Chapter Ten
3 Years, 29 Weeks, 6 Days
The dark, dry trees loom like massive sticks of cinnamon. Lake Galonagah at midnight looks like a sheet of glazed black sugar. The moon resembles a perfectly white round of Brie cheese.
I am lost as hell. Also, hungry. But that’s nothing new. I am hungry approximately 363 days of the year. The one day I am not hungry is Hitler’s birthday. And also the day after Thanksgiving. Thankfully these two days are not on top of each other, otherwise we would’ve named it “ThankGodHitlerkickedthebucketbackintheforties-giving” and that assuredly does not carry the same ring capitalist America likes so much for their holidays.
In my vast and strenuous consideration of the importance of holiday cheer, I manage to get myself even more lost. Contrary to popular belief, flashlights don’t contribute all that much to awesomeness other than being a cool thing you can use to put on a makeshift rave. I rave alone for two whole seconds and since it is horrible and quiet I give up immediately and sit down. On a skunk’s home. The great brute is understandably displeased and pokes his butt out just in time for my ankle to get completely soaked by hellacious spray.
“Oh holy—” I gag and cover my nose with my hoodie sleeve. “You knave! Hear ye, hear ye, this stripey beast of yonder wood is an ASSHOLE! Oh Christ, this is never going to come out, is it?”
The skunk admires his work for a split second before taking off. I shake my fist at him impotently. I can’t mess around with the local bitchy wildlife. I have to find Tallie again. The forest in the day is way different from the forest in the dead of night, and when I hear a crow caw hoarsely, I start to regret my decision to wander onto the apparent set of a horror movie. But I stick to the cliff side, careful to always know where the edge is, and follow it around.
Finally, the white cross peeks out of the trees, and I dash to it. The dirt’s still soft where I dug it up and put it back, and I dig it up for the second time. Grave-robbing isn’t my ideal job, but I’m getting pretty freakin’ good at it. Not that anyone needs to know that. Ever.
“Hey, Tallie,” I say in a low voice. “I’m back.”
The little pink bundle is dirty. I brush the mud away and pick pine needles off it. Tallie looks up at me with her tiny, fragile eye sockets. They’d be blue, since Sophia has blue eyes and so does Jack. I bet they’d be stunning, like lapis lazuli or the ocean on a summer day. And she would’ve been beautiful—with Sophia’s hair and Jack’s height and face. I smile and open the bundle and grasp the bracelet with her name on it.
“Is it okay if I take this with me?”
Tallie lies there, and I nod and take it, the silver flashing in the moonlight. I close the bundle back up and rebury it for what I hope will be the last time.
“I’ll come visit,” I say. “Your mom can’t, but I can.”
“Hey! This way!”
Someone’s voice cuts through the night, and the forest rustles with newcomers. Footsteps, heavy and deep, reverberate through the ground. Lots of them. Lots of potential serial killers ready to chop off my head with a fire ax. Or it’s Avery’s parents. Either way, I’m fucked. I duck behind a rotting log and hold my breath. I can barely hear their words; they’re a good distance away but close enough.
“Find anything?”
“No, sir. Are you certain this is the place?”
“Of course. My source at the police department is reliable. Keep searching. We need that leverage.”
Leverage? My foolhardy marvelous curiosity gets the better of me, and I peek over the log. A man in an impeccable tweed suit stands with two other men in dark, matching suits. The man in tweed is so tall and broad-shouldered. His hair is a shocking white, and he has an old-white-guy-in-charge aura about him that makes me instantly dislike him. Not Avery’s dad—I’ve seen him at open house. And he’s rich, but not rich like this guy—Rolex watch, Italian leather shoes, and anybody who runs around with two guys in suits taking orders from them is rich enough to have a lot of enemies.
“Sir, if you don’t mind my asking—is Jack Hunter really worth all this trouble? He’s just a high school student,” one of the suits says.
Tweed Guy sighs. “Yes. He’s in high school. But he’s four months away from college. It’s just a matter of time before the Harvard scouts sniff out his brilliance, and I intend to recruit it before them. I won’t let Aramon take this one from me. He’s too smart, too ruthless. He’s perfect. Now, get back to searching. The body has to be here somewhere. Look for a badly dug grave, small enough for a baby.”
