The Screaming Season by Nancy Holder

him no when I realized I was thinking about saying yes. I was actually considering joining forces with Miles Winters.
    “Where are you staying?” I asked him, trying to stall so I could regain my sanity.
    “Guest house here on the grounds. I think Dr. Ehrlenbach’s trying to conveniently forget that while she’s gone. When your family’s buying the school a sports complex, you get a few extra perks.”
    He didn’t smirk. He just stared at me, willing me to agree to his demand. He pulled out a pack of matches from his pants pocket and looked at me. I shook my head. Sighing, he put the matches back in the pocket.
    “No smoking, just for you,” he said. “Now come on, baby. Gimme something in return. Or I can go.”
    A thrill of anxiety shot up my spine and I surrendered. I needed help. Even if it came from him.
    “Okay.”
    He caught his breath.
    “See ? I knew you were smart.” He nodded at me. “Go. Start.”
    I licked my lips. My stomach clenched, and I felt exactly the same way as I had trying to jump off the high dive last year in P.E.
    “A few people know bits of what I’m going to tell you,” I began. “But no one knows all of it, except me. And if I tell you, you’re just going to have to believe me, all right? There’s no way to convince you.”
    He took the cigarette out of his mouth and rolled it back and forth on his palm. Then he peered up at me through his eyelashes, and I realized he was giving my request serious thought before replying.
    “Okay.” He bobbed his head. “I will suspend my disbelief.”
    Where to start? First I wanted to burst into sobs. Or laughter. Of all the people to tell this to, I had never imagined it would be Miles Winters.
    “C’mon, Lindsay,” he said. “I’m listening.”
    “You already know about the fact that this was originally a home for wayward girls,” I said. “People dumped their female relatives here because they were willful or disobedient. Or boring, or had no dowries. One girl got sent here for killing her uncle when he attacked her.”
    I held up my hand so that he wouldn’t remind me he knew all this. Since the Winters had offered to bankroll the multi-million-dollar Winters Sports Complex to replace our outdated gym, Miles had done a lot of research on Marlwood. I was betting he knew more of its sordid history than even I did. But I had to get it out in one coherent fashion. It was like taking the walk down the path with the committee, one foot in front of the others.
    “You also know that a doctor named David Abernathy performed lobotomies on a lot of the inmates. He would take an ice pick and wiggle it around to sever the connection between two parts of their brains ‘to calm them.’” I didn’t bother with air quotes.
    He nodded. “And thank God that’s out of fashion, because they would have done that to me.”
    I believed him. Gossip was that he’d been to so many rehabs and clinics that his parents had invested in a special portfolio of mental health care stocks.
    “So far, you’re rehashing,” he reminded me. “Stalling.”
    “Here’s the new part, then,” I said. “Our glorious founder, Edwin Marlwood, would pick out the victims, and David Abernathy would cut open their brains for him. But Dr. David messed around with them, too.”
    His interest perked up. “The brains? Or the broads?”
    “He’d play them off each other. Make them compete to be his special little playmates.”
    Miles smirked. “Rehab-boy says, ‘Not surprised.’”
    “Stop interrupting me.” He made a show of sitting up straighter, putting his hands on his knees, and politely raising his chin.
    “There were two specific girls I know about who were in love with him. He promised each of them that he was going to get her out of here. Without telling the other one, of course.”
    “Nice,” Miles said.
    “One of them started a fire, and it got out of control. It killed seven girls. I have a news clipping,” I added.
    He took that in. “No