5

“You never cease to surprise me, you know that?” Evelyn said. “Every time I think you’ve reached your ceiling, a theoretical limit, you find entirely new ways to be staggeringly stupid. And for God’s sake, lock the door.”

Raine hurried to close the door and throw the latch. “Look, Evee-”

“And stop calling me that right now. In case you can’t tell, I am not best pleased with you.”

“Evelyn, look.” Raine cast about and settled on me. “I’m really sorry about this, Heather, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

“I don’t- I don’t want to be involved in this,” I said in a very small voice, and put up both my hands in a gesture of surrender. If I could have vanished into the floor at that exact moment, I would have done so. This was like an argument between an old married couple. I’d never felt so awkward. My stomach was churning and my face was flushed with embarrassment. “I can just leave. I’m sorry.”

“See, Raine?” Evelyn said. “She’s got a lick of sense. She knows when to cut her losses and run. Perhaps you should learn from her.”

I edged toward the door. I was consumed by a sense that Evelyn was like a dangerous dog, that she’d go for me if I turned my back.

“Evee, give me five minutes to explain, this is all going to make sense,” Raine said, then turned to me and put a hand out to stall my retreat. “Please don’t go, Heather. This is all just a misunderstanding, it’s my fault, I promise, Evee’s not usually this bad.”

“What’s to explain?” Evelyn said. “You had me send you the warding sign so you could impress a girl you met less than twelve hours ago. So you could what? Tag your conquest?”

“Excuse me?” I bristled and turned a frown on Raine. “Conquest?”

“It’s not like that,” Raine said to me. She said it with a smile, with such charm that under different circumstances I would have believed her; I wanted to believe her.

“And worse than that,” Evelyn continued, “you gave her a key to the department, where you knew I was going to be. What on earth were you thinking? She could be anybody.”

Raine turned that same winning smile on Evelyn, but also spread her hands in frustration. “You think I would put you in danger? You think I would let anybody dangerous within a hundred feet of you? You really think I would do that?”

That threw me for a loop. Danger? It had a similar effect on Evelyn too, she visibly dialled back for a moment, awkward and averting her gaze.

“Look,” Raine said. “The reason I brought Heather here is that she’s the real deal. She’s had … experiences.”

Pounding in my head. I boiled over.

”You two really believe all this stuff, don’t you? I’m not your kind of crazy.”

“Heather, it’s not like that.”

“Oh?” Evelyn smirked, razor-thin. “Then, please, enlighten me. What exact manner of nut case are we dealing with this time, Raine?”

The way she looked away from me to Raine broke a fragile little thing inside me. I raised my chin. Made myself stand tall and straight.

“Schizoaffective disorder,” I said, and was rewarded with the snap of Evelyn’s attention back to me. I tried to keep my voice steady and defiant as I used my dirty little secret as a bludgeon. I was halfway successful, but I felt shameless and disgusted at myself. “With co-morbid hallucinatory and dissociative episodes, non-specific triggers. That’s what I was diagnosed with as a child, thank you.”