Body. They’re talking about Tallie. I can’t let them find her. I have to get to her first—
I move my leg because it’s cramping, and it’s the last thing I ever do. Theoretically. In the alternate reality where they have guns. But they don’t. All they have are ears. Which is still slightly problematic.
“What the hell was that?” One of the suits looks up.
“Deer?” the other offers.
“No deer here,” Tweed Guy says. “Moriyama, check over there.”
A suit starts moving toward me, his back hunched and his fists clenched. Saying I don’t wanna get caught by these guys is like saying being on fire is a mild discomfort. My heart throbs in my ears. I scrabble for a rock and chuck it to the left of me. The suit freezes and then starts gravitating toward the noise, and I move in the opposite direction around the log, slowly.
And then something fuzzy scampers over my leg, and, unable to contain my fabulous voice, I yelp. Or sing an opera. I can’t be sure, because all of a sudden there’s chaos, and I’m running, and someone’s running after me, and the tweed guy is shouting, and a hand grasps my hair and I stop dead in my tracks and duck, and he goes soaring over my head down the hill, a chunk of hair in his hand.
“Thanks for ruining the do, doo-doo!” I scream. My gloating’s short-lived, as the other suit catches up with me and puts his arms around my torso, pinning my arms to my side.
“Fuck you! Unhand me at once!”
“Don’t think so, princess.” He struggles to contain my flailing. I switch up my voice to make it sweet.
“Please let go of me. Your future children will thank you.”
“What?”
I take his moment of confusion and dig my heel into his crotch. He lets out a strangled moan and collapses, and I tear away and slide down the hill. My car isn’t far down the trail. Air burns like cold flame as it goes down. My legs want to collapse and never work again. It’s not fear. Okay, it’s a little bit of fear. But like, 15 percent—60 percent is elation at what a fantastic ninja I’d make, and the last 25 percent is my mind screaming at me to let Jack know about these fuckers. Platonically. We’d texted earlier and I said some dumb shit about Tallie, but he didn’t seem mad. Hopefully my luck sticks long enough. Hopefully my stupid newfound butthead fear of him keeps its voice down.
Finally the trail gives way to the parking lot, and I scrabble into my lime-green Beetle. Don’t let me down, baby. It coughs and sputters as it starts, and I glance wildly back at the trail entrance. “C’mon, c’mon, now is not the time to fart out on me! Pick another time! Like, you know, when I’m not running for my life from mysterious gangsters with thousand-dollar suits and tiny nuts!”
The engine roars to life, and I do the greatest U-turn in Ohio. Which is saying a lot, because everyone here drives like they just got their license and are celebrating with six beers.
I pull over only when there are ten miles between Lake Galonagah and me, and fourteen McDonald’s to choose from. They’ll never find me. Unless they saw my car in the parking lot and are looking for it now, which is likely. I consider a midnight paint job. Maybe I could just, I dunno, bathe it in the blood of my enemies really quick and turn it red? Avery doesn’t have enough blood, though, and I feel kind of sorry for her, and the only other people I really hate are the people chasing me, and they are not an option because they are chasing me, and—
“Did you want ketchup with that?”
I look up, the cashier handing me my order of fries. Just fries. An entire bag of fries.
“Ketchup is the great illusion. Only when you put barbecue sauce on your fries will you know truth and freedom,” I chastise.
He looks appropriately enlightened. I head to the nearest, least-greasy table and inhale my kill. When my writhing stomach is appeased slightly, I text Jack.
I need to talk to you. In person. Right now.
His response is nigh instantaneous.
What happened? Is something wrong?
I don’t wanna talk about it over text. Where are you?
Come to the Hilton on First and Broadview. I’ll meet you in the lobby.
I grab my bag of fries and head out. I shouldn’t be scared. I shouldn’t be feeling nervous. I told him off, but I’m the dragon, and he’s just a prince, and I breathe fire and I meddled and hurt the people he loves, and him, but I’m still the dragon, and I can fly away if I need to. I’ll be fine. I am always fine. I survived Nameless. I survived Leo. I can survive this. I’m fine. I’m fine.
