“That came out wrong,” he said. His words vibrated against my hair. “I mean, you’re mad at her, and you have every right to be.”
“I’m not going to kill her,” I said. “I shouldn’t even have to say that. Jesus. I just want to talk to her and show her I’m not my brother.”
He pulled back, then touched his forehead to mine. I closed my eyes and felt his breath, hot and damp, against my lips. “That sounds reasonable. I could do that.”
“Have her bring some of her friends,” I said. “I want them to see everything, too. And you, of course. You come. And don’t tell her I’ll be there. Obviously.”
“That can be arranged.”
“And I don’t want the black suits there, either.”
“Black suits?”
“The undercover police, whoever’s been following me around,” I said. “There’s one outside right now. You didn’t see him as you were coming in?”
His silence was answer enough.
“You should be more observant,” I said. “Otherwise you might get yourself killed.”
He barked a half laugh, which cut off abruptly as he realized I was completely serious. “Maybe it’s good they’re following you,” he said. “At least they’re keeping you safe. Wouldn’t your brother go for you first, if he showed up?”
My entire body went stiff; bones locked in their joints, and my muscles turned to stone. I stepped back slowly, carefully, worried I’d shatter myself into a million pieces. “My brother would never, ever hurt me,” I said. My words sounded strange—warped, almost—like I was listening to them from the other side of a long tunnel. “Never, ever, ever.”
“Okay,” Michael said uneasily. “Okay, I’m sorry. Sorry. Ah!” There was a sharper tinge to the smell from the pot. “The mirepoix is burning.” He gave it a few quick stirs, then poured in the carton of chicken broth. “It’s homemade,” he said. I suspected he just wanted to fill the silence, as I couldn’t possibly have cared less whether the broth was homemade from the bones of chickens he’d decapitated himself or whether it was straight off the shelf at Safeway.
The warm, salty, savory scent of roasting chicken filled the air. “Is there going to be chicken in that soup?” I asked.
“Um, there’s supposed to be,” he said. “But I forgot about it. It should still be good. If you really want chicken in it I can go pick up a rotisserie. Do you want me to?”
“Do you love me?”
I blinked. He blinked back. My question had stunned both of us into silence. “It’s pretty soon for that, isn’t it?” he said finally, stirring the soup.
“I guess,” I said. “I just wondered.”
He stirred the soup again, then added a sprinkling of salt and black pepper. Some crinkly green leaves followed. “I don’t know,” he said.
“That’s fair.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
He’d turned back to the soup; steam puffed over his face, dampening his curls and reddening his cheeks. “I love you,” he said, his words tumbling out as quickly as the bubbles roiled over the surface of the pot. “Yes. I love you, Julia.”
A shower of warmth flurried from my chest to my knees, and my insides exploded into a shower of glitter, sparkling and flashing and making everything purr. But.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“What?”
“How do you know you love me?” I was watching him intently—the soft look in his eyes, the way his forehead furrowed even as the corners of his eyes crinkled.
“You’re supposed to say ‘I love you, too.’ ”
“But how would I know if I loved you?” I asked.
“You just know,” he said.
“But how? How do you know you love me?”
He tapped the corner of his mouth with his finger. “Because I just want to be around you all the time,” he said. “Because I lied to my dad for you.” His voice grew thick. “Because I’ve never felt more at peace than when I have you in my arms and I know you’re safe.” Before things got too serious, he waggled his eyebrows. “And it doesn’t hurt that you’re smoking hot.”
I laughed and obligingly let him fold me back into his arms. It felt nice—he was warm and strong around me. And I did feel safe, sheltered from guns, knives, and anything else that might try to hurt me—the bulk of his body would stop anything dangerous, or at least slow it down. I still didn’t get it, though. How did he know he wanted to spend all his time with me? And what made him think I was worth dying for?
I pulled away and pasted a smile on my lips. “I love you, too,” I said. I hoped it was true.
—
Over our soup, which we spooned into each other’s mouths (a messy process), we decided we’d gather Ella and her friends tomorrow. Or, rather, I decided we’d gather Ella and her friends tomorrow and he nodded okay. He’d ask Ella and several of her closest friends to meet him in the woods at the end of the day. Ella would, naturally, say yes, because she was half in love with Michael and knew he was mad at her for what she’d done to me. I’d emerge from the trees and make my case. They’d fall to their knees in apology and beg my forgiveness. I wouldn’t say no if they wanted to kiss my feet. I’d no longer be a pariah. The end.
My brother had other plans.
* * *
FROM THE JOURNAL OF DR. ATLAS SPENCE
* * *
Re: Ryan Vann, age 17
I was given one more chance. “He still asks for you,” Noor said, shrugging in the door to my office. “I don’t know if it’s a game, but if you’re willing, and you promise not to lash out again…”
Of course I promised. What else could I do?
This was, after all, the career opportunity of a lifetime.
He wasn’t sitting this time, or staring at the floor. “Good afternoon, Doctor,” Ryan said.
“It’s not afternoon,” I replied. “It’s ten in the morning.”
He shrugged with one shoulder and smiled boyishly. Even with his smile so crooked, he was quite charming when he wanted to be. It wasn’t a natural charm, though; it was something he could switch on and off like a light.
“I tried,” he said. “You came back. I’m glad you came back.”
“You asked for me,” I said. “And I brought you something.” I pulled a photo out of my pocket. It was a photo of him and his sister, one I’d found on a social-media profile of Julia’s. It was a good picture. I was hoping it would get him to talk, that the sight of his sister would pull him over that edge.
He took it and brought it up to his face, searching it with his eyes, then lowered it. Whatever he was looking for, it wasn’t there. “You said you would never give up,” he said. “And you haven’t. You’re back.”
This had all been some kind of test, I realized, or had it? It could just be a game, as Noor had warned. “Are you ready to talk now?” I asked.
“Come over here,” he said. He glanced back down at the picture, as if he was bolstering himself.
I stepped forward, then hesitated, glancing back at Noor. Noor stood in the open doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He shrugged. Your funeral, he seemed to be saying.
Internally, I shrugged as well. There were cameras everywhere, and Noor was right there. Ryan had killed eleven people, but somehow I felt he wouldn’t kill me.
I walked over and stood before him. “Closer,” he said. “I have to whisper.”
I leaned in, my heart pounding in my throat. He could reach out and strangle me. He could have a shiv hidden up his sleeve and stab me in the gut before I could blink.
And yet I leaned in anyway.
“I don’t want the cameras to hear,” he whispered. “I need to tell you something. About the band room. But you might not believe me.”
“Tell me,” I whispered back.
He told me. I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly—his voice was slurred, after all—but before I could lean in again, Noor cleared his throat. “Please step back,” he said.
I obeyed
. I couldn’t not obey. I looked at Ryan. Ryan nodded.
I had some research to do.
As Noor and I left, me promising Ryan I’d be back the next day, I glanced over at Noor. “We’ve become friends, kind of, haven’t we?”
He gave me what I thought was a dubious look. “Kind of,” he said, though after a pause.
“I need your help with something,” I said. “I want to look at the police records of the shooting.”
He surveyed me, top to bottom. I was left feeling, absurdly, like a teenage girl being checked out by a boy she was pursuing. “I can do that,” he said.
“You’re what?” Alane’s eyes and lips were matching circles. “Were you just not going to tell me?”
“Of course I was going to tell you. I’m telling you right now.” I’d met up with Alane after show choir, as usual, and told her about my plans for Ella. I hadn’t worried about being overheard; every student who had to get through the hallway to the student parking lot had magically found an alternate route. It was like they thought I had a gun clamped against my side. “Do you want to be there?”
“Um, I think I should be. Don’t you?” she said. “So that they don’t all run away when you show your face?”
