She didn’t let on about how little she remembered. And because he seemed to believe the stories would cheer her up – because he so desperately wanted to – she didn’t let on how much it hurt to hear them. Why would she want to be reminded of a happy past, a past when there’d been nothing ahead of her but future? Why would she want to know that she’d sat on those swings and told him she was going to be a doctor, or maybe an astronaut, or, no, definitely an archaeologist, like Indiana Jones? It hurt to remember that girl, who didn’t plan to grow up to be a prisoner, or a killer. And as he rambled, she was tempted to hurt him, too – tell him that his precious memories were her junk, that she’d long since packed them up and given them away to clear out some room. But it was a momentary impulse, and it passed.
The Cassandra he remembered wouldn’t hurt him that way. And that was what she liked best about having Daniel around: the way he looked at her like she still was the old Cassandra, whoever that was.
When he reached for her hand through the bars, she let him take it.
She didn’t need him to tell her why he was so panicked. She listened carefully. She heard things she wasn’t supposed to hear. She knew it had been decided, that whatever the town chose to do to her, it would do tomorrow.
“This is so strange,” he said, his fingers tight around hers. She could have held on to him forever. Like the squeeze of a hand could fix anything. Like the warmth of his palm in hers – even though she was on one side of the bars and he was on another, and they barely knew each other, and the next day she was probably going to die – actually meant she wasn’t alone. “All of this,” he added.
“Tell me about it.”
Grace came.
A cop escorted her down to the cell block, then, despite the fact that she was a kid, and probably shouldn’t have been allowed there in the first place, left her alone.
When he did, she pulled out a gun.
“Gracie.” Cass exhaled the name, shuddering. It wasn’t the gun that scared her – or at least, it wasn’t the gun that scared her the most. It was the girl holding it, same as she’d always been, if maybe a little taller, a little ganglier, but with something missing from her eyes.
She held the gun steady, trained on Cass. “Grace,” she said. “Not Gracie.”
“Please don’t,” Cass said. She had no right to ask.
She couldn’t not ask.
She did not want to die.
“I don’t know why I did it,” Cass said, talking fast. “I don’t remember anything. I never would have… I mean, I never meant to… I’m sorry. I know that’s probably pointless to say, but I’m sorry. And I swear I don’t know why I —”
“I don’t care why,” Grace said. Her voice was the same, too, thin and reedy with a hint of a child’s whine. But it was so cold. “I don’t need to know that.”
“What do you need? Tell me. Just… please, the gun, put it down.”
“I don’t think I can do it,” Grace said.
“You can. Just put it down, and we’ll talk.”
“I know I promised,” Grace said. She was looking past Cass, into the wall, or maybe into the past, and Cass realized she was talking to herself. “But I don’t think…” The barrel trembled, and Grace nibbled at the corner of her lip, and Cass let herself breathe again, remembering that whatever she called herself, this was a child, little Gracie Tuck. So she’d somehow gotten her hands on a gun, and dredged up the nerve to bring it into the police station and point it at the person who broke her world, but this was still kid stuff. Playacting. It didn’t mean she’d become someone who could pull a trigger.
Then, visibly, the nervousness fell away, and she smiled.
And she fired.
10
THE BAD AND THE UGLY
The bullet ricocheted off the toilet, setting off a spray of porcelain shrapnel. It embedded itself in the wall two feet to the left of where Cass had dropped to the floor and curled her head into her arms. She stayed that way, eyes squeezed shut, waiting. She could hear Grace’s breathing, loud and slow. Her own breaths came quick and panicked, like her body was determined to get in as many as it could while it had the chance.
Blood pounded in her ears; her stomach hurt; she was angry, though she had no right to be.
She was terrified.
She heard a clicking sound, like some lever or mechanism on the gun had been shifted into place.
Though the shot must have echoed throughout the station, no one came.
“I’m sorry.”
Cass was so muddled by fear that for a moment she thought she’d spoken the words herself. But then Grace repeated them and, with her parting words, made clear that she was sorry not for firing, but for missing. And perhaps for slipping the gun into her highlighter-yellow backpack and walking away.
“Next time,” Grace said while Cass huddled on the ground, not willing to trust that it was over. “I promise.”
