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Lila stood up and sat beside her old friend on the couch. “Is Johnny a wolf?”
“What if he is?”
“What if he’s not? Am I a wolf?”
“I don’t know.” Alex’s eyes reddened, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “You had me arrested, Lila. How could you have done that?”
“You chose to hit me. More than once, and on more than one occasion. You chose to hit me in front of the council. What was I supposed to do?”
Alex looked away. “I don’t know what you are anymore, Lila. I don’t know what Patrick is, either. He said horrible things.”
“Like what?”
“He said that I should poison the compound’s water supply and take my place with him and Mother. That I should make the Wilson name notorious so that everyone in the Allied Lands would remember us from beyond the grave. He’s gone crazy. When did he go crazy?”
“I don’t know.” Lila stood up and dug through a stack of folders on her desk, finding a
copy of Patrick’s thesis. She’d meant to give it to Alex at some point, but she might not have another chance. “Did you ever read this?”
Alex took the folder and skimmed the title. “Skepticism and Self-Interest?”
“It’s Patrick’s senior thesis. I got it from Bokington.”
“No, he didn’t do a senior thesis,” Alex said, skimming the table of contents. “The Morality of Criminal Activity?”
Alex turned to the relevant section, her eyes passing over the wall of text, her face twisting in confusion. “This isn’t right, Lila. He had an internship with the Massons. He bragged about how he received college credit for playing games all—”
“I remember. Doesn’t change the fact that he lied. He believed he was hiding his brilliance, I imagine. I had to hack deep into the Bokington network to find that, as well as his advisor’s recommendation that he see a psychiatrist. Bokington dropped the ball on that one. They’re covering their asses now.”
Alex stared at the folder, realization sinking in. “So was he always like this? Did we miss it, or did he hide it? Or did he turn into someone else completely?”
“You were away for a very long time. So was I. I thought I knew him too. When I saw him in the car at the airport, I thought your mother had sent him as a decoy. But the way he spoke to Captain O’Bryan, the passports, Oskar. He admitted to it all.”
“We taught him how to ride a bike, Lila. We taught him how to tie his shoes. Did we teach him this too?”
“I don’t know.”
“I want Dr. Booth to do a CT or an MRI or whatever it is they do on people’s minds when they flip like this. He’s got a brain tumor or a blood clot or—”
“I asked already. Dr. Booth and Dr. Adams didn’t find anything.”
“I want an autopsy, then,” Alex whispered, unable to hold back her tears. “After he’s gone. He’s not my Patrick anymore.”
Lila bowed her head. “I’ll make arrangements with Chief Shaw and Dr. Booth.”
Her friend didn’t speak for quite a while. When it grew too quiet and too awkward between them, Lila stood up to return to her desk, but Alex grabbed her hand before she could slip away. “I’ve missed you.”
Lila felt her eyes grow hot. “I’ve missed you too.”
Alex dropped her hand. “I’m sorry my family turned out so crap, Lila. I’m sorry they tried to hurt— I’m sorry they tried to kill you. I’m even sorry I hit you. I was so angry that it never registered that I’d almost lost you, and that Patrick would have been the one to do it to you. It wasn’t until your mother…”
Lila sat down. “You were right too. I shouldn’t have asked you to help me. I just didn’t think.”
“You didn’t make me do anything. I chose to help you. I have to accept my part in it.” Alex leaned back into the couch. “I just don’t understand how he could have done it. He screwed over our entire family. Some died in the riot. Others were sold at LeBeau’s. I have kin as slaves now. Not everyone was prepared for the crash to happen so soon.”
“They’ll pay off their marks.”
“I saw the numbers. It will take ten years for some of them to pay it off. He did that. He ruined my family and nearly killed my—killed you. He’s a wolf.”