I find a parking space four blocks away. The Hilton is small here compared to the one in Columbus, but it’s fancy—fresh orchids and a fountain in the marble-floor lobby. The concierge smiles at me. Jack is waiting, sitting in a leather chair with too-perfect posture and a lazy flannel shirt and jeans. He’s on edge. The second I walk through the doors, he bolts up and walks over.
“What happened?” he demands. “Are you all right?”
“I won a million d-dollars,” I say. I can’t look at his face for some reason. Shame. Shame and guilt, probably.
“You’re shaking like a leaf. Come on. It’s warmer in the room.”
“No— I—” I pull away. “I just, I just want to tell you something, and then I’ll leave. I don’t want to— I don’t want to—”
“Be in the same room as me?” His voice is low.
“Just…don’t be nice to me. I’d appreciate it if you’d just momentarily forget I’ve been pretending you don’t exist for the last few weeks long enough for me to tell you this. Just like, develop amnesia. Wait, shit. Don’t. I’ve been there. It’s terrible. Also, there’s a lot of Jell-O involved.”
“Isis—”
“There’re some people digging around in your past. Other than me, I mean. I saw them at the lake.”
Jack’s eyes narrow.
“I’m sorry, I went to see Tallie again, because Sophia—she asked me to, and—”
He starts walking away, to the elevator.
“Hey! Wait! I’m not done talking to you!”
“Get in.”
“Uh, no? Have you not seen any Japanese horror movies? Getting in elevators after dark is asking for the voodoos.”
“You either get in this elevator and come back with me to the room, or you leave.”
I puff my cheeks out and agonize for four whole seconds.
“Fine! But I’m leaving right after!”
“I’ll kick you out promptly,” he promises. Somehow, it makes me feel better, but in a weird twingy-gut way. The doors close and he hits the button for floor eleven. There are approximately thirty seconds of us standing together in a closed space. He smells like mint and sweat in the best way. I mash myself into the farthest corner and think about how much he and Sophia like each other, and it works, keeps my head above the swirling memories lurking just beneath the surface of that smell.
The elevator opens and he leads me to room 1106. It’s not a big room, but it’s beautiful, and the queen bed is perfectly made. I expected it to be messy and full of sex, whatever that looks like. Not that I’d know, and I really have to stop thinking about sex while I’m facing down my nemesis, who I incidentally do not like in any way, I am just concerned about various creepy suited men in my neighborhood because I am a Good Samaritan, that’s all—
“Stop thinking out loud.” Jack takes off his shoes.
“I am overwhelmed,” I say. “By certain recent events.”
“You were thinking out loud. About sex. Has it been a recent event for you? Congratulations. Who’s the lucky man?”
“Sea slug,” I correct, and sit on a chair. Warily.
“I was trying to be nice.”
“Don’t. You suck at it.”
Jack’s lips quirk in the shadow of a smirk, but it’s gone quickly.
“Did you cut yourself?”
I follow his finger pointing to my jeans. A massive tear along the thighs shows an angry red cut, the blood staining the fabric around it.
“Aw, man! These were my favorite jeans! I saw my first concert in these!”
“I’d be a little more concerned about the gaping wound in your flesh,” he snarls.
“Well, that’s your deal. Personally, I’m okay with blood. Happens every month. Also you should stop rolling your eyes that much because I read somewhere that really hurts your eyesight and you wouldn’t exactly be as aloof and enigmatic if you’re running into walls all the time now, would you?”
“Get in the shower.”
“You get in the shower!”
“You smell like skunk. And you’re bleeding. You need a shower.”
“There was quite a large skunk. But really this will only take two seconds and then I’ll be out of your duck-butt hair, so listen up—”
He crosses his arms over his chest.
“Unfortunately, my powers of immense concentration are compromised by the stench of wildlife and the sight of blood. Take. A. Shower. There are towels, and a robe, and I’ll have room service wash and dry your things.”
“You’re being nice, dude. It’s sickening. The color does not match your eyes. Zero out of ten would not buy that nicey-nice makeup again.”
