by Holly Black
The fish is cooling in front of us as Zacharov strips off one of his gloves. His bare hand is striped with scars. They’re a ruddy brown and pulled like taffy.
“Three boys cornered me at a party in the Village and pressed my hand against one of the burners on an electric coil stove. Seared through my glove, fused the cloth into my flesh. It felt like someone was flaying me to the bone. They said I should stay away from Jenny, that the thought of someone like me touching her made them sick.”
He takes a long swallow of wine and pokes his fork into the turbot, one hand still bare.
“Desi came to the hospital after my father and mother left. He wanted my sister Eva to wait in the hall. When he asked me what happened, I was ashamed, but I told him. I knew he was loyal to my father. After I’d finished the story, he asked me what I wanted done to those boys.”
“He killed them, didn’t he?” I ask.
“I wanted him to,” says Zacharov, taking a bite of the fish and pausing to swallow. “Every time the nurse changed the dressing on my hand, every time they dug tweezers into blistered skin to pull out cloth, I imagined those boys dead. I told him so. Then your grandfather asked me about the girl.”
“The girl?” I echo.
“That’s exactly what I said, in that exact incredulous tone. He laughed and said that someone put those boys up to what they did. Someone told them something to rile them up. Maybe she liked to have boys fighting over her. But he was willing to bet that that girl of mine wanted to end our relationship and had decided to throw me out like garbage. It was easier, after all, if she seemed like a victim rather than the kind of girl who liked messing around with workers.
“Your grandfather was right. She never came to the hospital to see me. When Desi finally paid a visit to the boys, he found Jenny in one of their beds.”
Zacharov pauses to eat a few bites. I eat too. The fish is amazing, flaky and redolent of lemon and dill. But I don’t know what to make of the story he’s telling.
“What happened to her?” I ask.
He pauses, fork in hand. “What do you think?”
“Ah,” I say. “Right.”
He smiles. “When my grandfather said we had to protect one another, I thought he was a sentimental old man. It wasn’t until your grandfather said it that I understood what it meant. They hate us. They might give us a smile. They might even let us into their beds, but they still hate us.”
The door opens. Two attendants have arrived with coffee and pastries.
“They’d hate you most of all,” says Zacharov. The room’s warm, but I feel very cold.
It’s late when Stanley drops me back at the house. I’ve only got maybe twenty minutes to get my stuff and get back to Wallingford before room check.
“Stay out of trouble,” Stanley says as I hop out of the back of the Cadillac.
I unlock the door and head for the back room, gather up my books and backpack. Then I look for my keys, which I thought were right with my bag but aren’t. I stick my hands beneath the cushions of the couch. Then I kneel down to see if they fell underneath. I finally find them on the dining room table, hidden by some envelopes.
I start to head out when I remember that my car is still busted. I’m not even sure I brought the battery and fuses home from Sam’s house. In a panic, I run upstairs to my bedroom. No battery. No fuses. I retrace what my drunken steps must have been, all the way back to the kitchen. I discover that the coat closet is slightly ajar and, amazingly, the auto parts bag is inside of it, resting alongside an empty beer can. A coat is wadded up in the back, like maybe I knocked it off its hanger. I lift it, intending on putting it back where it goes, when I hear a metallic thunk.
A gun rests on the linoleum. It’s silver and black with the Smith & Wesson stamp on the side. I stare at it, and stare, like I’m seeing it wrong. Like it’s going to turn out to be a toy. After a moment I hold up the wide-collared coat. Black. Big. Like the one on the video.
Which makes that gun the one that killed my brother.
I put both the coat and the gun back, carefully, thrusting the evidence as far into the closet as it will go.
I wonder when she decided to shoot Philip. It must have been after she came back from Atlantic City. I can’t believe that she knew about his deal with the Feds before then. Maybe she went to Philip’s house and saw some of the papers—but, no, he wouldn’t be that stupid. Maybe she spotted Agent Jones or Hunt talking to Philip. It would take only a single look at either one of them to know they were law enforcement.
But even that doesn’t seem like enough. I don’t know why she did it.
I only know that this is my mother’s house, and my mother’s closet, making that my mother’s coat.
Making that my mother’s gun.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AT SCHOOL MONDAY morning I catch up with Lila on my way to French class. I touch her shoulder, and she spins around, her smile tinged with longing. I hate having so much power over her, but there is a sinister creeping pleasure in knowing I am so much in her thoughts. A pleasure I have to guard against.
“Did you go to Philip’s house?” I ask.
She opens her mouth uncertainly.
“I found one of your cigarettes,” I say before she can lie.
“Where?” she asks. Her arms wrap around her chest protectively. She grips her shoulder tightly with one gloved hand.
“Where do you think? In his ashtray.” I see her expression darken, and I abruptly change my mind about what’s going to make her talk. She looks utterly closed to me, a house locked against burglars, even ones she likes. “Tell me it wasn’t yours and I’ll believe you.”
I don’t mean that for a second, though. I know the cigarette was hers. I just also know the best way to get into a locked house is to be let in the front door.
“I have to go to class,” she says. “I’ll meet you outside at lunch.”
