Damage Done (21 page)

She popped to her feet, her lower lip trembling, and stuck her chin out at me like a shield. “You’re stressed out and you’re hurt and you’re sick and you probably feel like you’re drowning,” she said. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”

I didn’t say,
Goddammit, Alane. I don’t want you to forgive me. I want you to go and hopefully not hate me tomorrow.
“Please go,” I said instead.

Her hands fluttered to her shoulders, then back down to her sides, then up again. I took a step away in case she was thinking of hugging me or something. I could already see the seams running through the world, slight, nearly invisible lines of air and dust that held reality together. If she were to touch me, I was sure they’d just split down the middle and tear the world apart. Tear
me
apart.

“Call me, Julia,” she said. “Or come by. I’ll be waiting.”

I watched her go. She sat in my driveway for way too long, her phone to her ear; I bet my phone was shrieking upstairs. I knew she wanted me to race out and tell her I’d had a momentary lapse and of course we were best friends. Of course I loved her. That was the last thing I could do, though. Liv had died because she’d gotten too involved with me and my brother. I could never, ever let that happen to Alane.

I waited ten minutes or so after she pulled out to make sure she didn’t come back, pacing circles through the quiet house. My parents, asleep upstairs, had no idea I was wearing a path into the carpet. I didn’t know if they even knew their only son was being held minutes away; they certainly hadn’t let anything slip to me. I never knew what they knew or didn’t know. The only thing that mattered was that they’d think I’d have left for school with Alane. If I didn’t make it back, their memories of me would hopefully remain pure, undiluted, clean as our bathroom floors.

Upstairs, I unpacked my bag and pulled out all the things I would need this morning. One black suit, the one my mom had worn ages ago to my bat mitzvah—it wouldn’t fit me as well as Miranda’s black suit fit the real her, but that couldn’t be helped. Hopefully nobody would look too close. After the suit, I stretched on a pair of sleek black gloves—I’d leave no fingerprints. No trace. One official police ID. We looked different, but I pulled my hair into a tight bun, rouged my cheeks red, and plucked my eyebrows thin to make the differences as small as possible. Hopefully nobody would look too close. I just had to get through the police station and into the basement without rousing any suspicions.

And, finally, what I’d left for last: the key to my mom’s car, currently parked in the driveway. The mere thought of getting back in the driver’s seat made my palms so slick with sweat I dropped my phone. It landed with an ominous crack. I considered picking it up and checking to see if I’d broken it, but I didn’t bother. I wouldn’t need it anymore. I left it there, facedown on my floor, most likely cracked beyond all repair.

The morning was so beautiful and serene and normal I actually burst into laughter as I stepped outside. Birds twittered, soaring over me like they had somewhere to go besides flying into windows and breaking their sorry little necks. Wind rustled the perfectly manicured lawns; each of which was greener than the last, as if our street were competing in some sort of Miss Green Beauty Pageant.

I was laughing again.

I turned for one last and what might be one final look at my house. No, not my house, I told myself. Not Julia’s house. Lucy Black’s house. Lucy Black, rest in peace. She’d lived a quiet life, and she’d fallen in love, and then she’d disappeared like she’d never been.

Two of my neighbors were in the process of leaving for work, kissing their beautiful families goodbye. Neither of them spared me or my mom’s car a glance. I took a few deep breaths, pushing back nausea, before climbing into the driver’s side and revving the engine.

My physical reaction was instantaneous—chilly beads of sweat clung to my forehead and upper lip, my throat closed halfway, making me gasp for every molecule of oxygen, and the skin on my hands felt shiny and tight. I went to shift the car into drive. The dying fish in my chest, which was somehow still flopping, had invited a number of his dying fish friends to a party in my stomach. I thought I might throw up.

I could do it, though. I could drive. I had to. I forced out thoughts of Aiden dying behind the wheel, of my wrist cracking like an egg. I closed my eyes for a second, just for a second, and saw eyes staring back at me, shocked eyes, scared eyes, boring through a cracked windshield.

My eyes popped back open. I could do it. It was a short ride.