“I’m being practical. I have work to do that’s important, anyway. I’ll have finished by the time you come out, and I’ll be able to devote my full attention to your apparent chaotic experience involving my past. Now go.”
“Oh, I hate you so much.”
“Good. I prefer it to the silence.”
He turns to the laptop on the bed and types away, lost in it. The guilt solidifies, clamping down on my chest. I move mechanically into the bathroom and wince as I peel off my muddy jeans and jacket. I’ll have bruises for millennia. Thanks, Small-Nuts. The knock on the door makes me jump into the ceiling.
“Give me your clothes,” Jack says.
“Thanks, thanks a lot. Now I have a lightbulb for a head.”
“What are you babbling about? Just give me your clothes.”
“Go away! I’ll drop them on the floor! I can’t risk your cooties infecting me!”
“Fine. Just hurry up.”
“You hurry up,” I grumble wittily. The truth is my heart is pounding. Everything in me is pounding, bashing against my skeleton and skin to escape and slink away like a fleshy, independent meatbag. I’m naked. I’m naked and a boy is within ten feet of me and I am panicking, but I don’t let it leak through anywhere, not in my voice, not in my choice of words, because panic is normal, panic is what I’ll always do when I’m naked and a boy is around, and I’m shaking suddenly as I open the door when I’m sure he’s gone, and I drop the clothes on the floor and lock it behind me.
My underwear is stupid. It’s pink with a panda on it. He’ll think I’m a kid. He’ll think I’m immature.
Stupid little girl. You’re ugly. Do you think anyone on this planet would want to go out with a fat, ugly girl like you?
I shake my head. Why the hell should I care what he thinks about me? He’s Jack Hunter, the greatest douche who’s ever douched. Or not douched, because he’s a guy. Ugh, I really do gross myself out sometimes.
I decide to wash myself clean in the waters of Jesus and emerge as a less gross, more mature girl. The hot water is a luxurious relief and helps with the shaking in my hands, and the fancy shampoo and soap smell like milky almonds. The adrenaline of my escape winds down, and when I exit and tie the robe around myself, I feel like a new person. A person who’s not-me. And that’d be nice right now. Any other girl wouldn’t shake. Any other girl wouldn’t be panicking that I have to walk out there in only a robe. Any other girl would be calm and collected and know exactly how to act and what to say in this “hotel with a boy” situation. There’s another knock on the door.
“What is it?” I snap.
“I’ve got clothes for you. They aren’t yours, but they’re better than a robe. And there’s a box of Band-Aids.”
I deflate a little. He even thought of Band-Aids?
“Just drop them outside.”
I peek out and pull the clothes in quickly. It’s a soft skirt, long and shimmery and black, and a white dress shirt. The shirt is obviously Jack’s; it smells like him. And there’s a pink lip imprint on the collar. I roll my eyes. No wonder he has a lady’s skirt on him, and he’s holed up in the Hilton. I put a Band-Aid on my cut and walk out of the bathroom.
“Just got done working, huh?” I ask. He looks up from the laptop briefly, pauses as his eyes find the shirt and skirt, and nods.
“Yes. For the last time.”
“You mean, your last appointment? Ever?”
He nods.
“That’s great!” I clap my hands. “Jesus, that’s— That’s really great. Congratulations on not being a sex slave anymore!”
He curls his lip. “Oh, be quiet.”
“How’s it feel? To be free and all?”
“It’s riotous fun,” he deadpans.
“Ah! You’re distracting me!” I point at him. “Listen, some guys were looking around the woods where Tallie is. I overheard them talking, and they were looking for a body. A baby’s body.”
Jack closes the laptop. “What did they look like?”
“Two guys in black suits, lackeys obviously, and one huge guy in a tweed suit. He had like, white hair and a really jerk-y presence, like he owned the place. Superrich watch. Superrich in general.”
“Did he say who he was? Any hint at all?”
“No. Just that you were going off to Harvard and he wanted to recruit you for his company before all the other scouts. And he called you brilliant and ruthless and some other such nonsense, but I forget most of everything after that because I always tend to zone out when people start complimenting you. They were looking for Tallie’s body.”
