Free Mind Games by Carolyn Crane Page A

and loved ones,” she says.
    “They can’t come and visit him?”
    “All those who knew Packard—or knew of him—think he is dead. Even if they saw him, they would not see him, would not believe it is him. If I saw woman who looks like my dead nana, I would not think it is her.Strongarm Francis says nemesis worked with powerful highcap revisionist who revised minds and memories of those around Packard. This is part of imprisonment, you see. He is isolated in all ways.”
    Packard doesn’t seem so teasable anymore; his darkness and gravity have new significance. “Who is this nemesis?”
    Shelby shakes her head. “Packard will not tell. Nobody knows.”
    “Have you tried to find out and, like, do something about it?”
    “Packard forbids it. He says nemesis is evil and dangerous. Such investigation could alert and anger nemesis. What if nemesis decides to put Packard where we cannot find him? What would happen to him? To us?”
    “Why doesn’t Packard kill him? Not that I’d condone it, but …”
    “If nemesis dies, Packard is trapped for good. As long as nemesis lives, there is chance he will change mind.”
    “We have to help free him.”
    “He cannot be free, Justine. Even Packard accepts this. And you must, too.”
       It’s well after midnight when I’m banging on Mongolian Delites’ window. The restaurant closed over an hour ago. The staff would’ve just gone home.
    He opens the door wearing a black T-shirt and holey jeans. An outfit for lounging at home. Because this is his home.
    “When were you going to tell me?” Seeing him now, I feel this immense sorrow for him. “I thought we were friends.”
    He gets this strange look—eyes bright, and not in a happy way. “I wasn’t aware I was beholden to give you every fact of my existence.”
    “Every fact?” I push past him and walk in. “Howabout the single most important, unthinkable, and outrageous fact of your existence?” I hear the door shut. I turn. “God, Packard!”
    He strolls over to a table by the curtained window where a lone candle burns over a magazine and a coffee cup. He flips the magazine closed and turns to me, more composed now, though his green eyes still shine—with pain, I think. “It’s hardly the most important fact of my existence,” he says. “Unthinkable and outrageous, though—I’ll give you that.”
    “We have to get you out of here.”
    “Leave it.”
    “I won’t. There’s always a way.”
    “I’ve been in here eight years.
Eight years.”
It sinks in even deeper when he says it. “I know every detail of the strength and limits of this prison. Every excruciating detail.”
    “So you just give up? Like a man helpless to change his circumstances?” I don’t know whether I’m madder at his nemesis or at him for accepting it.
    “Leave it.”
    “I won’t leave it. It’s wrong. And surely you haven’t tried everything. I’m new, maybe I have new ideas. It’s not right that we wouldn’t keep working on it. Doesn’t every villain have an Achilles’ heel? What about disillusioning this guy? Attack him and crash him?”
    “If you knew my nemesis, you wouldn’t say that so lightly. You might not even say it out loud.” His voice sounds gravelly. “You certainly wouldn’t consider trying to disillusion him.” He looks at the door. “I won’t discuss it further.”
    My eyes go to the magazine on the table where he’d been sitting, one of his many travel magazines about tropical beaches. He moves in front of it. “Now that you know this is my prison, maybe you could respect the pathetically small amount of solitude I have?”
    And it hits me like a punch in the gut: the magazine he’s hiding is
a travel magazine about tropical beaches
. He was fantasizing. He’ll never smell that salty air. He’ll never wiggle his toes in the warm soft sand. He never even feels the sunshine on his skin! “I’m so sorry.”
    He snorts. “Oh, please. Don’t.”
    “Don’t what? Be sorry you’re