I lope on to French. We translate a passage from Balzac: La puissance ne consiste pas a frapper fort ou souvent, mais a frapper juste.
Power does not consist in striking hard or often, but in striking true.
She’s waiting for me by the side of the cafeteria. Her short blond hair looks white in the sunlight, like a halo around her face. She’s got on white stockings that stop at her thighs, so that when she swishes her rolled-up skirt, I can almost see skin.
“Hey,” I say, determined not to look.
“Hey yourself.” She smiles that crazy, hungry smile she has. She’s had time to pull her act together, and it shows. She’s decided what to tell and what to hide.
“So . . . ,” I say, gloved hands in my pockets. “I didn’t know you still smoked.”
“So, let’s take a walk.” She pushes off the wall, and we start down the path toward the library. “I started again this summer. Smoking. I didn’t really mean to, but everyone around my father smokes. And besides, it was something to do with my hands.”
“Okay,” I say.
“It’s hard to quit. Even here at Wallingford, I take a paper towel tube, stuff it with fabric softener sheets, and exhale into that. Then I brush my teeth a million times.”
“Rots your lungs,” I say.
“I only do it when I’m really nervous,” she says.
“Like when you’re in a dead man’s apartment?”
She nods quickly, gloves rubbing against her skirt. “Like that. Philip had something that I wanted to make sure no one found.” Her gaze darts to my face. “One of the bodies.”
“Bodies?” I echo.
“One of the people that you . . . changed. I’ve heard there’s ways to tell if an amulet is real and, well, maybe someone—the cops or the Feds—could use that to tell if an object has been worked. I was worried for you.”
“So why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
She turns to me, eyes blazing. “I want you to love me, you idiot. I thought that if I did something for you, something huge, then you would. I wanted to save you, Cassel, so that you’d have t
o love me. Get it now? It’s horrible.”
For a moment I don’t know why she’s so angry. Then I realize that it’s because she’s embarrassed. “Gratitude isn’t love,” I say finally.
“I should know that,” she says. “I’m grateful to you and I hate it.”
“You didn’t do me any other favors you haven’t mentioned, right?” I ask, not relenting. “Like murdering my brother?”
“No,” she says sharply.
“You had every reason to want him dead,” I say, thinking of Sam and Daneca’s accusations in the kitchen of Daneca’s fancy house.
“Just because I’m glad he’s dead doesn’t mean I killed him,” she says. “I didn’t order him killed either, if that’s what you’re going to ask next. Is that what those agents wanted? To tell you I murdered your brother?”
I must look blank, because she laughs. “I go to this school too. Everyone knows you got cuffed and thrown into the back of a black car by guys in suits.”
“So, what do most people think?”
“There’s a rumor going around that you’re a narc,” she says, and I groan. “But I think the jury’s still out.”
“I don’t know what the suits want with me any more than the school does,” I say. “I’m sorry I asked you about the cigarette. I just had to know.”
“You’re getting very popular,” she says. “Not enough Cassel to go around.”
I look up. We’ve walked past the library. We’re almost to the woods. I swing around, and she does the same. We walk back together quietly, lost in separate thoughts.
I want to reach out for her hand, but I don’t. It’s not fair. She’d have to take it.
I’m heading toward Physics when Sam stops me in the hall.
“Did you hear?” he asks. “Greg Harmsford went crazy and trashed his own laptop.”
“When?” I ask, frowning. “At lunch?”
“Last night. Apparently everyone on his hall woke up to him drowning it in a sink. The screen was already cracked like he’d been punching it.” At that, Sam can no longer contain his laughter. “Serious anger management problem.”
I grin.
“He says that he did it in his sleep. Way to steal your excuse,” says Sam. “Besides, everyone could see that his eyes were open.”
“Oh,” I say, the grin sliding off my face. “He was sleepwalking?”
“He was faking,” Sam says.
I wonder where Lila was while I drove around with her father. I wonder if she visited Greg’s room, if he asked her to come in, if she slowly removed her gloves before she ran her hands through his hair.
Sam turns to me to say something else.
Then, thankfully, the bell rings and I have to run to class. I sit down and listen to Dr. Jonahdab. Today she’s talking about the principal of momentum and how hard it is to stop something once it has been set in motion.
Daneca rushes past me out of the room at the end of Physics. She heads for Sam’s class and stands near the door, waiting for him. The expression she’s wearing makes it clear that Sam hasn’t started talking to her yet.
“Please,” she says to him, hugging her books to her chest, but he walks past her without even hesitating. The skin around her eyes is red and swollen with recent tears.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” I say, although I’m not sure I believe it. It’s just something people say.
“I guess I should have expected it,” she says, pushing back a lock of purple-tipped hair and sighing. “My mom said lots of people want to know workers but would never date one. I thought Sam was different.”
My stomach growls, and I remember that I skipped lunch. “No, you didn’t,” I say. “That’s why you lied to him.”
“Well, I was right, wasn’t I?” she asks plaintively. She wants to be contradicted.
“I don’t know,” I say.
