Mind Games (Mind Games 1)

She shakes her head, tears spilling out of her eyes. “You’re a monster. Annie never did anything to you, she loved you, and you…and you’re happy and hopeful. James, you can’t be okay with this.” She looks at him for support, but he shrugs. She’s shaking now, whether with tears or rage I couldn’t say. “I can’t—I’ll be in the other car.” She jerks her arms away from the men and walks quickly to the black sedan a few parking spots over, her gait stiff and unnatural.

I smile and James takes my hand that isn’t covered in blood in his own. “Thank you,” he whispers.

“It was the only way.” I don’t look back. I can’t and I won’t. I hope hope hope Annie and Adam will take care of each other. She’ll figure out a way for all those women to be safe without Adam dying. I think that’s what she was supposed to do all along.

And I think that this, here, with James, will always be wrong but it will always be the right sort of wrong, because if we don’t do this, no one will. We are a matched set of perfect liars, perfectly destroyed people, perfect for destruction. James rubs his thumb down my own and my hand doesn’t seem like it belongs on someone else anymore.

Annie is safe. And because she is, no one who hurt us will ever be safe again. I smile, and it is not a lie. It is a promise. I am ready.

ANNIE

Ten Years Ago

I’M NEARLY ASLEEP WHEN I FEEL THE BOTTOM OF MY bed move.

“Fia?”

I can hear her breathing; it’s fast and ragged and peppered with sniffles. “Please?”

I sigh and scoot over to the wall, holding the covers open. Her little body snuggles in next to me. “Ouch!” I hiss as she knees me in the stomach.

“Sorry.”

“You know you aren’t allowed to do this.”

“Please don’t tell.”

I smile. I won’t. Because she’ll get in trouble, but also because even though I pretend like I don’t, I love it when Fia has nightmares and comes into my room. It makes me proud that she chooses me over our parents. “Okay,” I say, patting her head and stroking her hair like Mom does to make me feel better.

“I wish night wasn’t so long.”

“Why?”

“It’s scary. I can’t see anything. What if there’s something hiding in the dark in my room?”

“Silly. Dark isn’t scary. Dark is safe.”

“Why?”

“I live in the dark all the time. But when it’s dark outside everyone has to be there, too. And if you can’t see someone, they can’t see you, either.”

She sniffles a few times. “So, it’s like I’m hiding in the dark?”

“Yes. You’re the secret when it’s dark. Dark is safe.”

“Dark is safe,” she whispers, snuggling into me and throwing one of her bony arms over my stomach. “But only with you here, too.”

“Safe together.” I smile and brush her hair away from where it’s tickling my nose. Sometimes I am the one who takes care of Fia. It makes me happy. “I’ll take care of you,” I say, but she is already asleep. I breathe in the sweet shampoo scent of her and fall asleep, too.

Acknowledgments

FIRST THANKS, AS ALWAYS, TO MY NOAH, FOR HELPING me calm and organize the chaos that is my brain. You are everything good in my life. Thank you as well to my darling Elena and Jonah, for your patience when Mommy went crazy with a story. Again. You are absolutely delightful little people.

Thank you to

my mom, Cindy, and my sister Lauren, for babysitting that one night so Noah and I could go on a date and see a movie that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this but somehow sparked the idea that I needed. Please feel free to take credit for this book. Unless people hate it, in which case I guess you’ve just lost plausible deniability. Sorry.

Special thanks to my siblings, Erin, Lindsey, Lauren, and Matt. I am so glad to have grown up with you. All the memories and stolen clothes (Matt, you are exempted…I think) and shared history make me who I am, and I’m glad that you are all part of it. Again, feel free to take credit for me, unless people hate me; in which case, beat them up.