CHAPTER TWELVE

Seventeen Years Ago

Patient Number 0022

“Hi, I’m Dr. Sweeton. Please, have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Vodka,” Jett murmured.

Dr. Sweeton smiled. “I’m afraid the strongest I have to offer is diet soda.”

Jett let out a short snort. “Water then.” He ran his hands over his thighs toward his knees, and then reversed course. The jean fabric felt rough on his palms. Painful. The doctor took a bottle of water from a minifridge near the window and brought it back to Jett. He wasn’t thirsty, but it gave him something to do with his hands. Or maybe he was thirsty. Sometimes it was hard to tell. Sometimes all his physical needs ran together, creating a vast open hole of what he could only call hunger that he had no idea how to feed. But sometimes that same feeling came when he’d eaten and had water and was warm enough and gotten at least a few hours of sleep and even had some dope, and so he wondered if the need was something other than physical. Didn’t matter. He could barely fulfill the demands of his body, much less needs far more vague.

Jett unscrewed the cap and took a long drink. The doctor observed him, but not in the way most doctors did—lips thinned, impatient expression, gaze constantly darting to the clock on the wall. The ones Jett had seen were used to dealing with junkies. Dr. Sweeton opened his chart and glanced over it. “You’re on quite a few prescription medications,” he noted. He closed the folder and set it aside. “But you’re self-medicating, too, yes?”

Jett hesitated, but there was no disapproving tone in the doctor’s voice. And Jett knew it was obvious he was a user anyway, so who cared? “Yeah.”

The doctor leaned forward. “Tell me about the schizophrenia. What are your symptoms?”

Jett blew out a breath, capped the water, and set it aside. He wanted a smoke, but there was a NO SMOKING sign in the lobby of this building and right inside the door of the doctor’s office too. He glanced at it and then away. “Hallucinations.”

“Auditory or visual?”

He pictured the little boy, heard his voice and the way a strange bleating sound started up every time he saw him. “Both.”

“Is there something specific you see, or does it vary?”

He picked up the water again, took a sip, dropped the cap, and set the open bottle aside. “I see a kid. A boy. He ... he torments me. He runs into traffic or off buildings. He hides. But I feel him there all the time. I know he’s not real, but it’s like, he is. When I see him, I doubt myself and think he’s real, and I have to save him or ...” His breath came fast, heart clamoring.

“Or what?”

Jett ran his hand over his thighs again. “Or ... I don’t know. But something bad will happen. If I have to watch him die, something bad will happen.”

The doctor sat back. “And other doctors have diagnosed you with schizophrenia based on that.”

“Yeah. Uh-huh. What else? I’m not always trippin’ when I see the kid. I’ve been totally sober.”

“Does the prescription medication help?”

Jett shrugged. “I’m not great about taking it. It makes me jumpy and shit.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Like I’m not already jumpy enough, you know?”

“Yes, Jett. I do know. I do.”

And for whatever reason, Jett believed the guy, when he rarely believed people with letters behind their name. In his experience, they were the biggest liars. The most skillful con artists, when Jett had known a shitload of con artists in his life. And no doctor had ever helped him, either, on purpose or by accident. He’d never even gotten the feeling they really wanted to. Jett knew drug pushers. He relied on them. And those guys—those doctors—were some of the best. Even if, mostly, he didn’t want the shit they were pushing.

“Thank you for coming to see me, Jett. It was nice meeting you at the clinic last week.”

Jett scratched the back of his neck again, and then his elbow. Once the money he’d gotten from doing that interview was long gone, he’d spent three days suffering before deciding to walk over to the clinic for the prescription meds he was supposed to take. He’d met Dr. Sweeton, and the doctor had asked if he wanted to make some extra cash. Jett always wanted to make extra cash.

“You said you had some tests to run and that I’d get paid for them.” He’d made money in similar ways before. He’d donated plasma, at least when he was clean enough that they’d take it. He’d done a questionnaire at the free clinic about needle usage. If they wanted to see how many holes were in his brain from drugs, or something like that, then why not let them? As long as he got cash, he’d be anyone’s guinea pig. His body meant nothing to him. In fact, most of the time he wanted the hell out of it and hated living under his skin.

“Yes,” the doctor said, “but the tests come with some strings attached. And a few questions. Nothing tricky, nothing dishonest. I promise to always be completely up front.”

Completely up front. Jett had never known anyone to be completely up front. Everyone had an agenda, even if they didn’t always know it. It eventually came out, though, and usually sooner than later. “What kind of doctor are you?”

Dr. Sweeton smiled. “The talking kind.”

“Talking doesn’t mean shit. It never helped me before.”

“I don’t imagine it did. Talking can’t help when your brain’s all in knots.”

Jett let out a strangled laugh. He’d never heard a description like that before, but that’s exactly what his brain felt like. Like it was tied up in knots, and when he tried to untangle them, he just got confused and frustrated and it fucking hurt , and so ultimately he gave up. “That doesn’t sound very doctor-ish.”

The man smiled again. “I suppose I’m not always very doctor-ish in the traditional sense. But I’ve found that certain maladies require what some might consider extreme remedies.”

His heart gave a knock. “Certain maladies?” What did that mean?

“Wouldn’t you say you’re sick?”

“I mean, yeah, because I’m a user.”

“That’s a symptom. It’s not your illness.”

“Okay, yeah, true. I’ve got mental shit going on, but there’s no cure for that.”

“I don’t believe that’s true, Jett.”

He stared at the man, a feeling of ... something opening inside him. Something small and fragile that he instinctively wanted to turn away from even before he’d fully identified it. “What type of extreme remedies are you talking about?” he asked. There had to be a hook here. Was this guy some wacko who was going to stick a needle through his eyeball and poke at his brain? Do you care? Maybe it’d be a welcome escape. And suddenly he craved it. He craved a needle piercing his brain so badly he briefly considered doing it himself and tucked it away as a possibility for later.

“I won’t do anything you don’t agree to,” the doctor said. “There’s quite a bit of testing involved, and some talking, but it’s also a drug trial.”

“A drug trial? What kind of drugs?”

“Hallucinogens mostly.”

Jett was surprised by that. “Like magic mushrooms and shit?”

“There is some psilocybin usage,” the doctor said. “All of that would be disclosed to you. You would have to agree to any and all of it. But that part would come second. First we’d need to make sure you’re a good candidate for this treatment.”

Jett ran his palms over his jeans again, the contact once more bringing him pain, but a pain he craved in some odd way. “Sure, okay, what the fuck. Sign me up.”

The doctor smiled; it started slowly and then widened. “Wonderful, Jett. Wonderful.”