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to be careful enough.” He didn’t want to freak her out. Wait. Yeah, he did. If that’s what it took to make sure she kept herself safe, then that’s what he wanted. “Right now Yana’s out there coming up with another plan to make you dead.”
    “I know. I get it. Al right? I get it,” Rae snapped. She wrapped her towel around her shoulders. “I’m going to go change.”
    “I’l meet you right outside the locker-room door,” Anthony promised.
    “You sure you don’t want to come in and watch me change?” Rae shot back.
    “Is that an offer?” Anthony joked, his imagination already going there.
    Rae smiled. “Sorry, but no.”
    “I wasn’t trying to piss you off before,” Anthony said. “I know you can handle yourself. I just… worry.”
    “Yeah. Me too,” Rae admitted.
    “Last night I had a dream about Steve Mercer,” Mandy confessed. She pul ed an old sweatshirt out from under her pil ow. Rae recognized the sweatshirt-it had belonged to Mandy’s mom. “I don’t even know what the guy looks like, but in the dream I knew it was him. And I was some kind of superhero, but a sort of evil one. Like Catwoman, but without the skintight outfit. Anyway. I hur led Mercer onto the ground, and I stomped on him over and over. Until blood started to leak out of his ears.” Mandy used both hands to push her long, light brown hair away from her face. “Very nice, huh?”
    “Very normal,” Rae answered, thinking about the conversation she’d just had with Anthony at the pool.
    “So there’s not, like, a psycho kil er inside me, ready to pop out?” Mandy asked, without meeting Rae’s eyes.
    “If there’s one in you, there’s one in me. ’Cause I’ve definitely had some nasty fantasies about torturing Mercer,” Rae told her.
    “I… I know that you and Yana and I have a lot in common. Moms who were murdered because of the group. Genes that have be en messed with. But that doesn’t mean the two of us are going to turn out like Yana.”
    Mandy held the sweatshirt up to her face, pul ed in a deep breath, then tucked the sweatshirt back under her pil ow. “She se emed so cool that time she was over here with you. She seemed to real y get how I was feeling about my mom’s death and everything.”
    “I know. I felt the same way. When I thought I was going nuts-before I knew I had my fingerprint thing-Yana was…” Rae hesitated, flashing on the conversation with Anthony. He wouldn’t like to hear what she was about to say, but she said it, anyway. “Yana kept me going. I might have lost it completely if it wasn’t for her.”
    “But it was al a big lie, right? From the beginning, she was out to get you,” Mandy said.
    “Yeah. I’m sure getting herself assigned as a volunteer in the mental hospital was even part of her plan,” Rae answered. Except Yana had been so decent to-Stop. When are you going to accept that Yana completely played you? Rae asked herself. Why are you still trying to believe that some of your so-called friendship was actually real?
    “Anthony’l probably show up soon with something of Yana’s. You want to give me some of your sister’s boyfriend’s stuff to to uch before he gets here?” Rae asked, going for a screeching subject change.
    “That would be so great. I’ve got a whole col ection of Zeke skankobilia,” Mandy answered. She jumped off the bed and picked up a shoe box off the floor, kicking an empty Ben & Jerry’s container out of the way. “Here you go.” She dropped the box next to Rae.
    Rae pul ed a Kleenex out of her purse and wiped the coat of wax off the fingers of her right hand so she’d be ready to receive fingerprint info. “Here goes,” she muttered. She picked up a Howard Stern coffee mug with her left hand and then ran the unpro tected fingers of her right over the mug’s slick ceramic surface.
    wearing panties? bitter/what was/dad home?/to couch/
    Rae set the mug down. The taste of overbrewed coffee fil ed her mouth. And God, she