The Becoming of Noah Shaw (The Shaw Confessions #1)(28)

“Did we?” We? He fixes me with that dark blue stare. “Do you recall?”

I grin at the challenge, say nothing, betray nothing, wait for my silence to unsettle him. It doesn’t.

Things are spiralling—Jamie may not know the details, but he’s got things sorted well enough. And knows he’s the only one who can even begin to try and fix it.

“Daniel’s staying,” he says to Leo. His words ripple the close air, plucking mental strings inside all of us, though the words are directed only at Leo.

He blinks slowly. An automatic smile creeps across his lips as he nods, compliant. The parlour is staticky with energy, my mind with the realisation that Jamie’s mind-fuck is working on another Carrier. It’s working on one of us.

“Well,” Leo says, eyes flat, pupils blown, “if you’re staying, don’t just stand there.” He turns around and glides to the kitchen, separated from the rest of the house by two shabbily painted French doors with transom windows above them.

That gets to all of us. “What the shit?” Mara whispers. Daniel slides his gaze to Jamie, who’s trying for ice-cool and failing. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. Pulses hammer and heartbeats gallop, and it sounds like there’s an army in this house, not six teenagers.

This is what I know: Leo’s a Carrier. He’s singled Daniel out as the Other. He’s not singled out Goose.

Not. Goose.

I turn to my Westminster friend. “All right, chap?”

“Never better.”

“You know, this place isn’t up to scratch.” I glance at Jamie, who gets it. “Why don’t you and Goose and Daniel go on with Mara to that café on Fulton, and we’ll meet you there.”

Goosey tilts his head. “You seem tense, mate.”

“Hardly. Though, since you mention it, is there anything you’d like to share with the class?”

His mouth curves up, amused. “Can’t think of a thing.”

I don’t know whether to stay and press, or leave and let it go.

The sound of indelicate footsteps descending the staircase barely merits my attention, but the voice attached to them snaps my head around. “He doesn’t know,” the voice says, a voice I haven’t heard in months, not since Horizons. And there, standing at the foot of the staircase, is Stella.





19


OUR PREJUDICES

SHE’S DIFFERENT FROM WHAT I remember. Her once-soft shape is filed down to edges, the spray of freckles across her olive skin more livid. She does not look well.

“Hi,” Jamie says.

Stella’s mouth is sewn shut. She’s staring at Mara—something flares between them. I know a bit about the parting of the ways between Jamie, Mara, and Stella, but the atmosphere seems nastier than it should be, considering Mara’s the reason Stella made it out of Horizons alive in the first place.

Leo returns, so it’s us seven in the foyer, crowded in amongst old rucksacks and umbrellas. Leo bears a dusty bottle of wine and glasses.

“Stella,” he says with an easy smile. “Allow me to introduce you to—”

“We’ve met,” I say.

“Briefly,” she adds through her pinched mouth.

Jamie puts his hand on his heart. “You wound me.” He says to Leo, “We go way back.”

“Way back,” Mara speaks, for the first time in what feels like hours.

Goose slips sideways between us, back into the parlour. I follow, nicking a glass and the wine bottle from Leo’s hand. Because this afternoon has just gotten far, far more interesting.

“From Florida?” Leo asks.

None of us has mentioned Florida.

Daniel’s begun to sweat—his gaze bounces between Mara and Stella and Leo.

Jamie attempts a rescue. “Yep!” He follows Goose and me into the parlour. The rest trickle over as well. I settle onto the sofa, stretching out comfortably though my nerves are snapping with electricity. What the fuck is Stella doing here? How long has she been here?

Leo sits on the leather chaise, pats the seat next to him, “C’mere,” he says to Stella, who’s so tense she’s more like a wood carving than a person. She obeys, though.

I hold the bottle up, casting a reflexive glance at the label. Ever the snob. “Shall I pour?”

“What doesn’t Goose know?” Mara asks Stella. She doesn’t speak though, not till Leo places a hand on her thigh. How very familiar of him.

“He’s an amplifier,” Stella says.

Goose’s face is all-smile. “Are you all taking the piss?” Raises his eyebrows at me. “Is some American hazing ritual about to begin?”

“Those are the words coming out of your mouth,” Stella says to him evenly. “But in your head, you’re thinking, The fuck is going on here? Why are we bothering with these people, and Noah, you wanker, you’ve really gone mental.”

The smile on Goose’s face vanishes, draining all colour with it, because Stella has just narrated his inner monologue.

Goose is here because of me, in Brooklyn because of me, in America because of me. This is my problem to solve, now. No one else’s.

“Since you directly—or, indirectly, as it were—addressed me in your thoughts, I’ll try to explain,” I say to him.