With cold, calculating Laura, you always knew where you stood.

With this Laura, I kept overstepping in small ways that irritated her.

I couldn’t stop thinking over our conversation about Lily. If she’d been telling the truth—and she could have been—that just made the journal one more sign of Lily’s messed-up mind. It would be easy to see how a paranoid person with a lot of time on her hands could produce page after page of deranged ranting.

On the other hand, a normal person being held prisoner and being overmedicated would probably produce strikingly similar rants.

So which was it? I knew Laura’s side of the story. I knew Lily’s side of the story.

But what bothered me the most was Agatha’s side of the story.

I’m not sick.

I believed her.

And that meant that when she said go, I should believe that, too. I should leave this place, even if it meant going to the state institution.

The only thing that was holding me back now was Agatha—even before this new regime of powerful medication, I had hated to think of her here, all alone. We were, in our own way, friends. I cared about Agatha. I wanted to protect her. And how could I do that if I abandoned her?

Easy, really. All I had to do was tell Barrett what I knew. He would look out for his sister, right?

But would he do it, even if it meant, say, calling the police on his mom?

It seemed absurd. Laura wouldn’t hurt Agatha. That was ridiculous. Everything she did was to keep Agatha safe and cared for. She’d taken care of her every day for nearly a year.

But what if Laura was the reason Agatha needed caring for?

I fell asleep miserably mulling it over.

A STRANGE NOISE woke me, and I jumped out of bed, on high alert. The previous night’s episode had me ready for another chance to communicate with Agatha, whenever it might come. So I raced out to the nursery.

Agatha was awake. But this was different. She was convulsing. Her legs were jerking, her arms twitching.

I ran to her bedside.

She looked up at me through bright eyes. A strangled humming sound emerged from her, and that’s when I realized that she was choking.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to her side. Immediately, the noises she was making changed—they became more intense, more desperate.

I shoved my arms under her armpits and hoisted her up, then dragged her off the bed, staggering under her weight, and leaned us both forward.

She vomited a spray of thick gray-brown liquid all over the floor.