Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2) (63 page)

Once Leon was down the hall and clear of the smoke, he looked back at where he came from, and saw something strange.  The
walls of the hall were buckled, split, and crushed, and looked like they had been connected crudely to the walls of the library. 
Like two different rooms were forced together
.  Earthquake or not, that could only be the fault of poor engineering.

Then, ahead of him, a man stepped out of one of the red doors, peeked outside, and then stepped fully out and looked Leon up and down.  He looked like an elderly man in pajamas.  He even had a fluffy night cap.  “Where the hell am I?” Leon asked.  “Is this still the library?  Have you seen a little girl?”

The elderly man walked up to Leon, and looked over his shoulder at the smoky hallway leading into the school library.  “
Chto sluchilos?
” the man said.  “
Chto eto?
”

“What?  I don’t…you need to get out of here.  Now.  There’s been an explosion, and you need to—”

The elderly man turned his face on Leon in disgust.  “
Shahktor!  Kto ty?
”  He seemed indignant, and didn’t notice the gun in Leon’s hand.

“I’m looking for Shannon
Dupré.  Have you seen her?”

“
Otsyuda!  Shahktor!
”

“I don’t understand a word you’re…never mind.  Just get out now.”  Leon
left the old man where he was, and then came to a T-junction.  He spotted a floor plan and took a moment to wonder why it was in some other language, but disregarded it almost immediately and made his way down another hall.  The lights suddenly blinked on and off.  Then, both the lights on the ceiling and the fake torches in the wall sconces dimmed, and stayed dim.  Behind him, another door opened.  He spun, keeping his gun at low-ready.  A small, matronly woman with gray hair stepped out.  In the darkness, Leon couldn’t quite make out her details.  “Ma’am, you need to get out of here.”

She tried to say something, but only gurgled.

“Have you seen a girl?” he said, stepping over to her.  The woman didn’t respond, just stood at the center of the hall and stared at one of the torches, as if trying to make out something on a distant horizon.  Leon touched her arm.  “Ma’am, are you all right?”  She finally turned and faced him.

Leon screamed.
  The woman’s face was a grotesquery of impossible dimensions and proportions.  Leon stepped back.  The woman reached out to him beseechingly, hands searching for aid from someone, anyone who could undo this unfairness.  Leon tried to speak, but only screams and gasps came out.  He backpedaled, and, though he had taken an oath to protect and serve, he ran.  Much to his shame, he ran.  But he would never be able to run from that face, not as long as he ever lived.

Kaley felt the thug die inside her, but for some reason it didn’t hurt her quite as badly as other deaths she had been present for.  She hated to think that she was getting used to this, but after the night she first met Spencer, and after all she’d seen this night, somehow feeling a person’s life force ebb was only like a mild stomach cramp, nowhere near the nausea and anxiety she felt the first time she experienced death. 
Maybe it’s because of who he was
.  Seconds before Spencer killed him, the big man had come close enough for Kaley to get a gist of the man’s essence, what he liked.  He was certainly a bad man—a fiend, even—but it came as small consolation when she considered she was an accessory to murder.

He manipulated me
, she thought, watching Spencer pull the corpse into the elevator.  Kaley might’ve helped with the killing, but she couldn’t force herself to handle a dead body.  She didn’t know why he was even hiding the body; a trail of blood and brain matter followed him. 
He knew just what to say in the moment to get me to help him
.

Spencer was excitedly checking the body.  His
exuberance was matched only by his efficiency.  He wasn’t even looking at her, talking to her, or acknowledging she was around at all.  He was humming to himself (it sounded like “Tainted Love”). 
Now that he’s gotten what he wanted out of me, he’s not interested
. 
Not until he needs me again
.

Then, s
everal things happened concurrently.  Spencer, looking most pleased with himself, pulled out what looked like a keycard from the dead man’s wallet.  The lights dimmed, then came back on a little too brightly, like a power surge.  Then, they went out completely.  When they came back on, they stayed dim.  Except in the elevator, where the lights were a little too bright.