And I had no choice. It wasn’t like I could ask Michael for his help with this. He’d done all he could for me. This last part was all mine. I knew the way to the police station by heart; I’d memorized the directions from Google Maps—three different sets of directions, in fact, just in case any roadblocks or anything should pop up—and programmed them into the car’s GPS. But it turned out I didn’t need either of the alternate routes; I just drove right on into the parking lot and parked in the middle, not too close, not too far away. I didn’t want to draw any extra attention to myself. I expected to hear sirens blaring as I walked in the front door, even with the sunglasses obscuring half my face; to have a cage clamp down on me from the ceiling; to be swarmed by cops enraged by the thought of me, stupid little me, pretending to be one of them.

But there was none of that. I simply squared my shoulders, nodded at the cops on duty, flashed Miranda’s ID and presented it for a scan, and walked through the office. I scanned the interior: an entryway and waiting room out front; then a large room filled with desks, filing cabinets, and assorted other office things; a hallway that must lead to the bathrooms, the chief’s and deputy chief’s offices, and interview rooms branching from the sides; then a stairway to the basement, where they kept the holding cells. From what Miranda had said, my brother wouldn’t be in the regular holding cell with the drunks and hookers and vagrants. There was a more secure holding cell, down another flight of stairs, near the water heater, where they were keeping him.

I nodded at a few of the officers at their desks sifting through mountains of paperwork, keeping an eye out for Michael’s dad. His dad was hopefully still in Berkeley with Aria for the day, but that could always change. Anything could change. If he was here, all I could do was duck behind my sunglasses and pray. “Morning, Officer,” one of the cops said, smiling absently.

I tried to smile back as I nodded. “Morning,” I said. I held my arms by my sides as I walked through the room. Were my arms too stiff? I swung them a little. No, now I looked too carefree. Somebody else nodded at me. I nodded back. Oh God, they were on to me.

“If you want some coffee, Officer, there’s some in the kitchen,” someone piped up from behind me.

I gave a wave of my hand. “Thanks, maybe,” I said. “I’m just here to see the prisoner.”

Thankfully, that didn’t set off any red alarms. I continued through the office, each step as loud as a bomb, and made it into the hallway. I exhaled heavily in relief. One room down.

Then a hand clamped around my arm. “Julia?”

I was caught. It was over. Everything was going to come out. I might as well be dead.

I might as well be dead. My hand was already by my side. I lifted it so that my fingers grazed the bulge of the gun in my suit jacket. If I ended it now, I wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout. I couldn’t deal with the fallout. It would be worse than the days before I became Lucy Black.

“Julia?”

My captor was Michael. Life whooshed back through me like a cool breeze, rendering me so weightless I might have floated away save for the stabilizing hand on my arm. “Michael, what the
hell
?”

His lips opened again; I stood, frozen, as he moved them in what appeared to be exaggerated shapes. “I should be asking you that,” he said. A vein ticked in his forehead like the countdown clock of a bomb. “What the—”

“Shut up.” My eyes moved frantically back and forth, but nobody was gaping at me in horror or pulling their gun. We were hidden from view in the narrow hallway, but it was only a matter of time before somebody took a stroll for some of the aforementioned coffee. “We can’t talk out here.” I tried to pull him to the side. He resisted at first, but I slowly dragged him through a doorway that turned out to lead to the handicapped bathroom, a small, dank, mushroom-smelling space packed with boxes. It was so claustrophobic I could hardly breathe; just standing there we were pressed right up against each other, our elbows nearly brushing the stacks. And yet I couldn’t help but let out a dry chuckle. In times of woe I always seemed to find myself in handicapped bathrooms.

“Did you follow me here?” I finally whispered, my voice shrinking even further at the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside.

“Yes, I followed you,” he said vehemently. “But what I want to know is—”

I shoved him. His back hit the wall, and his mouth dropped open in surprise. “Do you have any idea how important this is?” I hissed. “Do you have any idea what you might have screwed up?”

“Breaking your homicidal maniac of a brother out of prison, where he rightly belongs?”

I saw red. Literally, my vision flashed red. I couldn’t see anything but blood and heat and rage. I might or might not have shoved him again. I couldn’t be held responsible for what the red did. “I don’t want to break him out of prison,” I said, my face so close to his I knew he could feel my breath on his nose, hot and spiteful. “I need to talk to him. He’s planning on talking to the police later today. On telling them the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help him God.”

