Mind Games (Mind Games 1)

His face freezes. I shouldn’t have told. I shouldn’t have. I don’t care. I stare defiantly at him.

His frozen face melts into a smile. “Well, my dear girl, you win. I think this calls for a drink.” He tries to open the nearest door, but it’s locked. He takes a step back, lifts his leg, and kicks it open with a resounding crack. “That’ll hurt in the morning. Ladies first.” He holds out a hand to the now-open room.

He doesn’t care that I killed two people.

What is wrong with him?

I walk in. (In this room I have picked which gun was unloaded out of ten options. And then they pulled the trigger on me. I have picked stocks that went on to skyrocket. I have picked which pencil I would shove into Ms. Robertson’s ear until she kicked me out for thinking about it.)

James staggers/swaggers past me and sits on the floor against the wall out of view of the damaged door. He pats the floor next to him.

I sit. He passes me a bottle he pulls out of his coat and I know—I know, I know—I should not ever taste alcohol.

I take a swig.

I choke and cough and he laughs. I take another and manage to swallow it.

“That’s a girl. Now, do you want to know a secret?”

“I know too many secrets.”

“Well, you don’t know any of mine. My mother was psychic. Genuine, see-the-future, real-deal psychic.” He waits. “You aren’t impressed?”

“Should I be?”

“Probably not. Made it awfully hard to really get into trouble, though. She could always see it coming. Do you want to know the trick to getting in trouble under the watchful eye of a psychic?”

I think of the nailed-shut windows. I think of Clarice. I think of the two, the two, the two who are now zero. Tap tap. “Yes.”

“Don’t plan it. Don’t even think about it. The second you get an inkling of what you could do, do it then. Never plan anything ahead of time. Always go on pure instinct.”

I smile, take another long drink before he pulls it away. “I can do that.”

“To my mother,” he says, raising the bottle. “And to yours.” He passes it back to me.

“Mine’s dead.”

“Mine, too!”

He doesn’t seem sorry. Usually people are sorry about dead parents. I like that he isn’t sorry. “Both my parents died in a car wreck. My sister saw it before it happened. It still happened.”

“My mother shot herself in the head. Yesterday.”

I stare at him in shock and horror. Then I hand the bottle back and say, “Well, my dear boy, you win. This calls for a drink.”

He laughs, and I do too, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve laughed in six months. I think I’m in love with him. And I know I’m in love with this drink and the soft, fuzzy way it makes me feel.

“I broke in here tonight to see the reason my mother blew her brains out. I’m very disappointed it’s just a building. I’m less disappointed in the company.”

“I would burn this school to the ground if I could.”

“You’d be hurting the wrong people. It’s my father. You should burn him. I hate him.”

“To your father.” I take another few gulps.

“To burning my father to the ground.”

In the morning when they find us passed out next to each other on the floor, James is sent away but not before he salutes me. Clarice doesn’t say a word about it, but Annie is in a rage when I get back to my room.