Spencer
wasn’t smiling anymore.  He picked up his gun—the Coke bottle silencer was no longer smoking—and stepped slowly out of the elevator.  He looked left and right, then down at her.  “What do you know about this?”

She blinked.  “
About what?”

“Is this you?  Are you doin’ this?”

“You mean making the lights go out?  No.”

He looked at her skeptically, then said, “We better move.”

“Where are we going?”

Spencer crouched and slinked to the end of the hall.  “One last thing to do.”  He peeked around the corner, then looked back at her.  “Ya might wanna stay back, since you’re not a little ghost girl anym
ore.  Bullets will hurt you now, and you’re—”  He stopped.  His mouth hung open.  Kaley looked at him, and he looked right back.  Spencer’s face went slack, and then formed a vicious scowl.  He raised his gun, and aimed it at her.  “Don’t move,” he said.

“
Wh-what are you doing?  I-I thought—”

“Not you, little girl,” he said.  “I need you to come over her beside me.  I’m talking to
her
.”

“Who?”  Kaley turned.  In the dim hallway, she saw nothing at first.  Then, she noticed a shape along the wall.  A small figure had curled into a fetal position and was hugging one of the big red doors.  The little person was covered in blood, though they did not app
ear to be hurt themselves.  Chunks of flesh and viscera clung to their shirt.  And it was that shirt that stirred Kaley’s memory; otherwise she might never have recognized her own sister.  “Shan?” she whispered, incredulously.

“Kaley?”  A whimper as faint as hope.  Kaley had to blink several times to make sure she was seeing this right.  Without their Connection, she hadn’t felt her sister near at all.  “K-Kaley, I…where am I?”

Kaley started to move toward her sister, but suddenly Spencer grabbed her by the shoulder.  He jerked her back and said, “Don’t you go near her.”

“It’s my sister, asshole!  Let me go!”

“You don’t wanna do that.”

“What are you talking about?  She’s my sister!  I
don’t expect you to understand!”

“She ain’t yer sister.  Least, not anymore.”

“Kaley?” Shannon whimpered, looking up.  Her cornrows were sopping wet with blood, and sweat beaded down her brow, around her lips, and down her neck.  “Kaley…help me.”

She turned back to Spencer.  “
Let—me—go!
”

“If you go anywhere near her, it may be the last thing you do.  Trust me,
your best bet right now is to stick close to ol’ Uncle Spence.”

“Why would that be?”

“Because I’m never wrong about people,” he said.

“Can’t you see she’s hurt? 
Let me go!
”

“Oh, I see just fine.  She ain’t hurt.  Now what you gotta ask yourself is, just how did she get int
o this shape in the first place?  If she ain’t hurt, then who’s blood is that?”

Kaley looked at Spencer.  What a wretched creature he was, and what a wretched life he must lead.  So mistrustful, never relying on anyone, just using people.  Still, there was something she saw in his mind’s eye.  Kaley didn’t want to see it, but there it was.  It came at her too quickly to look away.

Once, when she was in the fourth grade, a boy named Anthony Conley had invited Kaley over to his desk in computer lab class to have her watch a video at his station.  He said it was something funny on YouTube, but when she got over there, she found it was some seedy-looking website.  Anthony pressed play, and before Kaley could look away, she’d seen a quick succession of mentally scarring images—an aborted fetus, a woman vomiting into another woman’s mouth, then a woman sucking off a horse, and finally a guy shooting himself in the head.  The images had come at her too fast to look away, just
boom-boom-boom-boom
.  The sick little things that boys liked to do to people.  Looking into Spencer’s mind was like that moment.  Once seen, it could not be unseen. 

She saw Spencer’s assessment.  She saw how he’d put the puzzle pieces together.

“No,” she whispered.

“Oh yeah,” Spencer said mirthlessly.