Jack’s eyes narrow. “What happened after you overheard them?”
“Well, they overheard me. Specifically, my feet on the noisy ground. So I ran. Threw one guy down a hill and kicked the other in the balls. Not a bad night, if I may say so myself.”
“And you just…got in your car and came here right after?”
I hold up the bag of fries. “Refueled a bit.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dammit.”
“Something wrong? I mean, other than the corporate dudes after your neck? Protect your neck, by the way. That’s a Wu-Tang song. Also it’s a mildly good neck. I’ve stared at it many times while considering choking it.”
He chuckles. I cross my arms over my chest.
“What’s so funny?”
He shakes his head, a bit of his stupid hair glancing across his stupid eyes. His bruises are faint but still there, like inky imprints of a harder time.
“It’s nice. Having the old you back.”
“Oh.”
“I missed it,” he continues. His eyes are softer, but all at once they become hard. “Never mind. Forget I said that.”
There’s a silence, and suddenly I’m blindsided by a headache. It throbs, sending lances of white-hot electricity up and down my spine. It’s the same pain I felt in Mernich’s office. Shit, shit shit. Not now, brain, not now—
I’ve worn his shirt before. The smell is the same. He gave it to me to wear for bed, because my Halloween costume was too tight, and I was drunk, and the room had pictures of the sea in it and smelled like lavender, and I was happy; for a few seconds he was leaning over me and kissing me and I was happy. We sat on a bench once, our backs pressing against each other as the stars watched and a party raged on around us, and yet we were an island of quiet, of peace. I felt at peace with him. Reality and my memories blur together. I’m in the hotel room but I’m in the seashore room all at once. The shirt is soft. The smell of him is the same. Except the Jack now is sitting at his computer, staring at me with concerned eyes, and the Jack of the past is leaning over me, his lips on every part of my neck, my collarbone, my mouth and the corner of my mouth, and—
“Isis, are you all right?” Hotel Jack asks. “Forget what I said. I’m trying to let the past go. Sometimes it’s difficult, and I say ridiculous things. You’re not a part of my life anymore, just like you wanted. I’ve blocked you off. I promise.”
I like you.
Something painful and monstrous opens up in my chest, like a massive, shadowy Venus flytrap. The two me’s reach for his hand at the same time.
“I remember,” I whisper. His fingers are long and delicate, but I can feel the strength in them. “I remember the Halloween party. I said I liked you. You— You kissed me. We—”
Sophia’s words reverberate in my head.
That’s why he kissed you. That’s why he even bothered getting to know you. Because you’re exactly like me. Hopeless like me.
I drop his hand like it’s burned me.
“I’m sorry. Shit. I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Jack murmurs.
“I’m assuming things! My memories are back, but I know the full story now, too, so I’m sorry for even bringing it up!”
“Your memories are back?” His voice is strangled, but he clears it. “That’s— That’s good. You don’t have to be sorry for—”
“I just mean that wasn’t— Obviously that night wasn’t a real, uh, kiss thing. I mean, we were both pretty drunk! You didn’t really mean it; you were just being weirdly nice like you sometimes are once in a blue-ass moon, and I was super drunk, so when I said I liked you I just meant as a nemesis, you know? As a friend I could fight with verbally and stuff! Yeah. I really did like you. As a nemesis. Man, fighting you was fun!”
I laugh, but it sounds hollow even to my own ears.
“And, you know. I remind you of Sophia. We are kind of similar, deep down, so it makes sense you’d get confused and kiss me! Totally cool. Totally understandable. Man, I’m just sorry I drunkenly forced myself on you like that, and then did a total one-eighty and got scared like a little bitch. Like, wow, nobody deserves that ever, you feel me? I’m really sorry you had to go through that.”
I’ve wanted to hold her for months. It’s a need I’ve tamped down, a carefully controlled fire kept locked in the center of an iceberg. And she’s unknowingly tested me, over and over; she’s prodded and poked and sometimes taken a chain saw to the ice, but she’s never gotten through because I am Jack Hunter, and I am in control of myself at all times.
