I once told Mara, “Own yourself.” God, I am the Fool.
“So what about Stella?” I ask as I line up my cue, miss yet again. “What’s her alignment?”
“Stella.” He drags out the sound of her name. “If you asked me before shit got real, I’d have said lawful good.”
“But now?”
“I don’t know. Before she vanished, I got a different read off her. Chaotic good, I think. Haven’t quite figured it out yet. Eight ball, corner pocket,” he says, positioning his stroke.
“Let me know when you do?”
He makes the shot. Game over.
“Well done,” I say, letting my cue fall against the others, turning away from him and the conversation as quickly as possible. I hear Jamie’s voice behind me as I head upstairs with my mobile.
“Only play the games you can win.”
35
DESPERATE THINGS
MY FOOTSTEPS ECHO DULLY ON the stairs as I head up past the second floor, and the third, straight to the roof. The sun’s dying, being swallowed up by the screaming spires of New York’s skyline and the thick twilight that’s already begun to fall. I check for new texts—none—but I do scroll through the images Mara sent. Some scratch at a vague memory I once had, but can’t reach now. It’s more than unsettling—I’ve never had to pore over books or notes or paintings or anything to remember every detail. I turn over my palm, the one I cut to show Goose. The slash in it is closed, but the wound is still red, angry. My mind turns back to the list.
Suspected original
Artificially induced
Lenaurd protocol
The last two, a twisted attempt to create the kinds of abilities that we have naturally, which resulted in Jude. His sister, Claire, must’ve been a failed . . . experiment, or whatever we are. But we’re not all the same, as Daniel pointed out. If one believes what my father did, then Mara and I are different because we’re two sides of a coin. But the others on the list, Jamie and Stella excepted, are all dead now.
Possibly Stella, too, even. I’m leaning over the glass-enclosed roof deck, the vertigo nearly sickening. The sight of the street so far below is viscerally appealing.
And then, remembering my mother’s journal—even suicidal ideation appears to be genetic, in my case. My legacy, as it were. I’d stolen a pack of cigarettes Goose kept in the kitchen and withdrew one to light it. Haven’t done in a while, and the smoke filling my lungs is almost—comforting.
“Bum a fag, mate?”
The voice is obvious, but the phrasing sounds so wrong to me now. Too much time here. “Thought you preferred rolling your own?” I say to Goose as he glides up to the railing and looks out at the city with me.
“I did,” he says. “I do. Haven’t got any papers left though, and you’ve stolen my spare pack, so. Let’s have it.”
I pass it to him, and he shakes one out, gesturing for my lighter, then cupping his hands around the flame. He sucks in a lungful of smoke. “Fuck, that’s satisfying.”
“Is Mara downstairs?” I ask. He draws his light eyebrows together, then shakes his head.
“She didn’t come back with you?” My heart quickens.
“No, we got hungry, they had no food in the house, wanted to hit up a pub, I stayed for a bit but the place wasn’t quite up to scratch, so, I came back.”
I check my mobile. Nothing new from Mara. I text her.
He takes a long drag. “Think I saw a rat in their kitchen.”
“You’ve been spoilt.” I exhale smoke through my nose.
“Horribly. Got out just in time.”
I check my phone again at the exact instant it vibrates. Not Mara, though. Jamie.
Dude, you’re gonna wanna come downstairs
He added a grimace emoji at the end of the sentence, instead of a full stop.
I flick my cigarette over the side of the tower.
Goose grins. “What, no smoking in the house?”
“Mara hates it.”
“Americans. Such Puritans.”
“Aren’t they just?” I say as we descend to the living room to see Mara sprawled out on one of the sofas.
My heart stops for an instant until I hear her laughter. I glance up at Jamie. “Don’t look at me. She was sober when I left.” He escapes faster than is humanly possible.
I take Mara by the forearm, lift her up to standing. Dreamy smile on her face, she swoons backward into my arms.
“You’re cute,” she says. Fuck’s sake. I look at Goose; he shrugs innocently. Mara’s limp and smiling, still, her lids at half-mast.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask.
“Nothing you can’t fix,” she says, voice sliding into sultry.
“I’ll leave you to it, then?” Goose backs away, but not before I ask, “Did you take anything?”
“Really, mate?”
“Indulge me.”
A head shake. “They did mention something about getting high though.”
“And you left her?”
Eye roll. “It wasn’t anything to do with drugs, it was about their, Gifts, or whatever. They said using them can get them high sometimes.”
Sublime. “Are you mental? That’s even worse.”
“Do you really keep her on that tight of a leash, mate?” Goose hardly knows Mara, of course, and while I completely, completely understand why he wouldn’t believe the implications, right now my overwhelming impulse is to shake him.
“Fuck right off.”
“Happily. Enjoy your evening, old chap.”
Mara waves good-bye, still back-bent in my arms. I swing her forward onto the sofa.
“Ow!”
“What?”
She pouts. “I bit my tongue. Kiss it better?”
“Tempting, but, no. What did you do tonight, darling?”
“I learned how to practice using . . .”
“Practice using . . . heroin? Coke?”
“Using. My. Gift.”
“Are you aware of what your supposed Gift is?”
“Yes,” she says, dragging out the word, turning her eyes on me.
I don’t know how seriously to take this, as she’s clearly out of it, and Goose is practically clueless. “So, what? You thought you’d engage in a spot of casual murder this evening?”
Her eyes narrow. “No,” she says, and her voice sharpens a bit. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Then what did you do? And what, precisely, did Leo and Sophie do while you were at it?”
A slow, one-shouldered shrug. “They helped me. Showed me how they started practicing to make their Gifts stronger.”
“And you think that’s a good idea for you. Really.” I look at this slip of a girl and wonder, fleetingly and for the first time, if I help her undress tonight, will there be someone else’s blood on her skin? Or just on her hands?
“I think it’s good to learn how to control it,” she says.
“Surely.” She’s still drunk with whatever energy’s coursing through her—I don’t know that I’m making out the tenor of it. I hear one rhapsodic note wavering above the rest. But it is wavering. If it’s Mara, it’ll wear off soon enough. And while she’s like this, I wonder . . .
Daniel and I have both shied away from the slightest implication that Mara could be responsible for what’s happened to the others, so it didn’t occur to me to bring up my conversation with Stella with him.
But now, here, alone with Mara like this—her tongue might be loose enough to trust.
“Where’s your scalpel?” I ask.
Her spine straightens at the word. “What?”
“Where is it?”
Her shoulders lift into a shrug. “I don’t have one, why would I—”
This time, I do hear her sound change. Liar, liar. “Is it on you?”
That wicked smile. “Maybe.”
“Well,” I say, “Isn’t this a dangerous game.”
Mara’s eyes take on that cat-slant. “I’m not playing.”
I take her by the wrist, lift her up to standing. She’s sober enough that she doesn’t sway. Much.
“Put your hands on the wall,” I say, and tip my head toward it.
She arches an eyebrow.
“Go on, then.”
She crosses the living area carefully, but makes it to the wall. She splays her palms against the flat white paint, and I stop inches from her body.
“Spread your legs.”