After lunch, they ushered us out into the garden for a little therapeutic work in the dirt. It was a large patch, over an acre of land. Neatly tended rows of nearly ripe fruits and vegetables were taken care of by the more capable patients.

It was a beautiful day, and the warm sun soaked into me, easing away the chill that seemed to permeate the hospital no matter the temperature. I felt tension that I hadn't been aware of unclenching from around my heart. The forest that backed the hospital hugged us with foreboding, but it was easy to keep my eyes on the green growing things and forget—for the moment—about possession and murder.

I watched Mildred picking weeds in the far corner of the garden. Mildred usually stayed clear of me during the day. Her mind was always more focused at night. I had asked her several times what had brought her to this place, and she'd never been able to give a clear answer. Once, I'd overheard some of the nurses talking about her. Years ago, her young daughter had drowned in a lake not far from their house. Shortly after the tragedy, Mildred had a complete mental breakdown. Apparently, she blamed herself for her daughter's death, and she never got over it.

When I'd first met Mildred, our conversations were nonsensical. But as time progressed, especially in the evenings, she started to open up to me. When I'd finally explained why I'd come and how I was attempting to bring Luke back, she'd offered her help. She knew what it was like to lose someone, and had she been able to do it, I knew she would've tried to bring her own daughter back. I'd assured her more than a few times that I'd never felt her daughter's presence. If her daughter's spirit lingered, she wasn't talking to me. Mildred took the silence as a sign her daughter had crossed over to the light. I hoped she was right. No one should have to live with the knowledge that their loved one was stuck in between.

Mildred helped me, and in exchange I'd promised to take her with us when we escaped. What she would do once she was on the outside, I had no idea. If nothing else, I could send her on to my clan with a note asking them to give her sanctuary. In the note, I might try to explain why I wouldn't be coming back. I wouldn't tell the clan the truth about what happened to me—there was no way they would understand. Instead, I would make up some lie and hope they'd eventually come to accept my absence.

My immediate family was dead, but I had uncles, aunts, and over a dozen cousins. I missed being part of a large community. There was a comfort in being part of a group you had grown up with. Now it was just Luke and me against the world. No, I corrected myself, it's Luke, me, and Dean.

And Dean.

I wasn't sure how this whole thing was going to play out. Dean was keeping something from me, and I had no idea what it was. I wanted to trust him, I really did, but my gut was telling me I had to watch my back, especially when he was around. So far, Dean had offered to help Luke and me, but I still wasn't clear on why. He should be trying to force Luke out. He should be ratting me out to the hospital staff. One word from him about how I'd come into this place under false circumstances and the staff would turn me out. Or worse—pass me over to the Phoenix Guild.

I glanced over to Dean, who knelt in the garden a few rows up. He was picking tomatoes and putting them into a round basket. After taking back partial possession of his body, Dean seemed to speed up his recovery.

Maybe it was just the combined efforts of Dean and Luke but moving from a wheelchair to easy coordination in just a few days was incredible. I decided I needed to make learning more about Dean a priority. He seemed willing to spend time talking to me, so in theory it should be easy enough to keep steering the conversation back to him.

I watched him move effortlessly around the garden when suddenly the urge to go into the forest hit me with so much strength it actually knocked the breath out of me. I fell back onto the grass as though I'd been physically struck. I looked toward the forest.

She's out there, calling to me. I pushed off the ground and walked toward the trees. We were supposed to stay in the garden area. The forest was off-limits. In the back of my mind, I knew one of the half dozen staff out here watching would probably stop me before I made it to the forest's edge, especially since the fence lay on the other side of the trees, but I didn't care. The urgency inside me was so strong I could barely think. She needs me to find her.

I started to jog and stopped with surprise when a hand clamped down on my shoulder and turned me around.

"What are you doing?"

I looked into Dean's face, trying to comprehend what he was saying. My mind was so full of her and the need to find her that I couldn't seem to focus.

I shook off his grip and ran into the trees. I broke through the bushes and branches and made my way deeper into the forest. She was there, only a few feet away. I felt it in every fiber of my being. I fell to my knees and started clawing the dirt.

"Colina, what are you doing?" Dean shouted.

