by Jordan Dane
Come on, Rayne. Pick up.
As the phone rang, he tried to remember if the number she gave him had been her cell or where she lived. Soon it would kick into voice mail. A message. He’d have to talk for real and say something. With things screwed up, what the hell would he tell her? Damn.
Don’t trust anyone. The girl’s voice replayed in his head, but he had to make the call. Even though Rayne would have his return phone number, Lucas knew he couldn’t hang out and wait for her to call back. The Believers had too many ways to track him. Instinct urged him to keep moving. He didn’t want to put Rayne in danger, but he wouldn’t cut her out of his life without saying goodbye.
Goodbye. What was good about it? How would he say goodbye to the only person he wanted to see?
Disappointment punched him in the gut, especially after he heard her outgoing message. He didn’t know how much hearing his sister’s voice would affect him until he felt a tear slip down his cheek as he listened to her recording. When the beep sounded, he wiped his face with the back of his hand and took a deep breath.
“Rayne, it’s me. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stay there anymore. That place... Something’s not right and I can’t trust Mia. She was gonna let them transfer me to Ward 8. I couldn’t let them do that. You’re the only one who ever—” He stopped and gripped the phone tighter, trying not to sound pathetic. “I want to see you, but that’s too dangerous.”
He knocked his forehead on the pay phone. Ward 8. Why did he say that? He couldn’t explain his instincts about it, not over the phone. His message sounded lame, and with a clock ticking in his head, he felt exposed, especially after he spotted the store’s security camera pointed at him.
“I gotta go, but—” he swallowed, hard “—you can’t look for me. Promise me you won’t. It’s not safe. You’d only make things worse for both of us and—”
When her message system beeped and cut him off, he shut his eyes and took a deep breath to force the drug fog from his brain before he called her again. This time he had to talk faster and say what he really meant.
“Hey, it’s me again. What I called to say is...I love you, Rayne. I’ll always love you.”
When he hung up the phone, he felt like crap. He’d sounded like a drugged-out loser—a paranoid one. If Mia had convinced Rayne that he was mentally unstable, his message to her had sealed the deal. Although he wouldn’t blame Rayne for how things turned out, he felt a weight in the pit of his belly. Because he loved her, he’d severed ties with the one person he could count on. Whatever came next, he’d be alone to face it.
But Lucas didn’t have time to make things right. A ripple of energy surged through him like a psychic shove.
They’re coming.
An urgent vibration made his insides twist, and the sensation turned into painful needle pricks. A danger sign. He didn’t have to hear footsteps like normal people. The Believers were coming for him. He felt it. No. Too soon. I’m not...strong enough. He edged into the shadows of an alley to focus his mind and body. When he felt the push of energy again, he didn’t have to see them to know they were closing in. This time he didn’t worry about drawing attention.
Lucas ran.
West Hollywood
Thirty Minutes Later
After opening her front door, Rayne saw the blinking light that she had voice mail and rushed to her phone. She prayed that the call had come from Lucas, but after hearing his message, she was even more worried. She flipped on a light and slumped onto a bar stool near her kitchen to listen to her brother’s messages for a second and third time.
“I couldn’t stay there anymore. That place... Something’s not right...”
His voice had been shaky. She barely recognized him, especially with the traffic noise in the background. Still, he had called her. That was something, wasn’t it? But what had scared him enough to ditch Haven Hills in his condition?
“...I can’t trust Mia.”
Those words chilled her. Rayne didn’t trust Mia, either, but, even drugged, Luke had sensed that their older sister had an agenda. Something in his voice made her believe he was actually afraid of her.
And what was Ward 8?
What’s got you spooked about Mia and that hospital, Lucas?
Rayne dialed the number he had called from and listened as the phone rang off the hook. She dialed the number again. Once more. Twice. On the third time, someone answered.
“Hello?” An older woman’s voice.
“I got a call from this number. Can you tell me if you see a tall kid waiting around? He’s my brother. I need to talk to him.”
“No one’s standing here, honey. I came to get beer and heard the phone ringing. Figured I’d answer it.”
