I tossed the phone on my bed and grabbed my coat and scarf. I might have been sweating, but it was frigid outside. I was practically trembling with anxiety. I just wanted to get this over with. Hopefully tomorrow everything could go back to normal.
Not that we had yet figured out what that was. I was starting to realize that the term
normal
was relative.
“You’re sure about this?” Natasha asked me.
I checked my watch and buttoned the last button on my coat.
No, I’m not sure. But what else am I supposed to do?
“Yes. I’m sure. I’ll . . . see you later.”
Natasha sighed and I walked out into the hallway. “Normally,” I would have been concerned about getting snagged by our housemother, but I knew that she actually didn’t much care what any of us did as long as we could bribe her heavily enough. I didn’t have the means for that kind of thing, but by now I knew plenty of people who would do it for me as a reflex. It was us against Lattimer, and we always had the upper hand.
I was two steps from the front door. I needed to plan out what I was going to say. How was I going to broach this? How did you ask someone why they’d been lying to you when the only reason you knew they’d been lying was because you had searched through their stuff when their back was turned. What was I
doing
?
“Reed.”
I froze. As did my heart. It was Noelle.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
I turned around. She stood on the bottom step of the common stairs. I hadn’t even heard her behind me.
“I’m going to meet Josh.”
Her dark eyes were piercing. “Do you really think that’s the best idea?”
She was too serene. Too placid. How did she do that?
“It’s not true, Noelle,” I told her, infusing my voice with certainty. “Josh could never hurt anyone.”
“If you believe that, then why are you going to meet him?” she asked me. “What are you hoping to accomplish?”
“I . . . I just want to clear the air,” I told her. “I want to be—”
I stopped myself. Noelle’s full lips twisted into a smirk. “You want to be sure. Which means that you’re not. You’re not sure that this guy isn’t a cold-blooded killer and yet you’re going out, at night, to meet with him. Alone.”
I could feel my heart pounding in every vein. I wanted to rip that smirk right off her face. She was messing with my mind again, her favorite pastime. I had no idea why she wanted me to believe
that Josh was a dangerous psychotic, but she did. But this time I wasn’t going to fall for it.
“I am sure,” I told her.
“I don’t appreciate this, Reed,” she said. “I go through all that trouble to get you evidence, to prove to you that I would never lie to you—which, by the way, I should never have had to do—and this is how you repay me?” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared me down. “You’re not going to go.”
I pulled my hat down over my head, covering the tips of my ears. “Watch me.”
Then I turned around and shoved the door open, blasting my way into the cold.
I stepped into the silence of Mitchell Hall and paused. The only light came from the tiny spotlights set into the ceiling, illuminating each of the ghostly headmasters. The place might as well have been a mausoleum, and for the first time since I’d walked righteously out of Billings, I considered turning back.
“Reed.”
His voice echoed down the hall. He was nowhere and everywhere.
“Josh?”
My heart beat in my throat. Why was he hiding? There was nothing but the sound of the blood rushing in my ears. How could I have come here without telling a soul where I was going? What was I thinking?
Answer: I hadn’t been thinking. I had been working on pure emotion, adrenaline, defiance. And now here I was. Alone.
“Josh, where are you?” I hated the fear in my voice, but it worked on Josh. He stepped into the hall at the far end, from the doorway to the art cemetery.
“Hi,” I said.
Josh didn’t smile.
Go home now. Get out of here.
“What are we doing here, Reed?” he asked.
I have no idea.
“I . . . I needed to talk to you.”
“Then come over here and talk to me,” he said.
I hesitated. There were a good twenty yards separating us. His face was half in shadow.
“Why don’t you want to come over here?”
Okay. Clearly this was a mistake.
“Is it because of what you found in my bag this afternoon?”
I felt like I had been shoved from all sides.
“How did you—”
“Lucas told me.” Josh slowly walked toward me. His footsteps were silent. Lucas? Ah, the Dreck boy. He’d done me a real solid. “Guys do talk, you know.”