West hadn’t believed the rumors, not until he saw what they were building in front of the town hall, the heap fashioned from storm debris, the heap with the wooden stake speared through its center. It would – if the trial went as everyone assumed it would go – be Oleander’s first public execution in more than a century. And there was no doubt the Watchdogs would be there. Which meant making nice with Baz. But when West arrived at the quarterback’s house, a large Victorian just east of Main, he found he wasn’t the day’s first visitor.
Baz was in the driveway – on his stomach, licking the dirt. Jason stood over him, his back to West. He was holding a gun. Every window on the street offered a perfect view, but there was no movement, no adult intervention. Only the two of them, and West, and the gun.
“I’m going to kill you,” Baz growled.
“In the next life, maybe.” Jason laughed. The gun didn’t waver. “Right now, I’m guessing, you’d take off my pants and blow me if that’s what it took to stay alive.”
West crept slowly toward Jason, cringing at each crunch of gravel beneath his sneakers. If this were the movies, it would have been a no-brainer to leap on the gunman and wrestle the weapon from his grasp, save the day. But in the movies, the bad guy always made a mistake and the hero never got shot. West was a pro when it came to good, clean tackles. He knew to bend his knees, keep his hips low to the ground, lead with his shoulder, and use his legs for power. But if the gun went off by mistake – or on purpose – what then?
“Whoever you are behind me, I can hear you,” Jason said, without taking his eyes off Baz. “Come any closer, and this asshole dies. You’re probably next.”
“Jason,” West said. “Put down the gun.”
Jason sighed. “Walk away, Jeremiah. I already warned you to stay out of my way.”
“What the hell is he talking about?” Baz shouted. “You two pricks in this together?”
“Shut up, Baz.” West took a hesitant step toward Jason and then, when nothing happened, another.
“I’m warning you,” Jason said.
“Of what? You going to shoot him and then shoot me? Really?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Get the gun, moron,” Baz said. “Then we can shoot this guy together. Shove that gun up his ass and pull the trigger.”
“Shut up, Baz.”
“Don’t be so hasty, Jeremiah. Everyone deserves their last words, right?”
“Come a little closer,” Baz said. “I dare you. See what you can do when you’re not standing ten feet away hiding behind that gun like a pussy.”
“Says the guy belly-down licking dirt just because the man with the gun told him to.”
“‘Man’?” Baz laughed.
West was momentarily tempted to walk away and let events play out however they would.
“You don’t want to do this,” he said instead.
“Pretty sure I do.” Jason cocked the gun. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to do anything more.”
“You can’t just kill someone in the middle of the street. Even him.”
/> “That was before,” Jason said. “Haven’t you noticed? These days you can do whatever the hell you want, even in the middle of the street. Just ask him. You always do what you want, don’t you, Baz? Why shouldn’t I get in on the fun?”
Someone who was better with words might have had more options.
West didn’t have any. He tucked his head, bent his knees, and tackled him.
Jason tumbled to the ground, with West sprawled on top of him. Baz hooted with delight. Jason kept his hold on the gun. Trapped between them, it dug hard into West’s gut. Baz was already running away. “You two crazy kids have fun together,” he shouted in parting.
West tried to roll away, but Jason clung tight, both to him and to the gun. “I could kill you for that,” he said. “I should. Pull the trigger. End it.”
With a grunt, West shoved him away and scrambled to his feet, but couldn’t get his hands on the gun. Jason stood, too.
“You want to be one of them, you should be punished like one of them.”
“You’re not a superhero,” West said. “You don’t get to run around punishing wrongdoers.”
Jason grinned down at his weapon. “Thanks to this, I think I get to do whatever I want.” He gestured with the gun. “Sit.”
“No.”
“Try again.”
“You think I’m the reason Nick ditched you?” West snorted. “He must have figured out he was too good for you.” It was probably unwise, but West was all out of fear.
“But not for you?” Jason looked ready to pull the trigger.
“He was too good for me. But you were supposedly his best friend. I figured you’d be… better.”
Jason dropped his hands. Then sank to the ground, laying the gun down beside him.
“I was,” he said. “I think I was.”
West knew he should snatch the gun. Instead, he reached for Jason’s hand and pulled him back to his feet. The gun lay on the ground between them.
“What is all this?” West asked. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” Jason said, shaking his head as if to clear a fog. “It… it seemed like something I had to do.”
“Shoot Baz?”
“I saw the girl toss the gun in the trash can —”
“What girl?”
