Tangled Thoughts (30 page)

It was also the thing Uncle Jeff and I did together, and the time I felt closest to him. After my talk with Chelsea, I was more glad than ever I'd asked him to go. We were lucky to snag the private range for an hour this afternoon.

I hesitated at the door. She was already in my head from earlier, and I couldn't help but think about Lainey. Last time we'd been here, something strange had happened. She told me this story: she dropped a bullet, I slipped on it. I hit my head hard enough to momentarily knock me out.

When I came to, she was crying harder than seemed necessary for a pretty minor accident. I had a wicked headache, but not even a lump or bruise or any memory of the fall. She'd claimed she was so upset over her clumsiness and how it could easily have been worse. But for maybe the first time, I didn't believe her.

I remembered—
something
. I remembered turning, not falling. I remembered her eyes going wide like she was afraid—
of
me, not for me. I remembered the clock over the door. The placement of the hands and how it seemed like too much time had passed for what little happened. I remembered—

“Plenty of spaces in the main room,” Uncle Jeff suggested benignly.

I shook my head. “No, I'm good.” I pulled the door handle and it flew open with a whoosh, so hard I almost stumbled. “I've missed this place.”

Three quick rounds of fifteen later and I had shaking arms and a light sweat going. In other words, I finally felt pretty good.

Three rounds after that, Uncle Jeff said, “So. Do you want to talk about it?”

The thing about being quiet all the time is it makes you observant.

“About what?” I stalled.

“Whatever it is that's bothering you.”

Did I? If anyone would listen, it would be Uncle Jeff. More than what Chelsea had said, more than being here, I had this growing feeling of—something. Something I couldn't fully explain. Finally, I said, “Have you had any luck? With what we talked about in November, the…Marwood question.” I said
Marwood question
, like it wasn't about Lainey, or by extension, his half brother.

Uncle Jeff didn't raise an eyebrow at my verbal tiptoeing, like Aunt Mel would have. He shook his head. “There's nothing left for me to find, or if there is, we don't have access to the places I'd need to look.”
All the relevant people were dead, and their things lost or inaccessible. If Uncle Jeff, with his
Venator's
gift for finding things, couldn't track down the answer, there was no way I could.

“So what's next?”

“There
is
an ‘easy' way to find out.” He paused for only a moment in his reloading to look at me. “DNA.”

DNA
. I wondered why I hadn't thought of it sooner. “You can do that?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Zeus will do it.”

“Discreetly?” Ezekiel Usunat, affectionately known as Zeus, was the Perceptum's geneticist. Members often chose to contribute their DNA to the project. As lead investigator of unreported Sententia, Uncle Dan worked with him often.

“For me, yes.”

“What about
getting
the DNA?”

“It's only the Marwood side that's…problematic.” He paused. “I don't suppose you have anything that might…?” I shook my head. Definitely not anymore. “
If
we can get it, I can have it tested against my brother. The family markers will show, or not.”

“I'll get it,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

Uncle Jeff nodded. “I know you will.”

He finished his reload and snapped the clip in place but hesitated before donning his sound gear, waiting for me. I was only halfway done. I could reload in my sleep, or with my eyes closed. My fingers knew what to do. But they weren't doing it. Embarrassed, I quickly packed the rest of the clip.

“It's okay, you know,” Uncle Jeff said.

I glanced over at him. “What is?”

“How you're feeling.”

“I'm fine.”

“You've stopped reloading again.”

Shit. “Sorry.”

“Don't be.” When I didn't respond, he said, “I heard a little bit of what Chelsea was saying.”

My fingers stilled again. I took a breath. It was weird, but something about this distracted reloading felt…familiar. I couldn't understand the sense of deja vu that settled on me, like my fingers had disobeyed me once before. I stared at the wall of the shooting lane because I couldn't look at Uncle Jeff when I asked, “Do you think she was right?” My voice was smaller, younger than I remembered. I cleared my throat.

