Mind Games Read Online Free Page B

don’t answer. Because it does.
    He says, “Aren’t you curious what it would be like to feel healthy and happy for a while?”
    “Healthy and happy?” I repeat his words casually, like it isn’t what I most want in the world. “Not if I have to hurt someone.”
    “Fair enough. But how about a free demonstration? I’ll let you zing the fear into me. You’ll be free of it for weeks, maybe a month.”
    “I don’t want to hurt you, either.”
    “You won’t. Can you generate a fit of health anxiety right now?”
    “Not on command.”
    “Right.” He writes something on a napkin. “Then we’ll provoke an attack. Eventually you’ll learn how to ramp it up on your own.” He turns to Shelby. “Go up to the drugstore and get these.”
    Shelby reads the napkin. “Oh.” She smiles and leaves.
    “What is she getting?”
    “You’ll see,” Packard says.
    “Yeah, we’ll see.” I cross my arms. “It’s never been things that scare me.”
    His cheeks harden, like he’s suppressing a smile.
    I’m a bit nervous now, but I need to see if he can help me. I need to know if what I’m passing up is real. “I’m warning you, when the old ladies pass out the little squares of pizza at the supermarket, I always take one, but I never buy the pizza.”
    He leans into the booth corner, raises a knee above the plane of the table, and drapes a lazy arm over it. “You’ll buy this pizza. It’s topped with wealth, health, and perfect happiness.” His confidence is captivating.
    A waiter brings a bottle of clear liquid and pours us each a fat glass. It smells licoricy. Ouzo. Packard raises his glass, a toast to nothing, drinks it like a shot, and pours himself another.
    “I’m no vigilante.”
    “Naturally.” His lips quirk, as if he secretly finds my resistance amusing, and his eyes seem softer now, a soft green gaze under dusky red lashes. I have to look away, like if I stare at his handsomeness for too long, I’ll get lost in it. I sip my ouzo even though it’s barely afternoon.
    He runs a finger around the rim of his glass. “Wealth, health, and happiness. And membership in a glorious and invincible squad.”
    With this utterance, Packard moves out of the category of
handsome, slightly maniacal highcap
into the realm of
mastermind
.
    “You generate such a high volume of fear. It’s a rare ability.”
    “Thanks,” I mumble, blushing stupidly. Nobody ever admired me for being screwed up.
    “As a disillusionist, you’ll zing that fear into criminal targets, and at the same time you’ll use your warped hypochondriac’s reasoning to draw their attention toward symptoms, diseases, and mortality. In this way, you’ll push them into an attack.” Packard goes on about how they psychologically attack people as I construct and eat a bread-and-kebab treat. They seem to view their criminal targets almost as computers, and overloading and crashing frees them to reboot without their old hurtful, antisocial behavior.
    Then Shelby’s back with a brown paper bag. Packard pushes aside the plates and glasses. “Shelby, what do you have in there?”
    “I have these.” Shelby pulls out a stack of fashion magazines.
    I feel cold.
    Shelby slaps one down in front of me. “Girl in prime of life gets cancer.” Then another. “Staph infection leads to double amputation for young mother.”
    “Oh my God,” I whisper.
    She puts down the next. “Degenerative corsitis attacks intestines of girl on honeymoon.”
    Fashion magazine disease articles. My personal kryptonite.
    Gleefully, Shelby slaps down another. “Blood clot in the leg travels to brain. She is only twenty-four. Dies.”
    I inhale sharply.
    Packard shoves it closer to me. “Excellent. Justine is partial to vascular maladies,”
    “I can’t read that,” I whisper hoarsely.
    “Vascular? Hmm.” Shelby extracts a pink-spined magazine from the bottom of the stack. “Perhaps this—‘Hofstader’s thrombus strikes down young woman out of blue.’”
    I