Michael was silent for a moment. “He never confessed, did he?”

“Not that I know of,” I said. I knew he didn’t. Otherwise things would have worked out very differently. Otherwise the police actually would have had something to crow about. “I thought he was as good as dead until just a few weeks ago.” Tears sprang to my eyes. “I need to tell him goodbye. Privately.”

Michael sighed. “This is really hard on you, isn’t it?”

“No,” I said. “What’s really hard on me is having a stalker who followed me here from my
house.
”

From the shock on his face, you’d think I’d slapped him. “It’s not like that,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” I snarled. “Because it looks that way from over here.”

“Listen,” he said heatedly. “Alane called me. She said you were acting really weird and you practically spat in her face. She was worried about you and she asked me to make sure you were okay.

“You know I have study hall first period, so I skipped and went to your house. But as I was going to pull in your driveway, I saw you skulking around in that outfit and getting in the car. I’ve never seen you drive before. What else did you expect me to do?”

“Stay out of this,” I said. That could’ve applied to anything, I thought. To kissing me. To traveling with me to Elkton. To ever speaking to me in the first place. “You would’ve been better off if you’d never gotten tangled with me in the first place. You know what you should do?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “You should turn around and walk away and pretend you never met Julia Vann or Lucy Black or whoever the hell I’ll be tomorrow.”

He grabbed my hands. I tried to pull away, but he kneaded my palms with his thumbs. Despite myself, my shoulders slumped. “Never,” he said. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “I’ll help you, Julia. I’ll help you say goodbye to your brother.” He was speaking so quietly I almost couldn’t hear him, and I wondered, for a moment, if I was imagining it all. “He’s done a terrible thing, but he’s still your brother. If Aria killed someone, I wouldn’t stop loving her.”

Tears choked me. It was a few seconds before I was physically able to speak. “Are you sure?” I asked. “You might end up worse than grounded for life. This is probably illegal. No, this is definitely illegal.”

“I’ve already run off with you, picked my way around dead cops,” he said. “I don’t think anything could be worse than that.”

I had so much to do, and so much to think about, but I was too busy dissolving into a warm glow I thought might be happiness. I wasn’t entirely sure. It had been a while since I’d felt anything but stressed or afraid or tense, and there was so much on the line it felt almost obscene to be happy.

“You have no idea,” I said, but I didn’t have time to talk him out of it. To talk him away from me. My brother would be talking this evening. “My brother is downstairs. How did you get this far, by the way?”

“My dad,” he said. Duh, Julia. “Everybody here knows me. I’ve had the run of the place since I was five. They probably just think I’m stopping in to bring him food or something. He’ll be back at work tonight.” He eyed me up and down. “How did you get in, anyway?”

“I stole an ID and put on a black suit,” I said.

“You stole an ID? From that cop yesterday? Won’t she, like, notice?”

“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “We have to keep going. We have to keep the element of surprise.” The element of surprise. More important than oxygen, or nitrogen, or whatever makes my mother’s pills work so spectacularly quickly.

“Of course,” he said. “He’s just downstairs. You just want to talk to him, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “I only want to talk.”

I eased back into the hallway first, checking to make sure no cops would see Michael and me emerging from the bathroom together. I nodded at one walking back to the office area, steaming cup of coffee in hand, and stretched, killing some time. When the officer was gone, I pulled the door back open, and Michael slipped into the hallway after me.

A stroke of luck: there was nobody in residence in the regular holding cells, and therefore no cops guarding them. A further stroke of luck: Michael knew where the key was, he said, that unlocked the heavy metal door that led down to the secure holding cell. I had assumed the key would be somewhere obvious. But now I was glad he was with me. The retrieval took Michael only a couple of minutes. And there wasn’t supposed to be anyone downstairs; they were short on men as it was, and there was no way out of the basement aside from the one door, so where would my brother go? I slipped through, held the door for Michael, then shut it firmly behind me, resolutely listening for the lock to click shut. It was a heavy door. I hoped it was soundproof.

Now only a flight of stairs and another barred door stood between me and my brother. Emptiness gnawed at my insides. So this was it. I only needed a second or two with him. And then that would be it. There would be no more miraculous escapes, or do-overs.

