Read Mind Games: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 6) for Free Online Page B

I’d just been released from a mental hospital. I was nowhere even close to being good dating material.
    “What the hell are you talking about?” I squeaked, wishing I could pull myself out of his arms, but somehow he’d cinched tighter around me like a Chinese finger trap.
    “The Sadie Hawkins dance tomorrow. You want to go right?” he asked in that way that wasn’t really a question which was unfortunate because I didn’t want to go. I mean, I was cute and all, but wanting to bring a supposedly crazy person as your date was, well, insane. It made exactly zero sense, given everything I knew about high school. No, it was more likely I’d wind up being doused in pig’s blood. Then again, if that happened, I might regain my magic. Still, something about Charlie sort of creeped me out although I didn’t know why.
    I opened my mouth to tell him that but no sound came out. My eyes went wide with fright as I tried to reach up to touch my face.
    “Lillim, what’s the answer to the question on the board?” my teacher asked, gesturing at some kind of nonsensical math equation on his whiteboard with his laser pointer.
    I blinked. “What?” I looked around in disbelief. I would swear to everything that was holy I’d just been in the hallway talking to Charlie. Now I was in class? How? Where had the time gone? I tried to think back, to remember what had happened.
    “Anytime you’re ready to join us, Miss Callina,” the teacher huffed. He had bright red hair that was parted down the side and a white dress shirt that was untucked from his jeans. He looked vaguely like professor Matthers from Calculus in that other reality but at the same time not. Like a cheap carbon copy where the details didn’t matter that much.
    “Um, sorry, could you repeat the question?” I asked, trying to read the words on the board and failing. It just looked like a bunch of strange squiggles. I rubbed my eyes.
    “If a train leaves Tulare at seventy miles per hour and another train leaves Osaka at 42.3 kilometers per second, at what point will they both reach Shanghai?” he asked, tapping one dress shoe on the white tile floor in annoyance.
    “Um, never? Those three places are separated by huge bodies of water,” I murmured but as soon as I said the words, the teacher huffed in annoyance.
    “No, Lillim.” He shook his head. “I honestly don’t see how you’re going to pass if you don’t try harder. I’m not just going to give you some kind of special pass.” He left the “for being insane” part of his statement unsaid, but it still hung in the air between us for a moment.
    He turned and pointed at a blond boy with ice blue eyes. “Ian, what’s the answer?”
    “Forty two,” Ian said with a smirk. “That’s the answer to everything.”
    “Indeed,” the professor replied with a shake of his head. “I’m glad someone was paying attention.”
     

Chapter 6
    The entire day passed in an incomprehensible blur until I was standing in front of the school with my head spinning like a top. I couldn’t quite explain it, but it sort of felt like I’d pop into a scene, but as soon as I gained even a modicum of comprehension about where it was, I’d drop into a new one. Then I’d scramble to orient myself to the strange reality befalling me. Over and over. All day long.
    There’d been a point when I’d tried to swallow a handful of pills to stop it, but that only seemed to make things worse. I glanced at the garbage can to my left and gripped the pill bottle I’d been popping capsules from like a PEZ dispenser. With one unceremonious flick of the wrist, I tossed the remaining ones into the trash. It wasn’t like they were working anyway, and paranoid or not, I was starting to think they made things worse. Then again, that’s what a crazy person would think.
    “Goddammit!” I growled to myself as I padded forward onto the green lawn in front of the school and looked up at the sunlight filtering through the canopy of trees