Michael gave me an odd look. My brother wasn’t moving; he was still as a corpse, his limbs heavy and sprawled out around him. His eyes were still half lidded, though I could see them beginning to flicker. He had to get out of here.
“Get off,” I said, kneeling next to the pair. Ella, Alane, and the Issas had backed off, forming a ring of judgmental faces. Of judgment. They might as well have been barbed wire. I couldn’t get too close to them. “You’re hurting him.”
“He’s out cold,” Michael said. “I think he hit his head or something.” He gave my arm a somber pat. “Don’t worry. I called my dad. They’re sending the guys who have been following us around. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
My brother was beginning to blink. I had to do something fast. I couldn’t let them get him, not when he was only here because of me. “Get off him,” I said roughly. I was going blind from panic. “Or I’ll never speak to you again.”
Michael’s expression didn’t change, but his voice came out low, concerned. “Julia, are you—”
My brother bucked, and Michael, distracted, went flying. Ella screamed, and birds took flight from the surrounding trees, their wings flapping with the sound of a collapsing circus tent. Michael rocked, trying to stand back up, but my brother made it first, kicking Michael in the side. Michael groaned.
“No!” I shouted. The world was unraveling around me. “Stop it! Don’t hurt him!”
My brother’s eyes met mine, and everything around me stilled. The wind rushed to a halt, and the birds huddled above the clouds. Even Ella’s scream cut off. In the midst of all the silence, his words were extra loud and clear. “I can’t do it anymore,” he said. “I’m going to end this.”
My blood turned to sludge in my veins, my muscles all froze, and I couldn’t seem to swallow the spit welling up in the back of my throat. “Don’t you dare,” I finally managed to say. “You promised me.”
His arms were shaking. They’d changed, I noticed, grown weak. “You’ve shown me today. This isn’t going to work. Ever,” he said. “I’ll give you until tomorrow. You have until tomorrow night.”
My eyes swelled in their sockets, pushing against the bone of my skull and making my brain throb. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare.”
He smiled at me like he knew when the world was going to end.
He did.
“I love you, Julia,” he said, and then he went down again, Michael piling on top of him.
A sob burst from my throat. I was on the ground, pine needles pricking at my skin like a thousand shots, and everything went black.
I woke to a buzz of activity: footsteps, authoritative voices yelling commands, somebody sniffling. Somebody’s hand squeezing mine. I blinked; the trickle of sunlight through the trees was turning my world white.
The sniffling continued until I realized it was me. I squeezed the hand, seeking comfort in its presence, and it squeezed back. “Julia, are you awake?” someone said. Alane. The hand twitched as she spoke. Her hand. It was her hand. “Don’t worry. They’ve got your brother. He’s gone.” She squeezed in rhythm with her words, but any chance of me finding comfort in it had blinked away. I sat bolt upright.
“How long was I on the ground?” I pushed myself up on shaky knees, but the trees and the ground and the sky whirled around me as if I’d hopped on a roller coaster. I closed my eyes to center myself, and when I opened them again I was back on the dirt. I propped myself up on an elbow and braced myself for nausea, but after a few tentative whoops, my stomach decided to stay put.
“Maybe five, six minutes?” Alane said. “You went down when the police got here. I was starting to get worried.”
I took a deep breath, held it, and pushed myself to a sitting position. I felt for a moment like I was underwater—the air was thick, and everything shimmered—but it stopped. I released the air, almost expecting to see bubbles. “And they took my brother.” They. I was betting “they” were Goodman and West.
“They took your brother.”
I thought I should feel something, but there was nothing. I was empty. Hollow. I’d been pumped full of nothing, full of air, a macabre skin balloon. “Where’s Michael?”
Alane jerked her head. “He’s over there talking to the people in black suits. They’re undercover state police, I think. They’re going to want to talk to you, too.”
“And the others? Ella?”
“She and Marissa had panic attacks. I think. The police took them all back to the school. I guess they’ll talk to them there.”