I cupped Michael’s cheek. His chin was a paradox, rough as sandpaper yet somehow smooth and soft at the same time. I traced his jawline with a finger. “I don’t think I’ve thanked you yet,” I said.

“For what?”

“For loving me,” I said. I stood on my tiptoes and pressed my lips gently to his. There was no paradox here: they were only smooth and soft, silky against my own. “And for everything that comes along with that.”

His hands held my hips as I lowered myself down. His touch ignited small fires beneath my skin. My one regret: I’d never get to see him naked. I was sure he’d have a beautiful body. Swimmers all had beautiful bodies. “You don’t need to thank me,” he said. “That’s not what love is.”

Really? A new complication. I would think it would be nice to thank someone for loving you. It wasn’t like they had to, after all. It wasn’t like it was easy to love someone like me. I parted my lips, ready to ask, then clamped them shut. I wouldn’t need to know what love was anymore. “Let’s go,” I said instead.

We went.

I pushed the second door open cautiously, my fingers tense against my holster, into a small, spare room. I took another step in, Michael so close on my rear I could feel the heat of his body radiating into me.

There wasn’t much space to move into. There was only a short hallway, with an empty folding chair propped against the wall, and then the cell door. It looked almost like a movie set’s idea of a jail cell: barred door; long, low cot; combo sink and toilet so shiny silver I could see my reflection in it. And my brother. My heart skipped a beat when I saw him sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, whispering to himself. He lifted his head when I came in and jumped to his feet when he saw it was me. We reached the bars at the same time; I wrapped my fingers around two of them, and he wrapped his fingers around mine.

“Ryan,” I whispered.

“You came.” His hands were firm around mine, strong, even the left one that didn’t close all the way. “I knew you would.”

My vision shimmered. “Of course I came,” I said. I cleared my throat. “What do they know? What did you tell them?” I jerked my head back at Michael, just slightly, a tiny bit, to remind my brother that we weren’t alone. I didn’t have to remind myself; I could feel Michael’s presence in waves of heat, a being that warped time and space around it. He didn’t belong here, not in the same room as my brother.

Ryan cleared his throat in response. He got it. My heart squeezed, wrung itself out. He got me. Nobody would ever get me like he would. Not even Michael. “Nothing,” he said. “I mean, nothing they didn’t already know. I said some things when I woke up from the coma, but then I…” His face sank. “I talked to Dr. Spence.”

I rubbed his fingers with my thumb. “I know,” I said. “It’s okay. He won’t be talking to anyone.” I smiled tightly at him, trying to look reassuring. “The police were ready to make your recovery public, weren’t they? Bring you to trial? But you talked to Dr. Spence. And he broke you out to give himself time to prove your version of the story.”

“I never meant to hurt you,” Ryan said. His eyes shone. I could see myself mirrored in them, reflecting over and over, Julia into infinity. So many of me. “I would never, ever hurt you, Julia.”

But he did. He did hurt me. He got me into this mess, and he would have to get me out. I released my smile, let it bound free. Let it reassure him. “It’s okay,” I said. “I forgive you, Ryan. I love you.” The words came out without any hesitation. “I love you. You know that, Ryan?”

“I love you, too, Julia.”

I sniffed. Tears were welling over, blurring my vision. “And I promise you I’ll do everything you asked me to,” I said. “I’ll tell the whole truth. I promise you that.”

He smiled. After all this time, it still struck me as guileless, innocent…trusting. He might not have trusted anyone else, but he trusted me. I was his sister, his other half, and if he couldn’t believe in me, then what could he believe in? “Thank you,” he said. “That means everything to me.”

I pulled my hands back, away from his, then pressed my face into the bars. Though Michael was here, I couldn’t stop now; I was past the point of no return. “I love you, Ryan,” I said, and kissed him hard through the bars. I tasted iron. I smelled blood.

He was smiling still, with bliss this time, as I pulled back. “Remember that,” I said tenderly, lowering my hand to my side. “I might not know what love is, but I know I love you.”

“I know,” he said. “I love you, Julia.”

“I love you, Ryan,” I said, and my voice never wavered. “I love you so much.”

I pulled back, wiped the tears from my eyes, and shot him in the head.

Before the dust settled, before the recoil finished shuddering my arm, I whirled around to Michael. “Don’t move,” I said. “If you move, I shoot.”