Rayne shut her eyes. She’d missed him.
“Okay, well, can you please tell me where you are? I need to find him.”
“Yeah.” After the woman gave her the closest intersection, she said, “Hope you find your brother, sweetie. And just so you know, I drink responsibly.”
“Uh, yeah. Thanks, ma’am. For everything.”
Rayne knew the area where Lucas had made the call. She hung up the phone and shrugged out of her jacket before she replayed the message again. When she imagined him alone on the streets of L.A., her eyes stung with tears. He’d lived most of his life with someone caring for him and under medical supervision. Without his meds, what would happen?
“Damn it, Mia. What did you do to him?”
Lucas had to be desperate to break free of Mia’s control and escape the hospital and whatever Ward 8 was. Rayne felt sure her sister knew exactly why—but she’d never admit it, not to her. After the legal mess of guardianship and trust funds had been settled, Mia grew distant and relied on attorneys for answers. She quit talking to Rayne about Lucas, about everything. The distance between them grew worse—and so did the arguments—but everything turned really ugly when Mia used visits to see Lucas as a way to control them both.
That was when Rayne knew she’d lost everything. She had no control. No power to change the way things were. Now she’d lost Lucas, too.
“I want to see you, but that’s too dangerous.... You can’t look for me. It’s not safe. You’d only make things worse for both of us...”
Rayne didn’t know what to think. Seeing Lucas—how could that be dangerous? And how could she make things worse by wanting to take care of him? He sounded freaked and totally paranoid. What if Mia had been right about his condition...that he really did need a hospital? She wanted to do what was best for him, but—
“What would that be, Luke?” She wiped her eyes.
If Mia had struggled with the same doubts about what was best for him—but hadn’t clued her in because she’d been a kid—would Rayne finally accept the tough calls her sister had made for their brother’s own good? Could she help Mia find him now because it would be the only thing to do?
By escaping the mental hospital, Lucas had forced her into doing something. He’d called to say he loved her, but she couldn’t sit back and let things ride. Maybe this would be her only chance to get it right—to do what she was too young to do the last time.
Things are seriously jacked up. She wanted her sister to be wrong about Luke—needed her to be.
Whenever Rayne got nervous or scared, her mind went to weird places. Most of the time, those feelings had to do with her sister. Sometimes it did her good to picture Miss Perfect Mia with a ripe zit—ready to harvest—in the middle of her forehead.
But if she’d been wrong about her sister, that would mean Luke was really sick.
Rayne needed him to be the sweet, shy kid she remembered—a gentle boy who had always been different—but what if he wasn’t? What if the voices in his head had turned nasty—something Mia had tried to protect her from? Taking Luke’s side wouldn’t be easy either way. Backing him up—against Mia’s money and doctors and her weird employer, the Church of Spiritual Freedom—it would be the two of them against the hospital, the courts and God. The law and Go
d would be on Mia’s side. No pressure. They’d never win a battle like that, not without getting their asses smoked by lightning.
Before she hit Replay—to hear his voice again—a harsh knock at her door made her jump. When she looked out the peephole, her stomach tightened and she felt sick. Her sister glared back as if she had X-ray vision and saw through the door.
Worse, she had a cop in uniform with her.
“Damn, Mia. What now?”
Chapter 2
When Rayne opened the front door to her apartment, her sister didn’t bother saying hello. She barged in with the cop behind her. The guy in uniform didn’t show his badge. He only did what Mia told him to do.
“Go ahead. Search the place,” Mia said with a wave of her manicured nails. “You’ve got my permission.”
“Lucas isn’t here, Mia. Just look around. Hell, you can see every inch of this place from the front door.”
Nice. Princess Mia had stomped all over her privacy, with a cop no less.
“Hello, I’m emancipated. You need a dictionary to look that up?” Apparently being an emancipated minor meant nothing. When the cop didn’t look at her and kept rummaging through her junk, Rayne crossed her arms and glared at her sister.
“When is my life ever going to be mine, Mia?” When her sister didn’t answer, she turned to the cop. “For the record, I don’t give you permission to search, 5-0, if that means anything.”