My next class—ceramics—is held across the quad at the Rawlings Fine Arts Center. I’m surprised when Daneca follows me onto the green; I really doubt her next class is there too.
“What do you mean?” she asks. “Why do you think he’s like this?”
“Maybe he’s mad you didn’t trust him. Maybe he’s mad you didn’t tell him the real reason you didn’t want to be tested. Maybe he’s just happy to be in the right for once—you know, enjoying having the upper hand.”
“He’s not like that,” she says.
“You mean he’s not like me?” I ask. In the nearby parking lot a tow truck is starting to pull out with a car attached.
She blinks, as if startled. I have no idea why; it’s not like she doesn’t keep assuming terrible things about me. “I didn’t say that.”
“Well, you’re right. I would like it, even if I didn’t want to admit it. Everyone likes a little power, especially people who feel powerless.” I think of Sam at the start of the semester, feeling like he could never measure up to Daneca, but I doubt she has any idea about that.
“Is that how you are with Lila?” If she wasn’t judging me before, she’s judging me now.
I shake my head, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “You know it’s not the same—not real. Haven’t you ever worked—”
I stop speaking as I realize the car being towed is mine. “What the hell?” I say, and take off running.
“Hey!” I shout as I see the bumper of my car smack against the last speed bump before the road. All I can see of the guy driving is that he’s got a cap on, pulled low enough to shade his eyes. I can’t even see the license on the tow truck, since my own car is obscuring it. I can see the name airbrushed on the side of the truck, though. Tallington Towing.
“What just happened?” Daneca asks. She’s standing in the empty parking spot where my Benz used to be.
“He stole my car!” I say, utterly baffled. I turn and sweep my hand to indicate all the other vehicles in the parking lot. “Why not one of these? These are nice cars! Why my crappy broken down piece of—”
“Cassel,” Daneca says sternly, interrupting me. She points to the ground in front of her. “You better take a look at this.”
I walk over and spot a small black jewelry box with a black bow sitting in the middle of the empty space. I squat down and touch the small tag, flip it over. There on the black paper, in even blacker ink, is a crude drawing of the crenellations of a castle. Frowning at it, I feel the familiar pull of the shadow world of crime and cons. This is a gift from that world.
Castle.
Cassel.
I pull the ribbon, and it comes free easily. Before I lift the lid, I briefly consider that there’s going to be something unpleasant inside—a bomb or a finger—but if there’s really a body part inside, waiting’s only going to make everything worse. I open the box. Inside, nestled in cut black foam, is a square Benz key. Shiny. Silver edged and so newfangled that it looks more like a flash drive than anything to do with a car.
I lift it up and click the unlock button. Headlights flicker in a car across from where I’m standing. A black Roadster with chrome trim.
“Are you kidding me?” I say.
Daneca walks over and presses her face against the window. Her breath fogs the glass. “There’s a letter inside.”
I hear the bell ring faintly from inside the academic center. We’re officially late for class.
Daneca seems not to hear it. She opens the door and takes out an envelope. Her gloved fingers make quick work of it, ripping open the flap before I can stop her.
“Hey,” I say. “That’s mine.”
“Do you know who it’s from?” she asks, unfolding the paper.
Sure. There’s only one person it could be from. Zacharov. But I’d rather she didn’t know that.
I make a grab for the letter, but she laughs and holds it out of reach.
“Come on,” I say, but she’s already reading.
“Iiiiinteresting,” Daneca says, her gaze rising to meet mine. She holds out the note:
A taste of your future.
—Z
/>
I snatch it out of her hand and crumple it. “Let’s take a drive,” I say, holding the key up in front of her. “We’re already cutting class—at least we can have some fun.”
Daneca slides into the passenger seat without protest, shocking me. She waits until I’ve buckled myself in before she asks, “So, what’s that note about?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Just that Zacharov wants me to join his merry band of thieves.”
“Are you going to keep this?” she asks, brushing gloved fingers over the dashboard. “It’s a pretty expensive bribe.”
The car is beautiful. Its engine hums and the gas pedal responds to even the lightest touch.
“If you keep it,” Daneca says, “he’ll have his claws in you.”
Everyone has their claws in me. Everyone.
I pull out onto the street and head for the highway. We ride in silence for a few moments.
“Before—when we were heading to class—you asked me if I ever worked anyone.” Daneca looks out the window.
“Please know that I am seriously the last person in the world to judge you.”
She laughs. “Where are we going anyway?”
“I thought we’d get coffee and a doughnut. Brain food.”
“I’m more of an herbal tea girl,” Daneca says.
“I’m shocked,” I say, taking one hand off the wheel and placing it over my heart. “But you were about to tell me all your secrets. Please, continue.”
She rolls her eyes, leans forward, and fiddles with the radio. The speakers are just as fantastic as the rest of the car. No hiss. No distortion. Just full, clear sound. “There’s not much to tell,” she says, adjusting the volume down. “There was this guy I liked when I was twelve, right before I came to Wallingford. His name was Justin. We were both at this arts-focused middle school and he was a kid actor. He’d done some commercials and everything. I was just on the edge of his friends circle, you know.”
