Free The Masked Truth by Kelley Armstrong Page A

always wondering. But for now, the meds … the meds …
    He swears under his breath.
    “What’s wrong?” Riley whispers.
    “Do you know where they put our belongings? The things they confiscated?”
    Her eyes widen and he thinks,
Bugger it, what did I say? I’m making sense, aren’t I?
Because that’s another symptom. He has them memorized, all the unexperienced signs that could pop up and say hello at any given moment. Like disorganized speech—more colorfully known as word salad—where what one believes one is saying has little in common with what one actually says. His doctor doubts Max will ever have that, because his thoughts aren’t truly
disorganized
thoughts, not the way they could be, just, well, not exactly orderly. Organized but not orderly.
    “The cell phones,” she says. “Of course.” Then a blazing smile. “You’re brilliant.”
    Why yes, yes I am, thank you for recognizing that, even if it wasn’t what I meant at all. No, of course it was. Because: I. Am. Brilliant
.
    “Yes, the mobiles,” he says. “If we can get to them, we can make contact. Did you bring one?”
    She shakes her head. “You?”
    Me? No, I don’t own a mobile. Not anymore. Who would I call? Ah, yes. My friends. Perhaps my best friend, Justin. No, wait … Justin wants nothing to do with me. He’s made that quite clear. And I’m not sure my other mates would take my calls. Not after “the incident.”
    No need for a mobile, then, not when I sit in the bloody house all day, reading and studying and pretending I’ll go to uni soon. Of course I will. That’s what Mum says. Just relax, Maximus. There’s no rush. Take some time off. Make sure the meds are working this time
.
    You want to go out, Max? I’ll take you anywhere you like. By yourself? Oh, Max, I don’t think that’s wise. Not yet. Yes, yes, it’s been three months without an episode, but still …
    But still …
    “Max?”
    He shakes his head. “I didn’t bring mine either. I’m sure someone did, though. We’ll look for a rear door first. That will be plan B.”
    “Plan B? Or plan C?” A smile, not really for him, just relief at having plans, but he’ll take it anyway.
    “We’ll make it plan B.” He looks toward the door. “Do you hear anything?”
    “A couple of minutes ago. Nothing since.”
    “Good. Off we go, then.”

CHAPTER 9
    Find the back door. Find the cell phones. Back door. Cell phones.
    I mentally repeat that mantra as I lead Max down the hall.
    I take a better look at the warehouse now as we walk. There are, of course, no windows. Distraction-free, as Aimee promised. Which also means escape-route-free, except for those doors. The locked, thick steel doors. I just pray the rear one won’t be as thick.
    I have no idea where I’m heading. We’re presuming the second exit is literally a back door—in the opposite direction of the front one. But it could be at the side, so I’m trying to stick to the edges. The building is a rectangle, which should make the layout obvious, but, like I thought earlier, whoever designed it must have decided a grid pattern of halls and rooms is too easy. Boring. Let’s have some fun!
    Halls run maybe twenty feet, past two or three doors, and then end at another corridor. Max and I will head down that one to find a branching corridor, seemingly leading to more rooms, and then it’ll end too. I have no idea if I’m at the far side of the building or not because there are no windows.
    And let’s talk about the rooms. So many rooms. Half seem to be locked. At the rate I’m passing doors, I’m going to guess there are at least twenty rooms on this floor alone.
    Either I’m turning down the third hall … or I’ve circled back and I’m turning down the first. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised. Every wall is beige. The flooring is office linoleum. The doors are standard-issue, with no numbers or other markings. I began to wish I’d brought a pen or something to mark the corners