It didn’t.
Typical. Dressed in a fancy pants suit, Mia had on nosebleed heels and looked like America’s Next Top Model. Her idea of casual Friday. Taking an inventory of the room with her eyes, she didn’t have to say anything. Whatever Mia thought about the way she lived, it wouldn’t be good.
Rayne’s unmade bed and beat-up sofa patched with duct tape would make easy targets. Cinder block and wood planks held her secondhand TV, and she had cereal bowls in the sink and a load of dirty laundry piled in a corner. She expected Mia to hurl a snark attack on her target-rich environment, but when she didn’t say a word and walked over to the only well kept part of her existence—the one new thing she had spent money on—Rayne braced for snark 2.0.
“Oh, my Lord. What is that?” Mia peered into a tall cage, lit with UVB and heat bulbs on a timer, which dominated a corner of her small apartment. Her sister’s face scrunched into a tight ball of disgust as she glared into the scaly face of her pet iguana.
“That’s my roommate, Floyd Zilla. Don’t get too close. He hasn’t eaten.”
To make her point, the iguana lashed out its tongue and lunged toward Mia, making her jump. Rayne snorted a laugh.
“That thing probably carries diseases,” her sister said.
“So do you, but hey, for what it’s worth—” Rayne forced a grin and lied “—I think he likes you.”
Mia narrowed her eyes and didn’t say anything more about Floyd, but when she headed to the kitchen, Rayne rolled her eyes and slumped onto a bar stool, watching her sister look through her fridge and pantry. After Mia held up a box of Scooby-Doo Mac & Cheese—with a raised eyebrow—she looked as if she expected an explanation.
Rut roh. Busted.
“That’s for Floyd,” Rayne lied. “He’s on a high-carb kick.”
Mia rolled her eyes and said, “Well, at least you’ve got fresh fruit, but what’s with the parsnip?”
“Uh, the fruit and parsnip are Floyd’s stash, too. He’s hard-core vegan. I make him a special salad and fruit mush since he’s got no teeth. Wanna try some?”
“That figures. The lizard eats better than you do.” Mia sighed and shook her head at the rest of her food. “Hot Pockets, ramen noodles, Ben & Jerry’s. Are these your idea of groceries?”
“That’s only my breakfast junk.”
Mia grabbed her jumbo bag of Skittles and hung them in front of her nose. “Breakfast?”
“They go in my cereal. Gawd.” Rayne took back her Skittles. “Besides, I get my major food groups at Mickey D’s like most of America. My way of pitching in to save the economy, one Big Mac at a time.”
“You think that’s funny, but I don’t see the humor. You’re almost eighteen. I expect...more.”
“Who are you to expect anything from me? I moved out. Why I did isn’t a secret, not between us, so you’ve got no right getting your Spanx in a bunch over how I live.”
Mia shot a sideways glance at uniform boy and tightened her jaw. Rayne knew what that meant. Her sister had a thing for arguing about private stuff with other ears around. She had no problem dishing out her typical one-way spew, but whenever Rayne pushed back, Mia freaked out over not being in control. Rayne could’ve stoked the fires in front of the cop to watch her sister squirm, but she chose not to. Someone had to be the adult—and if she had any chance of getting Mia to tell her about Ward 8, her long-shot odds would improve if they were alone.
It didn’t take long for the uniform to finish his pillaging. He didn’t say much. He only shook his head when he was done. Like, duh, no Lucas? Seriously? Huh.
“Wait for me in the car,” Mia said. “I need to speak to my sister.”
After the guy shut the front door and they were alone, Rayne didn’t wait for her sister to pick the lecture du jour. She had plenty to say.
“So was that official business? Did you even file a police report...or an Amber Alert? Or is that cop on the payroll of your precious church?” When Mia didn’t answer right away, she said, “Yeah, thought so.”
“Look, Rayne, the bottom line is that we’re family.”
Yeah, I feel the love.
“When were you going to invite me over to see your new place?” Mia said, pretending to be hurt. “It’s been six months since you moved out.”
