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gargoyle’s bloodshot eye. “Did you not have suicidal fantasies earlier today?”
    “Excuse me?” I ask, wondering what Wes told her.
    “So, you didn’t threaten to jump out the window?”
    “Okay, yes, but not in the way you think. Plus, my room’s on the ground floor, in case you’ve forgotten. What’s the worst damage I could do? A sprained ankle?”
    “Just tell me,” she says. “Is something weird going on with you? More voices? Mysterious phone calls? Are you having premonitions about some heinous murder that’s yet to happen? Hence my dress, FYI. I had to block all the evil energy somehow .”
    “Except my energy is hardly evil.”
    “No, but some of the stuff you sense is evil.”
    Instead of reminding her that my premonitions have in fact helped saved lives, I sit down on my bed and tell her about the past couple of days.
    “And I’m just hearing all of this now ?” Her sparkly, gold-outlined eyes seem to double in size.
    “I’m sorry,” I say, feeling horrible for keeping secrets. “I mean, I was going to tell you earlier, but the last thing I wanted was to burst your Bonnie Jensen bubble with my depressing parental drama.”
    “Screw bubbles and Jensen. I’m your best friend first, remember?” Kimmie holds me for several moments—the way I wish that Adam had. “So what do we do now?” she asks.
    “I don’t know.” I shrug, breaking the embrace. “I mean, I feel like such a mess.”
    “A little soap and water might help fix that,” she says, not even joking.
    “You have to understand.” I wipe beneath my eyes with a tissue, which comes away with a smudge of residual eye makeup. “It’s one thing when you learn that your aunt is suicidal and that she could possibly be schizophrenic. But it’s another thing altogether when you find out that she’s actually your mother, especially when you have dark thoughts, too.”
    “Oh, puh-leeze, Camelia.” She rolls her eyes. “The darkest you get is hot cocoa without the marshmallows.” She stands up to assess her hair in the dresser mirror. She’s growing it out, inspired by 1920s flapper girls and has dyed it a bright shade of red. “You don’t believe that your parents were just trying to protect you?”
    “I don’t know what to believe, and what makes matters worse is that I’d planned to visit my aunt at the hospital this weekend. Now, I don’t even feel like I can face her.”
    “So, maybe you shouldn’t visit.” She turns back to me again. “Maybe you should give yourself some time, Camelia. You’re human. You’re allowed to react.”
    “Plus,” I continue, trying to fill her in, “as if things couldn’t get more convoluted, my parents aren’t even sure if Alexia knows that she’s my mother.”
    “Does she not remember lying spread-eagled on a delivery table and pushing a basketball-size baby out of a ping-pong-ball-size hole?”
    “I don’t know.” I smirk. “You’ll have to ask her.”
    “And I shall, in due time.” She gives me a sinister grin.
    We continue talking for a while—until I’m so over the drama with my family that I want to switch gears. I try asking Kimmie for more info about her Bonnie Jensen internship, but she isn’t having any of it.
    “No way,” she says. “We’ll have gobs of time to talk about how I’m gonna rock the Big Bad Bonnie Apple this summer. But for now, what do you say we head on over to Brain Freeze? I have a sneaking suspicion that there’s a peanut-butter barrel with our names all over it.”
    “Sounds perfect,” I say, giving her a squeeze.

I slam my back against the steel door of the cell, wishing that I had the power to knock it down. My legs ache from kicking at it. My hands hurt from clawing, smacking, prying, scraping, trying to tear my way out.
    I’m just so incredibly dumb.
    When nothing breaks, I let out a scream. It’s loud and shrill, and it scares even me. My heart pounding, I try to catch my breath. It’s at least several seconds before