Scar Island(43)

The room was perfectly round, with a high, coned ceiling. In the middle was a thin mattress covered in a rumpled pile of blankets. On the far side of the room, Colin sat in a straight-backed chair, looking out a round window.

He turned and gave Jonathan one of his short-lived smiles.

“You found my little bird,” he said.

“Yeah.” Jonathan stepped into the room. It had four circular windows, one looking in each direction. The glass was broken out of one of them. There was a puddle of rainwater on the floor beneath it. A chilled wet breeze spun through the room.

Colin shivered.

“There’th a thtorm coming.”

“Probably.”

“Definitely.”

Jonathan crossed over to one of the windows. It looked inward to Slabhenge, down onto the courtyard. He could see Tony and Miguel halfheartedly kicking the ball back and forth. They looked small and far away. They looked like little kids.

“Do you want a chocolate?” Colin asked.

Jonathan looked at him and smiled. Colin smiled back.

“No, thanks. He’ll probably check my breath when I get back.”

Colin’s smile widened.

“He’th pretty mad, huh?”

Jonathan’s smile dropped away.

“More than pretty mad, Colin. You need to be careful. You shouldn’t sneak down anymore. I—don’t know what he’ll do to you.”

Colin shrugged.

“I’m careful. Everyone is athleep when I come down. Or eating. And I know all the wayth to ethcape now.”

“What do you mean?”

Colin’s eyes widened and an excited smile spread across his face.

“Thith plathe ith really amathing. All the hallth and stairth and roomth are connected. There are almotht no dead endth. It’th like an anthill. All turnth and loopth and thircleth. And I know it. Or motht of it. He’d never catch me.”

Jonathan shook his head.

“Don’t risk it, Colin. You can’t let him catch you. He’s kind of … losing it, I think. And I can’t …” Jonathan’s voice broke off. He frowned and bit his lip. “I can’t protect you anymore. He won’t listen to me now.”

Colin tilted his head and blinked.

“What happened?” he asked. Jonathan looked away, out the window, then back to Colin.

“They think I know where you are. Well, they thought I knew where you were. And Benny … Benny told them some stuff.”

“What? What did he thay?”

Jonathan swallowed and took a deep breath.

“He said that he’d looked through my paperwork. He showed them my—my scars.” Jonathan rubbed at his arms. “He told them I was sent here for … for … murdering my little sister. Sophia.” Jonathan’s voice caught when he said the name. His breaths were fast and shallow and they burned in his throat. His voice scratched down into a whisper. “He told them I started a fire. And that she died. He told them I killed my little sister.” Tears, as hot as the rain was cold, dropped from his eyes and down his cheeks.

Colin frowned. His eyes squinted into Jonathan’s face.

“It ithn’t true, though,” he said.

Jonathan’s throat tightened like a punch-ready fist. His eyes burned like deadly fire. He ripped a ragged breath from his lungs and looked away.

“Oh,” Colin said, his voice a breathless whisper. “It ith true.”

Jonathan rubbed at his tears with his wrist. He looked away, through his tears, out the window at the storm.

“Tell me, Jonathan,” Colin said softly. “Tell me what happened.”

Jonathan wiped at his face with a sleeve. “It doesn’t matter.”

Colin stood up and walked over to where Jonathan stood.

“It doth. It doth matter. Tell me.”

Jonathan took a shuddering lungful of air. His teeth chattered when he exhaled.

“I … I … used to start fires. I don’t know why. I don’t even remember how it started. I liked to … watch the flames. Watch them grow. See something that I’d built get hot and bright and alive. I don’t know.” He looked up, for just a second, into Colin’s eyes, then away again quickly.

“Little ones at first, then bigger. Then I set one at school. In the bathroom. But I got caught running away. I got in big trouble. Parents called in, kicked out of school, the whole thing. It was awful. I didn’t start a fire for a while. And then … and then …” He stopped, the words stuck in his throat like ash. His teeth clenched hard and with one deep breath through his nose, he plunged forward.

“And then I started again. Small ones. In wastebaskets. At night, when everyone was sleeping. Sophia caught me. She was so mad. She was afraid I was gonna get in trouble again. She made me promise not to do it ever again. She … she even took the matches I had.” Jonathan’s voice got smaller and smaller as he spoke. He wanted to walk away, to slam the door, to retreat to the shadows with his raging. But Colin still stood there with his listening eyes before the storm-darkened window, and Jonathan’s words stumbled on.

“And then. That night. It was … like a nightmare. The smoke. The flames climbing up the walls. So much smoke. I wanted to run. And then I heard her. Downstairs. Screaming my name. And the fire was just so hot. Growing so fast.” He looked up through burning, blurry eyes. “It was like a monster, Colin. It was roaring.” His voice was cut off by a choking sob. “I could hear her. But I couldn’t save her. And she died in the fire. Screaming for me to save her.”