Free Possession by Catrina Burgess Page B

anyone about.
How could I explain to this man how I had changed? That after each ritual it
felt as if part of me was torn away and something darker had crept in? I wasn’t
even sure myself how to face down the violence that now raced through my blood.
    In every session I’d been to so far, I had just
sat staring at the doctor in silence. I was not looking forward to another half
hour of trying to avoid those eyes boring into me as he patiently waited for me
to spill my guts. It felt like a mental tug of war, an uncomfortable battle of
wills.
    When I had first come here, I had claimed anger
and depression. Since the awakening, I had been feeling both in spades, so they
seemed the easiest symptoms to fake, but in order to get checked into an
in-patient facility, I needed to have something more serious going on. After
some deliberation, Walter and I crafted a backstory. He called ahead before
leaving me here, claiming that he was my grandfather and that I said I had
attempted suicide, despondent over my family’s death. That should have been
worth a seventy-two-hour mandatory stay, which was long enough, I thought, to
get in, do my spell, and get back out.
    But almost immediately things had gone wrong.
First, the spell fell short of expectations. Then, I found out that Dean’s body
was too weak to move after so long in a wheelchair. I needed more time. I
needed to stay here and show as little progress as possible if I hoped to bring
Luke out with me, so standing mute had seemed the safest route. An occasional
outburst of anger helped make my case.
    To my surprise, the anger came a little too easily. As soon as I loosened the
reins on the monster that lived inside of me, I found it hard to get it back
under control. I doubted that Barton could have been much help, even if I was
willing to come clean with him. But lying to him made it harder to lie to
myself. I wasn’t in control of my anger, and until I was, I was a danger to
those I loved. And then Morgana
played patty-finger in my mind, removing all illusion of control.
    The longer I faked being crazy, the crazier I
felt. If I was ever going to have a true balance within myself again, I needed
to make peace with the monster.
    I needed to somehow make it a part of me.
     
    * * *
     
    Dr. Barton did not look happy to see me. A three-inch jagged
set of cuts ran along his eyebrow—the marks my fingernails made when I
scratched him. Until just a few moments ago, I’d forgotten about the incident
when I first regained consciousness. But by the look on his face, I could tell
he was not about to let it go. Gone was the patient, kind expression he usually
wore. In its place was disdain; I could see it simmering just below the surface
of his eyes.
    He motioned to a nearby chair and I obediently took
a seat.
    If I’d thought sitting across from him before was
uncomfortable, now there was a whole new level of animosity swimming in the air
between us. I’d been in a panic when he grabbed me, but it wasn’t my fault. I
hadn’t remembered who I was or what was going on at the time. I’d reacted like
a scared, caged animal. He couldn’t hold me responsible for what I’d done, could
he?
    But I knew that he would.
    In the weeks I had been in this place I’d come to
realize that there weren’t many kind souls on the staff. Most of the employees
were sadistic. Did they all start out that way? Was it something about being
around the insane that tainted them? Or was it this place itself? There was, at
times, a sort of eerie, angry vibe radiating in the air around here; an almost
tangible feeling of hate and evil permeated the walls.
    I shook my head and took a deep breath. It was a
crazy thought, thinking that the environment of this place or the property itself
had somehow morphed these people. A more reasonable explanation was that the
person in charge of hiring wasn’t too particular about the type of people they
took on. Maybe management liked a staff that was underqualified,