Burn (Pure #3)(41)

“I’m one of the good guys, Partridge,” Arvin says. “You know that.” His eyes shift away from Partridge and glide around the room.

“Do I?” Partridge says.

Arvin laughs and leans back in the sofa.

“What’s so funny?”

“I remember one time you told me that I lived too much in my head. You said, ‘Don’t you have a gut instinct, Weed? Have you ever just gone with your gut?’ Do you remember that?”

Partridge has no recollection of it at all. “Must be the memory loss,” Partridge says.

“No,” Weed says. “You don’t remember it because you said it without even thinking about it. You poked me in the gut with one finger, and everyone laughed.”

“Sorry, Weed. I’m sure I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Everything you said meant something. You were Willux’s son. It was your free pass to do whatever you wanted.”

“Really?” Partridge says defensively. “Because I remember people offering to beat my ass, and did you jump in and help me? No. You just kept your nose to your studies. And you know what? I was right. You do live in your head too much.”

“And you,” Weed says, “should try relying on your gut a little less and your head a little more. If you did, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

He’s blaming Partridge for the suicides, and Weed’s right. There’s no denying that Partridge sparked it all. Partridge raises one hand in the air. Weed’s gone too far. Partridge can no longer allow people to talk to him like this—not even an old friend.

Weed coughs, straightens his shirt. It’s quiet a moment before Weed finally returns to his role as doctor. “What about your memory?”

“It’s still patchy sometimes—you know, my time on the outside.” He remembers most of it—Pressia, Bradwell, El Capitan, and Helmud, and the mothers fused to their children. He remembers the thunk of his pinky being chopped off and how it lay there, disconnected. And there are things that still come to him in splotches of color—mainly his mother and Sedge dying on the forest floor. He remembers being with Lyda in the empty brass four-poster bed frame, bundled under his coat, the heat of their bodies. “You know how it is. Some things you want to remember,” he says. “Some things you want to forget.”

“I bet,” Arvin says, a slight smirk on his face.

Does Weed know he’s a murderer? If so, Partridge almost wishes he’d come right out and say it. “You bet?”

Arvin leans forward, elbows on his knees, and lowers his voice. “Tell me why I’m really here.”

“First off, where’s Glassings?”

“Durand Glassings? Our World History teacher? This was what you were trying to get at when we were at the memorial service. Still on that?”

“Yes.”

“How the hell should I know?”

“Foresteed’s telling me the same thing. But someone knows.”

“Not me.” Weed looks at him stone-faced.

“I want to know if you’ve started to successfully take people out of suspension,” Partridge says, “like I told you to.”

“Look, this isn’t easy. Belze is very old. He was very weak when he was put into suspension, postoperative actually. And did you know he only has one leg? The stump ends in a clot of wires. We can’t just yank him from suspension. I mean, if you’re doing this in some way for your sister’s sake, it’s not going to do any good if he dies in the process.”

“How do you know he’s connected to Pressia?”

“I’ve got the highest level clearance possible. In fact, some of us are curious about what really happened in your mother’s bunker. Did you ever come across those vials and maybe some other stuff?”

“I thought you’d only want that for my dad, for a last-ditch effort to cure him, and since he didn’t get them in time to do him any good…”

“I could do a lot with them—trust me.” Arvin stands up and paces.

“Really? Are you sure about that, Weed?”

“Jesus, Partridge! I’ve got all the stuff I need to Purify someone, but then they fall apart.”

“I’ve seen your handiwork,” Partridge says a little sarcastically.

“You mean the wretches we brought in?” Weed says, walking to the window, looking down at the street. “Those were just experiments.”

“No, they were people.”

He turns to Partridge quickly and says, “And their sacrifices will not be in vain if I have the formula and that one last ingredient. I’d be able to fix all of the wretches without any of the side effects that killed your father. You think the guys in Special Forces are going to come out of it clean? There are friends of ours from the academy in there, Partridge.”

“I just didn’t know you had this altruistic bent. I mean, Arvin Weed, humanitarian. I had no idea when you were, you know, overseeing my torture.”

“Orders are orders. Some would say I was more dutiful than Willux’s own son. Say what you want about him; he was a genius, your father was. You’ll never even begin to imagine what his brain was capable of. You should show some respect.”

“Weed, in your head and in your gut, you know my father was a mass murderer; you’ve got to know that.”