thick brown rectangles. The diamond-pane glass dissipated as the late afternoon sunlight that poured inside seemed to grow in scope, pushing through the gray with heavy golden beams as thick as pillars. The whole thing reminded me of a child’s drawing—crude and jagged around the edges.
Even Zo looked strangely flattened and outlined, a smear of green and black and gold. His guitar was disproportionately large compared to his body, the neck as thick as a tree trunk.
I stared at him in growing astonishment and horror. I’d seen him like this before. Valerie had drawn a picture of Zo—complete with his flyaway hair and his manic, wide grin—and taped it to the wall next to her bed. He watches over me, she had said. He keeps me safe from prowlers and predators.
She couldn’t see past the fractures in her mind to realize that Zo was the predator.
The strange note split into two, then three, then more until it had grown into a song. The sound rose in volume, seeming to spiral upward higher and higher toward the climax of the song. I wanted to close my eyes; it sounded like a scream. But I couldn’t move.
And then the sound was gone. Cut off as completely as if I had turned off a radio. The heavy, blocky drawings softened into thin lines; the sunlight lost its white-hot glow, returning to a more natural dusky yellow. The gray unrolled back into a stone floor and the trees melted back into three dimensions.
I was strangely aware of the space surrounding my body, of my own three-dimensionality.
“What did you do?”
“Valerie has such a fascinating mind. I’m sure she would want you to know what it’s like for her, how she sees the world now that she’s—”
I shot Zo a murderous look, and he paused.
“Well, let’s just say she’s more open to the possibilities around her than she used to be. You, on the other hand . . .”
“What? I’m what?” I demanded.
“You’ll be a harder nut to crack,” Zo said.
“That sounded like a threat.”
“Did it?” Zo’s eyebrows rose in feigned surprise. “I meant it as a promise.”
I ground my teeth together. “I told you before: Stay away from me. Stay away from my friends.”
“But Valerie wants me close to her,” Zo said with an innocent smile. “And how can I deny her anything she wants?”
“She wants to be well,” I countered. “If you can give her what she wants, why don’t you give her that?”
“Do you always get what you want, Abby?”
I tho
ught back to that terrible moment on the bank when I stood before the open hourglass door. I’d begged Dante not to go through it, even as I knew he had to. I thought of Emery College, of Jason, Valerie, Hannah—and then deliberately closed the door on those thoughts. I couldn’t afford to be distracted right now.
“Life is all about balance,” Zo said almost gently as he leaned the guitar on the floor by his feet. “You know that. Though Leo lied about many things, he told the truth about that. And sometimes, to maintain that balance, you have to make sacrifices. You know that too. Of course you want Valerie to be well—we all do, don’t we?—but now isn’t the time.”
“Why not?”
“I need her this way,” he said, the gentleness gone from his voice.
“What?” I snapped out a harsh laugh. “Broken?”
“Accessible.”
A horrible word filled my mouth. I wished I could say it—I wanted to say it—but instead I clicked my teeth together, feeling a numbing tingle in the back of my jaw.
Zo smiled. He reached out his hand to my face, but I flinched back, avoiding his touch. “If you want to play this game, Abby, you really need to work on hiding your thoughts. You’re worse than Valerie—and she welcomes me with open arms.”
I remained silent, focusing on my breathing, on schooling my features into a flat mask of indifference. Inside, though, hot rivers of hate simmered.
“Better,” Zo nodded, studying me with his dark shark’s eyes. “Much better.”
“Tell me how to heal Valerie,” I said.
“No.”
“Tell me where she is.”
“No.”
“Then we have nothing more to discuss.” I stood up from the edge of the fountain and walked away from Zo without looking back.
***
Once outside the conservatory door, I leaned against the wall and wrapped my arms around myself. My mind wouldn’t settle down enough for me to make sense of what had happened. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to find enough stability within myself to move forward.
Exhaustion climbed onto my back and draped its heavy weights over my shoulders and arms. Would this day never end? I’d had the best—Dante’s kiss—and the worst—Zo’s unexpected arrival—and everything in between. All I wanted to do now was go home and sleep for a week. But I knew I couldn’t. There was still too much to do.
I pushed myself away from the wall and headed for the front door. On my way, I stopped by Dr. Blair’s office. She sat upright in her chair behind her desk like a doll that had been placed there to simply wait for someone to come back and grant her life. I crept forward and grabbed my bag and my phone from the love seat. I half expected her to stop me or ask me what I was doing, but she kept her hands flat on the desk, and her unfocused eyes never moved toward me. I heard soft music coming from the hidden speakers and I immediately plugged my ears. If that was Zo’s song, I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to risk my memories.
I kept my hands over my ears until I was all the way out of the hospital and standing on the sidewalk. Only then did I exhale and lower my hands. I opened my phone and called Natalie’s house. It was a lot later than I had thought. The sun was just a sliver on the horizon, and the night’s shadows had already appeared around the parked cars and tall trees.
Natalie answered on the first ring. “Where are you?” she asked by way of greeting. “I’ve been calling you for the last twenty minutes.”
“I’m still at the hospital,” I said. “Dr. Blair confiscated my phone. I need a ride home. Is Dante still with you?”
“No, but—”
“He’s not? Where is he?”
“He’s actually on his way to get you, but—”
“But what, Nat?” I asked wearily, hearing and hating the bite in my voice.
“V and Valerie just showed up here.”
