“Make it ten,” I say, kissing him hard on the lips.
“Watch for me. If you hear sirens, it means they found me,” he says. I pull back but his hands are strong. His lips move on the corner of my jaw.
“How will I see you again?” I arch into his body again.
“Find Sonja’s mother. She’ll help us.” He kisses me, hard and fast and deep. Then he’s gone.
*
His lips carry an image of silver. Sharp and hard. The blade passes from his mind to mine like a whisper, and as he leaves the room, I try to shake the feeling that I’ll never see him again.
I check the time on my phone. If Ethan is caught, he’ll be kicked out. I’ve hung out with Jeremy long enough to know he’d squeal the second Dean Burnett pinched him. And the dagger? Another one of his treasures, I’m sure, but it looks like it could cause serious harm. I don’t know why it was in his mind. I don’t want to know.
No time for a shower. I shove at the hangers in my closet until I find my sturdiest jeans. Tight, but they move with me, and my gut tells me I’m going to need to run. I toss my sneakers back in favor of chunky heel boots; they’re solid, and make me as tall as most men. My black t-shirt with the cherries. Just because.
When I see my reflection in the mirror I cringe, thinking that Ethan saw me like this, even though he probably helped turn my hair into this mess. I shove what hangs in my face into a messy ponytail, and run to the restroom. I wash my face, brush my teeth, and check the time on my phone when I get back to the room.
Seven minutes left.
I stare at myself in the mirror. Pale skin, long nose, wide mouth. Worried eyes. The face of a young girl, in over her head and scared. So I line my eyes with black, thick on the upper lids, and flick a coat of mascara on my lashes. My only non-gloss lipstick is dark red, and I carefully trace my mouth, and then rub my lips together to warm it up. The face in the glass is still a girl, but she’s older, a young woman who has it put together, ready to face whatever comes her way.
Ethan called it battle armor. I like that.
I look out the window. He’s not outside by the fountain or under a nearby tree. It’s four minutes too soon. The runes on the wall get under my skin, and I find the soft lead pencil that’s rolled under my bed. The plaster catches at the graphite, black dust drifting down the wall as I outline five of the markings, the ones that glow in my dreams.
Under two, I sketch mirrored profiles, nose to nose exact, like the optical illusion of a vase, and then I add eyes, one with lashes, and one without. I glance out the window as I draw, but the quad is still empty. I turn to the next rune, the one that Faye called perth, and draw another face. My hands move fast: wide eyes peeking through dark bangs, a tiny heart shaped mouth. Over the rune shaped like an arrow I draw another portrait, a bare-headed boy with solemn brows. My phone says eleven minutes have gone by. Still no sign of him outside.
Sonja’s package stares at me, and I leaf through the pages of my dream, trying to understand what impulse made me reach for it in my sleep. I snatch it up, and run my thumbnail under the flap, where it looks like someone else has opened it. No need to guess who.
A heavy metal object slips from a loose paper wrapping and I pick both of them up, but the crows on the silver bracelet catch my attention. There are five, spaced between girlish charms and four pendants with runes and one broken link. They match my sketches on the wall, aside from the missing one.
The thief stole his own rune; probably not even aware of its meaning, and hid it away with the rest of his treasures. I wonder what he has of mine. I read the note that has fallen to the bed, and the breath is ripped out of my body.
“Oh, shit. Oh, no. No! Ethan, where are you?”
My mental sketchbook flips through images, to the last second I saw him, before he ducked out the door, icy eyes tearing away from mine, and then my vision shifts, like it does when we kiss, and I’m staring at Jeremy, his face mottled with bruises and anger, the doors leading out of the boy’s dorm behind him.
“No,” I yell. The image fades away as my shout echoes in my room.
Outside, past the quad, a police car, siren off but blue lights flashing, pulls into the visitors parking in front of the admin building. They had him. It was all up to me, now.
23.
Entreaty
I stand at the side door to the girl’s dormitory, watch the cops saunter into the administration office building. They’re taking their time, arms swinging as they walk, not halfcocked and ready to grab for the gun belt. They’re not looking for me yet, but I duck my head out of habit, as I scope out the digital lock to Memory’s dorm.
No way I can break in, and I’m late. She’s not waiting for me in the quad either. After I left her, I’d run back to my dorm, and it only takes me a minute to find what I need from my room. The silver letter opener, the charm, glass orbs, letters from my caseworker, my camera; they all go in my bag, the significance of them—their connection—slamming through my definition of what is real.
But I lose time looking for the book. It’s not in Julian’s bag, or under his bed, and I groan when I realize my roommate has filed it in the collection that covers every flat surface on his side of the room. I scan the spines, trying to remember what it looks like.
“C’mon, dude, where did you put it?” They’re in alphabetical order, and with some amusement that I don’t have time for, I notice that quite a few have library stickers. I’m not the only one who takes his trophies. I can’t remember the name of the author. John Olivann? Guardivander?
Cursing, I dig for my camera, hoping one of my candid shots of the girls might show the book, and my instincts are right, there’s a shot of Faye at lunch, and next to her is Julian, half cropped out of the frame, holding a green hardbound with yellowing pages.
Searching all the books with the same color, I finally find it, stash it in my bag and on another impulse, I reach for my camera again. I imagine the girl with the sharp tongue and soft mouth, and I look through the lens, and I see her looking back at me. She raises her hand to her mouth, draws it with red, and rubs her lips together, then flashes a fierce smile into the mirror.
War paint. You’re fantastic, Cherry.