Her sister zinged that one out of left field. Rayne almost got whiplash. Yeah, right. Try NEVER or when bacon grows wings.
“Your invite to my housewarming party must’ve gotten lost in the mail.”
“I know Lucas called you.” Mia leaned her elbows onto her kitchen counter and kept her voice low, as if they were two BFFs talking. “You don’t know what’s going on, Rayne.”
“Then gimme the deets. That shouldn’t be a big deal. He’s my brother, too. I only want to help.”
“You can’t. Whatever Lucas needs, I’ve got it covered. I just can’t have you getting in the way.”
Getting in the way? What Mia said hurt—bad—but Rayne didn’t let it show.
“Only the hospital can help him. Lucas may look normal on the outside, but he’s really sick, Rayne. A new doctor took an interest in his case after I pushed for it.”
Great, a new doctor. What did this new doc have to do with Luke’s transfer? Mia had faith in that crazy church and their “system.” She believed whatever the doctors told her. Rayne didn’t have a good feeling about what her sister said. She’d had her fill of doctor theories, but she kept her mouth shut and listened.
“Dr. Fiona Haugstad. She’s head of psychiatry at Haven Hills. She was in the process of reevaluating him but never got a chance to finish. She said that if he got off his meds, though, he could be a danger to—”
“Wait a minute,” Rayne interrupted. “Back it up. You said you knew that Lucas called me. How? Are you spying on me?”
“You don’t understand. You never have.” Mia didn’t look her in the eye and she didn’t answer her, either.
“That’s because you don’t let me in. You always treat me like a stupid kid.”
“You’re not stupid, but you are still a kid. What’s wrong with me being the adult?” Her sister shrugged. “Look, none of us got much of a childhood. That sucks. Lucas got the worst of it, but all I want to do is shield you both from worse stuff.”
“Hard to believe there’s worse stuff than dead parents and ending up in a mental hospital for life. But hey, if you say there’s a bigger, badass boogeyman out there, maybe Lucas will believe your spin on his crap-tastic life. He’s drooling 24/7, thanks to you.”
Rayne didn’t buy the protective-older-sister routine.
After their parents died, Mia got off on being in charge and making all the decisions. At first, that had been a comfort, until men in suits and official documents took over their lives. Rayne hated lawyers, and judges were no better. Suits only cared about paperwork and everyone agreeing to whatever, signing stuff about sibling guardianship and court petitions.
Eighteen years old at the time they lost their parents, Mia had convinced Rayne that she should trust her. Rayne didn’t know any better and she wanted to believe her sister could take care of them. Because Mia asked her to, she signed on a line saying she agreed with her sister about what would happen to them.
After that, stuff happened fast, and a judge made it all legal. Mia set up trust funds and took control of everything, including Lucas’s care and his share of the inheritance. Back then, Rayne believed Mia and thought that staying together would be the right thing to do. They’d all be under one roof, so they could deal with losing their parents together and still be a family.
But when Lucas needed more than a roof over his head, Mia had him committed almost overnight, as if she was ashamed of him. She locked him away at Haven Hills, like nothing more than damaged goods.
“Like I said, you’ve never understood.” Mia finally looked her in the eye. “Did you actually talk to him or did he only leave a message?”
Mia’s big show of concern could be boiled down to one thing. She was prying, hoping she’d get to hear Lucas’s message. Well, too bad.
“You haven’t earned the right to an answer, Mia. Sorry.”
Her sister looked sad, for real. A part of her wished things had turned out differently between them, but an even bigger chunk made Rayne hold back. Her sister, as always, didn’t trust her enough to confide in her, not even about Lucas. They both had a heaping pile of disappointment on their plates, and it didn’t look likely that either of them would get dessert for playing nice.
“So what’s Ward 8? You were having Lucas transferred there. Was this new miracle doctor doing the transfer or saving him from it?”
Rayne didn’t see any clever way of bringing up the transfer. Her brother never explained why he was afraid of Ward 8, but if Mia had any question about whether she had actually talked to Luke, now she’d know he never did more than leave her a message—and questions without answers.
