Mind Games

Maybe New York, maybe Chicago. And another time when she’d milked a freaking cow.

Drifting into her mind was a kind of freedom. A freedom that burned like acid in his throat when he came back to himself, to his cage.

But that one night, the night he walked right in, when she’d seen him, felt him. Feared him. He’d run that show, you bet your ass. Made her see what he wanted her to see, made her see him kill some dipshit playing the guitar.

It had cost him, cost him in pain and the blood that slid out of his screaming ear.

Worth it, he thought now, smiling as he drifted. Worth every bit of it to hear her scream, to feel her fear fly out so it coated him like silk.

He just needed some time for the skull crushing to ease, and he’d do it again. Again and again, until he made it real.

He had to make a plan, a way to get not just his mind but his body out of the cage.

But getting out wasn’t enough. Once he knew where to find her, once he found her, had her look right into his eyes as he killed her.

That would be enough.

* * *

Thea doubled down on her work. Once or twice she felt Riggs scratching at the window, but mentally yanked down a shade and blocked him out.

After some ten-hour days, a polished GDD, dozens of character sketches, she felt nearly ready to run it by her boss.

She already knew the game inside and out. She’d made sure of it.

But today wasn’t for work. She never worked on this day in June. Today, she put on a simple summer dress and her mother’s earrings. Outside, she cut a trio of hydrangeas, knowing her grandmother and brother would do the same.

“Stay, Bunk. You stay home now. Guard.”

He whined a little, but flopped down on the front porch when she got into the car.

Not her indulgent convertible, not today. But the dignified sedan she thought of as mostly her winter car.

When she drove down the lane and passed Ty’s house, she heard music. Something on the piano, something quick and edgy. She wished she could stop and just listen. Just let the day float by in music and sunlight.

She laid a hand over the pale pink flower heads on the seat beside her, and drove on.

Lucy and Rem didn’t keep her waiting. Both came out of the house carrying sprays of hydrangeas. Rem got in the back, and Lucy held Thea’s flowers and her own when she took the passenger seat.

“It’s a pretty day to visit them.”

“It is.” Thea glanced in the rearview at her brother. He sat, silent, looking out the window.

Ten, she thought, so much younger and more tender than her twelve.

“Have you been all right?”

“I’ve been working, Grammie. I’m always all right when I’m working. But the other night…”

She braced herself, and told them.

“Goddamn it, Thea, why didn’t you tell us?”

Because she knew her brother, she’d anticipated the explosion.

“I intended to when you came to dinner Saturday, but then Ty, Bray. It’s not something I could bring up with them there. And after?”

She let out a breath. “After they left, I just didn’t want to. Didn’t want to talk about it, think about it. It was such a nice evening, I just didn’t want to.”