“Miss Vann? Julia Vann?” One of the black suits hovered over us, a woman for a change. She looked vaguely similar to me, actually: curly dark hair that she’d scraped into a tight bun; a pale, narrow face; a slight frame with disproportionately long legs. She had a black suit on, too, though hers was tailored and tucked around her waist and hips. “Are you feeling up to some questions?”
For a second there were two of her, then the images merged back into one. I blinked hard, scrunching up my whole face in the process. “I like your suit,” I said.
She brushed nonexistent dust from her hips. “Thank you,” she said. “Now, how did you find yourself out here in the woods this fine afternoon?”
“Well, you know who I am,” I said. I licked my scaly lips. “What’s your name? Don’t you have to introduce yourself? I think you’re violating my rights. My Miranda rights.”
“I can assure you I’m not violating any of your rights, Miss Vann,” she said. She was young, probably not yet out of her twenties, and she kept glancing at the officers around her, as if for approval. “Now, will you tell me—”
“Where did you take my brother?” I asked. “Why didn’t anyone alert the media that he’d woken up? Or escaped? He’s dangerous, you know.”
She smoothed her hair back, though I hadn’t seen one out of place. “I can assure you that he’s safe and secure.”
She must have been new to the force. Any seasoned vet wouldn’t let someone they were questioning interrupt them. I knew that from all the time I’d spent with both seasoned vets and shaking newbies after the incident in the band room.
“Ella—the dark-haired girl who had the panic attack—told everyone at school about Julia’s brother,” Alane said. She ran her fingers up and down my arm, up and down, in what I could only guess was an attempt to soothe me. It didn’t work. “Nobody would talk to her. Julia, I mean. So Julia asked Michael to get Ella out here so she could talk to her. Make her case.”
“I really need to speak with Julia herself,” the cop said. “Alane—Miss Howard—why don’t you go wait over there? We’ll want to speak with you, too.”
Alane hesitated. “I don’t want to leave Julia,” she said. “She’s hurt.”
“You’re a good friend.” The cop didn’t sound like she thought Alane was a good friend at all. She sounded like she’d be perfectly happy to stuff Alane in the trunk of her car and leave her there for a few hours. “But this is a police matter, and you’re interfering. I wouldn’t want to have to arrest you.”
Alane’s eyes went wide as fists. Still, she didn’t retreat, which made a sort of warmth blossom in my belly, like I’d just chugged half a jar of honey. Was this love?
“Are you okay, Julia?” Alane asked.
A smile twitched at my lips. “I’m okay. You can go.”
She glanced at me, then at the cop, then back at me again, then scuttled away, backward, not unlike a crab. I turned back to the cop to see a smile twitching on her own lips. “I couldn’t have arrested your friend,” she confided. “And even if I could have, I wouldn’t have. I know she was just trying to protect you.”
“You’re totally new,” I said. “None of the veterans are this nice to me.”
“If you must know, I am new. They just called me in to help out this morning,” she said. “And my colleagues are wrong if they’re not nice to you. You’re a victim here, not a criminal.”
Tears stung at my eyes, and I was seized by the
urge to hug her, hard. Was that love? “You’re just saying that to get me to talk,” I said.
“I promise I’m not,” she said. The promises of cops mean nothing. “Now, tell me why you were here.”
Lying or not, I loved this cop. I wanted to be around her every time I had to do a police-related thing, which sounded like Michael’s definition of love. A little, anyway. Then again, I thought back to the glowing looks on his and his family’s faces around that lasagna. I didn’t think my face was glowing as I looked at the cop. Maybe this wasn’t love. Probably it wasn’t love.
“Like Alane said,” I said. “Nobody at school wanted anything to do with me. Even my teachers. I just wanted to talk to Ella and make things right.”
“Totally understandable,” she said. “And what happened next?”
“Can you tell me your name?” I asked. “I’d feel better talking to you if I knew your name.”
Her face, dappled with sunlight, flickered with surprise. “Of course. I thought I’d introduced myself already,” she said. Definitely new. Or else she was right, and she’d introduced herself while I’d been on the ground, my head in Alane’s lap and my mind drifting along with the clouds above. “I’m Officer Weiler. You can call me Miranda.”
