Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1) - Gwenda Bond Page 0,68

I gotta go!” Kali skipped away before Terry could even attempt to hug her.

Why did she feel so unsure this would go right? She’d specifically not asked Kali to use her powers, because that would make her no better than Brenner.

She had a week to worry about whether it would work. For now, she walked back through the void, making soundless splashes. She imagined that phantom tigers lurked in the shadows as she went.

5.

They’d been in Hawkins for hours and hours already and Alice knew soon they’d get to leave. Not soon enough, but she held on to the fact. The electricity was done for today. So she sat on the edge of the cot and waited for the entire marathon day to be over.

She’d been more reserved than usual with Dr. Parks, answering her questions with every word chosen carefully. Dr. Parks hadn’t seemed to notice. The idea of Brenner knowing what she saw and understanding…it had scared Alice to her core.

But she’d be strong for Terry. And for the little girl in the future.

Alice had glimpsed her again in today’s visions. She’d been repeating something back to a pleased Brenner. That had been it, and then her brain took over with a surge of random imagery. She’d pushed herself the other night, almost too far. She could feel herself stretched thin, and so today she’d been careful not to press.

If only there was some way to tell that girl in the future she wasn’t alone, that Alice watched for and suffered for her. That Terry was going to help her. That they all knew about her.

But, of course, there wasn’t.

Dr. Parks had left, along with the orderly, after a “Code Indigo” had been announced over the PA in the here and now. “Indigo” was a nice word. A nice color. The suggestion and the remaining acid in her system bathed the room in a rich purple-blue hue. When the door opened, Alice expected Dr. Parks to appear and tell her it was time to go.

Instead it was a little girl. Not her little girl, though.

No, this was the one Terry had described. Somehow Alice hadn’t pictured her in a hospital gown identical to the one she wore. The girl was even smaller, younger, than the one in Alice’s visions of the future.

Alice got up from the cot and moved closer to her. Maybe she was hallucinating. Finally.

“Kali?” She squinted. “Are you really here?”

The girl grinned at her. “How did you know? Did you just know?” Then she shook her head. “Terry told you. I was hoping you were like me. Who are you?”

“I’m Alice.” She grinned back at the girl, unable not to. This was no mirage or acid-caused vision. She was in Alice’s room. How? “Are you supposed to be in here?”

“Nope!” Kali sang with glee. “I ran away. I wanted to meet Terry’s friends. She asked me to make a distraction. Are we friends now, too?”

“Of course we are,” Alice said. “I thought Terry was asking you to do that next week.” That had been the plan—did it change?

The girl rolled her eyes. “I’ll do it ’gain.”

Alice had been wondering something. “When you make illusions, does it hurt?”

“Nope,” Kali said. “Well…sometimes my head burns a little.” Alice watched as she swiped under her nose as if wiping something away. “A little blood comes out.”

“Are you hurt?” Alice descended upon her, determined to fix it if so. She muscled her way past short flailing arms and took Kali’s jaw to give her nose a closer look. Fat chance of Kali shaking off a grip that had been practiced on a dozen squirming brothers and cousins.

“I’m not doing it now,” Kali said, continuing to resist. “And anyway, it’s just the cost when it happens.”

“What cost?”

Kali shrugged her off. “That’s what Papa says. The cost of ’lusions.”

“The cost.” Alice gaped, then remembered she was the adult here. “You shouldn’t pay a cost. You’re a child.”

“You’re a child!” Kali countered. “You don’t know! You’re normal!”

Alice put a hand on the girl’s arm and held it there when she tried to shake her off. “Kali, look at me. I do understand. And I’m not normal. They hook me up to machines here and that pain, that’s my cost…The cost for the things I have to see.”

“What things?” Kali was interested now.

No way Alice was telling her about monsters and tortured little girls.

“You make illusions, things that aren’t there, right? Well, I see things that aren’t taking place right here,