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“He went back to Merlin?”
“No! I told you they got in a huge fight, right? Well, Merlin said he was going to kill Leon. And that wasn’t a joke. He really would have killed him; that’s what Leon told me. So, he was going to leave. He wanted to move out west. LA. He wanted to be an actor. We were always close because he wanted to be an actor.” The last of Dalton’s dignity crumbled, and he started to weep, hands outstretched toward Theo—half pleading, half warding off. “Please, I didn’t do anything!”
It had none of the over-the-top dramatics of Dalton’s earlier performances. In a way, it was probably what Dalton aspired to—or, at one point in his life, had aspired to: the charge of raw emotion like a live wire, fear making the air spark.
Theo reached for Dalton again, ignoring his wail of protest and his feeble kick. He flipped him over and reached into his pocket and took the pills.
“Clean yourself up,” Theo said. He let himself out of the bathroom.
Auggie waited farther down the hall, arms crossed, back stiff. He looked over as Theo approached, and his eyes were flat and hard. “Did you kill him?”
Theo wanted to close his eyes. Instead, he said, “No.”
“Good. I guess that’s something.”
“I’m—”
“If you say you’re sorry, Theo, I’m going to leave. Do you understand me?”
Theo swallowed. Finally, he managed a nod.
“I am so fucking sick of you being sorry,” Auggie said, and he sounded like he was out of breath, like he’d been running and running, and his body had burned up all its fuel. Trying to get to you, a part of Theo thought. Trying to save you. Auggie pressed his hands to his eyes. When Theo put a hand on his shoulder, Auggie shrugged him off, dropping his hands, and stared out at him from behind the tears. Then he punched Theo in the chest—not hard, not really, but Theo remembered the way Auggie had stumbled into the partition.
“Auggie,” Theo whispered.
“You are such an asshole.” The words had a trembling quality that Theo knew Auggie would hate; he hated anything that made him sound young, and right then, he sounded young and hurt and broken-hearted. “I’m so sick of you right now.”
“You’re right. I am an asshole. You’re right to be sick of me.”
Auggie dashed at his eyes again with his arm and took a deep breath.
“Let’s go home—”
“While you were off acting like a colossal dick,” Auggie said over him, “I sent that kid away, the one who was supposed to clean up the paint. I decided you probably wouldn’t want to be interrupted while you were committing murder.”
“I wasn’t going to kill him.”
“Are you even for real? Theo, you were a fucking zombie in there. If I hadn’t pulled you off him—”
He cut himself off, and Theo wondered about that. About all the things they couldn’t say to each other. He should have said, again,I wasn’t going to kill him, but he didn’t say that either.
“Please, Auggie—” was what he settled on.
But Auggie spoke over him. “Anyway, I told him I was from the theater, and we were just going to replace the carpet squares, and then I offered to help him carry the cleaning supplies back to the closet so that he wouldn’t walk in on you. Come on.”
He led Theo down the hall, and they took a turn that led them into the backstage portion of the building. Auggie stopped at the first door and pointed to a small plaque that said CUSTODIAL.
“Ok,” Theo said. He opened the door, and sure enough, it was a custodial supply closet. “What am I missing?”
“The plaque, Theo. Look at the plaque.”
Theo gave it another glance, and then he remembered: Shaniyah’s video, the montage of recordings from the theater, and a plaque identical to this one—only it had said TRAP ROOM, not CUSTODIAL.
“Jesus,” Theo said.
Auggie nodded.
“Good work, Auggie. God, really good work. That’s amazing.”