I held the phone away from my ear and looked at it as though it had started transmitting in a foreign language. Natalie kept talking and I could hear her clearly.
“I don’t know what to do, Abby. They just showed up at my house and V said that Zo was with you and then Dante ran out of here without saying anything and now they’re in my room and—”
“Hold on, Natalie. Slow down.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to stop the headache before it crashed into my skull. “When did V show up?”
“I told you—like, twenty minutes ago.”
“And Valerie was with him, right? And she’s okay?”
“Well, she was with him, but she’s not doing great. She locked herself in the bathroom and she keeps calling for somebody named the Pirate King.”
I groaned. “Okay, listen. Keep V away from Valerie for now—” A car pulled into the lot. I recognized the growl of the engine and starting jogging across the lawn to meet it. “Oh good, Dante just showed up. Hang on. We’ll be right there. And don’t worry, Natalie. It’ll be okay. I promise.”
I flipped the phone shut and dropped it in my bag without breaking stride.
Dante stepped out of the car and ran toward me, his long legs covering the distance faster than I could. When he reached me, he swept me up in a hug that lifted me off my feet. “Abby, are you all right?” he asked, setting me back on the ground. He ran his hands over my shoulders, down my arms, and then back up to my neck. His eyes searched every inch of my face, his expression alternating between worry and relief.
Even in my present state of exhaustion and terror, I still felt that familiar tingle of electricity when Dante touched me. “I’m fine,” I said, feeling myself already start to calm down now that we were together. “Zo didn’t do anything to me.”
“Are you sure you’re all right? V said Zo had his guitar with him.”
“Yeah, well, V didn’t stick around very long once Zo showed up.” I continued toward the car, Dante walking with me. “You were right to be suspicious of V. Zo said he told V to tell me that story about how he’d turned on Zo and walked away. I shouldn’t have trusted him.”
Dante opened the car door for me and then slipped into the driver’s seat. “Your mother called Natalie while you were gone,” he said, pulling out of the parking lot. “You should call her back.”
“And tell her what, exactly? That the former drummer of a rock band kidnapped my best friend from a mental hospital and I’ll be home right after I do damage control?” I held my phone in my hand, but didn’t move to call. I studied Dante’s profile in the fading light. “You don’t seem particularly surprised by the fact that V lied to me.”
Dante glanced at me. “Call your mother. See if she’ll let you stay at Natalie’s tonight.”
“What about V?”
Dante turned left at the corner. “Don’t worry about V. I’ve taken care of it.”
“What did you do? What are you not telling me?” I asked.
“I didn’t hurt him. We simply came to an agreement about what needs to happen from this point on.”
I waited one more moment to see if Dante would say anything else. When he didn’t, I flipped open my phone and called home. “Hi, Mom? Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry I didn’t call sooner. Um, is it okay if I stay at Natalie’s tonight?”
Chapter
23
Natalie’s room was chaos. When Dante and I walked in, Valerie was singing in the bathroom, V was sulking in the corner, and Natalie was in tears.
I had one moment to take in the scene before everyone started talking at once.
“You’re back!” Natalie bounded off her bed and ran to me. “Thank goodness. I don’t know what to do—”
V stood up at the same time and pointed at Natalie. “She won’t let me near Valerie, and—”
Dante crossed the small room in two quick strides. “I told you to be quiet—”
“At least Valerie has stopped crying—” Natalie said, wiping away her own tears.
“You don’t understand anything—” V said, shoving Dante in the shoulder.
Dante shoved him back. “I understand you deserted Abby at
the first sign of trouble—”
“I knew Abby would be fine. Valerie was my first priority—”
“Who is this Pirate King she keeps talking about?” Natalie asked.
“Were you supposed to deliver Abby into Zo’s hands?” Dante roared at V. “Was that your plan?”
V’s face paled and he sat down under the force of Dante’s anger. “No, I—”
I dropped my bag by the door and held up my hands. “Everybody just calm down.” The headache I had tried to ward off earlier had ignored my efforts and now crouched behind my eyes. “Please. Just . . . be quiet for a minute.”
“Abby, please, I can explain—” V started.
“No,” I barked, pointing my finger at him. “I don’t want to hear it. You stay there and don’t say anything.” I turned to Dante. “Make sure he doesn’t go anywhere. And if he does, bring him back. I’m not done with him yet.”
I turned to Natalie, who was still standing next to me, and gave her a hug. “I’m so sorry this mess ended up at your house. I know you didn’t ask for this, but thank you for handling it.”
Natalie hugged me back. “I’m just glad I was the one who found them on the doorstep. I don’t know how I could explain this to anyone else.”
“Tell me about it,” I commiserated with a smile. Crossing the room, I knocked on the bathroom door. “Valerie, can I come in?”
“What’s the password?” she said.
I looked to Natalie and Dante, who both shrugged. “She’s been asking that all night, but I don’t know what she wants to hear,” Natalie said. “I’ve tried everything I can think of. She won’t open the door.”
I tested the doorknob. Locked.
“You can’t come in without the password,” Valerie sang out.
I suddenly had an idea. I wasn’t sure it would work, but given the late hour and the high stress, I was willing to try anything. “Valerie?” I called through the door again.
“That’s not the password,” she said with a laugh.
“I know it’s not. But I don’t need a password.”
“You don’t?” She sounded surprised.
“No. I have something better. I have a key. Remember when you kept the key I threw away? You said you’d give it back to me when I asked for it. Well, I’m asking for it.”