Except that one time, in the seashore room. The time she thinks was false. The time she is heaping piles of guilt on herself for. Guilt that’s coming from her past and from Will Cavanaugh. If I don’t stop this now, she’ll hurt herself with it. The cycle of Will’s damage will only dig its thorns deeper into her. If she can’t do it, it has to be stopped now, by someone. By me.
“I don’t want to scare you,” I say finally. She looks up, warm cinnamon eyes surprised.
“What?”
“And I don’t want to make you uncomfortable—”
“Um—”
“—but you are nothing like Sophia. You are Isis Blake—stubborn and ridiculous and kind and strong. You are exactly you. And that’s why I kissed you that night, because I wanted to kiss Isis Blake. And I did. It was uncalled for. You had every right to stop and every right to pull away. You were afraid, and I exacerbated that fear by trying to kiss you, and it’s my fault. Not yours.”
Her face goes blank with shock, and she’s silent for once in her life.
“Yes, we were drunk,” I continue. “You were, more specifically, and I was a little. So I’m the one who should’ve known better, and I apologize. I went too far, too fast. I was happy.” I chuckle darkly. “For once in my life, I was happy. It’s no excuse, but I hope it helps you understand my actions that night.”
Her shell-shocked expression doesn’t change.
“I’m sorry.” I smile. “It won’t happen again.”
She doesn’t say anything. I have to break the tension. I get up and stretch, cracking my neck and wrists.
“You should go. It’s getting late, and I’m sure you’re tired. You need to get some rest. Thank you for telling me about the men. I’ll look into them—”
Something crashes into me from behind, and it takes me a second to realize it’s her, wrapping her arms around my stomach and pulling my spine to rest against her chest. She buries her face in my back.
“I want it,” she whispers. “I…I want it to h-happen again.”
The web of anxiety in me snaps, thread by thread, and every muscle in my body relaxes. It is relief, pure and bright, coursing through me. I’m not the only one who wants it. I am not the only one, and my skin warms and my breathing comes easier as that knowledge sinks in with each passing second of silence. What she said that night in the seashore room wasn’t just a drunk babble. She likes me. And I soak in that realization for as long as I can, before she rubs her face against my shirt like an animal, something wild and used to marking others with its scent.
“I want to show you something,” she says.
“All right.” I keep my voice carefully even and low.
She puts her arms out on either side of me and pulls up the shirt on her right arm. She’s always, always kept that arm covered. She’s never worn short-sleeved T-shirts, and even when I saw her in that blouse, she kept the sleeve carefully covering it and her arm faced downward. It’s almost a reflex with her, to keep the arm out of sight.
My breath catches.
There, on the delicate underside of her wrist, are the marks. Round, puckered white scars. Dozens of them. They molt her skin, the pockmarks overlapping like a dappled pond. Cigarette burns.
“How—” I stop myself, even though I know the answer already. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place to ask.”
Her arms tremble as she speaks. “Nameless.”
I close my eyes. Hearing the confirmation from her is more infuriating, more heartbreaking than any conclusion I reached on my own.
“It’s ugly, I know.” She laughs shakily. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to gross you out.”
I turn and lace my arms around her, careful not to put too much pressure or squeeze tight to the point she’d feel trapped. Her mouth against my chest makes me shiver, but I suppress it at the last second. I can see her scar on the top of her still-wet head. She smells like almonds and forest pine.
“There is nothing about it that’s ugly,” I say. “Can I?”
She hesitates, then nods. I reach around and bring up her wrist, gently running my fingers over the marks. The raised ridges are rough, but in other parts, silky. I trace around each circle with my thumb.
“It looks like a galaxy,” I say. “Full of stars and supernovas and conductive cryogeysers and a lot of wonderful science things I could go on to list that would probably bore the hell out of you.”
She laughs, the sound vibrating in my ribs.
“I have another one.” She gestures to her head. “It’s not as ugly, but it’s a lot bigger. Just call me Scarface. Head. Cranium. ScarCranium is definitely a Swedish death-metal band.”
I lean in and kiss the top of her head, the scar smooth under my lips.
“We’ll have to listen to them someday,” I say. She makes a sound halfway between a squeak and a sigh. “Something wrong?”
