The Becoming of Noah Shaw (The Shaw Confessions #1)(53)

“What about Felix?” Jamie asks. “If his connection timed out, or whatever, you’d think he’d be the one you’d notice?”

“Felix never went missing. He wasn’t . . . like the others.”

“Just an old-fashioned suicide.” Mara says what I’m thinking, what Sophie’s just confirmed. There is a difference between the deaths, between the willing and the murdered.

“Look, we’re scared, okay? For our friends, for ourselves.” A pleading look at Daniel here, who looks pained but doesn’t bite.

Mara, however: “I’d like to know why you were taking notes on my Horizons file.”

At least Sophie has the good grace to pretend to seem ashamed. Or perhaps she actually is. I’m not sure I care. “We thought it might help to learn everything we could about what that doctor did to you guys.”

“You could’ve just asked,” Jamie says, unsmiling.

“Right.” Sophie makes a noise. “Like you would’ve believed me if I told you what I could.”

“Leo believed you. So did the rest of your friends,” Daniel interrupts. “You deliberately hid it. From me, from my sister—”

“From me as well,” I say.

She meets my gaze. “I didn’t know you were Gifted.”

“How’s that?” I ask.

“No connection.”

“Not a metaphor, I’m guessing.”

“No. I can’t sense you. It’s like you’re not even in the room.”

Goose looks disturbed. “You’re not going to off yourself, are you, mate?”

“No,” I say just as Sophie does.

“I’ve never sensed him,” she continues. “It’s not like he’s gone missing all of a sudden. Speaking of which, whatever’s happening? There haven’t been enough . . . deaths . . . to see a pattern yet. I don’t know how long it’ll be before Felicity dies, or Stella—”

“How do you know they will die?” Daniel asks.

“Because Sam died.”

“A pattern of one isn’t exactly a pattern.”

She shakes her head. “Felix knew when Felicity was gone.”

“Because you told him you couldn’t find her, and he lost hope,” I say, drawing Mara’s attention.

She lets out a shaky breath. “No, Felix was an empath. He could feel, and change, people’s emotions. And when Beth went missing, and killed herself—he knew it was happening to Felicity, too.”

“I don’t know, seems like he gave up kind of quick,” Jamie says.

“He didn’t want to live in a world without her,” I say. Daniel looks up—my defence of Felix is an unintentional defence of Sophie, so I circle back to offence, where it’s safer. “So what’s your plan, Sophie?”

“My plan?”

“You must’ve thought about it,” Mara says. “Or were you planning to lie to us forever?”

“You’ve read my file as well, I imagine,” I say.

She shakes her head. “You don’t have one.”

Jamie’s forehead scrunches. “Sure he does. I’ve seen it.”

Sophie shrugs. “Maybe Stella never took it out of Horizons, then.”

“But she stole mine,” Mara says—to herself, I think. A slight smile appears on her lips. “Of course she did.”

“Tell me something,” Jamie cuts in. “Did you know about me too? In Croyden? Because we’ve both been there since elementary school—”

“I didn’t know that there was something going on with me until I was sixteen, and you’re two years younger than me. When I met Leo and he told me I wasn’t crazy, I never thought there was anything special about you—”

“Thanks.”

“We passed each other all the time, and nothing, until one day—”

“Something,” he finishes, leaning back against the chair.

At that, Daniel stands up. “I can’t. I can’t do this anymore.” He rises from the table, and Sophie scrambles to follow. The chair scrapes against the floor as she pushes it away from the table.

“I’ll take the train back with you,” she says.

“Pass.” He goes to get his coat, but Mara crosses the room and says something to him I can’t hear—Sophie’s talking at him, Jamie’s asking Sophie for her address, and Goose is going for the whiskey.

“Called you a car, dude,” Jamie says to Daniel before he walks out the door. Jamie looks down at his mobile. “It’s just down the street. It’ll be here by the time you’re downstairs.” Daniel pauses for a moment, then says to Sophie, “You’d better head out. Before it leaves without you.”

She looks confused. “You’re not coming?”

“Not tonight.”

That visibly shakes her. “I love you,” she finally says, quiet and honest and sad.

Daniel doesn’t reply, but Mara opens the door and holds it open. Once Sophie’s walked into the hall, Daniel says, “You don’t lie to people you love.”

If only that were true.



“Daniel, you should spend the night,” Mara says as he stands by the now-closed door.