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“You didn’t do the reading, did you?” she asks, and I decide that this is the moment to retreat to my new desk.
When I walk back, I see my plan has worked. Daneca is sitting where she always does. I move my backpack and flop into its place. She looks up, surprised. It’s too late for her to get up without it being really obvious that she doesn’t want to sit next to me. She scans the room like she’s racking her brain for some excuse to move, but the seats are mostly full.
“Hey,” I say, forcing a smile. “Long time, no see.”
She sighs, like she’s resigned herself to something. “I heard you got into a fight.” Daneca’s wearing her Wallingford blazer and pleated skirt with neon purple tights and even brighter purple gloves. The color of them more or less matches the faded purple streaks in her wooly brown hair. She kicks clunky Mary Janes against the brace of the desk.
“So you’re still mad at Sam, huh?” I realize this probably isn’t how he’d want me to broach the subject, but I want information and class is about to start.
She makes a face. “He told you that?”
“I’m his roommate. His moping told me that.”
She sighs again. “I don’t want to hurt him.”
“So don’t,” I say.
Daneca leans toward me and lowers her voice. “Let me ask you something.”
“Yes, he’s really, really sorry,” I say. “He knows he overreacted. How about you guys forgive each other and start—”
“Not about Sam,” she says, just as Dr. Jonahdab walks into the room. The teacher picks up a piece of chalk and starts sketching Ohm’s law on the board. I know what it is because of the words “Ohm’s law” above it.
I open my notebook. “What, then?” I write, and turn the pad so that Daneca can see it.
She shakes her head and doesn’t say anything else.
I am not really sure I understand the relationship between current and resistance and distance any better by the end of class, but it turns out Willow Davis was right about the whole snake-head dimension thing being possible.
When the bell rings, Daneca takes my arm, her gloved fingers digging in just above my elbow.
“Who killed Philip?” she asks suddenly.
“I—,” I start. I can’t answer without lying, and I don’t want to lie to her.
Daneca’s voice is low, an urgent whisper. “My mother was your lawyer. She did your immunity deal for you, the one that got the Feds off your back, right? You made a deal to tell them who killed those people in the files. And Philip. For immunity. Why did you need immunity? What did you do?”
When the Feds dumped a bunch of files onto my lap and told me Philip had promised to name the killer, I didn’t really stop Daneca from looking at them. I knew that was a mistake, even before I realized the files were all of people I’d transformed, a list of bodies that were never found—and haven’t been found since. More missing memories.
“We’ve got to get going,” I say. The classroom has emptied out, and a few students are starting to come in for the next class. “We’re going to be late.”
She reluctantly lets go of my arm and follows me out the door. It’s funny how our positions are reversed. Now she’s the one trying to corner me.
“We were working on that case together,” Daneca says. Which is sort of true. “What did you do?” she whispers.
I look down at her face, searching for what she thinks the answer is. “I never hurt Philip. I never hurt my brother.”
“What about Barron? What did you do to him?”
I frown, so confused that for a moment I can’t think of what to say. I have no idea where she got that from. “Nothing!” I say, throwing my hands wide for emphasis. “Barron? Are you crazy?”
A faint flush colors her cheeks. “I don’t know,” she says. “You did something to someone. You needed immunity. Good people don’t need immunity, Cassel.”
She’s right, of course. I’m not a good person. The funny thing about good people—people like Daneca—is that they really honestly don’t get the impulse toward evil. They have an incredibly hard time reconciling with the idea that a person who makes them smile can still be capable of terrible things. Which is why, although she’s accusing me of being a murderer, she seems more annoyed than actually worried about getting murdered. Daneca seems to persist in a belief that if I would just listen and understand how bad my bad choices are, I’d stop making them.
I pause near the stairs. “Look, how about I meet you after dinner and you can ask me whatever you want? And we can talk about Sam.” I can’t tell her everything, but she’s my friend and I could tell her more than I have. She deserves as much truth as I can afford to give. And who knows, maybe if I just listen for once, I will make some better choices.
I couldn’t make much worse ones.