“N-No. Just…having someone—kiss—um— Having someone…doing that—um—”
“You don’t like it?”
“No! I-I do. It’s really—um, just really, it’s nice. It feels nice. Um.” She buries her face in my shirt like she’s trying to disappear, but I can see the red flush creeping up her forehead.
I feel like I’m melting. My insides are warm, and I’m all weirdly relaxed. And I don’t ever want it to stop.
I feel safe.
For the first time in a long time, I feel really, really safe. Like nothing can get to me. Like, for once, Nameless can’t reach in his fingers and get to me through my memories.
“I was scared,” I murmur. “When I was running from those guys. And I’m scared they saw my car.”
“You can stay here, if you want,” Jack offers. “I can take the couch.”
“That’d be rad.”
“All right. I’ve got work to finish, but feel free to take the bed.” He grabs his laptop and sits on the couch. I’m almost sorry for the loss of his warmth, but then I remember he’s a nerd. I spot the empty plate of what looks like soy sauce, and my stomach makes a noise like a dying cow.
Jack raises an eyebrow, smirking. “Hungry?”
“Shut up.” I flush. “I’ve got my fries.”
“Those are embalming you from the inside out,” he says and picks up the phone. “Let’s get something that doesn’t survive radioactive deterioration, shall we?”
I dive under the blankets and try not to think about the fact that Jack had sex with some old lady in them. He got the sheets changed, obviously, but it’s still a used bed. Then again, it’s a hotel! A lot of people have probably had sex in this bed! And it’s so fluffy I might as well be lying on my own flabby belly.
“Hello, yes, this is for room 1106. I’d like the salmon Parmesan, with the spinach salad, and an order of the crème brûlée. Yes. Yes, thank you.”
When he hangs up, I raise an eyebrow.
“Yeah? Suddenly rolling in cash?”
“My final client is paying for the room. We could order a dozen lobsters and she’d have to pay it.”
“Ah, the perks of sex work.” I flop into the pillows. He doesn’t answer, absorbed in his laptop. “Hey, who was that tweed guy, anyway?”
Jack shrugs. “Going by your description, I think I’ve met him.”
“Oh yeah? At a gathering for the rich and snooty?”
“At a bar. Where he beat the shit out of me.”
“That’s where you got the beaten-hamburger look?”
Jack nods. “He’s good. Trained, probably. Karate, if I had to guess by his forms and strikes.”
“And you’re just trained in bat, right? Not the billionaire playboy vigilante kind, but the baseball kind.”
“I took tae kwon do until high school. He’s much better than me.”
“Someone sent me a picture,” I say. “Of your hand on a baseball bat, and a body—”
“I know. Wren told me about it. More accurately, he screamed it at me. In the library.”
“Wren? Screaming? C’mon, lying isn’t funny. Except when it is.”
“He was very worked up. Agitated. He’s a lot of things, and we have a complicated history, but he’s surprisingly loyal to the people he considers friends. Not that it mattered when he turned tail and ran that night, but still. It’s the thought now that counts. Reform and second chances and all that drivel.”
“You killed someone,” I say. There’s no fear behind it now. I’ve shown him my scars, and he didn’t flinch. So if he says yes, I won’t flinch, either. His icy eyes flicker up. There’s a long, languid silence in which I’m sure he can hear my thunderous, anticipating heartbeat from ten feet away.
“I don’t know if I did,” he says finally.
“What do you mean?”
“It was dark. The police—the police told us he walked off the cliff because he didn’t see it. But he couldn’t see it because I gave him a black eye.”
“He still had one good eye—”
“That’s no excuse,” Jack says sharply. “I may as well have killed him myself.”
He’s telling what he thinks is the truth—the guilt in his eyes is obvious. If it were a lie, they’d be clear.
“That’s not true.”
Jack glares at me. “As far as you know, it is. You’re not concerned? I killed someone. I’m a murderer, Isis.”
“You were defending Sophia. Just like you defended my mom and me from Leo. That’s what you do. You protect people.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it and stares at the floor.