No wonder he was acting so strange. He knew I had searched through his bag. He was pissed. As he came closer, his fingers clenched and unclenched, clenched and unclenched, causing my throat to knot.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said, staring at his hands.
“Tell you what?” Josh asked with a scoff. “That I’m on five different mood regulators? That if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t even be the person you, well, that you know and like? Why would I tell you that? So that you could think I was some freak?”
I stared at him. Who would he be without them? Did it matter?
“You do like me, don’t you, Reed?” he asked. He was close enough that I could see his eyes now, and they were all hope.
“You know I do.”
“So then what?” He reached for my hand. I flinched, and he looked like I’d just driven a dagger into his back. I felt guilty and sorry and sad all at once. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Here it was. The moment of truth.
“Why are you at Easton, Josh?” I said quietly.
His face completely morphed. Everything went slack and his eyes swam. For a long, long moment he just stared at me like I’d betrayed him somehow. Finally, he turned away from me, shrouding himself in darkness.
“How did you find out?”
I took a breath. It hurt my lungs. “It doesn’t matter. I just need to know. What happened last year?”
His back to me, Josh pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. He let out a sort of low, strangled groan. It was insanely loud in the still hall. I flinched but didn’t move.
“My roommate died, okay?” he said, turning his face slightly so that I could see his profile. “He killed himself and I found him and it sucked and I lost it.”
“You lost it,” I repeated.
“Yes!” he shouted.
I jumped. He whirled around and approached me. “Of course I lost it. Wouldn’t you? You live with a guy for a year and a half and
you think you know him. You
think
that if he was really depressed or something he would tell you. But no! No. He’s walking around like he’s king of the world and his shit’s all in a row and you’re going to Vail over Christmas with your families and everything’s freaking fine, and then one day you come back from biology and he’s there and he’s dead and there’s all this drool and blood from where he cracked his head when he fell and his eyes are all wide and you’re the one who gets to find him!”
With one, swift step, Josh was right in my face. His eyes were wild. Wild and not the slightest bit familiar. I didn’t move. My heart sent tiny little knives into my chest.
“But you don’t believe that, do you?” he said, screwing his face up in indignation. He took a step forward and now I edged away. “You think I don’t know what you’re thinking? You think I don’t know why we’re here?”
With each word his voice grew louder, more strained. He kept coming. And now I was scared enough to contemplate running, but somehow he had positioned himself between me and the door.
“Josh . . . calm down.”
I wanted him back. Wanted the Josh I knew. Not this crazy, spitting force of nature.
“Why should I calm down?” he blurted, placing one hand at the back of his head and flinging it away again. “I’m not an idiot, Reed.”
“So what am I thinking?” I asked. I was stalling for time.
Trying to figure out how I could get past him. Wondering if he’d try to stop me.
“You’re thinking,
Oh! Here’s this guy on all these psycho drugs with two dead roommates in two years, both of whom may or may not have been murdered.
You’re
thinking
I’m a
killer
!”
He barked the last word and it startled me enough that I tripped backward. Josh stood up straight and looked at me, his face turning to stone.
“You’re afraid of me. Of
me
. God, how did this happen?” Josh covered his eyes again and took a deep, shaking breath. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I yelled at you.” His voice was suddenly pleading. “It’s just been so much and I thought . . . I thought you trusted me. I wanted to tell you about last year. I was going to, that day in Boston. I knew Lynn would bring it up, and I figured it would be the perfect time to tell you everything, but then you weren’t there and . . . and when you called me I was so scared you didn’t trust me anymore and I . . . was right.”
I took a deep breath and the tension inside me deflated ever so slightly. The violent outburst portion of tonight’s program seemed to have passed.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
Josh dropped his arms. “What?”
“Did you take your pills? Did you take them today?”
He sniffed indignantly. “No. I haven’t taken them in a while.”
I choked back a huge lump in my throat. “Why?”
“I was tired of being numb,” he said, turning his palms
toward me. “My best friend died and I barely even felt it. What kind of person am I if I can’t even get upset over the fact that my best friend was murdered?”