I can hear her screams. "Help me!" I pleaded as I dug in the soil, trying to reach her.

Dean watched me for a long moment, his face filled with concern, but then he knelt down beside me to help. "What's this about? The orderlies saw you make a break for it. They're just seconds behind us."

I didn't care about anything but digging. And then my fingers curled around it. I yanked with all my strength, and it came loose. I raised it in the air.

It was a skull.

I looked into the empty eye sockets and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

* * *

There was pain—a hot, white, blinding pain. The all-body ache shot through me again. I felt as though I was on fire. There was an awful pressure on my chest, like someone was sitting on me.

A white cloaked figure danced a few feet away in the moonlight. The pressure grew worse, crushing me hard enough that I couldn't breathe. And then the figure stepped toward me. The hood of the cloak lowered, and then a man hovered over me. The agony made it impossible to think or even function.

The figure moved away and raised something in the air. The sound of beating filled the night. Another wave of pain raced through me, this time even more intense. I opened my mouth and screamed.

The beating got louder. I shrieked again.

A ray of moonlight crossed the man, and I could see clearly. He held my beating heart in his hands. The pain was so intense I thought I would pass out. Unfortunately, I didn't, conscious and withering in agony.

The man stopped speaking. The night was silent. Blood dripped down his hands, gliding along his fingers and across his wrists. Each time my heart quivered, more pain raced through me.

He opened his mouth, and with an evil grin, placed my still-beating heart between his teeth and tore off a piece. Horrific agony consumed me. He took another bite, and a gush of blood oozed out of his mouth and down his chin, dripping onto the dirt below him.

With one more bite, my heart stopped beating.

All the air inside me left as if a giant wave carried it away into the night. The wave swirled out of the ether sea to surround me. Then it spiraled up into the sky and came crashing down against me.

This time when it rose, it took the essence of my being with it. It tore my soul from my body and spun it in a wild tornado up into the night sky. I screamed again, but in silence. I floated above my body now, looking down at it. Vacant eyes stared up at me though the pain was still there. I watched as he put my mangled heart aside, wrapped in a cloth and placed gently within a black bag. Then he dug, and the sound of shoveling filled the air. After some time, he finished digging and rolled my body into the hole. One shovelful of dirt at a time landed on me, slowly covering and then concealing my body entirely below the ground.

The man walked away, dragging my spirit along with him. He headed toward the hospital, and without a glance backward, walked away from my grave.

* * *

I opened my eyes to find two orderlies dragging me across the grass.

"It's just a misunderstanding. Let her go!" Dean walked beside us. Strain showed in his expression. "Colina, tell them you weren't trying to escape."

One of the orderlies shouted, "Shut your trap. Do you think I'm happy having to chase this little harpy through the brush?"

I recognized the voice. I turned my head and my stomach dropped as I recognized the men who held me—Larry and Hank, the same orderlies who'd forced water and pills down my throat in solitary confinement.

Hank laughed. "She can cool her heels in a padded cell for a while."

They were taking me back there, where they had stick me in a straitjacket and drug me again. At the thought, I lost it. I yelled, I kicked, I bit. They were stronger than I was, but that didn't stop me.

I arched back and bucked in the air, twisting my body, trying to force myself free.

I heard Dean yell, "Don't!"

Something hard slammed against my head, and everything around me went black.

* * *

I woke to find myself lying on a bed, my arms stretched out on either side of me, a leather restraint tied around each wrist. Dr. Barton stood at the foot of the bed, clipboard in hand. Nurse Harrington was at his side.

The doctor came around the side of the bed. "Good, you're awake. How are you feeling?"

The side of my head felt bruised. My temples pounded. "What happened?"

"The orderlies had no choice. They had to keep you from hurting yourself."

So they smashed me in the head and knocked me out? I wasn't trying to hurt myself, but I knew better than to voice my opinions. When it came to sides, the doctor stood clearly with the orderlies.

Barton looked down at his clipboard. "Unfortunately, while you were struggling with the orderlies, you fell hard and hit your head."

He's lying. I can hear it in his voice. He knows they hurt me. I clearly remembered feeling something—a fist? —come down against the side of my head. I didn't bother responding.

