The Becoming of Noah Shaw (The Shaw Confessions #1)(33)

“We didn’t know.”

“Bullshit,” I say. “Stella could hear her thoughts.”

“I couldn’t. It was like there was something—cloaking them. She was . . . different, somehow.”

“And Sam?” Mara asks, the first thing she’s said since all this has come out.

“He was too far away,” Leo says. “For us to do anything about.”

Implying that there should’ve been a way for me to do something about it. I feel like hitting him. More than that.

But Jamie’s actually the one to move on this, surprisingly. “How about Felix, then? He killed himself in your house!”

“He chose to,” I say before catching myself. Leo’s pale eyebrows rise slightly.

“Meaning what?” Jamie’s focused on me now. “That the others didn’t choose to kill themselves?”

“It’s true,” Stella says, saving me. “And anyway we weren’t here when it happened.”

“How convenient,” Jamie says.

“It’s not like he’d have chosen a time when he could’ve been rushed to the hospital and had his stomach pumped,” I say without meaning to. Stella looks grateful, though I didn’t say it for her benefit. I shouldn’t have said it at all, as I’ve no interest in playing patient to Mara’s or Jamie’s armchair psychologist later—Mara’s expression is shadowed, and Jamie’s confusion has turned to suspicion. Daniel and Goose are both unruffled, knowing well enough to leave it alone. If Goose wasn’t actually present for all the injuries I tried to explain away in school, he would’ve heard about them.

Leo takes advantage of my having thrown at least half the room off-balance. “Look,” Leo goes on. “We all want this to stop happening, right?”

Daniel’s the only one to nod.

“And we know what you guys went through,” Leo goes on. “That place, Horizons. Looking for a cure. The experiments they were doing on you in Florida. The research you found.”

Goose turns to me and mouths, “The fuck?”

Did they know who ordered it all, though? Was that what the envelope was about?

I inhale. “So you showed me your address, sent the clippings to let me know you knew all about me, and led me here to help you find the rest of these people before they die too?”

“What clippings?” Leo asks.

I can’t tell if he’s lying. Not even with Goose here, supposedly amplifying his heartbeat or whatever.

Seeing me thrown, Daniel takes the lead. “Someone sent Noah an envelope with his father’s obituary and something about a poisoning in the NYPD.”

“That’s . . . random,” Leo says. I notice Mara direct her attention to Stella—all of her attention.

Stella, still refusing to look Mara’s way, says. “We didn’t send that.”

So, who did?

“Okay, question for another day,” Daniel says. “We want to pool what we’ve got, stop this from happening to anyone else. Right?”

“Yes,” Stella says. “That’s what we were hoping.” Leo nods once.

I’m trying to work him out. His breathing is even, heartbeat steady, but he doesn’t seem . . . right.

All of us have gone quiet, so Daniel steps up again. “All right, there’s a lot to . . . digest.” He twists back to the windows, which are now giving off only the faintest beams of light. “It’s late, and we should be getting back,” he says to Goose, Jamie, Mara, and me. We nod like puppets. “But do you want to exchange numbers?” he asks Leo, who withdraws his mobile from a back pocket. Daniel gives it to him. Leo looks at me next.

Oh, why not.

As they lead us out of the house, Stella reaches out to Jamie, “It’s good. Seeing you again.”

A single nod. “Yeah. We’ll catch up.”

“I’d like that.”

As Mara exits, Stella says nothing to her, nor Mara to Stella, though she does offer the slightest of smiles to Jamie and Daniel. The five of us assemble at the bottom of the stoop, raising a final glance at Leo. Stella’s already tucked herself back inside.

We walk back to the train, Jamie and Mara speaking in low voices, Daniel talking at Goose. I’m trailing slightly behind when my phone vibrates.

It’s Stella. I need to talk to you. Without Mara. LMK before 8.

And then another text, right after:

p.s. Please don’t tell her. Please.





21


NIGH INCURABLE

THE AFTERNOON SCROLLS THROUGH MY head on a reel. I’m torn between irrepressible urgency and overwhelming—emptiness.

Seeing the names and faces of the Gifted—that’s what Stella and Leo kept calling them, the word they preferred to use. But are we? Gifted? Seeing them cut skin, tuck pills under tongue, step into air. It’s . . . I’m—

Triggered. Triggered is the word for it, much as I hate to admit. I keep trying to push it down, sweep it away, shut it down the way I always had when I’d seen the others hurt themselves or be hurt. But this—this is different.

This must be like what Mara felt when Jude was tormenting her, pushing buttons she didn’t know existed, pushing her till she lost control.

I’m losing control now. Jumping in to defend Felix’s choice to die because he thought his girlfriend had. It feels like wolves are at my door, my house, circling.