The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #3)(70)

“Why all the shouting?” Daniel said, as he descended the stairs. He looked back and forth between me and Stella. “What happened?”

“There was . . . an incident,” Jamie said.

“You don’t feel guilty at all, do you?” Stella shouted, her hands balled into fists at her sides.

“For scaring them?”

“For torturing them,” she said.

No. I didn’t feel guilty. I was tired of feeling ashamed for the things I thought and wanted. “I’ve evolved,” I said.

Her jaw tightened, and she brushed past my brother on the stairs, bumping his shoulder as she climbed them. Then, halfway up, she turned to the three of us and said, “I thought we were better than this. I thought we were the good guys.”

Everyone was silent, until Jamie said quietly, “None of us ever claimed to be the good guys.”

Daniel’s brow furrowed. “I’m a good guy,” my brother said.

But you’re not one of us, I thought.

Daniel followed Stella back up the stairs, probably to find out what had actually happened this afternoon. I wasn’t entirely sure what she’d say, but I was entirely sure that I didn’t want to hear it. And I didn’t want to think about Daniel hearing it.

I sat down in the living room, toed off my shoes, and I looked at my reflection in the flatscreen TV. My face was blank like an empty plate. I caught a flash of movement behind me and turned. Jamie leaned against the door frame. He didn’t speak.

“Are you mad at me too?” My voice sounded dead.

“Mad at you?” He seemed surprised by the question. “No,” he finally said. “I’m not mad at you.”

But he was still standing there, looking at me in a way I couldn’t describe but didn’t like. “Then what?”

“I’m scared of you,” he said, and left the room.





47


I’LL NEVER FORGET THE WAY Stella looked that afternoon, standing at the foot of the stairs with her things.

Her black hair hung in limp waves over her shoulders, and her eyes—there was something wrong with them. I’d seen her worried, and scared, and horrified, but she was none of those things today.

The four of us had been planning to head out for the lecture, but when I descended the stairs behind my brother and saw Stella’s red-rimmed eyes, I knew that it would not be the four of us after all.

“I’m leaving,” Stella said. She sniffed, but there was steel in her voice, not tears.

“Us too,” Daniel said. “Come with—”

“No, I’m leaving,” she said, cutting my brother off.

Daniel looked stunned for a second. “But we’re so close—”

“We aren’t,” she said sharply. “I just couldn’t see it till now.” My brother looked like he was about to speak again, but Stella wouldn’t let him. “You haven’t been here. You haven’t seen—” She stopped, and flicked a glance in my direction. “Whatever I was hoping for, it’s too late.” She bit her lip, and without looking at him said Jamie’s name.

I hadn’t been expecting that. “You too?” My voice shook.

His eyes bounced between me and Stella, and after what seemed like forever, he said, “I want to figure this shit out more than anyone, but maybe—Mara—”

“Mara’s sick,” Daniel said, and I didn’t correct him, even though I didn’t agree. “We need you to help her. To help us.”

Jamie didn’t answer him. He just stood there as Stella waited for him by the door.

I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it.

“Take care of yourselves,” Stella said, in a voice so quiet I almost didn’t hear her. The anger had gone out of her, and she looked tired as she said to my brother, “It was nice to meet you.”

“You too,” he said. “Where are you going to go?”

Stella lifted her shoulders in a shrug and smiled sadly. “Home.”

I didn’t want to watch her and Jamie leave. I slipped past my brother, who didn’t stop me, and ducked into the den, closing the door behind me. Mostly.

“She’s not herself,” I heard my brother say.

“That is an understatement,” Jamie said back.

So he was still there.

Then he said, “She’s getting really scary, man.”

“I know,” Daniel said.

“I don’t think you actually do. That was some cold shit.”

“Look, all we have to do is find the guy responsible for what’s happening to her. This is a problem that has a solution, but we need you to get it.”

To anyone else, my brother probably sounded exasperated. Condescending, even. But I could hear the nervousness in his voice.

“I think we need to at least entertain the possibility that—” Jamie stopped and took a deep breath. “What’s plan B?”

Daniel spoke after what seemed like an eternity. “There is no plan B.”



Jamie stayed, in the end. We were silent as we soldiered on to Columbia as a threesome. Stella’s departure had made everyone uncomfortable, though none of us admitted it. Jamie was particularly shaken. Since fleeing Horizons we had never split up. It was part of his strategy—splitting up gets you killed. But now I kept wondering if he wished he had split with her.