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“Please, Lil,” I say, using a name I haven’t called her since we were kids. “I won’t say a thing for the whole way back. I swear. And I’m sorry.”
“God, I hate you,” she says. “So much. Why do boys think that it will be better to lie and tell a girl how much they loved her and how they only dumped her for her own good? That they only tried to rearrange her brain for her own good? Does it make you feel better, Cassel? Does it? Because from my perspective, it really sucks.”
I open my mouth to deny it but then remember I promised not to talk. I just shake my head.
She pulls away from the curb suddenly, the force of acceleration enough to throw me back against the seat. I keep my eyes on the road. We’re quiet all the way back to Wallingford.
* * *
I go to sleep tired and get up exhausted.
As I pull on my uniform, I can’t stop thinking about Zacharov’s cold vast apartment where my mother is now imprisoned. I wonder what it’s like for Lila to wake up there on a Saturday morning and wander into that kitchen for coffee.
I wonder how long she’s going to be able to look at my mother before she tells Zacharov what Mom did to her. I wonder if each time Lila sees her, she remembers what it was like to be forced to love me. I wonder if each time, she hates me just a little bit more.
I think of her in the car, her head turned away from me, her eyes filled with tears.
I don’t know how to even start to make Lila forgive me. And I have no idea how to help Mom. The only thing I can think of—aside from finding the diamond—that might keep Zacharov pacified is if I agree to work for him. Which means betraying the Feds. Which means giving up on trying to be good. And once I start working for the Zacharovs— Well, everyone knows that paying off a debt to the mob is impossible. They just keep piling on interest.
“Come on,” Sam says, scratching his head and making his hair stand straight up. “We’re going to miss breakfast again.”
I grunt and head to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I shave. When I sweep back my hair from my face, I grimace at the redness of my eyes.
In the cafeteria I make a mocha with coffee and a packet of hot chocolate. The sugar and caffeine wake me up enough to finish up a couple of problems due for Probability & Statistics. Kevin Brown glowers at me from across the room. There’s a bruise darkening his cheekbone. I can’t help it; I grin at him.
“You know, if you did your homework at night, you wouldn’t have to do it in your other classes,” Sam says.
“That would also be true if someone would let me copy their answers,” I tell him.
“No way. You’re on the straight and narrow now. No cheating allowed.”
I groan and get up, shoving aside my chair. “See you at lunch.”
I sit through morning announcements, resting my head on my arms. I turn in my hastily done homework and copy down new problems from the board. As I come out of third-period English and trudge through the hallway, a girl falls into step beside me.
“Hi,” Mina says. “Can I walk with you?”
“Uh, sure.” I frown. No one’s asked me before. “Are you okay?”
She hesitates and then says the words all in a rush. “Someone’s blackmailing me, Cassel.”
I stop walking and stare at her for a long moment as students rush around us. “Who?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“I guess not,” I say. “But what can I do?”
“Something,” she says. “You got Greg Harmsford kicked out of school.”
“I didn’t,” I say.
She looks up at me through lowered lashes. “Please. I need your help. I know you can fix things.”
“I really don’t think that I can do as much as—”
“I know you made rumors go away. Even when they were true.” She looks down when she says it, like she’s afraid I’m going to be mad.
I sigh. There were some perks to being the school bookie. “I never said I wouldn’t try. Just that you shouldn’t expect too much.”
