“It’s late,” he says. “Think about what I’ve said. Sleep on it. If you’re still determined to fight me, you can do so in the morning. And if at that point I’m feeling merciful, I’ll kill you whole before the Archive can destroy you bit by bit.”
The Owen in my nightmares does not walk away, but this one does. He gets halfway to the bedroom door, then pauses and turns back, tugging Da’s key back out from under his collar. He offers it to me, and it hangs between us like a promise. Or a trap.
“As proof,” he says, “that I’m real.”
Everything in me tenses when the metal hits my palm. The cool weight of Da’s key—my key—sends a shiver through me. I loop it over my head, the weight settling against my chest. It feels like a small piece of the world has been made right. Then Owen turns, opens the door, and strides silently away.
I follow, watching light spill into the dim living room as he slips out of the apartment and into the yellow hall. Something thuds behind me, and I spin to find Dad asleep in a corner chair, a book now on the floor beside him. Even in sleep, his face is creased with worry; as I kneel to retrieve the book, I wonder what it would be like to tell my parents why I have nightmares. Why I have scars. Where I vanish to. Why I cringe from their touch.
I hate Owen all the more for planting the thought in my head, because it’s not possible. A world without these secrets and lies could never exist.
But as I set Dad’s book on the table and tug a blanket up over his shoulders, a question whispers in my head.
What if?
I don’t remember drifting off, but one minute I’m staring at the door and the next my alarm is sounding. I should be relieved that I didn’t dream, and there is a small, rebellious flicker of happiness in my chest, but it dies as soon as I remember Owen: my own living nightmare. Except I’m beginning to suspect he’s not a dream.
Da’s key is still pressed against my skin, and I force myself to take it off and bury it in the top drawer of my bedside table. My ring is still sitting on the windowsill, but I don’t dare put it on if it’ll blind me to Owen’s presence. Instead I find a necklace chain and loop the band through it, sliding the silver piece over my head and tucking it beneath the collar of my uniform shirt.
It’s going to be a long day without a buffer.
My list is holding steady at three names, but I can’t push my luck, especially now that I know Agatha’s search for Crew will come up empty. Mom’s in the kitchen swearing about how she can’t find her keys while the news plays out on the TV. I watch, expecting the crime scene at Hyde to be the top story, but it’s never mentioned, and all I can think is that the storage room hasn’t been discovered yet.
Mom, meanwhile, is still searching under papers, through her purse, in the drawers for her keys. She won’t find them because they’re stashed in the freezer under a bag of peas.
“I don’t need you to drive me,” I say. “Really. Just let me go myself.”
“This isn’t up for negotiation,” she says, nearly upsetting a cup of coffee as she scours the mess on the kitchen table.
“I know you don’t trust me—”
“It’s not that,” she says. “I just don’t want you riding your bike until your arm’s healed.”
And just like that, I’ve got her. Hook. Line. Sinker. “You’re right. I’ll take the bus.”
Mom stops searching and straightens. “You hate the bus,” she says. “You called it a tiny box filled with germs and dirt.”
“Well,” I say, shouldering my bag, “life is messy. And there’s a stop a block from school.” I don’t actually know if this is true. Luckily, neither does Mom.
Her phone goes off from somewhere under the papers she’s been searching through. “Fine,” she says. “Fine, okay, just please be careful.”
“Always,” I say, ducking out.
I’d never take the bus. Especially not with my ring hanging uselessly around my neck. The lie does save time, though, since I don’t have to worry about stashing my bike before cutting into the Narrows.
Two of the three Histories go without a fight, and the third isn’t a match for me, even in my current condition. I approach the boundary between Wesley’s territory and mine and slide my key into the lock, hoping it turns. It does. The door bleeds into light and shape before it opens.
I’m in such a hurry that I don’t think about the fact that this isn’t my territory until I round a corner and nearly run straight into Wesley. I stagger back in time to avoid a collision, and he pulls up short in time to avoid dropping a coffee carrier.
“Jesus, Mac,” he says, clutching his chest with his free hand.
“Sorry!” I say, holding up mine in surrender.
“What are you doing here?”
“Hunting,” I say as we set off toward Hyde’s door.
“I kind of got that,” says Wes. “I meant, what are you doing in my territory?”
“Oh. Roland granted me access so I could clear my list from school.”
Wes nods. “I’m glad they finally cut you some slack. Not that scaling walls isn’t fun, but this seems a little less dangerous.”
“Only because you don’t have your stick out.”
“Bō staff,” corrects Wes. “And it’s in my bag. But my list is clear, and my hands were full.”
“What’s with the coffee?” I ask.
He holds up the carrier. “It’s for you.”
“You do know my parents own a coffee shop,” I say.
“That’s never stopped you from taking Cash’s,” he says with a pout. “And I figured after yesterday’s incident, you might be looking for a new supplier.” It takes me a second to realize that by “incident” he means Cash’s coffee making me sick, and not Cash’s kiss. If he’s heard about the latter, he doesn’t let on, and I don’t broach the subject, since it’s the least of my problems right now.
He offers me a cup and I take it, careful not to let our fingers touch. The last thing I need is for Wesley to see Owen written all over my mind.
“Any word from Agatha?” he asks. “About the voids?”
The coffee turns to lead in my mouth. I try to swallow. “Not yet.”
“Don’t worry,” he says, misreading my concern. “She’ll find whoever’s doing this.” We reach a door with a green check mark. “How did you sleep?” he adds. “I missed your bed.”
“It missed you, too,” I say as he opens the door. Unlike the doors that no longer exist in the Outer—the ones tucked in cracks and folds—the Hyde School door opens not onto darkness, but onto the campus. The school is visible even from the Narrows side. I look out, scanning the green for signs of Owen’s silver-blond hair. I don’t see him, but that doesn’t mean he’s not there—and I can’t afford to lead Wesley to him.
“You coming?” asks Wes.
I reach for the list in my skirt pocket as if I can feel letters writing themselves on the page.
“One more,” I say with a sigh and a glance back over my shoulder. “You go on ahead.”
Wes hesitates, but nods and steps out onto Hyde’s grass. I close the door between us and count to ten, twenty, thirty…and then I unlock it with my own key and step through, beelining for the Wellness Center. I half expect to see yellow crime scene tape, but the building is quiet. The trophy hall is empty and perfectly still, and I hold my breath as I make my way toward the storage room door, bracing myself for the scene beyond the glass insert. But when I look through, the air catches in my throat. I push the door open and hit all three switches, showering the room with light.
It’s untouched. Immaculate. No toppled shelves, no scattered equipment, no blood on the floor. Nothing except the void, the remnants of which still hover in the middle of the room, snagging and repelling my gaze at the same time, the only proof that anything happened here.