Chasing Sunrise

Twelve

In slow, halting sentences, I told my aunt the truth. The story I hadn't been able to make myself tell Corban came out line by cringeworthy line.

And through it all, Cassie listened, leaning against my door frame, gaze attentive and nonjudgmental. My respect for her went up many, many notches.

Once I'd finished, she chewed the inside of her lip a moment, then said, "I'm thinking maybe hypnosis. People can be talked into pretty strange stuff with post-hypnotic suggestion."

"They can?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yeah, so it is theoretically possible that this is an implanted delusion. The sunrise thing, that could also be post-hypnotic suggestion."

"Okay, so what is that?"

"It's a technique where you hypnotize a person and..." She waved her hand vaguely for a moment. "Implant a trigger? Like stage hypnotists will tell people that when they hear a certain word, they'll do a certain action, like strut around like a chicken."

"That was on Fuller House," I said. "Kimmie did the chicken thing when—"

"Yeah," said Cassie, "it was on Fuller House. As a joke. But I've had hypnotherapy and it's helped me resist my compulsions. The hypnotist... I can't really explain it in technical terms because I don't know them, but basically he makes it so that when a panic attack starts, I also get this feeling that I can handle it. It's like he tells my subconscious to help me out while it's also beating the crap out of me."

"So Evan could have hypnotized me and made me believe that he was drinking my blood and stuff."

"Right. Maybe. I don't know. Possibly."

"And implanted the pain I feel every sunrise? Made sunrise the trigger?"

She nodded. "It's a guess, okay? I may be a kook, but I'm not some whacko who believes in vampires."

"Hey, if you have a theory that I can look up in a medical journal, I am totally on board. So how do we find out if that's what I've got? Talk to your hypnotist?"

She shrugged. "Yeah... I think maybe asking him generally, but there's a problem with that theory. Corban. He corroborated the vampire thing."

"Right." I flopped back on my bed. "Unless I hallucinated the conversation I had with him? Like I had a trigger—"

"Unlikely," said Cassie. "That's going pretty far beyond what a hypnotist can do. Somehow you had a conversation that ended up with him coming here and doing his ritual thingy."

"So what do you think is going on with me?"

"Either that there's a cult out there that has ninja hypnosis skills and an extensive membership that includes the local Boy Scout heartthrob, or I don't know," she said. "And here I've got to tell you something. I can't help you deal with this. I'm sorry. I can give you my hypnotist's phone number but—"

"You're fine," I said. I'd never expected adults to fix my problems. That was the thing about being a boarding school kid. I was used to dealing with things on my own. All I wanted was emotional support now and then.

"I have to look after me," she said. "And that means putting my full energy into being irresponsible, because irresponsible me—"

"Can resist the demons that try to control you," I said. "Fight an illness that increases a person's odds of suicide by a factor of ten. I know. I Googled."

"But if you need a real adult," she said, "I can see what I can do."

"I've got to hide out from whoever killed my dad," I said. "We still don't know who it was or why they did it. I was thinking maybe I should go live somewhere on my own."