The Becoming of Noah Shaw (The Shaw Confessions #1)(74)

I hadn’t noticed that dawn had risen, that it was morning, until now. The police are back in motion, talking to us, coming toward us, and Jamie’s in gear, leading the way with Leo. The illusion’s broken, Daniel and Goose are by my side. Goose is leaning on to the rail, weakest of all of us. “Drained” would be a better word, I suppose. I twist back, looking for Mara, but the only person I see behind us is Sophie. She’s crying, silently.

“Have you seen Mara?” I ask her.

She looks up at me through dark blond lashes. “She left as soon as soon as Stella . . .”

“The cops are going to want to talk to all of us,” Daniel says. “There are cameras on the bridge, not to mention the helicopters—”

“Did any of them get audio, do you think?” I want to replay what just happened. Make sure my own memory is untainted.

“Who cares?” Leo turns, faces me. “Who the fuck cares?”

“We all should,” Daniel says, though not for the reason I expect. “Especially us, seeing as we’re eighteen.”

“And that’s relevant why?” Leo asks.

“Because it means we can be questioned without a guardian present,” Daniel says flatly. “Because we can be charged as adults.”

“Charged for what? She committed suicide,” Sophie says quietly. “No one’s going to be arrested for murder.”

“Even though one of us should be,” Leo says. He turns his assholic stare on me as Mara’s not here.

“Shut up,” I say as Jamie talks us past one of the cops, but I don’t say it out of anger. I stop at the railing, threading my fingers through the fence. A boat arcs through the river, its wake curving like a smile.

Beneath the cars, beneath the trains, beneath the voices and sounds of every living thing in New York—

Beneath the water, there’s a heartbeat.





42


HOWEVER MEAN

SHE’S ALIVE.” I’M STARING DOWN at the water, watching the boat, but it’s as though someone took an open palm to an unfinished oil painting and smeared it. I can’t tell if her body’s floated up, or if they’ve sent divers down for her, and my mind can’t reach simple facts I should know.

Leo steps beside me, looks down. “How—”

“I need to get to her.”

“Noah.” Sophie puts a light hand on my arm. “She’s gone.”

I don’t shake her off. She’s barely there, flickering in and out. I call out to Jamie, “Can you get us through?”

I have to shout it—it’s deafening up here, now that the illusion’s broke. The cars and trains and the city—we would barely’ve been able to hear ourselves speak.

“I’m trying!” Jamie calls back, just as Goose falls to the pavement.

Daniel’s voice tugs at me as he crouches over my friend. “Can you do anything?”

I try and let it all in, every sound I can usually hear; lungs expanding, blood rushing through arteries, hearts like metronomes, but instead it’s everything else; pistons firing in engines powering cars, a garbage bag being stepped on, glass breaking, the ticking of Leo’s watch.

I’m bent over Goose—I can see his chest move, but can’t hear him breathe. I tilt my head, my ear to his mouth, and still I can barely hear a shudder of a breath, even though I can see it. It feels like I’m backing into a corridor, the lights going out one by one. Someone’s calling my name, but I’m on the pavement, deaf, but not blind. A drop of blood wells up in Goose’s nostril, then drips down the side of his cheek. It drips to the ground. I can’t hear that, either. The air stirs his hair, the collar of his shirt.

Daniel’s mouth is moving, but no words are coming out. Goose blinks out of my field of vision even though I’m kneeling over him. When he blinks back in, his hand is on my shoulder and I’m the one on the pavement, on my back, shouting for everyone to shut the fuck up.

I watch two pigeons take flight between the suspension cables. The colour leaches out of the sky; the world is grey and white before I black out.





43


PAINT THE VERY ATMOSPHERE

HER VOICE CURLS AROUND MY nerves.

An instantly familiar alto with a slight growl that gives her words a faintly sarcastic edge. I first heard her in a thick, pulsing crowd at a club. The tourist hordes descend on South Beach in December like beasts, but I glide past bouncers one, two, and three without effort. This Croyden idiot named Kent’s toted two of his Pine Crest friends along; I’ve already forgotten their names. They’re staring openmouthed at the girls—models, mostly—writhing to music in a haze of fake smoke.

I feel the notes beneath my skin. Atrocious, but they drown out the sound of things I shouldn’t be able to hear but can, chords of life blending together in a discordant soup of noise.

I open my eyes to find two tall, angular blondes—twins, perhaps—twining around each other and dancing feet away from us. One tosses me a look, then speaks to the other in Russian. Kent and his friends are spellbound; I am relentlessly bored. I rest against the seat, legs stretched out in front of me, and wonder if I could possibly sleep. But one of the girls moves in closer. Watching me to see if I’m watching her.

I lift my glass and take a slow sip of scotch. The girl is now dancing between my legs. If I don’t break eye contact, in six seconds she’ll kneel.