“Look,” I start. “I’ve done some things I’m not proud of. I know what it feels like to want to kill someone. I really do. I was going to try to kill Leo, when my mom first told me about what happened with her and him. I had it all planned out—I’d drug him with chloroform, and if that didn’t kill him, I’d slice his dick off with a butcher knife, and then his fingers, and then his throat. I dreamed about it sometimes. I wanted it more than anything. I wanted to make him pay for what he did to her.”
Jack looks up at me. I shrug.
“So yeah. I know what it’s like.”
There’s something like gratitude that flickers behind his eyes.
“So the guy in the tweed has an inside man on the police force,” I say. “How would the police know about Tallie?”
“They don’t,” Jack says. “But they saw Sophia. The EMTs or the doctors probably told him she…she lost Tallie. And the cops saw the blood in the forest when they were investigating the crime scene. It’d be simple for them to put two and two together, and for Tweed Incorporated to find that out. But the cops never actually found Tallie. Avery saw to that. She buried her somewhere no one else would find, if they didn’t know the area like the back of their hand the way she did.”
“So why is Tweed looking for Tallie, then?”
“I don’t know his motives,” Jack says. “Information on me, maybe? The more he knows about me, the more ammo he has to try to convince me to join him.”
“Because you’re the perfect candidate for his weird corporation?”
“Because I am perfect, period.” He smirks. I throw the extra pillow and it graciously arcs over his laptop and hits him smack in the face.
“Thanks, physics!” I thumbs-up no one. Jack belligerently coughs out a feather.
“What are we going to do?” I ask. “We can’t let them find Tallie. I don’t want them to, and I’m sure Sophia doesn’t want them to.”
Jack’s eyes get sharp, then soft all at once. “I’ll figure something out.”
He turns to his keyboard and types rapidly.
“Wow, you’re super dedicated to that computery thing over there. Wow. I can’t stop saying wow.”
“Stop saying wow.”
“What are you wowing? I mean, doing?”
“Tracing the email address that sent you that picture.”
“Oh. Then what? What happens after you find him?”
“Then I blow him up,” Jack growls.
I raise an eyebrow.
“Crash his hard drive,” he corrects.
“Slightly more legal,” I agree. “Alas, not as fun.”
The food comes, and the maid wheels it in and leaves after Jack gives her a tip, and I inhale every little thing on the tray in less than five minutes.
“Jesus, woman, you’re going to choke.”
“Worth it!” I chirp, and slurp crème brûlée. I start coughing massively.
“Choke quietly.” He turns back to the laptop and mutters to himself. “There. Finally. This guy is ridiculously good. But if I run the byte scan, I can—”
He goes still, like a deer hearing a gun cock.
“I’m…dying…” I remind him from the general vicinity of the floor.
“The IP traces back to Good Falls, Florida. Your hometown,” he says. “Someone from your hometown sent you this. It has to be someone you know. Who do you know from back then who’s good at computers?”
My heart stutters, and I stop pretending to die and start actually dying.
“Isis? What’s wrong?”
I stare up at the hotel ceiling, debating how many steps it’d take for me to get to the toilet. I don’t wanna throw up on Jack again, no matter how marvelous the last time was. Jack’s face looms over my vision.
“Isis? You’re pale—”
“Him,” I say softly. “He won the state computer programming competition for the middle school division every year.”
“Who?”
I thought he’d left me alone. I never thought the email could be him. An almost-year of silence convinced me I was free.
I grit my teeth and put my hands over my eyes, like it’ll block out the darkness. It can’t be, but it is. I had nightmares about this exact thing, about him finding me. I’d spent so much time away from him, I was lulled into a false sense of security, security built up by my new friends, and with Jack’s help. But I was stupid. Naive. I haven’t gotten smarter at all. Deep down, past all my newfound strength and courage, I knew the safety wouldn’t last long. It never does. Nameless is a scar in my life that will never go away. The darkness he’s planted in me hovers in every corner of my soul, waiting for an opening, a weakness to force its way in. And no matter how hard my armor, no matter how loyal my friends and how gentle Jack is, there’s always a weakness in me. Maybe their kindness has made a weakness in me.
The darkness always finds a way in, just like it has now.
“Nameless.”