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10:30 PM

MINDCASTERS

"Give it one more chance, Loverboy Please"

Rex didn&039;t answer, didn&039;t even stop cli the stairs toward the attic His expression didn&039;t change, as if he hadn&039;t heard her plea at all Not that she&039;d expected hiht in the desert, Rex put up a normal front for the others, but around Melissa he often let his not-so-human side show

Even here in Madeleine&039;s house Melissa could taste the darklings inside hi the ht as well talk to the desert sand as try to reach that part of hio that easy

Melissa dashed after hirab his left ankle froing hith

"Wait a da down at her, emotionless His eyes flashed in that creepy neay they did, soht even in normal time

His lips curled away froht she&039;d gone too far He would turn into a beast once and for all and devour her right there, leaving Madeleine&039;s staircase littered with her bones

But then the expression on his face turned into a wry sirl?" he said "Jealous?"

"Just wait a minute, Rex Please?"

He looked down at his captive boot and raised one eyebrow

Melissa turned his ankle loose, realizing that she was half kneeling on the stairs, like so to crawl up to bed She took a deep breath to cal down on the steps Then she pointed one black fingernail at the spot next to her

After an infuriating pause, as if his oldest friend in the world was so hard to deal with, the staircase began to creak and shift under his weight as he descended He sat down beside her

"I&039;m not jealous of Madeleine," she said "But you used to be, remember?"

"Vividly"

Melissa snorted "Glad to hear that I&039;d hate it if you gave up jealousy It&039;s probably the only thing in the world everyone&039;s good at Everyone besides me, of course"

"Of course"

"This isn&039;t about h It&039;s about us" Melissa winced at her oords and glanced up at hione back to nor in her stoirls, that sour paranoia that their boyfriends&039; interest in the Melissa had alritten them off as dorky and contemptible; she&039;d never realized that rejection was so painful

Of course, things were bound to be ahen your boyfriend was changing into a different species

She took his hand, and his taste filled her She focused on the surface of his ht patterns of Rex Greene Even during all those years she&039;d been unable to touch hi Melissa could cling to The old Rex was still in there

Of course, that fa How could so be wrapped around such darkness?

"Let ain"

"We already tried It&039;s useless" He shrugged "And who knows? Maybe Madeleine can&039;t get inside me either But it&039;s been a week; I don&039;t hat I got fros to fade before she has a chance to look for it"

"Believe " The blackness at his core was as solid as tar

"Well, it isn&039;t any clearer either, Cowgirl, no matter how many times we&039;ve done this We need Madeleine&039;s help Sa, Melissa pushed herself farther into hihts flow across the human surface of his mind

This time she didn&039;t try to crack the darkness at his center Rex was probably right: whatever the darklings had left behind was too inhuman for her to reach Melissa instead offered her own store of iacy passed froenerations

Before he went up to the attic, Rex had to knohat mindcasters were capable of

Melissa took Rex to a place in the core of those memories, an event that o, back even before the earliest Spanish settlers had colos and the eastern tribes, there had been a gathering Mindcasters froes of far-off places they&039;d seen - east to the still waters of the Gulf of Mexico, north to where the Rockies reared up; one had traveled as far as the Grand Canyon Since that first es as it had been passed frorown to a thousand mindcasters, all of those who had ever come to Bixby and discovered their power, until finally it had made its way to Melissa

"Wow," he said after a uilt," Melissa said softly

"What do youwas a bad thing, Rex Of those hundreds of ht it ca his head to clear it "So you&039;re saying Angie&039;s wrong? That the Grayfoots fooled her solanced over her shoulder toward the top of the stairs, reassuring herself that Madeleine wasn&039;t within listening range "Since Angie gave us her little lecture, I&039;ve been sifting through theabout - destroying people, altering minds for profit, mass manipulation But I haven&039;t found theers on her knees "For so the truth Does that make any sense?"

Rex nodded "Maybe they passed down an edited version"

"What they passed doas unbelievable s I don&039;t think they could question it"

"How do you ain and showed him an unpleasant memory from only a feeeks before - the ainst her will and pried the secret of Madeleine&039;s existence froer over how Dess&039;s mind had been locked by the old mindcaster, effortlessly twisted to hide what she knew And how Melissa had torn it open

When she felt a chill run through Rex, she released his hand

"Why did you show me that?" he asked

"Because you have to re doesn&039;t just affect norhters too"

"I know" His eyes narrowed "But what does that have to do with Bixby&039;s history?"

She looked up at hirew up surrounded by hts every time they shook hands But what if it wasn&039;t just news andon beliefs? And what if at sohters never did anything bad?"

"Decided to believe?"

Melissa leaned closer, speaking softer now, i from just around the corner Melissa had chosen Madeleine&039;s house to have this conversation with Rex for one simple reason: inside its crepuscular contortion, their minds couldn&039;t be overheard

"Over the centuries," she said, "hters started to believe whatever they did was okay, just like people ned slaves used to think they were being &039;good masters&039; or whatever Except unlike slavery, nobody frohters were up to in Bixby It was all secret, and anytime doubts cropped up, there were mindcasters around to squash theh school together, all thinking the sa they&039;re at the center of the universe but for thousands of years"

She looked into his eyes, hoping that he would get it

"Until we ca," Rex said

"Exactly We&039;re ht, Rex Maybe they really did all that evil stuff, but they didn&039;t know they were being evil They couldn&039;t know"

"You haven&039;t asked Madeleine about this yet?"

Melissa shook her head "No way I haven&039;t let her touch ave her little speech"

Rex sie fan now, are you?"

"Not really, but she has the sas have: she makes me feel a lot better about myself"

"Because you never kidnapped anyone?"

"Oh,that the realization would still make sense once she&039;d said it aloud "Madeleine always says I&039;ll never be a real ments to me; to her they&039;re like real people" Melissa shook her head "But what if it&039;s a good thing that I never got indoctrinated? What if I&039;m not the first crazy mindcaster in history, Rex? What if I&039;m the first sane one?"

"Sane" he said, not quite understanding yet

Melissa pressed on "Because no matter how screwed up I happen to be, nothe enerations is not cool"

He took her hand, and all of Melissa&039;s thoughts, which had tumbled out in clumsy words, seemed to order the with the thing she hadn&039;t said aloud

I&039;m sorry about your father, Rex

"You saved me from him, the best you kne," he answered

Melissa looked away, her e Her shame at her own past, her worries that she&039;d already lost Rex to the darklings, her fear of what Madeleine le tear It traveled down her cheek like a drop of acid

Rex sat there thinking, then finally said, "I think you&039;re right Madeleine&039;s going to find o up there with you, Rex I don&039;t care what a badass darkling you are these days You need ain, and she saw a violet spark in the depths of his eyes "You have no idea what I ah "Whatever, Rex Even if you are a monster, I don&039;t want to lose you to her And don&039;t think all those creepy old ive you a run for your money"