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Barron grins. “It’s pretty clever, really. I made you believe you’d killed before. That’s all! I made you believe that you were what I wanted you to become. You loved it, Cassel. You loved being a goddamn assassin.”
“That’s not true,” I say, shaking my head, willing myself to shut out his words. “You’re a liar. You’re the prince of liars. And since I don’t remember, you know you can say anything. I would be stupid to believe you.”
“Oh, come on,” Barron says. “You know your own nature. You know if something feels true.”
“I’m not going to do it,” I say. “You and the Brennans can go to hell together.”
He laughs. “You will do it. You already have. People don’t change.”
“No,” I say.
“Like I said, those federal agents came to see me,” Barron says. I start to interrupt him, but Barron just raises his voice. “I didn’t give them anything important. Nothing like I could have. If I told them what you are, it would just be a matter of time before they connected the dots and figured out you’re the murderer they’re looking for.”
“They’d never believe you,” I say, but I feel unsteady. The world has already tilted. I can feel myself falling.
“Of course they would,” Barron says. “I can show them a body. The one you left in the freezer in Mom’s house.”
“Oh,” I say faintly. “That.”
“Sloppy,” Barron says. “I was the one who told you about him, after all. Didn’t you think I would look?”
“I don’t know what I thought.” Truly, I don’t.
“Then they can make you that same crap offer they made Philip, get what they want, and lock you away for a thousand years.”
“Philip had immunity,” I say. “I saw the contract.”
Barron laughs. “I saw it too. Too bad Philip didn’t show it to me before he sold them his soul. I was pre-law, remember? That contract’s worthless. Agents can’t offer immunity; it wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. It was for show. They could have taken Philip in whenever they wanted.”
“Did you tell him that?” I ask.
“Why bother?” Barron says. “Philip didn’t want to hear it. He just wanted to say good-bye before they shipped him off to witness protection land.”
I can’t tell if Barron’s lying or not. I have a sinking feeling that this time he’s telling the truth.
Which means I can’t trust the Feds.
But Barron’s going to go to the Feds if I don’t throw in my lot with the Brennans.
And Zacharov will have me killed in a heartbeat if I do work for the Brennans.
There’s no way out.
I think about what Zacharov said at Philip’s funeral. There are people close to you that you will have to deal with eventually.
You will do it, Barron said. You already have. People don’t change.
I look over at him. He smirks. “Not a tough choice when I lay it all out for you, is it, Cassel?”
It’s not.
13
BARRON WALKS ME BACK to my dorm. I get there before lights-out at eleven. The hall master looks surprised to find someone occupying the other half of Sam’s room when he comes in for the final hall check, but he doesn’t say anything. He must figure that he’s getting old, to be forgetting things like which students he’s supposed to be responsible for. He must worry about dementia, Alzheimer’s, getting enough sleep. It’s a trick that wouldn’t have worked at any other time but the beginning of the year.
It did work, though. Barron’s clever.
“What happened to you during the fire drill?” Sam asks, pulling on a ratty Dracula T-shirt. His sweatpants have a hole on the knee.
