Free Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2) by Chad Huskins Page B

know!” said Kaley Dupré, more fervently.  Her bottom lip quivered, a tear fell from her right eye and she didn’t move to wipe it.  She glanced down, and recoiled.  Apparently she hadn’t noticed the late Zakhar until just now.  She backed up, and very nearly went clear through the door.  She stopped, turned her back on the door as if something had just jumped up and nipped at her butt, then turned and looked back at Spencer.
    “How the hell …did you get here?”
    “I’m not,” s he said.  More tears, more lip-curling.
    “Then where are you?”
    “I don’t…I-I don’t know, I can’t…I can’t tell…”
    Spencer backed way, never taking the Colt off of her.  He wasn’t afraid, he just wasn’t sure .  And when you’re not sure about something, sometimes the best thing to do is to take a step back, take it all in, get a wider view of things, and aim a gun at it.  He looked at the walls; all were as they had been before.  The furniture, the carpet, all normal.  He looked up at the ceiling.  Everything seemed fine there, too; a bit of Zakhar’s opinions on what caused the fall of the Roman Empire had managed to splatter up there somehow, but other than that, everything seemed ordinary.
    He looked back at the door, back the little black girl standing not ten feet from him.  “That was you inside my head,” Spencer said.  “Tryin’ to make me go an’ check on the boy, eh?”  Kaley said nothing.  “All right, then,” he said.  “Theories.  Let’s talk turkey.  How did you get here?”
    “I…I-I think it’s the Charm again—”
    “It’s some ol’ bullshit is what it is.   Tell me the truth, now.”
    “—and I think I…I came because you and the boy…he’s hurting and I felt it…and I…”  She drifted off.  Kaley Dupré cupped her hands in front of her, starting to fret.  Sniffling, she tried to step around Zakhar without looking down.  Spencer continued backing up, the gun always trained on her.  She paused right in front of the fireplace.  The red-orange light danced on her face, producing hard lines, and the tears glistened.  “I can feel the heat,” she said, reaching her hands out.  “It’s cold outside, isn’t it?  How do I know that?  Where are w… shhh , Shannon!  I’m talking to him.” 
    The vision of Kaley Dupré glanced to her right, as though addressing someone there.  Spencer looked around the room, saw no one else.
    “Shush now,” she said.  “I’m trying to talk—”
     
     
     
    “—to him,” she said, pushing her sister’s hand away.
    “No,” Shannon whispered, fresh tears streaming.  She had lowered her voice, and thankfully the two bitches behind them had moved on to other conversation, as well.  “No, don’t.  Don’t talk to him, don’t go near him!  You remember what happened last time!”  She squeezed Kaley’s hand.  “Don’t go near him.  He brought the Others last time.”  There was fear in her voice, but something else deeper inside of her.  Deep, deep inside Shannon, Kaley felt the underpinnings of hatred—very unlike Shannon—and all of it masked by fear.
    She despises him that badly .  It’s beginning to change her .  Had that been the question Mrs. Krenshaw asked that set Shannon off that day?  Had she asked about the laughing man?  Kaley had never found out, but considering how Shan was feeling right then, she wouldn’t be surprised.
    Kaley looked straight ahead, both into the eyes of Spencer Pelletier and at the road signs swishing by.  The bus jumped, shifted, slowed down and sped up.  The log cabin they were in though, was standing perfectly still, and was terribly silent.  Kaley looked to her left, at the two boys sitting across from her, and at the body of some dead guy missing a part of his head.  The boys’ book bags were in their laps.  They couldn’t be much older than Shan, and they were both whispering about something they were looking at on their iPhones.  Not