“She's a perceptive girl.” He paused. Slowly, he said, “My brother is a lot of things. Perfect isn't one of them. None of us are. It's okay to recognize that.”

I nodded. I wanted to respond, to say
something
that would make at least one of us feel better, but I couldn't stop staring at the wall. My brain automatically did calculations and comparisons even when I didn't ask it to. I could tell you there were seven new holes since the last time I was here.

No. There were eight.

Seven
, my brain insisted.
One was already there
.

I stared at the wall until I could see it, could understand what my brain was telling me and what it had recorded. In the commotion, I hadn't consciously noticed. I mentally layered images until the truth appeared:

One new bullet hole had appeared in the wall between when Lainey and I entered the room and when we left.

Except I didn't remember the shot.

Lainey

R
eturning to campus was strange and disconcerting. Everything felt different. Everything
was
different. Even me. It was freezing out, icy and gray, having finally snowed while I was gone. City snow was ugly, clumped and dirty within hours of falling, not at all like winter at Northbrook. The wind bit with teeth that were sharp, gusting up between buildings and slamming you when you turned corners.

Under my coat and hat, I was tan, still warm inside from vacation and the rapid pounding of my heart. Anticipation made my pulse race and palms sweat as soon as I returned to the city. I didn't know if I dared to hope for anything with Jack, after how I'd left him.

But at the same time, I felt new. Freer. It was like by taking off the necklace, I could breathe again. I'd trapped myself on top of a mountain and grown used to it there. When I finally came down, I realized how thin my air had been. Possibility felt like something I could reach out and not just find, but take.

I closed the door to my room and sighed. Nat really was gone, her side of our room barren and depressing. I tossed my coat on her naked
bed.
Could
I have done more to help her? I mean, I'd known she was unhappy. I wondered if this would be my curse forever, wishing I'd helped someone more when I had the chance. But at the same time, I couldn't have forced her to classes or to be happy either. Nat, I reminded myself, wasn't ultimately my responsibility. I flopped back on my own bed and called Amy.

“Do you want to move in with me?”

“What?”

“My roommate is gone. If they're replacing her, the new girl hasn't shown up yet. Classes start in the morning, so…”

“Let me get this straight—you basically have a single now, you're in college, and you want someone to move
in
?”

“Well, yeah.” Though mostly I just wanted her.

“You're crazy. Oh, that's right.” She snapped her fingers. “I forget you already
have
a single. In a building down the street. With a doorman.”

“The whole reason I'm here is to have roommates.”

“You have two.”

“But now my bedroom is ugly and lonely.”

“Invite Jack over. Then it will be neither.”

If only it were that easy. “He probably doesn't want to see me.”

She made this clucking sound. “You don't know that, heartbreaker. You just need to apologize.”

I flipped over onto my back. “I don't have his number.”

“You realize this is the 21st century, right? There are other means of communication. And also, seriously?”

We never exchanged them. We used email for class and then, when we met at the club, I thought it seemed…special, maybe even daring, just to show up at the time he said and assume he'd be there. It would have ruined the feeling to have called to confirm, texted I was on my way, etc., etc. But then, I went and ruined it anyway. I didn't want to
say any of that to Amy, so what I said was, “Do you think I'm self-absorbed?”

She laughed. “Way to change the subject, Lane. Also, you realize the irony in our talking about you being self-absorbed, right?”

“Could you just tell me?”

“Yes. Sometimes you are. But I love you. And your life is weird, so maybe you get a little leeway.”

“I miss you,” I told her.

“I'm right here.”

“It's not the same as is if you were on the bed across from me.”

“I know.” She paused. “But things can't always stay the same, can they?”

W
HAT
HAPPENED
WAS
I ran into him in the hall.