“Miranda. That’s funny,” I said. “Like the rights.”
“Yes, like the Miranda rights,” she said. “They were named after me.”
I was all set to exclaim politely when she chuckled. “I’m just kidding,” she said. “They were actually named after Ernesto Miranda in a Supreme Court case in 1966. Miranda versus Arizona. We learned all about it in the academy.”
Last year, when she graduated? “Anyway,” she said. “So you were in the woods, trying to prove that you weren’t your brother.” She shook her head. “From what I heard from the others, you did a damn good job of it.”
Imaginary feathers puffed all over my back, and I had to fight the urge to preen them because, well, they didn’t actually exist, and I would have looked like a total idiot. “Thanks,” I said.
“Anyway, in the woods,” she said. “What happened next?”
I walked her through the whole deal—the appearance of my brother, all the yelling, my heroic defusing, Michael mucking everything up. Though I didn’t quite put it like that. “And now my head hurts and I want to go home,” I finished. I had planning to do. Tomorrow evening, my brother had said. I pegged that, conservatively, as four o’clock. That left me less than twenty-four hours to fix everything that was wrong. Everything.
“And you had no idea Ryan was going to be there?” she asked.
I instinctively winced at the sound of his name. “No, of course not,” I said. “If I had, I would have called the police immediately like a good citizen.” I sighed and scratched my temple. “But I don’t have any way of reaching you. So if I remember anything else…”
“Say no more.” Miranda pulled a business card from her pocket. “You can call me, day or night. I’d prefer night. I’m not so much a morning person.”
The card was on heavy, creamy stock, with the words CALIFORNIA STATE POLICE in letters that pushed back as I brushed my finger over them, as if they’d been written in a primitive form of Braille. I guess I’d never really thought about the police having business cards.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Of course,” Miranda said. “I live to serve the good citizens of the state of California.” Her eyes strayed over my shoulder. “It looks like my colleagues are finished with your friends,” she said. “You should get going before it gets dark. Go have some hot cocoa or something.”
When I mentioned her goodbye to Michael, he reacted exactly the way I thought he would. “You’re in luck,” he said. “Because guess who makes the best cup of hot chocolate in all of California?”
I paused and stared up at the sky. The sun was beginning to set, tie-dyeing the sky with streaks of pinks and purples and blues. “I was going to say something snarky, like Irv the security guard, but I’m too tired to think of anything good,” I said. “So I’ll go with you, Michael, you make the best cup of hot chocolate in all of California, if not all of America, if not all of the world, if not all of the galaxy.”
“You forgot the universe,” Michael said. “But yes, otherwise all true.”
Alane was still shaking when I pulled her in for a hug, and she decided she just wanted to go home. “I don’t mind if I have to settle for the powdered stuff in the microwave,” she said. “As long as I get to be in my own bed.”
“Are you okay driving?” I asked.
“I’ll be fine,” Alane said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She didn’t look at me when I said goodbye, and she scuttled off into the dark, empty parking lot without so much as a glance back over her shoulder. I was left with the lingering feeling she just wanted to get away from me.
I was getting no such feelings from Michael, who buried his face in my neck the second Alane disappeared into her car. Not unlike a vampire, actually. “You promised me hot chocolate,” I said. “I’m not kissing you until I get it.”
He heaved a gusty sigh into my neck, shivering every nerve from my collarbone to the underside of my chin. “Think about how that sounded,” he said.
“I’m basically a chocolate prostitute,” I said. “And I’m okay with it.”
We spent the ride in silence. Michael, I figured, was thinking over ways to make his ultrafamous hot chocolate even better (chili powder, maybe, or fresh vanilla?). I was thinking about my deadline. It was currently five o’clock. I had twenty-three hours.
And then the solution struck me. Duh. Of course. I spent the rest of the ride fervently planning.
“Are your parents around?” I asked Michael as we pulled into his driveway. Darkness yawned through his front windows.
“Nah,” he said. “They’re off helping Aria move into her new place, and then they’re going out to dinner. When I called my dad back there in the woods, he said they wouldn’t be home till late, maybe not till tomorrow.”
“Aria’s new place in Berkeley,” I said.
“You remembered!” Michael said. We stepped through his front door, and his smile brightened up the inside more than any of the lights he’d flipped on. “Yeah, she had some kind of fight with her roommate, so she’s moving to a different dorm room. With a new roommate she’ll probably hate, too. But c’est la vie.”
“I wish I could meet her,” I said. Aria was the one closest to Michael’s age, I thought; he’d told me she was a freshman in college. I wondered at their relationship. If he’d ever crawled into her bed to hold her as she cried.
“Someday you will,” he said. “She’ll be home in a month or two for summer break. I’ll have you over for dinner.”
Summer. I figured there was maybe, if I was lucky, a 50 to 60 percent chance I’d still be alive in summer.
“Sounds great,” I said.
The rich, sweet, heavy scent of melting chocolate filled the kitchen, spiked with a nose-tingling dose of chili powder (I’d been correct). As he waited for the milk and the chocolate and the chili powder to bubble, Michael pulled me to my feet and into him. “Would you grant me an advance?”
I let him kiss me. He tasted salty, and that was when I realized I was crying.
I lay awake for what felt like hours and hours before I got up to call Miranda. I glanced at the time on my phone before I started dialing. Somehow it was only ten o’clock.
Miranda picked up on the second ring. “Officer Miranda Weiler.” She sounded brusque, businesslike. Quite respectable for 10:00 p.m.
“Hi, Officer Weiler?” I said hesitantly. “This is Julia Vann. You gave me your card earlier?”
“Yes, Julia.” Her voice warmed. “Glad to hear from you.”
I wasn’t sure what to say after that. It had been a long time since any cop had been glad to hear from Julia Vann. “Yeah,” I said. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I wasn’t sure exactly why. “Before you said I could call you. If I remembered anything.
”
I half expected her to hang up right there, but instead she said, “Of course, Julia. What did you want to talk about?”
On the phone she was just a faraway voice. Remote. She could be anyone. “Could we talk in person?”
“Sure,” she said. I could picture her all dressed to go: crisp black suit, tight bun. “I’m happy to come by your house?”
I couldn’t stop a laugh from exploding against the mouthpiece.
“Bless you,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said. I could just imagine how my parents would react should another cop show up at the door. My mom might have a nervous breakdown. “Can I meet you somewhere? There’s this twenty-four-hour coffee place, kind of a diner, near my school. I can walk there. It’s called Crazy Elliot’s?”
“I know Crazy Elliot’s,” she said. “Nice place. Meet you there in half an hour?”
It took me longer than I thought it would to walk to Crazy’s. Ten minutes in, I was wishing I’d worn a sweatshirt. Twenty minutes in, there were more goose bumps on my arms than there was skin. Thirty minutes in, I was cursing the glowing headlights of the cars that whizzed by for the sure warmth of their interiors.
So I was relieved to see, finally, the neon CRAZY ELLIOT’S sign. I went inside and stomped my feet like I was stomping away the cold. “Julia!” I heard, and looked up. Miranda was already there, sitting in a back booth, hands wrapped around a steaming mug. I sighed internally. I’d kind of wanted to beat her there.
Still, I waved and joined her on the cracked red vinyl. To my surprise, I didn’t smell coffee. “You got hot chocolate,” I said, raising an eyebrow.
Miranda smiled and took a sip. When she lowered her mug a trace of whipped cream decorated her upper lip, like she was a kid or something. “I sense judgment.”
“Not at all,” I said. I felt the tears again, pushing on the backs of my eyeballs, but I managed to hold them in this time. “I’ll have one, too.”
Crazy Elliot’s made the second-best hot chocolate in town (after Michael’s, naturally). I told Miranda all about it. “A little bit of vanilla is the secret, I think,” I confided. “But Michael is convinced there’s nutmeg in there, too.”
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