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Vadim said nothing for a moment or so, studying her. Not for the first time, Samantha wondered what Vadim’s talents were. She wouldn’t have doubted that one of them was reading minds.

  “Be ready,” he said finally.

  Chapter 11

  “How are we feeling today?” Dr. Ransom pushed his glasses up higher on his nose with one hand, tapping his pen against the desk with the other. “Nurse says you didn’t eat your breakfast.”

  “Her name’s Patty,” Jed said mildly. Dr. Ransom never knew their names. Jed wouldn’t have been surprised if the doctor barely remembered Jed’s name. He certainly hardly ever used it.

  “Was there something wrong with breakfast?”

  “I didn’t feel like eating today. That’s all.” Jed used a small push, a tiny one, undetectable, to still the doctor’s tapping pen by making it microcosmically harder to move. Just enough to make the other man feel as though he didn’t want to make the effort, but nothing close to him feeling that he was being manipulated.

  It had taken Jed a long, long time to refine that skill. Many hours of having to listen to the doctor’s relentless fidgeting.

  “Not hungry? Not feeling well?”

  “I don’t like pancakes,” Jed said.

  Dr. Ransom looked confused. “No? Who doesn’t like pancakes?”

  “Me. Never liked them.” Jed leaned back in the chair, one leg crossed over the other, with a grin. Blank and empty, stretching so wide it felt as though his teeth were the size of dominoes.

  “Well. I suppose I can make sure the kitchen never sends you pancakes again.”

  That wasn’t going to happen. If anything, now that he’d made his preference known, he’d be served pancakes three or four times a week, and that was because they liked to mess with him that way. The truth was, Jed preferred pancakes to eggs, but although he knew that lies were the devil speaking with his tongue, he didn’t care. He’d stopped caring about that a long, long time ago, about the same time he’d decided to stop playing by their rules. He was simply careful about how he went about it, that was all.

  When Jed didn’t answer, Dr. Ransom looked concerned. “Nurse said you didn’t get out of bed at the usual time, as well.”

  “Her name is Patty,” Jed repeated.

  Dr. Ransom put the pen down completely and laced his fingers together. “Patty.”

  “Samantha is the day nurse. Bryant and Carl are the orderlies. Stephen is the janitor.”

  “You’ve never interacted with the custodial staff,” Dr. Ransom said.

  And the janitor’s name was not really Stephen, but the doctor wouldn’t know that. Jed shrugged. He thought about using his talent to take up the pen and bury it point-deep into the wood of the desk, but didn’t want to give them the satisfaction or deal with the consequences.

  “Is there a reason why you overslept today, Jed?”

  The fact he’d been unable to sleep last night, tossing and turning after the interlude with Samantha. He wasn’t about to admit that to Dr. Ransom, though. As far as the doctor was concerned, Jed barely knew the nurse, and that was how he wanted it to stay.

  When he was fourteen or so, there’d been another nurse. Miss Jean. That was how she’d referred to herself, and how Jed still thought of her. Miss Jean had worn the same uniform as all the other nurses, the same as it had been in all the years Jed had been in Wyrmwood. She’d had pale, short hair and wide green eyes and a smile that reminded him of his birth mother’s, when Mother had been happy. Miss Jean had never looked at him the way the others had sometimes. Afraid. No matter what he did or how he behaved, Miss Jean always stayed calm, friendly, kind. And because she never gave him reason to misbehave, slowly, slowly, Jed had stopped always trying to cause trouble.

  When it had become apparent to the unseen—whoever was in charge, the ones he’d learned watched and judged, but never met with him in person—that Miss Jean’s influence was changing Jed from who they wanted him to be into something else, something less violent, well. Miss Jean went off shift one day and never came back.

  That was when Jed had started training himself to unlearn all the things they’d taught him.

  Eleven years later, and the daily testing had stopped. His sessions with Dr. Ransom had gone from five days a week to twice, each session only lasting thirty or so minutes, since there never seemed to be much to say anymore. It couldn’t be much longer, now, Jed thought. Until they either killed him, or let him go.

  “Jed?”

  “I was tired, I guess. Had a bad headache.” That part was true enough, though it wasn’t like his head didn’t always throb with the effort of holding himself back from giving them what they’d been after since he was five.

  “Your medicine should prevent that. Your vitals haven’t changed. Your blood pressure is fine.”

  Jed had learned to control that, too.

  “Maybe it’s seasonal allergies,” Jed said, deadpan.

  Dr. Ransom didn’t smile. He did, however, lift up the pen again to scratch a few notes on the pad in front of him. “I’m going to prescribe you something new. For anxiety.”

  “No! I mean,” Jed said in a calmer voice, “I’m not anxious about anything.”

  He was already on some complicated cocktail of pills designed to keep him under control, but it had been years since they’d felt the need to use anything to keep him calm. He wasn’t going to go back to being chemically brain-dead again. He couldn’t. He would die first.

  “Just a little something,” Dr. Ransom said in that soothing tone he always employed. He looked at Jed over the rims of his frameless glasses. “It seems to me that you haven’t been yourself lately.”

  Himself? Ransom had no idea who Jed was. Nobody did, including Jed.

  “Is it because of the tests?” Jed asked bluntly.

  The doctor hesitated, cutting his gaze from Jed’s. “Of course not. You know we’ve always made it clear that our concern is for your well-being. Never any test results.”

  It was what they said, but never what they’d meant. Jed frowned. “New meds won’t make it any easier for me to do what they ask.”

  For the first time since Jed had entered the room, Dr. Ransom smiled. The effect of it was chilling—a stretching of the older man’s lips that in no way resulted in any humor reaching his eyes. Ransom tap-tapped his pen rapidly against the desktop.

  “We only want what’s best for you, Jed. We’re your family.”

  “The only one I have,” Jed replied, sincerely if not gratefully.

  Ransom’s smile stretched wider, showing his yellowed teeth. “You’ve been at Wyrmwood a long time. We’ve worked together for a long time, too. I’d like you to know how...fond...of you I’ve grown over the years.”

  Jed shifted in his chair, wondering if the doctor expected a matching response. He couldn’t make himself lie, so he stayed quiet. After a moment, the doctor’s smile faded. He tapped his pen once or twice more, then closed the folder.

  “You can go back to your room now. Our session is finished. Unless you have something you need to talk about?”

  Jed shook his head and stood. “Not really. Will there be a test?”

  “Oh, no.” Dr. Ransom laughed. “No more tests will be necessary.”

  Relief and terror in equal parts raced through Jed, who did not react in any visible way. He nodded when Ransom repeated that he’d be sending Jed some new meds, but didn’t protest again. As he left the room, a guard on either side of him, he considered striking out. Surprising them.

  They’d kill him without a second thought—he knew that—and wouldn’t suicide by armed guard be a better way to go than waiting, waiting for them to finally decide to end his life by some other method? Wouldn’t it be better to go on his own terms? But of course, he only walked meekly between them without a word and stepped through the do