There was another long pause. Then Mads said, “Why’d you run?”
“I was chasing Bach.” Lying about it wouldn’t get me back in their good graces. “I saw him before it happened, acting sketchy. I thought he might have had something to do with it.”
“And?” Hal said.
I shook my head. This I could lie about. “I lost him.”
Hal made a noise. “I talked to my dad this morning. He said it was just like the Firestarter Murders. No chemicals, no pressurized air, no gasoline. Nothing that would make anexplosion like that. And you need those to make an explosion like that, right?”
“Liquid gasoline doesn’t explode,” I said. “But you need something, yeah.”
Hal waved his cup around. “Well, that’s just it—my dad said that the cops checked the whole float. They even brought in the bomb unit from Harrisburg. No one found anything. No accelerants, no debris. And here’s the other thing: those floats ride on metal trailer frames. The frame burned, too. All of it, up in flames, immediately. It’s not right.”
“Then it’s like Mr. Masrell’s house,” Lorelei said.
Her voice was so soft I almost didn’t hear her, and I was standing right next to her. Lorelei curled a length of her hair around her hand.
“My dad was complaining the other day because Chief Rivera hadn’t found any accelerants at Mr. Masrell’s house, or even what might have been the source of the fire.” Lorelei twisted the hair tighter around her hand. “It may not mean anything, but he thinks they should have some kind of evidence by now.”
I could imagine Buster raging around his house like an angry pig, but he wouldn’t have only been angry that they couldn’t find accelerants or a source. He would have been angry that they hadn’t been able to find accelerants or a source that linked this allto me.
Hopefully the town knowing this much of the evidenceand linking it to the Firestarter Murders would be enough to convince Forester to let Bach help me.
“That’s really weird,” I said, my legs suddenly aching. “Anyway, I just wanted to stop by. If you need anything, seriously anything, let me know. Okay? I—” Denying I’d done it would only make me seem petty and scared. Like I needed to defend myself. The urge to raise shields was so strong, and none of the three of them had even accused me out loud yet. But I could see it on their faces. Wariness. Hesitance.
How could you convince people of the truth when they had already decided what version of the story they wanted to believe?
Hal, Mads, and Lorelei stared at me, and I stared back. I had nothing.
“What are you going to do?” Mads asked.
I realized none of them actually expected me tosayanything. I knew what the question meant, and I had no answer. I had not made a reputation for myself as a person whosaidthings. I was a doer. I always had been. Want something? Take it. Fear something? Fight it. Bored? Get the Chevelle. Annoyed? Yell at a janitor.
Angry? Hunt firestarters.
But doing had gotten me deeper and deeper into this mess until I couldn’t tell right from left or up from down. A firestarter knew me, and was not only framing me for itsfires, but threatening my family and friends if I didn’t leave it alone. I knew how to struggle against the confines of the old Addamsville, but this new version had teeth.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I have to go. I’ll see you guys later, okay? Get better, Hal.”
Their mumbled good-byes told me everything I needed to know. We worked in the same building, but we came from very different places. It wasn’t safe to be friends with me. It wasn’t even safe to sympathize with me.
The hospital hallway was empty except for a few ghosts and a nurse who disappeared inside a room. I hid in the alcove by the bathrooms, fists pressed to my forehead, my prosthetic fingers bent to follow the slope of my nose.
When you feel alone, you don’t admit it to anyone. If you do, they’ll either use it against you or they’ll pity you, and it’s a toss-up which one is worse. You keep loneliness inside, squeezed so tight in your chest it hurts. If you’re lucky, you can forget about it for a while. If you’re unlucky, you are surrounded by things that make you think of it all day long: people who don’t believe anything you say, people who make fun of you, people who blame you for things without regard for whether you actually could have done them.
And loneliness brings fear. Fear that there are things out there you don’t understand and you’ll have to face them by yourself. Fear that no one will be there to help you when youget lost. Fear that the truth will be more than you can handle.
I stood, straightened my clothes, and glanced in the reflective surface of a nearby door to make sure my face looked okay.
Get it together, Novak,I thought.You’re not alone yet.
Artemis was on my side. And I always had Dad, as much of a hypocrite as he might be.
It wasn’t time to give up.
19
Happy Hal’s reopened Sunday afternoon, and Hal’s dad, despite any of his suspicions, didn’t say a thing about me not coming to work. I showed up for the afternoon shift, said hi to Mason, the manager picking up Hal’s lost hours, and took my window.
