I put down the bottle of polish and lean back on my hands to look at Caleb. He’s giving me the puppy-dog look, like I’m going to have a problem with the fact that he’s been hanging out with Chloe. Which I don’t. Even if I got a little freaked out by the whole encounter with her and Damien, spying on his therapist’s patients was my idea in the first place.

“That’ll be cool,” I say, careful to keep my voice neutral.

“She’s really chill,” Caleb says earnestly. “I went to her art studio a few days ago and she’s really good.”

“What kind of art does she do?” I ask, sensing that Caleb wants to talk more about it.

“She says she’s mostly done ceramics until now, but she’s starting to do a lot of painting,” he starts to explain, before continuing with a hesitance I haven’t seen from Caleb in a while. “She met this guy—Frank—who used to be an artist too. He’s a Marine and, well, he’s been having a hard go of it. Homeless and stuff.”

“Man, that’s hard,” I say.

“Yeah.” He nods, looking down at his nails. “And I guess he really loved to paint before he joined up so Chloe’s helping him get back into it. She’s reading his mind and then painting what he can’t. I think he’s got an injury in his hands or something.”

“Wait, what?” I struggle to keep up. Our little stakeouts in front of Dr. Bright’s office had been a fun, silly game. But then it opened Pandora’s box and a whole new, complicated, unreal world sprang out of it. “She’s reading his mind and painting what she sees?”

“Yeah! So, like, he’s thinking about what he wants his paintings to look like,” Caleb explains, “and then Chloe reads his mind and does the painting for him. Isn’t that cool?”

“Does he know that’s what she’s doing?” I ask, thinking that yes, it is cool, but also completely freaky.

“Oh, yeah, totally.” Caleb nods seriously. “They’re working on it together.”

“So she just up and told this guy that she’s a mind reader?”

“Well, no, not really,” he says. “It’s not like he’s just some guy. They’re friends. And … well…” There’s that hesitancy again and it still makes me grind my teeth. “I think he’s special too. Not like me and Chloe are—he’s not an Atypical. But he … it’s weird. When I met him, I realized I’d actually felt his feelings before.”

“What do you mean?”