Page 83 of The Circle

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

It’s not hyperventilation, what I feel entering this place, but it’s close. I have a flash.

Walking through the corridor of this old, Austrian castle, I feel a breeze blowing. Not a literal one. Something else. A chill in the middle of the summer.

Sometime before. Sometime months ago. Maybe a year? Maybe more? I can’t recall for sure, but I remember…

“Why are we here?” I ask Lars. “What are we doing here?”

Ever since the thing that happened with Alec and Eliza, Lars and I have been… closer.

I’ve always kind of felt sorry for Lars. When Danny and I first met Alec, Lars was just a kid. I mean, I guess I was too, but he was an actual kid. Nine, maybe ten? And it was always so apparent to me and Danny how much he looked up to and idolized his big brother. He wanted to be just like him.

Of course, he couldn’t be. Nobody on the planet is like Alec van den Berg. And even though there are however many billion people on the planet and nothing’s actually impossible, I still feel like that’s probably true. But insomuch as Lars could emulate Alec, he tried.

That’s less true now than it used to be. Lars is almost twenty-one. A proper adult. And in this last little while that I’ve gotten to know him better, he’s really grown into his own man.

Precisely what kind of man that is, I’m still not sure. But right now I only need him to be one thing:

Anyone but Alec.

I remember…

He turns back to me just before we enter the castle itself and says, “I need you to not get freaked out,” by way of answer. It annoys me.

It annoys me, one, because he still hasn’t answered my question, and two, because telling someone not to freak out is never helpful. You’ve already set them up to get freaked out just by saying it, and what you really mean is, “You’re going to be freaked out, but don’t show me that you’re freaked out.”

I remember…

“Don’t get freaked out about what?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.

He just nods, gives me a kiss on my cheek, and pushes open the door.

Holy shit.

I remember everything.