“Because she doesn’t believe she is living,” I said, and Lydia nodded. “But it’s more than that. It’s the baby,” I insisted, flashes of Danica’s miscarriage connecting the two girls in my mind. “Farrah would have lost her baby early, just like Danica did, if not for you. How far along is she now?”

“The nurses say she’s twenty-eight weeks. Why?” Lydia asked, her focus shifting between me and Tod. “What’s wrong with the baby? And who’s Danica?”

“She’s a senior at my school. I think her baby and Farrah’s baby had the same father.” And I was really starting to wish I’d printed the faculty picture of “Mr. Allan.”

Wait a minute… I turned to Tod, acutely aware that we’d now been holding hands for at least twenty minutes. “Does your phone get internet?” Mine didn’t.

He nodded, already digging it from his pocket with his free hand. “I splurged—I don’t have many bills.” He handed it over, and it took me a minute to find the site I wanted, typing with only my left thumb.

“Farrah,” I said, when I’d found the faculty images on the Crestwood website. She didn’t even look up, so I tugged Tod closer so I could kneel by her bed again. “Farrah, is this your baby’s father?” I zoomed in on Allan’s face and held the phone in front of her book. Farrah tried to shove my hand out of her way, but I just pushed back. “Look at him! Is this him?” I demanded, and finally she looked.

And her brown eyes watered. “David,” she whispered, and my short thrill of triumph was swallowed by anger on her behalf.

“It’s him.” I stood, already turning back to Tod, but Farrah grabbed my hand, holding the phone firmly in front of her face.

“Who is he?” Lydia asked, while I stood hunched over, so Farrah could get another look.

“I don’t know his real name.” I dropped onto my knees again to get more comfortable. “But he’s an incubus in heat. He taught at Farrah’s school just long enough to get her pregnant, and now he’s at my school. And since Danica just miscarried his demon seed, I’m pretty sure he’s set his sights on my best friend. But I’m not sure why, since Farrah’s pregnancy seems to be progressing in spite of…everything.”

“Insurance,” Tod said, kneeling next to me. “Most human women can’t carry an incubus baby to term, so he’s increasing his chances of a successful harvest by planting as many seeds as he can.”

My rage knew no limits. “And with each one, he’s damaging a teenage girl, or abandoning his own newborn daughter, or both at once, with no guarantee that he’s even spawning a son.”

“My baby’s a boy,” Farrah insisted, still staring at Tod’s phone, and my arm was starting to cramp from holding it out. “Not a real boy,though.”

What, was she carrying Pinocchio?

“Did the doctor tell you that?” I asked, gently pulling the phone from her grip. I stood and handed Tod’s cell back to him, and her gaze followed it until it disappeared into his pocket. But then she went back to her book, dismissing us as “unreal” once again.

“She’s right,” Tod said. “She wouldn’t be in here if she was carrying a girl. Girls are born human, from normal pregnancies. Boys are incubi, and if the pregnancy doesn’t kill the baby, it usually kills the mother slowly, both body and mind.” He shrugged when I just stared at him. “I thought you knew that.”

“I didn’t.” And I was starting to think that ignorance was at least somewhere in the neighborhood of bliss because the more I knew, the angrier I got.

“Me, neither,” Lydia said, and after a long, awkward moment of silence, I looked up at Tod.

“Well, I guess I have what I came for,” I mumbled, trying to swallow the sick feeling I got every time I looked at Farrah, knowing what was going to happen to both her and her baby.

“Wait, you’re leaving?” Lydia stood, eyes wide in panic. “Take me with you,” she insisted, when I stared at her in surprise. “Or at least get me out of here.”

I glanced at Tod, but he only shrugged. “Your call.”

Why was it my call? “Lydia, I can’t. What about your parents?”

“They put me in here. Please, Kaylee.” She stood, eyeing me desperately. “I’m a syphon. Do you know what that means?”

I shook my head, fairly certain she wasn’t offering to steal gas for my car in exchange for orchestrating her escape from a mental institution. ’Cause that would be…crazy.

“I take things from other people. Anything. My body has an innate need to maintain balance between what I’m feeling and what’s being experienced around me, and when there’s an imbalance, I get the urge to take some of whatever there’s too much of, to even things out. I’ve spent my whole life fighting that need for balance to keep from poisoning myself with other people’s problems, and this is where it landed me.” She spread her arms to take in all of Lakeside.

I could certainly sympathize.

“I took your pain, and I’ve been taking some of Farrah’s illness,” she continued, as sympathy for her swelled inside me. “I can syphon some things on purpose, to help, like I did with you, but I don’t always have a choice. When there’s too much, resisting it is like trying to swim with your hands tied. I can’t do it.” She grabbed my free hand and held on tight, like I could somehow pull her above that brutal tide. “Farrah’s going to die, and if I’m still here when that happens, she’ll drag me down with her.”