The Evolution of Mara Dyer

I didn’t, but how did he know what I believed?

“I don’t believe that either,” he said. “You saw the video.” He shook his head. “God, that laugh, Mara. Really creepy.”

“How did you get it?” I asked him. “How did you get out?”

“How did you trigger the pulley system?” he asked me, moving closer. “How did you get the doors to close? Did you just think it and it happened?”

Was that how I did it?

“I heard the levers shriek and then ran to the doors, but they closed on my hands,” he said. His eyes studied my face. “You actually smiled at me when I turned to look at you. You smiled.”

The memory flickered in my mind.

One second, he had pressed me so deeply into the wall that I thought I would dissolve into it. The next, he was the trapped one, inside the patient room, inside with me. But I was no longer the victim.

He was.

I laughed at him in my crazed fury, which shook the asylum’s foundation and crushed it. With Jude and Claire and Rachel inside.

“What kind of person does that?” he asked, almost to himself.

Own yourself. My lips were dry and sour. My tongue was sandpaper, but I found my voice. “What kind of person does this? What kind of person forces himself on someone else?”

His nostrils flared. “Don’t pretend you didn’t want it,” he said sharply. “You wanted me for months. Claire told me.” Jude crouched next to me, his cheek close to my ear. He held up the box cutter in front of my eye. “This could happen two ways. One, you do it yourself. Two, I do it for you. And if you make me do it for you, I am going to take my time.”

The blade was so close to my eyes that I squeezed them shut reflexively. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because you deserve it,” he hissed in my ear.

52

HELPLESSNESS AND FEAR WARRED WITH hatred and defiance—I didn’t know what to do or say, but the longer I kept him talking, the longer I would stay alive.

“They have you on camera,” I said, grasping for anything. “They’ll know you did this.”

He laughed. “At the police station? Did you tell them it was me?” He took my chin in his hand. “You did. I can tell just by looking at you. Let me guess—they have a guy on camera who was wearing long sleeves, baggy clothes, and a baseball cap. And you thought they’d believe it was your dead boyfriend? No wonder they think you’re crazy.” He sucked in his lower lip. “And let’s be honest, you kind of are. But it does make this easier,” he said, glancing down at the box cutter. “Less messy.”

He stood from his chair and my veins flooded with adrenaline, bringing everything into sharper focus. I felt wrung-out and picked clean, but my wrists were less numb. My legs were less limp.

The drugs were wearing off.

“Why’d you come to the police station? To school?” I asked. Begged.

“I wanted you to know I was alive,” he said, and I was so grateful just to hear words issue from his mouth that I could have cried with relief. “I thought you saw me at—What’s it called?”

“What?”

“Your old school.”

“Croyden,” I said.

He snapped his fingers. “Right. You ran,” he said with a smirk. A snake smile, reptilian and cold. “And the precinct? I didn’t know why you were going. But I was—” he paused, considering his words. “Concerned. I wanted to distract you.”

It worked. “You could have killed me a hundred times before now. Why wait?”

Jude smiled in response. Said nothing. Lifted the blade.

Oh, God. “What about your family?” I whispered. Talk, Jude. Talk.

“Claire was my family.” Jude’s voice was different now. Less harsh. He swallowed and took a deep breath. “You know what they found?” he asked evenly as he moved behind me. “She was so badly mangled they had to have a closed casket.”

“Rachel too,” I said in a low voice.

It was the wrong thing to say. Jude crouched next to me, his cheek close to my ear. “Please,” he said, and grabbed my hand.

And this feeling, this terror, was something new. Like nothing I’d ever experienced—not earlier, in the trunk, or in the asylum.

“Why should I help you kill me?” My voice was barely more than a breath. Barely a whisper.

He was close again. So close. Behind me, next to my ear. “You can choose, Mara. Your one life, or two of your brothers’.” He reached around and held the blade against my cheek. Reminding me what he could do.

And reminding me of something else.

His watch, his Rolex, the same one Noah saw in his vision, was inches from my face. “Nice watch,” I whispered. Keep talking. Keep talking.

“Thanks.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Abe Lincoln,” he sneered.

“Why did you take Joseph?”

Jude said nothing.

“He’s twelve.” My voice sounded like a wail.

Jude’s stare was ice. “A brother for a sister.”

My hate grew, a formless, shapeless mass that devoured my fear. “You used to talk about football with him at my house.”

Jude laughed then, and the word that reverberated in my mind was sick.

“I had this whole plan,” he said, sounding exasperated. “I was going to bring Daniel over for a party—don’t worry, I wasn’t going to hurt him either. You were.”

I would’ve shaken my head, but the blade was too close. “I’d never hurt him.”

“Never say never,” he said seriously. His voice turned quiet. “I can make you do anything I want.” Then he sighed. “But someone had to go and be a hero,” he rolled his eyes. “And now here we are.”

“I’m not a—”

Jude chuckled. “You think I mean you?” he said, wrinkling his nose and moving closer. His breath was in my ear, tickling me. “You are no hero, Mara Dyer. You’d do anything to get what you want. Which makes you just. Like. Me.”

Then he moved in front of me so that I could see him. Stood up to his full height. He was broad and enormous and immovable before me. His eyes sca

Make him talk. I grasped for words, for anything. “Why’d you take Joseph to the Everglades?”

“I told you already. And if you’re going to dispose of a body in Florida, there’s really no better place.”

But the shed—the property was owned by my father’s client. By Leon Lassiter. “Why there?”

“It was a suggestion.”

I was reeling. “From who?”

“A mutual friend,” he said, as he inspected my wrists. Turned them over. Glanced at the blade.

My family might believe that I would kill myself. After everything that happened, it was possible. But, “Why would I come here?” I asked urgently. Tell me where we are.

“You wouldn’t want them to find you at home, would you? Where Joseph could be the one to find your body? No, you’d do it somewhere out of the way. Somewhere you’d be found pretty quick, but not by anyone you knew. You took Daniel’s car tonight, by the way.”

He sounded so proud of himself. It made me want to cut out his tongue.

Jude moved behind me. Dragged my chair to the back of the room, which was when I noticed that there was, in fact, another door; it was painted the same color as the walls and there was no knob, so I didn’t notice it until he pushed it open, dragging me through.

“You know, I always thought that once I had you like this, what I would want most would be to kill you for what you did. But I wonder if there might be something worse?” His eyes slithered over my skin.

I couldn’t bear him staring at me that way. I squeezed my eyes shut.

He shook the chair and my teeth chattered. “Hey.” Shake. “Look at me.” He was right in my face and he took my chin in his hand. “Look at me.”

There was nothing I could do. I was alone. My eyes opened.