in this place, anyway,” I pointed out. “Are you really going to commit suicide to avoid me?”
No, he wasn’t.
“Hey, this is super convenient,” I said.
“Cas, please. Don’t.” His eyes darted around like a cornered animal’s. Guilt and sympathy washed through me. How could I be so cruel as to force him to do the one thing he tried so hard to avoid?
How could I do the same thing to him that I despised his ability to do to others?
“I’m not reading your mind.” Even as I said it, Simon’s certainty on the matter convinced me I was wrong. This was the same thing as mind reading, involuntarily, forcefully. And I would be committing this crime against him, the same crime I would have wrung his neck for deliberately doing to me.
“You did do it to me,” I said. “Oh, wait, you didn’t just read my mind. You fucking erased it.”
He buried his face in his hands, and his grief flooded me with such force, I stopped breathing.
I saw through his eyes. Saw myself. Was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the connection he felt … for me. Or her. Valarmathi.
Saw him reaching for her, his vision blurring with tears, her frantic begging tearing apart his soul until he had nothing left.
It had killed him to save her. He almost couldn’t bear it, still, every time he remembered, every time he saw me. But the one thing he truly could not have borne was burying her.
“We’ve been through this,” I gritted out. “You’re incredibly self-involved with regard to erasing me, I get it.” I found the kernel of my anger. It helped me struggle back against him.
He turned to the wall, pressed against it as if he could disappear through it. “I can’t help what I feel.”
“Then maybe you should do some work on yourself, shouldn’t you? Now. Let’s think about Oscar.”
He tried not to. But I flashed on him talking to the guy, carefully, gently, drawing out voluntary admissions in that Australian accent. He asked where, who, how. Oscar’s face betrayed images he hadn’t put into words: a barn, a ranch house, more of the do—
I fell off the bed.
“Cas!” Simon rushed to me. “Cas, remember, you can move outside the fear. Talk to me, Cas.”
Maybe it was all his unfiltered reassurances and worry pushing at me in person, but leaving the panic behind was easier this time. “You saw the dogs,” I gasped. “The rest of them. He—what, he takes care of them? Feeds them?”
Jesus, how many were there? And had D.J. made more people like them—like Coach?
More flashes from Oscar. It jarred us both. The dogs snapped and snarled, and this time, I saw glimpses of Coach too, in the same place, a chaotic tangle of mindless fright. Simon’s hand on my shoulder gripped me so hard, it went painful.
“You’re affected by them too?” I said.
“I have to—like with Oscar, I have to convince myself out of it. I don’t know if in person…”
“Well, we’re going to find out,” I said.
“What? No, Cas, that’s not a—you shouldn’t—I won’t—”
He was right. It wasn’t a good plan. I struggled against the certainty, but fortunately, I could set the battle aside for a moment while I concentrated on asking more about Oscar. Simon didn’t want me to, which made it terribly hard even to order my thoughts enough to ask anything else, but since he was thinking about not wanting me to ask, he was necessarily thinking about Oscar anyway, no matter how hard he tried not to.
“Ha,” I gasped. “Again, convenient!”
I was immediately ashamed for mocking him. The poor guy had a head injury, and I was using it to read his mind.
But as much as Simon’s imposed guilt made me slump in mortification, the thoughts he was trying not to have about what he’d accidentally gleaned from Oscar washed through my consciousness as well. The ranch. How long it took the man to slog there from Los Angeles. The stars wheeling above. The line of mountains on the horizon.
How it felt, going there—everything was always wrong these days, but here was worse, here was always such a fog, high, high as a kite, the drugs, the drugs she said would let him be near, and they did. The dogs wouldn’t attack him anyway; they didn’t see him; nobody saw him; nobody saw nobody saw nobody saw alone alone alone—
“Ow!” I cried, grabbing at my head.
Simon had smashed his own into the wall.
He staggered, blind with the pain. All thoughts of