The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious, #2)(76)

“Because I felt bad,” she said. “I don’t know how to do these things. I’m not . . . I’m not good. With people.”

“No,” he said. “You’re not.”

“And neither are you. You told me your parents were dead.”

“So I guess we’re even,” he said simply. “You’ll be fine. Until my dad sees the video, I guess. Oh, and the fact that I’m not going back to Ellingham. That could be a problem. But you’ll work it out.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’m not going back to Ellingham,” he said.

“So you just got your face beat in and now you’re leaving school?”

“You got it! Well done.”

“Why?” she said.

“Again, that’s for me to know. You can work out some new deal with Eddie. Why don’t you tell him you’ll find me and bring me back. That might work. You’re good at finding people.”

“David . . .”

She reached for his arm, but he roughly shrugged it away.

“This is where we leave each other,” he said.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Fine. I’ll jump in the lake. Want to swim? It’s a little cold and rough, but swimming is the best exercise.”

It was impossible to tell with David if this was a joke, and the lake was just at the end of the street.

“Turn around,” he said. “I’m serious about the lake.”

Tears were streaming down Stevie’s face now. It was odd. Stevie did not cry often, and never in public. David watched this with a clinical interest for a moment, then turned and continued in the direction of the waterfront.

Stevie did not follow. Too many bad things had happened in that lake. She was not going to be part of another.

She had to let him go.

By the time Stevie returned to campus, the video of David getting his face beaten in had ten thousand views. Stevie refreshed the page and watched the number go up. Most of the comments were confused, understandably. People came to this channel to watch a show about zombies. And now the zombie guy was dead and in his place was this rando getting punched.

She obsessively checked her phone for texts from him and wondered if she should send something, but there was silence on both ends. Hunter, however, had been in touch several times. Stevie was cagey with her answers. This was hard to explain.

On her return to Minerva, the house was quiet. There was no fire in the fireplace, but things were warm.

Now there were three. Hayes, dead. Ellie, dead. David . . .

How had she lived before this madness? How did she cope? Coping just . . . happened. Reality continued to unwind its sinuous path, and she walked it.

She texted Nate to come downstairs, then went to Janelle’s door. It was cracked open a few inches. She was sitting on the floor on a fuzzy cushion, a video about SpaceX playing on her computer, bits of Arduino scattered around her. She was leaning over, looking into her wall mirror, a small pile of eye shadow palettes next to her, delicately applying color with a brush.

“What do you think,” she said, turning to reveal one eye stunningly made up in a range of oranges, reds, and yellows. “It’s a sunset eye. Does it look like a sunset? I think it may be too orange.”

“I need to talk to you,” Stevie said.

Janelle spun in her direction and paused the video. Stevie shut the door and sat on the floor.

“There’s some stuff I need to tell you about,” she said.

“With David?”

“Yeah. You noticed?”

“You want to be a detective, but you’re the least subtle person I’ve ever met,” Janelle said. “You need to work on that. What’s going on?”

“This is a secret,” Stevie said. “A serious one.”

Janelle’s forehead wrinkled in worry. Her one sunset eye cast an uneasy glance at Stevie. There was a knock, and Nate poked his head in when Janelle called.

“What?” he said. “This is a meeting or something?”

“I need you guys,” Stevie said. “You need to hear this.”

Nate’s eyes had faintly blue shadows under them, matching his faded T-shirt.

“Yeah,” he said, sitting down on the floor and tucking up his knees. “Maybe it’s time we all compared some notes.”

“What have you two not been telling me?” Janelle said, flicking her gaze between them.

“You go,” Nate said. “I can’t start this.”

Stevie took a deep breath and ruffled her hair. It was getting too long. Everything was messy.

“David is Edward King’s son,” she said.

This took Janelle a moment to process, her sunset eye winking and widening.

“David?” she said. “Is the son of . . . the politician? The guy running for president? The one your parents work for? That guy?”

“Yup,” Stevie said. “They don’t get along. I found out the morning after Ellie disappeared. He came on campus.”

“You don’t look surprised,” Janelle said to Nate.

“I found out the other night.”

“It’s not something I could tell people,” Stevie said. “I wanted to. But no one is supposed to know. I guess it could be a security problem.”