He was standing outside a lecture room, alternately glancing at a sheet of paper and watching me approach, looking his usual perfect. For just a second, I pictured him the last time I'd seen him: asleep, lips slightly parted, body tangled and bare under a midnight blue comforter. A flush began to creep up my face, starting from my neck or possibly lower.

How did one do this? How did one talk to a guy for the first time since slipping out of his bed without even saying goodbye? I could hardly recognize myself as the girl in this situation. Yet I was, and now he was right in front of me.

So I said, “Hey.” I tried a smile, but it felt tentative and uncertain.

Jack was not smiling as he glanced at the paper again. I tugged on my ponytail while he said, “Please don't tell me you're in this class.”

“What? No, I'm not. I just left Intro to Finance.”

He blew out a breath. “Thank God.”

Ouch. My smile lost its tentative hold and my stomach felt like it was somewhere around my feet. I'd known this might be his reaction. “Listen, I'm sor—”

But I didn't finish what I was going to say because Jack was already kissing me. Right there, in the hallway, where every and anyone could see. I was so surprised I forgot to blink, but my lips knew what to do. They parted happily, pressing against Jack's, which were warm and soft and smiling. His arm slipped behind my back, pulling me closer.

Behind me, I became aware of cheering and clapping. I heard someone call, “Yeah, Lainey!” as Jack and I broke apart. Over my shoulder, I saw Serena and a few other kids from discussion making the noise. Serena winked at me.

Grinning and blushing, I turned back to Jack. “You forgot to ask permission again.”

His lips curved into the perfect, crooked smile. “Sorry. But I didn't forget. I just really wanted to do that one more time before you gave me the awkward let down. It's okay if you want to slap me; I'd deserve it.”

I smoothed his tie. “That's not what I want to do.”

“Oh?” he said, one eyebrow perfectly arched and I flushed what had to be an electric shade of red. Behind us, the last kids filtered slowly into his class, and I prayed they weren't listening too closely.

“I want to apolog—”

“Not now,” he said, pressing one finger to my lips.

“But—”

“Later. Like on Friday. Friday night.” He leaned closer, saying, “I kind of feel like you owe me a do over,” and my already red face burst into flames. “For the
date
,” he amended, suppressing a snicker. “Dinner? The club didn't work out so well for me last time. Unless you don't want to.”

“No, I-I'd love to,” I stuttered. I bobbed my head and realized I was behaving kind of like one of those weird desk toys, where you tap the bird and it dunks its beak in some water, all jerky and without rhythm. I took a deep breath, tried to still myself. “And I
am
sorry, for…disappearing.”

He tucked the class sheet under his arm and pulled his phone from his pocket. “Do you think,” Jack said, “maybe I could get your number? So I could find you, if it happens again.”

As I walked away, my phone rang. I glanced behind me and, sure enough, Jack's was to his ear. “Who is this?” I answered, though I'd turned around to watch him.

He smiled. “Your destiny.”

Carter

I
obsessed. There were many secrets about me, but that was not one of them. I loved mysteries, too. An extra bullet hole? What
happened
that day at the range? That was a true mystery, one whose only answer rested with a girl I'd been trying to forget.

I thought about driving to the city and waiting outside her apartment until I saw her. I thought about breaking
in
to her apartment. Uncle Jeff could tell me how. I started writing her a letter, but I couldn't figure out what to write. So instead, I obsessed. Maybe my brain just needed something to do. It was like a kid brother that looked continually for the next way to annoy me.

Or possibly my brain was trying to distract me from something else:

Doubt.

I began to doubt my uncle.

Voices fought for attention in my head. Uncle Jeff first:
my brother is a lot of things. Perfect isn't one of them.

My aunt had said it before, but I wasn't ready to listen then. None of us were perfect. I wasn't, not even close. I knew, intellectually, Uncle Dan wasn't either. But in some part of my hyper-active brain—the part that had been looking up to him since I was a kid—I expected him to be. Other whispers I'd been ignoring grew in volume until they were all I could hear: