“It wouldn’t matter if we got you out,” I said, heartbroken that she and I might be facing parallel ends. “If it’s your time to go, you’ll go, no matter where you are.”

“Maybe not,” Tod interrupted, and I turned to him in confusion while Lydia’s eyes shined with hope. “And not for her, either,” he added, glancing at Farrah. “An incubus pregnancy is…well, it’s a sort of supernatural intervention, like Doug dying from a frost overdose. It trumps the natural order of things. Same thing for Lydia, if she becomes collateral damage. This probably isn’t when or how they’re supposed to die. Either of them.”

Ohh. I glanced at Lydia in growing horror. “So, leaving her here is like murder?” I asked, and Tod shrugged.

“You’re not pulling the trigger. But you’re not taking the gun away, either.”

“Please, Kaylee,” Lydia begged. “Get me out of here. I did it for you. You owe me.”

She was right, and I was rapidly running out of time in which to repay my debts. “Will you do it?” I asked Tod, and he nodded. “I can’t take you both at once, though, so I’ll have to come back for her.”

“No, take her first,” I insisted. “I have a couple more questions for Farrah, and I still want to check on Scott. I’ll wait here for you.”

“You sure?” Tod knew how much I hated Lakeside, and that the thought of getting caught there terrified me.

“Yeah. Just make sure you come back for me.”

“Nothing could keep me from it,” he said, and I believed him.

I let go of his hand, and mine suddenly felt cold. And empty. And when he reached for Lydia, I had a sudden mad urge to slap her hand away and reclaim his for myself, in spite of what I owed Lydia, and my genuine need to help her.

“You ready?” Tod said, and she nodded, taking his hand.

“What are you gonna do?” I asked, trying not to see where they touched each other, or wonder what it meant that I cared. “You can’t go home, can you?”

She shook her head. “They’d just send me back. But I’ll be fine. It can hardly get worse than dying in here, right?” she said, glancing around the space she shared with another mental patient in a secure facility. I knew how she felt, but I also knew that starving—or being attacked—on the street wouldn’t be any better.

I glanced around the room until I found a pencil on her desk, then pulled the twenty-dollar bill from my pocket. “This is all I have,” I said, scribbling my number on a scrap of paper from my pocket. I wrapped the money around it and handed it to her. “Call me if there’s anything I can do to help. I gotta warn you, though, this offer expires on Thursday.”

Shefrowned in confusion, but took the twenty and my number and shoved them in her pocket. “Thanks.”

I nodded, and Tod met my gaze. “Be right back.” Then they both disappeared, and sudden panic nearly overwhelmed me. Anyone who walked in would see me. I could be arrested, or even mistaken for a resident by some eager new staff member. Neither of those catastrophes would last once Tod came back for me, but that knowledge did nothing to calm me.

So I focused on Farrah, who didn’t seem to know Tod and Lydia were gone.

I sank onto the end of her bed, facing her. “Farrah?” She didn’t look up. “I’m real, remember? You can talk to me.”

She shook her head without looking up. “Real people don’t talk to Lydia. She can’t hear them, ’cause she’s not real.”

“You’re not real either, right?” I said, hating myself a little for stepping into her psychosis. “But you hear real people. It’s the same for Lydia.”

Farrah seemed to think about that for a minute, her hand frozen in the act of turning a page. Then she looked up and met my gaze. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Since I’m real, just like David, do you think you could tell me a little more about him?” I held my breath, sure she wouldn’t fall for that one. But then…

“He’s beautiful,” she said, her gaze losing focus, as if she could see him in her mind.

“Yes, he is.” Blanket policy when talking to the insane victim of incubus procreation: agree with everything she says. “But I was hoping for a little more than that. Do you know if any of your friends know him? Like you know him? Are any of them having babies, too?”

“Erica tried,” Farrah said. “But she got sick, and her baby died. It must have been real.”

“How awful,” I said, as she flipped more pages. “Anyone else?”

“Tiffany. But I haven’t seen her in a long time. She’s not real. But her baby is. It’s a girl.”

“How do you know it’s a girl?” I asked, as chills broke out on my arms. I hoped Tod would be back soon.

“David told me. He was sad.”

“Do you know where David lives?” I asked, and Farrah shook her head.

“He doesn’t take students to his house. That would be inappropriate.”

“Of course.” But evidently sleeping with them wasn’t. “So you only saw him at school?”

“Except when he came to my house.”

I sat straighter in surprise. “Mr. B—I mean David came to your house? Were your parents okay with that?”

“My dad wasn’t home. But my mom didn’t mind. She liked David.”