In that moment, even as I was still shaking from his rant, my heart went out to him. I would never understand what it felt like to be him. To have no control over how I felt. Somehow, I just wanted to hug him. He looked so desperate.
“I had to feel something,” he said quietly.
There was a long moment of silence. All I could think about was how often I had wished for the ability to feel nothing. Over the past few weeks I must have wished it a thousand times.
“Maybe we should just go back,” I said finally.
“No. We’re not going back,” he said. He was calm now. Perfectly calm. The intense swings of mood were more worrisome than anything else. “I’m not leaving here until you believe me.”
“Josh—”
“Thomas was my best friend at this stupid school,” Josh said. He stared into my eyes. Focused now. Intense. With each word, he took another step closer to me. “We’ve been
friends
since we were
kids
. He was the whole
reason
Easton even
took
me after what
happened
at St. James. I owed him
everything
. He
had
his
faults
, but I would never,
ever
hurt him.”
Josh’s jaw clenched as he spoke. Each word came out tighter, more biting. More violent.
“But you don’t believe me, do you?” Josh asked, still advancing.
I backed toward the wall behind me. “Why don’t you believe me, Reed? Tell me! Why don’t you believe me?”
“Josh, please,” I said. I pressed my back into the wall. Josh hovered over me.
“Tell me why!”
“It’s . . . it’s just, Noelle told me—”
“Noelle!” Josh laughed in freakish short bursts. “
Noelle
told you! Of course! We’re all Noelle’s little puppets, aren’t we?” He laughed, holding his hand up and moving his fingers around. “First she tells me to turn Rick in and what do I do? I turn Rick in! Then when that doesn’t work out, she decides to tell everyone I’m a serial killer! And you just go ahead and believe her! We’re all such good little puppets!”
My heart pounded painfully in my chest. He was out of his mind. Totally and completely out of his mind.
“Well, not anymore!” Josh shouted, rounding on me again. He slammed his hand into the wall above my head and bore down on me until I shrank toward the floor. “Not me! I’m not gonna let her manipulate me anymore!”
“Josh, please. You’re scaring me,” I whimpered. “Please, stop.”
Hovering above me, Josh’s face changed. It was as if he was seeing me there for the first time. And in that split second he looked petrified, mortified, clear.
“Oh my God, Reed. I’m sorry. I’m—”
At that instant, I was suddenly blinded. A bright white light hit
me directly in my eyes and I threw my hands up as tears rolled down my face from the pain.
“Josh Hollis! This is the police!” a commanding voice shouted. “Step back from the girl.”
The glass door behind Josh squealed. I wrenched my eyes open. Josh’s arms were up, shielding his face. He was a dark shadow against the flood of light.
“What?” he said.
“Step away from the girl!” the voice repeated.
Josh looked at me, baffled, and stepped away from me. Instantly three cops rushed in from all angles and converged on him. Another grabbed me and checked me over, asking if I was all right. Over and over again. Was I all right?
“Yeah . . . yeah, fine,” I said. “What—”
“Joshua Hollis, you are under arrest.”
“What!?” I blurted.
Josh stood perfectly still as an older man slapped handcuffs around his wrists. Detective Hauer was there, his expression grim as he watched the proceedings.
“For what?” he asked.
The cop grabbed Josh’s arms and shoved him forward. “For the murder of Thomas Pearson.”
“What’s going on?” I demanded. Shrill, out of control, seeing red. “Why are you arresting him? He didn’t hurt me! He just needs help!”
“Reed, please. Calm down,” Detective Hauer said.
“We should get her out of here. Take her into one of the parlors.”
That was Dean Marcus. This was one infraction too many. He was going to expel me. There was no doubt in my mind. And I didn’t even care. All I cared about was the fact that they were taking Josh away. That his face had completely shut down. That as they jostled him by us, he didn’t even try to look at me.
“Josh—”
“I recommend you don’t try talking to him just now,” Detective Hauer said, standing between me and the mass of people that seemed to be all over Josh.