“Who knows? Some little girl—she comes running out of the cop shop, tosses a gun in the Dumpster. Like a TV show. It seemed like a sign. Like it wanted me to take it. Use it. Then I’m walking home, and Baz comes along, and it just all… slid into place.” He nudged the gun with his sneaker. “I’m a pacifist, you know. I led a protest against the war when I was in second grade. I think guns should be outlawed. But…”
“Yeah?”
“It felt good.”
“I’m taking this,” West said, and lifted the gun. It was smaller than his father’s hunting rifles, but seemed oddly heavier. This had not been designed for killing animals.
“I’ll find another way,” Jason said. His hair was standing on end and sweat matted his shirt. West tried not to notice how the damp cotton clung to his lean shoulders. “I don’t want to, not right at this moment, but you’ve got to understand. I wake up in the morning and it’s all I can think about. I go to sleep, it’s all I can think about. I dream about killing this guy. Making him scream and cry and maybe suck himself off first, and then killing him dead. Right now, before you found us? That’s the first time all week I haven’t felt like throwing up. When I had that gun in my hand. That’s the only thing that made it go away. And it’s going to come back. It always comes back.”
“I don’t understand.” That was a lie. Didn’t he understand temptation, a need so intense it made you sick?
“Join the club. But I’m telling you. Take the gun, it won’t matter. Something’s wrong with me.”
“You’re angry. I get that.” But it was more than that, wasn’t it? There was something wrong with him – there was something wrong with everyone lately. Even at home, things got weirder by the day. The Thomases were gone, without explanation. Mr. Thomas had never made it back from his midnight “hunting trip,” and Mrs. Thomas had, according to West’s mother, gone to stay with some friends on the other side of town. Except her belongings were right where she’d left them, in the guest bedroom.
Except his mother had spent the last two nights in the kitchen, furiously baking Maddie Thomas’s famous pumpkin pie.
Jason shook his head. “You don’t get it. And that’s good. Nick wouldn’t get it, either, I don’t think. Maybe you’re right about me. Me and him, I mean.”
“I don’t know you well enough to be right or wrong about you.” He hesitated. “I didn’t really know him, either.” West told himself he was just saying it to placate Jason – that the important thing was making sure Jason didn’t find himself another gun.
Jason punched him in the shoulder.
“What the hell was that for?” West asked.
“Uh, hetero jock male bonding?” Jason laughed. “Think I saw it on TV.”
“Oh, well, if you saw it on TV.”
“Can I ask you something?” Jason said.
“Guess we’ll see.”
“What was it with you two? What the hell did you even talk about? Or did you just…”
West could feel himself blushing. “No, we didn’t ‘just.’ Not that it’s any of your business. We…” He paused. They had talked about everything and nothing – that was the easy answer. Old football footage and new draft picks, teachers they hated, stupid jingles of commercials past that got stuck in their heads for days. But it was impossible to explain how any of that had added up to something more. How talking about nothing somehow mattered more when you could do it without lying – and before Nick, lying was all he’d known. “We talked a lot about football, I guess. He was into that.”
Jason smiled, almost fondly. “You know he dragged me to every game. Before, I mean.”
West shook his head. He and Nick hadn’t happened until after the season, and Nick had never let on that he cared about the Bulldogs one way or another. They talked pro ball, college ball – but never anything that touched on real life, on the world West was set to rejoin in the fall.
“He liked to coach from the bleachers, you know? He was always convinced he knew better. That if he’d been down there…” Jason shrugged. “I can tell you, he loved watching you. Guess that’s no surprise.”
“I guess.”
“He never said, but I always kind of thought he was so into it because he would have been down there himself if it wasn’t for his leg. Like he wanted to be you, right?”
It had never occurred to West. The idea unsettled him.
“So much for my Psych 101 skills,” Jason added. “Clearly he had… other motives.”
West couldn’t decide whether he wanted to get out of there and never see Jason again, or drag him home and hold him as a keepsake – a scrap of Nick, enshrined with the same care as the borrowed CDs and handwritten birthday limerick and ratty sweatshirt that still smelled of Nick’s shampoo. “Can I ask you something now?”
“Guess we’ll see.”
“What was with his limp?”
“He never told you?”
“We didn’t… talk about that kind of thing.”
Jason hesitated.
“He’s gone,” West said. It hurt to say it out loud, more than it should have. “Whatever the big secret was, it can’t matter now.”