Kaley looked back at her sister.  “No.  No, that’s not true.  You’re making that up.”

“Not a jot of it.  Now just stay back.  Keep away from her.  Move slowly with me.”  Spencer stepped back, pulling Kaley away.

“Kaley,” said Shannon, her voice cracking.  “Are y-you leaving me?  Why?”

Kaley’s heart melted
.  She was angry at Spencer for manipulating her.  She was tired of his antics, his brutality, and his disregard for all things virtuous and good in life.  She tried to run to Shan, but when Spencer stopped her, she turned and started fighting his grip.  “Listen to me!” Spencer growled, his face an inch from hers.  “You go near her, and it’s over!  For all of us!  She can’t be trusted—”

“She’s not a monster!  You are!”

“We’re all monsters!”  The words hit her like a slap in the face.  “I told you, there’s a psycho in each of us, a little monster most people bury!  Inside Freud’s fucking Id, savvy?  But sometimes it comes out!”

“Kaley?”

“
Let me go!
” Kaley shouted.

Spencer jerked her back. 
“You go near her and you’re
dead
!  We all are!”  He kept his gun trained on Shannon.

“
Stop pointing that gun at my sister!  You don’t know anything about—”

“Pitbull!” he shouted.  “Who else would call me that?  Only one other person, and that’s the little girl in my car that night we drove away.  Remember?  She called me God’s pitbull.  An’ ya said your sister will only refer to me by the name ‘laughing man.’  That’s what your Others called me
back at the Ruffa Docks.  That’s what the
Prisoner
called me.”

“No!
  No, she doesn’t have the power to do it!  I’m the one with—”

“I think ya got it twisted again, little girl,” he growled, tugging her backwards.  “Think for a minute.  Use yer fuckin’ head for once!  Who was it that got hurt in that basement before all hell broke loose on Avery Street? 
Whose pain was it that pushed you to do what you did?”  His words were hypnotic, always making such maddening sense, always so frustratingly plausible.  “You got it turned around, little girl.  You’re not the power.  Shannon is.  You’re just the conduit, an amplifier.  You’re the projector, but she’s the fucking source.”

“She’s not a monster!  She’s not like you! 
She’s my sister!
”  Kaley fought against Spencer, fought his insanity and his insufferable truth.  Then, all at once, Kaley recalled feeling Shannon’s strange glee when, together, they had used their power against Laquanda in the lunchroom.  An insult uttered by Laquanda had hurt Kaley, and that hurt had been communicated to Shannon, who sent feedback.  Together, they had lashed out, but an alien fervor had come over Kaley, completely taking her over until Nan’s voice had brought her back down.  And then she remembered Shannon suddenly severing their Connection.  Why would she do that?

To hide the truth
, she thought, but wouldn’t believe it.  The truth wasn’t important.  It could be changed to fit what she needed to hear.  But then again…

“Kaley?”

No.  No, it wasn’t true.  She wouldn’t
let
it be true.  Her sister was her life, her love, her pillar.  It was them against the world, and if Kaley didn’t have Shannon…
No!  It’s just not true!  He’s manipulating me again!  It’s what he does! 
“Let go of me!”

“You’re not listening.”

“No, you’re not listening!  The Prisoner, the Others, they’ve all been trying to
kill me
!  Why would Shannon do that?”

“Because you’re her big sister and you weren’t there
when she needed you,” he said into her ear, still tugging her backwards.  Kaley still fought, only now it was more feeble.  Her resolve was weakening.  “Who went back to the store that night to get exact change?  Who didn’t listen to her little sister who said they should just forget it?  Who wasn’t able to keep her little sister from being pulled into that room and raped?  Who wasn’t able to save her little sister until the laughing man showed up?”

“Kaley?”  Shannon’s little hand was raised.  “Kaley,
wh-what is he talking about?”

“She
wouldn’t blame me…she wouldn’t…blame…”