Without Merit(36)

I shake my head. “No, I think that’s enough to keep me awake all night.”

Luck laughs and stands up. Before he walks out, he pauses in front of my trophy shelf. He picks up the first place fencing trophy. “Fencing?” He looks at me suspiciously. He replaces it and reads a couple more of the plaques on the other trophies, then he looks at me over his shoulder with an arched brow. “Did you actually win any of these?”

I smile. “Define win.”

Luck shakes his head. “I’ve met a lot of people in my life, Merit. But you might be the strangest of them all.”

“Runs in the family.”

He closes the door just as my phone vibrates under my pillow. Speaking of strange. It’s a text from my mother.

If you’re still awake could you bring me a razor? I’m in the shower and mine broke.

I roll my eyes dramatically and drop my phone onto my bed. Why does she even need to shave? No one would ever notice how hairy her legs are. She doesn’t interact with anyone!

I grab a disposable razor from the bathroom and run it down to Quarter Four. She’s in the shower, so I walk into her tiny bathroom and hand it to her over the shower curtain.

“Thanks, sweetie,” she says. “While you’re down here, do you mind taking those dishes on the fridge back upstairs?”

“Sure.” I close the bathroom door and find a few days’ worth of dishes on top of her mini-fridge. They’re clean, even though she has no kitchen sink. She must have washed them in the bathroom sink.

You would think she’d be desperate enough for her own kitchen by now. I don’t understand why she still lives here. She could move into the house Utah is remodeling. She could lock herself in her bedroom and never leave, just like in the basement. It’s been vacant since the last tenants moved out six months ago. It’s not healthy for anyone. Especially her.

As I’m walking toward the stairs with her dishes in hand, my eyes fall to a pile of medication on the table next to her couch. She’s been on several different medications since as early as I can remember. Medication for her cancer, pain pills for her back, anxiety pills. I look back at the bathroom to make sure the door is shut. I set the plates down on the couch and pick up one of the pill bottles. It’s the medication she takes for pain.

My hands begin to shake as I open the lid. They always do this when I come down here and take some of her medicine. I’m always scared she’ll catch me, or scared she’ll notice some are missing. But with as many teenagers that are living in Dollar Voss now, it’ll be impossible to pinpoint who did it.

I empty a few pills into my hand and then shove them in my pocket. I put the bottle back where I found it and I take the plates up to the kitchen. I rush to my room and pull the pills out of my pocket and count them. Eight. I’ve never stolen that many at once. I like to spread it out so it’ll be less noticeable. The bottle was more than half-full so maybe she won’t be able to tell that eight are suddenly missing.

I walk to the closet and pull the bottle of pills out of my black boot. I’ve been hiding them in this boot since I started stealing them. Honor hates these boots, so I don’t have to worry about her borrowing them and finding my stash. I open the empty Tylenol bottle, adding the eight to the pile of twenty I’ve already stolen.

I’ve never actually taken one. In all honesty, I don’t even know why I steal them. I have no desire to become addicted to medication like she is. I think I steal them out of spite. Just like the trophy I took from Drew Waldrup’s bedroom.

I don’t normally steal things. The few times I have, it’s simply a return for my anger. I stole two sets of Valentine-themed scrubs from Victoria once. I had no intention of wearing them, but knowing she couldn’t wear them made the theft worth it. I donated the scrubs to Goodwill and pretended I had no idea what she was talking about when she asked all of us if we’d seen her pink scrubs with the hearts on them.

Other than the trophy from Drew Waldrup, the scrubs, and the pills, I’ve never stolen anything from anyone else. Not that I don’t have the urge. I can’t stop wondering what it would be like to steal Honor’s boyfriend.

I place the boot back in my closet and shut my closet door. On my way back to my bed, my foot meets something that isn’t carpet. I look down and notice a sheet of paper on my bedroom floor. I pick it up and turn it over.





I’m assuming the girl in the picture is me, since Sagan slid the picture under my door rather than Honor’s. In the picture, I’m sitting at the bottom of a pool. A rope is tied around my waist on one end and the other end is tied to a floating cinder block. I flip it over and read the caption.

“Coming down for air.”

I sit down on my bed and continue to stare at it. Coming down for air? What does that even mean? Why would he draw this?

Before I can talk myself out of it, I walk across the hall and knock on his door.

“It’s open,” he says.

I open the door and he’s sitting on his bed with his sketchbook in his lap. When he looks up and sees me, he pulls the sketchbook to his chest.

“What does this mean?” I ask him, holding up the sketch.

He stares at me a moment and then returns his attention to the drawing in his lap. “Sometimes I just get ideas, so I draw them.”

“You drew a picture of me drowning! Is that supposed to comfort me?”