Then the lawyer said, “Richard didn’t like you spying; Mrs. Raines didn’t like you watching.” Vondra went white like Casper the Friendly Ghost.

“Richard loves me,” she said. “Mrs. Raines didn’t like him.” She pointed to where Dylan sat. “I overheard her once saying he did things that scared her.”

Panic flooded Dylan, filled his brain until there wasn’t room for anything else. People’s lips would move but he wouldn’t hear anything-or the words made no sense. They could have been speaking Chinese for all he knew.

Except he knew he was supposed to understand.

Terror sharpened, began cutting the inside of his skull; he could feel it knife into the bone. Then he could no longer see, not like he should have been seeing. Lights would grow dimmer or brighter, except they didn’t. Nobody else saw them do it. Walls, especially pale walls, changed color from white, to pink, to grey. Faces mutated subtly to become frightening.

The fifth or sixth day of the trial, Dylan woke up too scared to look into the mirror. His reflection might melt, become monstrous, and his mind would snap, the kind of crazy snap that showed and got people stuck in rubber rooms with canvas coats that tied in the back. Dylan knew he couldn’t be shut up all by himself, all in himself. He had to seem okay.

At least, okay for a monster.

He shut down. He moved hardly at all, then carefully, robotically, nothing flapping or wriggling out of control. Food tasted like sawdust. It stuck in his throat halfway down, a glob of paste. He never looked at his plate. If he looked too long, the noodles or whatever might begin to writhe. He ate to stay alive, and he wasn’t truly committed even to that. The people who made his meals, the people who served them, they all hated him. They could poison the food or, worse, pee or spit on it.