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Daneca grins at Sam.
I try not to think of the photo in Barron’s wallet or of the way she was smiling at my brother in the picture. I especially try not to compare it to her smile now.
“Deal me in next go-around,” I say. “What are we playing for?”
“The sheer joy of victory,” Sam tells me. “What else?”
“Oh,” Daneca says, and gets up. “Before I forget.” She walks over to her bag and pulls out a bundled T-shirt. She unknots it and pushes back the cloth. Gage’s gun is there, oiled and gleaming. “I got this out of Wharton’s office before the cleaners came.”
I stare at the old Beretta. It’s small, and as silvery as the scales of a fish. It shines under the light of the desk lamp.
“Get rid of it,” Sam says. “For real, this time.”
* * *
The next day it starts to snow. The flakes float down, coating the trees in a thin powder, making the grass sparkle with ice.
I walk from statistics to Developing World Ethics to English. Everything seems bizarrely normal.
Then I see Mina Lange, hurrying to class, wearing a black beret dusted white.
“You,” I say, stepping in front of her. “You got Sam shot.”
She looks at me with wide eyes.
“You’re a terrible con artist. And you aren’t a very nice person. I almost feel sorry for you. I have no idea what happened to your parents. I have no idea how you wound up stuck curing Wharton, with no end in sight and no way out and no friends you trust enough to let help you. I can’t even say that I wouldn’t have done what you did. But Sam almost died because of you, and for that I will never forgive you.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t even try it.” I reach into my jacket and give her Yulikova’s business card and the wrapped T-shirt bundle. “I can’t promise you anything, but if you really want to get out, take this. There’s a death worker, a kid named Gage, who wants his gun back. You give it to him, and I bet he’d be willing to help you out. Teach you how to be on your own, get work, and not be beholden to anyone. Or you can call the number on the card. Yulikova will make you a trainee in her program. She’s looking for the gun too. She’ll help you too, more or less.”
Mina stares at the card, turning it over in her hand, holding the bundle against her chest, and I walk away before she can thank me. The last thing I want is her gratitude.
Giving her that choice is my own personal revenge.
* * *
The rest of the day goes about as well as any day. I make another mug in ceramics that doesn’t blow up. Track is canceled because of the weather. Dinner is a somewhat gummy mushroom risotto, haricots verts, and a brownie.
Sam and I do our homework, flopped on our beds, throwing wadded-up pieces of paper at each other.
It snows even harder while we sleep, and in the morning we have to fight our way to class through a volley of snowballs. Everyone arrives with ice melting in their hair.
The debate club has a meeting in the afternoon, so I go to that and doodle in my notebook. Through sheer lack of attention I wind up stuck with the topic Why Violent Video Games Are Bad for America’s Youth. I try to argue my way out of it, but it’s impossible to debate the whole debate team.
I am crossing the quad, heading back to my room, when my phone rings. It’s Lila.
“I’m in the parking lot,” she says and hangs up.
I trudge through the snow. The landscape is hushed, quiet. In the distance there is only the sound of cars moving through slush.
Her Jaguar is idling near the pile of snow the plow built at one end of the lot. She’s sitting on the hood, in her gray coat. The black hat she’s wearing has an incongruously cute pom-pom at the top. Strands of gold hair blow in the wind.
“Hey,” I say, walking closer. My voice sounds rough, like I haven’t spoken in years.
Lila slides off the car and comes sweetly into my arms. She smells like cordite and some kind of flowery perfume. She’s not wearing makeup and her eyes have a slight puffy redness that makes me think of tears. “I told you I’d say good-bye.” Her voice is almost a whisper.
“I don’t want you to go,” I murmur into her hair.
