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Trusting these men.

Their sole purpose was to destroy me, to harm me, to ruin me. They would think nothing about putting drugs into my food. What better way to destroy someone than to contort their reality?

Tears burned my eyes, but I willed them to remain in place. I would not give this asshole the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Seeing me broken.

It was what they wanted, after all.

“Did you drug me?” I whispered at last. Hoarsely.

Damn it. Even my voice sounded broken, despite my best attempts at keeping it impassive.

Tanner’s eyes flickered to mine, briefly, before resting on a spot above my head. The gate, I realized almost dumbly.

I knew he was going to say yes. There was no other explanation for what I had endured. Magic like that didn’t exist. Even if I did maybe believe in ghosts and demons and angels, I sure as hell didn’t believe in magic schools and superpowers and mass conspiracies.

Instead of answering, Tanner turned on his heel and walked back into the school. He held himself as taut as a bowstring, muscles upon muscles of barely suppressed anger and tension. Only when he was halfway down the hall did he turn back to look at me. His expression was tense, voice terse.

“Don’t leave your room at night,” he said stiffly.

“Is that a threat?” I asked, balling my hand into a fist.

Tanner shook his head. “No. It’s a warning…and one I shouldn’t even be giving you.”

Before I could inquire further, he had disappeared around the corner.

“Son of a monkey anus bitch!” I screamed into the air. Beau placed a hand on my shoulder, turning me toward him, and I willingly burrowed myself into his warm embrace. “Did he drug us?” I whispered. “Did they do this to us?”

A part of me willed him to say yes. I didn’t want to deal with any other alternative. The fear was raw, a wound that hasn’t quite scabbed yet. It permeated the air like a sickly poison.

Beau didn’t speak, no surprise, but held me tighter. His soft lips brushed the top of my head.

Suddenly, it was too much.

Or perhaps it had always been too much. Either way, I couldn’t stand there another moment, in Beau’s arms, acting like I was okay. My head and heart pounded in tandem, and my thoughts whirled madly. It was impossible to sift through them all, to form a coherent understanding of what I witnessed.

Ripping myself out of Beau’s arms, much to his protest, I raced down the hall. I heard him make a strange sound behind me, followed quickly by the slapping of his tennis shoes against the tiles. He abruptly stopped, and I knew he was letting me go.

He understood me better than anyone else, and he knew about my need for space. This revelation from Tanner, whatever the hell it meant, demanded it of me.

My breathing was heavy when I threw myself into my bedroom, locking the door tightly behind me. I remained still for a moment, merely panting against the wooden door, before I moved to my bed.

Was what Tanner said true?

Was I in some sort of hell? Or was this one of those paranormal schools I loved to read about in my books?

Or was this something else entirely? A mere hallucination from the drugs Tanner had alluded to?

They may have claimed that they believed me when I insisted I wasn’t behind Josie’s disappearance, but I knew their characters. Revenge ran through their blood, contaminating their lungs like some sort of pollution. Until I could prove without a doubt that I wasn’t behind Josie’s disappearance, they would continue to come after me.

I thought back to the events in the cafeteria. The professors each adorning a plastic mask. The fear on the students’ faces as they were forcibly removed.

Fear gripped my heart as understanding dawned on me.

I had no idea what was true and what was fake. What was reality and what was some drug-induced hallucination?

Turning my face into my pillow, I let out a scream. No one would hear it, and even if they did, I suspected no one but Beau would care.

But Beau wasn’t with me at that moment. No one was.