He looked over at the nurse. "I think we may have to try the lightning therapy again. Sometimes it takes two or three sessions before we see a lasting improvement in a patient."

This time I couldn't conceal my panic. "You want to do lightning therapy on me...again?"

He nodded, took out a pen, and started scribbling notes. "Yes, I think it might be best if we go through the procedure again. Your behavior of late seems to warrant a more radical approach than therapy and drugs alone. I was hoping that, after the first time, we could help you maintain a balance with the medications. But after this last incident, I don't see that we've much choice but to try the procedure a second time. Especially since we initially saw such a vast improvement in you."

"I don't want you shooting electricity through me." I forced myself to stay calm. Getting hysterical is not going to help. You already lost it once in the garden and look what happened.

"The voltage for lightning therapy isn't extreme." He gave me a reassuring smile. "It's only around seventy to a hundred and ten volts. I assure you, it's a perfectly safe procedure. The current only runs through you for a half a second to a second."

"Last time you did it, I had no memory of who I was."

"Your memory loss was not permanent. Mental fogginess, some memory loss... Yes, these things can be expected, but as you yourself experienced, they are temporary. Within a few days you had your memory back. You were clearheaded. Your depression significantly decreased, as did the violent outbursts. I think you have to agree that after this recent incident, we may have no other course of action."

"But I didn't have a psychotic break," I demanded. "I wasn't trying to escape. I heard a spirit calling me. I felt compelled to go find her. She desperately wanted me to find her body."

His condescending smile froze on his face as he tried to process my words. That got his attention.

"Her body is buried in the woods," I continued. "If you go back there, you'll find her skull. I uncovered it. The rest of her is buried out there. You just have to get some men and dig." Both the nurse and the doctor watched me closely now, and I could tell by the looks on their faces that they didn't believe a word I said. I had to make them believe. I couldn't let them do lightning therapy on me again.

What could I do to convince them I was telling the truth? I had felt a spirit around Barton before, but I'd never focused on it or allowed myself to listen to it. I couldn't risk him finding out I was a death dealer before, but now I needed him to believe me when I told him I could talk to the dead.

I decided to open myself to any entities that might be in the room, desperate for a way to convince him to take me seriously.

And there it was—the ghost I had felt before, the one that sometimes swirled around the doctor. A chilly breeze ran across my hand, and a voice only I could hear whispered in my ear.

I repeated what it told me. "Your mother. She says she never meant to cause you pain when she disciplined you."

Barton's eyes narrowed.

I didn't give him a chance to interrupt. "I can hear her. She's speaking to me now. Her spirit is in the room with us. I'm not hearing random voices, Dr. Barton. I'm a death dealer. The dead are talking to me."

His eyes grew wide. "No, you—you're a healer."

I shook my head. "I'm not. I'm a death dealer. I've been through the three rituals."

He released my right wrist from its restraint, turned it over, and exposed the blue swallow tattoo. "You, my dear, are a healer. These voices you think you hear are part of your mental breakdown."

"No. I was a healer, but then I went through the rituals. I learned the Death Arts. I do hear voices—the voices of the dead. I didn't have a breakdown before. I was possessed by a spirit."

"That's not possible. Healers can't be possessed." But he didn't seem as sure as he had been. He looked to the nurse as if to seek her support. Then he turned to look at the door, as though he couldn't wait to dismiss me along with what I was saying,

I blurted, "Your mother says that as a child you were afraid of the dark. That's why she put you down in the basement. She wanted you to grow up strong. She wanted you to get over your fears."

He turned ashen. "How could you—"

I didn't let him finish. "I can talk to the dead. Ask Dean. He'll tell you it's true. He knows me from...before." I just hoped that when they questioned Dean, he would catch on quick enough to cover my lies.

Now I wished I could have kept my secret longer. The word was out. Even though the hospital was isolated, it wouldn't take long for this kind of gossip to spread out of the hospital and through the mage communities. Talk of a healer who'd learned the Death Arts...

That kind of gossip might find its way to Luke's family.

And if they got windof it—if they knew where I was—they would hunt me down, and at the firstopportunity, kill me.

***