And then another girl.
Another girl.
Another girl.
Another girl.
So many girls.
Girl after girl after girl, following Fia, because Fia instantly understands what to say, what to feel, how to act to get them to want to come. She’s leading them to the school, and they want it, and she knows. She knows what she’s doing.
I want to scream but I can’t. I can do nothing but watch. I watch and watch until the colors and lights bleed into one constant swirl I can no longer understand, and I miss the darkness but the light won’t stop.
“Annie? I think she’s waking up.”
I open my eyes and I’m so relieved to see nothing, I burst into tears.
“What happened?” I ask, trying to sit up, but my muscles tremble and shake, and I feel like I haven’t eaten in three days. I’m dizzy and light-headed and everything hurts. I’m going to throw up. “Bathroom,” I gasp, putting my hands over my mouth.
Someone picks me up and runs, then sets me down on a tile floor and I hug the toilet like it can save me.
My hair is pulled back gently from my face and held at the base of my neck. A cold sweat has broken out on my body and I’m still shaking, but the nausea passes and I think I’ll be okay.
I try to stand and that’s when my stomach decides it is not okay. Vomiting until there’s nothing left, my stomach muscles cramped with spasms, I finally lean to the side, hitting the bathtub and sitting against it.
“Here,” Cole says, handing me a washcloth, damp with cool water. I wipe my mouth, too wrung out and hollowed to be embarrassed that it was him holding my hair back while I puked. He takes the washcloth and then hands me a small towel, also cool and damp, and I put it against my forehead, wipe the back of my neck, rest my cheek on it.
The last time someone held my hair for me while I puked, I had the stomach flu and Eden stayed with me. I know my old life was a lie, but it was a nice lie, and I miss the ease of false security.
“You had a seizure,” he says, sitting next to me.
I take a deep breath, even my lungs sore. “How long did it last?”
“Ten minutes,” Adam says, taking my wrist to feel my pulse. “That’s bad, Annie. You’re hitting oxygen deprivation danger if it goes much longer than that. Brain damage.”
“I was only out for ten minutes?”
“No,” Cole says. “You’ve been asleep for almost four hours. You didn’t wake up after the seizure ended. We were about to take you to the hospital.”
“Can’t go to the hospital. We don’t have the right documents. I’ll be okay.”
“Why would you risk that?” Cole’s voice is hard, and I flinch, turning my head away from him. “What could possibly be worth risking your life for?”
“I didn’t know it was so risky.”
“Because you didn’t ask us about it! I could have told you what it did to Sarah! I can’t believe Rafael gave you the drugs.”
“Did she have seizures, too?”
“No. But she hasn’t been sleeping. She barely eats. Isn’t it enough that you two have these visions take over and intrude on your brains, without forcing your bodies to do more?”
I lean my head on the bathtub. The rounded edge fits against my skull and I feel like I could fall asleep here. “It worked,” I whisper.
“No, it didn’t.”
“It did. I saw her. Fia. Ove
r and over again. With girls. She’s—” I swallow hard, reminding myself that there’s nothing left in my stomach to lose. “She’s finding girls for the school. She’s recruiting.”