“They won’t be able to run,” I said. “I’ll be blocking the path.”
Alane slung her arm around me. “This sounds like you’re aiming to give them heart attacks before you can even tell them why you’re there,” she said in an overly patient way, as if she were a wise old woman explaining something to a child.
Her tone raised my hackles. “Well, if one of them were by chance to drop dead of a heart attack, I can’t say I’d be devastated.”
She clapped me on the back. “That settles it. I’m coming. You need me.”
I grabbed her hand as we walked back through the school. She squeezed. Was that love? “Do you love me?” I asked.
A surprised sort of laugh burst from Alane’s throat. “Do I love you?” she said. “Did you really just ask me that?”
“I’m serious,” I said. Her laugh died on her lips.
“Sorry,” she said. “I thought you were kidding. Of course I love you. You’re my best friend. You rescued me from a life sitting alone at the corner lunch table.”
“Would you steal for me?” I asked.
Her whole face scrunched. “I don’t know,” she said. “It depends on the circumstances.”
“Would you die for me?” I asked.
“Now you’re being creepy,” she said.
I forced a laugh as we walked into the woods. “I was joking! Obviously.”
Alane rolled her eyes. “You weirdo,” she said. “Come on. We have reputations to save.”
She hadn’t answered my question.
Alane and I found a place for ourselves between two trees and settled down onto the carpet of moss to wait. If I ignored the potential bugs crawling all over me, it was almost like sitting on an especially velvety carpet. “So when are they supposed to be coming?” Alane whispered.
“Any minute,” I whispered back. “Michael said they’d come right after swim.”
“Do you know what you’re going to say?” she asked.
I had an idea. “Kind of,” I said. “I’ve rehearsed a few things—is that them now?”
I hadn’t heard anything, but Alane nodded enthusiastically and gestured before us. Now that I listened hard, I realized there were twigs snapping, the swoosh of branches being pushed aside. Maybe I was psychic.
But the crunching and swooshing faded away like it had never been, bringing no Ella or Michael or hangers-on. Alane looked back at me and shrugged. Before she could say anything, though, it started back up again, from the other direction. As the sounds drew closer, words and exclamations drifted toward us on the breeze.
“Oh my God, Mike. I think a bug just flew in my eye.”
“Just a little farther—I swear.”
They crunched to a halt in a small clearing just off the path. Through curtains of branches and leaves, I could see six of them standing in a circle: Michael, Ella, and four of her friends, two of whom I recognized vaguely as having names that ended with -issa.
“So where is it?” Ella asked.
I wondered what Michael had told them to get them here.
It didn’t matter. Time to make my grand entrance. I grabbed Alane’s hand again, and together we stepped into view.
“Hey,” I said.
You would have thought my greeting had been a gunshot. It made Michael tense and Ella shriek; she tried to back away, but Michael grabbed her by the shoulder, sending a flame of jealousy through me. The Issas bleated like goats.
“Don’t run,” I said, holding my hands up, palms out. “I promise I just want to talk.”
Ella yanked her arm free from Michael and shot him a withering look. “So this is what you wanted to tell me?”
“I had to lie to get you here,” Michael said. “Sorry. Just hear her out.”
She took another step back, a violent one, and clung, panting and trembling, to the trunk of a tree. “She’s going to kill me,” she said. “Just like her brother killed her old friends.”
“I’m not my brother.” My voice wavered a bit, but I struggled to keep it as even as I could.
“You had something to do with it!” Her face was round, red, vicious. “You were in that room, too. You could’ve stopped him. You’re just as bad as he is.” One of the Issas stroked Ella’s hair. Ella jerked at first, but then stood there, glaring at me, letting the Issa soothe her. “I’m getting out of here.”
“Wait!” This was getting out of hand. I had to get things moving. I raised my voice. “I’m not my brother!”
Dried leaves crunched, there was a collective gasp, seven people surfacing for air, and there he was.
