Free Revelations by Melinda Metz - Fingerprints - 6

absolutely had to. It was an invasion of privacy. And it always turned some part of her body numb. “Rae,” she said to Lenny. “And that’s Yana.”
    Yana shook his hand, too. “So my principal can’t torpedo me?” she asked.
    Lenny disappeared from the hole. “My friend’s principal,” he said as he walked around his aisle and into theirs.
    “That’s how you’re supposed to say it. My friend’s. So that I won’t think you’re a freak.”
    “I don’t care if you think I’m a freak,” Yana told him.
    Lenny laughed. “That’s very healthy.”
    But you’re not healthy, Rae. You’re sick. Very sick. You should be locked away right now. You don’t belong outside
    with the rest of us.
    “What?” The word escaped from Rae’s mouth in a squeak. Lenny and Yana both stared at her. “What… what else is important in a psychiatric evaluation, O genius people-guy?” Rae asked, trying to recover.
    You can try and act normal . But it doesn’t work. I can see inside you. It’s so easy. It’s so clear. There’s something
    wrong with you, Rae. And it’s growing. That’s my professional opinion.
    I’m not touching anything. Nothing, Rae told herself. But those aren’t my thoughts. Where are they coming from?
    What’s happening to me now? Her thoughts came as shrieks in her brain, so loud, so overpowering that she couldn’t hear what Yana and Lenny were saying. They were talking to each other. She could see their lips moving.
    But she couldn’t hear them at all.
    What is happening to me? The shriek ripped into the soft gray matter of her brain.
    Rae, Rae, Rae. You’re going to fall to pieces right here, aren’t you? Little bloody pieces too small to be saved.
    The not-her thought was quiet and calm. Nothing like Rae’s frantic ravings. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she announced. The words must have come out louder than she meant for them to because both Yana and Lenny looked startled.
    “You want me to come with?” Yana asked.
    “No, I’m fine. I’m fine,” Rae answered. She rushed down the aisle and turned the corner. Her knees buckled, and it was all she could do to find an unoccupied row in the stacks. When she did, she sank down to the floor. She couldn’t take another step.
    Rae wrapped her arms around her legs and pressed her forehead to her knees, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
    “Please let me be okay,” she whispered. But she knew her prayer, if that’s what it was, couldn’t beanswered.
    Because she wasn’t okay. Something bad had already happened to her. Something very, very bad.
    Anthony strode out of Jocks and Jills, yet another sports bar, and headed over to the Hyundai.
    “Nothing?” Jesse asked when Anthony got in the driver’s seat and slammed the door.
    “Nothing,” Anthony answered. “Guess you didn’t see him going in or out?”
    “Yeah, I did. That’s why I’m sitting here like an idiot,” Jesse shot back.
    “Okay, dumb question,” Anthony said. Jesse was in a bad mood because he wasn’t old enough to get into a bar.
    Technically Anthony wasn’t, either. But redheaded, freckle-faced Jesse looked even younger than he was. And when you were fourteen, that was rough. “There’s still one more Jocks and Jills we can try.”
    “ You can try, you mean,” Jesse muttered.
    Anthony ignored him. “And there are probably a bunch more bars that have a pretty much resident bookie. It’s not only a sports-bar thing.” He turned the ignition key and pulled out of the parking space.
    “But that guy, Mr. Pink, he might be the only one Aiden deals with,” Jesse answered, saying the thing that Anthony was trying not to let himself think.
    “So what do you want to do, Jesse? Give up?” Anthony demanded. He swung out of the parking lot and immediately had to come to a stop for a red light.
    “No, I’m just saying…” Jesse shook his head. “If you take Addison, we’ll get there faster.”
    When the light changed, Anthony took the right onto Addison.