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“Then what? You went back to school like nothing happened?”
“Yeah, kind of,” I say. “I mean, I went back to school like I’d just killed a guy and put him in my freezer. But I’m not sure you can tell the difference from the outside.”
“You’re a pretty cool customer, huh?” says Agent Hunt.
“I hide my inner pain under my stoic visage.”
Agent Hunt looks like he would like to put his fist through my stoic visage. Then Agent Jones’s phone rings and he gets up, walking out of the room. Agent Hunt follows him. His last look in my direction is some combination of suspicion and alarm, like he suddenly thinks I might be telling the truth.
I go back to my homework. My stomach growls. According to my watch it’s nearly seven.
It takes them twenty minutes to come back.
“Okay, kid,” Agent Hunt says when they do. “We found the body in the freezer, just like you said. Just one last question. Where are his clothes?”
“Oh,” I say. For a moment my mind goes blank. I knew I forgot something. “Oh, yeah.” I force a shrug. “I dropped them into the river. I thought maybe it would suggest he’d drowned, if someone found them. No one did, though.”
Hunt gives me a long look, then nods once. “We also visited Bethenny Thomas and recovered two guns, although ballistics will still need to match the bullets. Now let’s see you transform something.”
“Oh, right. The show,” I say, standing up.
I strip off my gloves slowly and press my hands down onto the cool, dry surface of the table.
* * *
At eleven that night I call Barron from my car.
“Okay,” I say. “I made my decision.”
“You really had no choice,” he says, smug. He sounds very big-brotherly, like he already warned me not to cross the street by myself and there I am on the other side, cars whizzing by and no way back. Just as casual as that. I wonder if Barron really doesn’t feel violated, if he’s so steeped in magic and violence that he believes cursing and blackmailing one another is just what brothers do.
“No,” I say. “No choice at all.”
“Okay,” he says, laughter in his voice. He sounds relaxed now, no longer wary. “I’ll let them know.”
“I’m not doing it,” I say. “That’s my decision. I’m not working for the Brennans. I’m not going to be an assassin.”
“I could go to the Feds, you know,” he says stiffly. “Don’t be an idiot, Cassel.”
“Go, then,” I say. “Go ahead. But if you do, then they’ll know what I am. You’ll lose the ability to control me. I’ll be common property.” It’s easy to bluff now, when the Feds already know what I am.
There is a long pause on the other end of the line. Finally he says, “Can we talk about this in person?”
“Sure,” I say. “I can sneak out of Wallingford. Pick me up.”
“I don’t know,” he says sourly. “I don’t want to encourage your delinquency.”
“There’s a store near the school,” I say. “Be there or be square.”
“It’ll take me fifteen minutes.”
When we hang up, I look out the window of the car. My chest feels tight, cramped, the way my legs would sometimes get after running—a pain so sudden that it would wake me from a sound sleep.
There’s only one thing to do when that happens. You wait for it to pass.
* * *
I figure that the Benz will make Barron nervous about my loyalties, so I wait for him on foot, leaning against the concrete wall. Mr. Gazonas, who owns the corner store, looked at me sadly from behind the counter when I came in and bought a coffee.
