Free The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin Page A

college—along with the sketchbook I hadn’t been in the mood to draw in and a few charcoal sticks and pens.
    And my digital camera. The one my parents gave me formy birthday. I didn’t remember putting that in my bag at all.
    My pulse raced as I withdrew the picture from my back pocket and stared at it. I turned on the camera, pressed the menu button, and waited.
    The last picture taken appeared on the screen. It was the same photo in my hand.
    The picture before that was also of me asleep, in the same clothes I wore last night, my body in a different position. And the picture before that. And the picture before that.
    There were four of them altogether.
    Horror weakened my knees but I braced myself against the stall. I had to keep standing. I had to see if there was something, anything, any way I could prove that Jude took the pictures, that he was alive and in my room and watching me sleep. I thumbed through the camera’s features as I forced myself to breathe.
    The camera had a timer.
    My bag had been searched; whoever checked it would have seen the printed picture, but to them, that’s all it would look like. Just a picture of me asleep. They might think I scratched my eyes out myself.
    And if I showed the digital camera to them, or to my parents, they might think that I took all of the pictures myself; that I used the camera’s timer to set up the shots. The why didn’t matter; I just came back from an involuntary stay at a psych unit. Why would never matter again.
    I stifled the screams I wanted to yell but couldn’t. I put the camera and the picture back in my bag. I went back to the common room and it was all I could do to sit still. Phoebe the psycho stared at me the whole time.
    I ignored her. I detached. I was being tested, Mr. Robins said, evaluated to see if I could hack it in the outpatient world, and I needed to prove that I could.
    So when the session finally ended, I seized on Jamie—I needed the distraction.
    “Do you miss Croyden?” I asked, my voice falsely light.
    “Sure. Particularly when they make us do positive self-talk with Chariots of Fire blasting in the background.”
    Thank you, Jamie. “Tell me you’re kidding?”
    “I wish. At least the food’s good,” he said, as we lined up for lunch.
    I was about to ask what we were having when a piercing scream sounded from the front of the line. I was already on edge and that nearly sent me over. I watched, frozen, as a blond girl with a delicate doll face separated herself from the group.
    “Megan,” Jamie said in my ear. “The poor kid’s afraid of everything. This happens a lot.”
    Megan was now backed up against the opposite wall, pointing at something.
    A large, cartoonishly handsome “student” was walking in the direction of her extended forefinger. He crouched downlow, just as I rose up on my toes to try and see.
    “It’s a ring snake,” he called out. He lifted it with both hands.
    I exhaled. No big—
    Megan screamed again as the boy ripped the snake apart.
    I was paralyzed for a second, not quite believing what I’d seen. The cat last night, and now this—anger rushed in and I seized it. It was better than fear. I couldn’t do anything about the cat, but I could do something about this.
    I pushed past the people in line as the boy, who more accurately resembled a Cro-Magnon man, dropped the mangled pieces on the white carpet with a satisfied look.
    He towered over me but I looked him in the eye. “What is wrong with you?”
    “You seem upset,” he said evenly. “It’s just a snake.”
    “And you’re just a douchebag.”
    Jamie appeared by my side and looked down at the mess. “I see you’ve met Adam, our resident sadist.”
    Adam pushed Jamie into the wall with one arm. “At least I’m not the resident fag.”
    There was cheering and chanting of the “Fight! Fight! Fight!” variety, which mingled with a counselor’s high, hoarse voice shouting, “Break it up!”
    But Jamie wasn’t remotely fazed. He