“Five, six, seven …” Ed intoned.

“No, no, no,” another child wailed down the hall. “Won’t do it! Can’t make me, YOU FUCKING CUNT!”

“Shhh, shhh, shhh …”

“¡Diablo, Diablo, Diablo!”

D.D. didn’t think she could take it. She needed to tackle Aimee and grab the scissors. She needed to dash down the hall and take down crazy Benny. So many places to be, so many things to do. More screaming. Fresh cries. A dark-eyed girl making happy with craft scissors …

“Eight, nine, ten,” Ed completed.

The MC squared his shoulders, took a determined step forward. Aimee raised the scissors. She held them aloft, right above her heart, and in that instant of time, D.D. knew exactly what the girl was going to do.

D.D. started to cry, “Stop!” Started to dash forward. Aimee’s white hand flashed down, bloody scissors slicing through the air—

“I WILL GET YOU ALL. I WILL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU. JUST YOU WAIT JUST YOU WAIT JUST YOU WAIT. I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE—”

Ed grabbed Aimee’s wrist. The burly MC twisted the small girl’s arm behind her back as quickly and effectively as any cop. The girl cried out once. The scissors clattered to the floor. Aimee slumped forward, all fight draining from her body.

“I’ll grab bandages,” Karen said.

While down the hall came a fresh burst of screams.

It took an hour to restore the unit. Children were medicated; soothed with music; bribed with Game Boys; placated with small, quiet spaces; and read endless stories. D.D. paced. Banned from the action, treated as the inexperienced outsiders they were, she and her investigative team prowled the classroom end of the unit, trying to read files, but mostly twitching as various screams, crashes, and thuds echoed across the ward.

D.D. couldn’t sit. Neither could Alex. They roamed the lower hallway, feeling as agitated as the kids.

“Negative energy,” Alex told her, hands deep in his front pockets, restlessly jiggling his loose change.

“Fuck you.”

“Just proved my point.”

“Still fuck you.”

“No inner angel?”

“I will strangle you with my bare hands.”

“Again, score one for the shaman. I haven’t felt a vibe this bad since I visited Souza-Baranowski.” The Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center was Massachusetts’s maximum security prison.

“This is what happens at institutions. One person goes crazy, everyone goes crazy.”

“From shared negative energy,” Alex chirped.

“Seriously, I will strangle you.”

“Or we could find a broom closet and have sex.”

D.D. drew up short. Blinked several times. Was genuinely shocked by how instantaneously she wanted to do exactly that. Rip off Alex’s shirt. Dig her fingers into his shoulders. Ride him like a—