My brother.
The first thing I noticed when I looked at him was, as always, how handsome he was. The stubble glittering over his jaw. The dark curls spilling over his forehead. His silhouette, sharp and defined, against the sun behind him. Even with the new frailties wrought by his injuries—the way his left eye drooped a little and his left arm hung by his side—he was still my brother.
The second thing I noticed was that he had a gun. For just a moment I was sent hurtling back to the band room, where I’d crumpled on the floor like a dying flower, crushed by the heavy metallic smell of blood.
“It’s over, Julia.” Words from the past. They echoed in my ears. “We’re safe now. They can’t tell.”
I heaved and shuddered, rocked back and forth, then grabbed his outstretched hand and let him pull me to my feet.
I blinked, hard, and shook my head. I couldn’t afford to go back there now. “Ryan,” I said firmly. “Put down the gun.”
Words sputtered on Ella’s lips, but nothing came out. Her eyes were wide, and she was shaking so hard I could hear her body buzz like a hummingbird’s wings. The Issas were bleating again. Alane, standing beside me, had frozen solid; chill emanated from her in waves. Michael…
Where was Michael?
“Don’t move, and I won’t shoot,” Ryan said. A thrill ran through me at the sound of his voice—I’d almost forgotten how deep and rich it was, like dark chocolate, with the way it melted all around me. Even more so now that his words slurred together. It actually made him sound more dangerous. “Where’s the bitch who ruined my sister’s life?”
Water splashed to the ground. Ella had peed herself.
“Put the gun down,” I said. I caught his eye, and his smile, at least on half of his mouth, was hard and blinding. I frowned a little and gave a shake of my head; he dropped the smile and etched a frown deep into his cheeks. “It’s not Ella’s fault. Nobody else needs to get hurt.”
“Ella.” The name rumbled deep in his chest. “Ella! Which one of you is Ella?”
One of the Issas squealed. “Her! That’s her! She’s Ella! It’s all her fault!”
I snuck a glance at Ella. She’d gone white as a corpse; every freckle do
tting her cheeks stood out in stark relief, as if they were holes poked in her face. “I didn’t mean anything,” she said. Each breath caught in her throat, and her words ran into each other like they, too, were trying to get away. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll take it all back. Just don’t hurt me, please.”
I sidled toward her, my hands raised. Ella was staring so intently at my brother that she jumped in surprise, slamming into the tree beside her, when I inserted myself neatly between them. “This can’t happen again,” I said. “If you want to hurt someone, you’ll have to go through me.”
My brother squinted. For a moment I lost myself in the barrel of the gun, in its endless dark eye. “Really?” he said. “After all she’s done to you, you would…” He furrowed his brow.
Sacrifice, I mouthed.
His eyebrows jumped to his hairline. “Sacrifice,” he proclaimed. “After all she’s done to you, you would sacrifice yourself for her?”
“Yes. Because I’m not you. I’m better than you. And I won’t let you hurt anyone else ever again,” I said. My shoulders relaxed. He’d said all his lines. Now all he had to do was turn and melt back into the trees, where he’d be long vanished by the time any black suits made it to the area.
He bowed his head. “You’ve vanquished me,” he said. I gave a minuscule shake of my head again. Too dramatic.
He winked, and I clenched my teeth, but he backed away, already lowering the gun.
And then hit the ground with a crash and a thud.
“Drop the gun!” Michael thundered. “The police are on their way!”
The dust cleared to show Michael straddling my brother, who had fallen on his stomach. His cheek was down against the dirt, his eyes half closed, like he had decided now would be a good time for a nap. The gun had flown a few feet away; one of the braver Issas ran forward and kicked it so that it skittered off harmlessly into the trees.
My heart stopped, and my stomach filled with lead. No. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I lurched forward, my feet stumbling on the uneven ground. “Get off him,” I cried. “He’s got a gun.”
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