So many students make notes on their skin; so few of them look like my brother. “Mackenzie,” says Gavin, articulating each syllable.
“Yeah?”
“It’s not a big deal or anything, but you’re kind of staring at me.”
My gaze drops down to my work. “Sorry. You just remind me of someone.”
He cracks open his book and takes the pen from behind his ear. “Well, I hope it’s someone nice.”
Ben takes shape behind my eyes—not the way he was before he died, but the way he was the night I brought him back, the night Carmen opened his drawer and I woke him from his sleep. I see his warm brown eyes turning black as he slips, see him shoving me away with the strength not of a boy, but of a History. I see him crumple to the floor, a gold Archive key gleaming from his back, before Roland returns his small body to its shelf. I see the drawer closing and me on my knees, begging Roland to stop, but it’s too late, and the bright red Restricted bar paints itself across the drawer’s face before the wall of the Archive swallows my brother.
The math problems on the page blur a little. Fatigue is catching up with me, weakening my walls. Everything is beginning to ache.
“Mackenzie?” presses Gavin softly. “Is it someone nice?”
And I somehow manage to smile and nod. “Yeah,” I say softly. “It is.”
I can’t breathe.
Owen’s hand is a vise around my throat.
“Hold still,” he says. “You’re making it worse.”
He’s pinning me to the cold ground, one knee on my chest, the other digging into my bad wrist. I’m trying to fight back, but it doesn’t help. It never helps. Not here, not like this, when he’s taking his time.
And he is. He’s carving lines across my body. Ankles to knees, knees to hips, hips to shoulders, shoulders to elbows, elbows to wrists.
“There,” he says, dragging the knife from my elbow down to my wrist. “Now we can see your seams.” If I could breathe, I would scream. My uniform is dark and wet with blood. It shows up red against the black fabric, like paint—splashed across my front, pooling beneath my body.
“Almost done,” he says, lifting the blade to my throat.
And then someone scrapes her chair against the floor and I snap back to English.
Only a few minutes have passed—the teacher’s attention is still on the essay she’s reading aloud—but it was long enough that my hands are trembling and I can taste the blood in my mouth from biting down on my tongue.
At least I didn’t scream, I think as I grip the desk and try to shake the last of the nightmare off. My heart is slamming in my chest. I know it’s not real. Just my imagination—today the role of Mackenzie Bishop’s fears will be played by the History who tried to kill her in a variety of ways. I still spend the rest of the day picturing Roland’s room in the Archive—the daybed with the black blanket, the violin whispering from the wall, the promise of dreamless sleep—and digging my fingernails into my palms to stay awake.
By the time school lets out, there are red crescents across both palms, and I shove through the doors of the building and onto the path, gasping for air. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. I feel like I’m cracking. Everything aches, the pain drawing itself into phantom lines.
Ankles to knees, knees to hips, hips to shoulders, shoulders to elbows, elbows to wrists.
“Hey, Mac!”
I open my eyes to find Wesley a little ways down the path, a sports bag slung over his shoulder. I must not be hiding the frayed nerves well enough, because he frowns. Cash is only a few strides behind him, talking to another senior guy.
“All good?” asks Wes as casually as possible.
“All good,” I call back.
Cash and the other guy catch up. They’re both carrying sports bags.
“Hey, Mac,” Cash says, shifting the bag on his shoulder. “Think you can find your way without me?”
“I think I can manage,” I reply. “The parking lot is that way, right?” I point in the opposite direction of the lot. Cash laughs. Wesley’s eyes are still hovering on me. I flash him a smile, Cash knocks his shoulder, and the three head off toward the fields.
I take a last, steadying breath and head through campus to the front gate and the bike rack. I unlock Dante and swing my leg over the bike, and I’m just about to head home when I see a girl in the lot.
I recognize her. It’s the girl from the pendant I found in the locker room. The one who clutched a steering wheel in a driveway at night sobbing and dodged the glass her mother threw at her head.
She’s a senior—gold stripes—and she’s standing with a group of girls in the lot, leaning up against a convertible and smiling with perfect teeth. Every inch of her has that manicured look that so often comes with money, and it’s hard to line this girl up with the one in the memories, even though I know they’re the same. Finally she waves to the others and strides up onto the sidewalk, walking away from Hyde’s campus.
Before I even realize it, I’m following her. Every step she takes away from Hyde seems to weigh her down, changing her a fraction from the girl in the lot to the girl in the memories. I remember the anger and sadness worn into the pendant, and I will myself to call out. She turns around.
“Sorry,” I say, pedaling up to her, “this is going to sound really random, but is this yours?”
I pull the necklace from my pocket and hold it up. Her eyes widen and she nods.
“Where did you find it?” she asks, reaching out.
“The locker room,” I say, dropping the silver piece into her palm.
Her perfectly plucked eyebrows draw together. “How did you know it was mine?”
Because I read the memories, I think, and you keep bringing your hand to the place where it should be.
“Been asking around all afternoon,” I lie. “One of the seniors in the lot just now said they thought it was yours and pointed me in this direction.”
She looks down at the pendant. “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”
“It wasn’t a problem,” I say. “It seemed like something someone would miss.” The girl nods, staring down at the metal. “What’s the B stand for?”
“Bethany,” she says. “I really shouldn’t care so much about it,” she adds. “It’s just a piece of junk. Worthless, really.” But her thumb is already there again, wearing away the front.
“If it matters to you, then it’s not worthless.”
She nods and rubs the pendant absently, and we stand there a moment, awkward and alone on the sidewalk, before I finally say, “Hey…is everything okay?”
She stiffens and stands straighter. I can see her mentally adjusting her mask.
“Of course.” She flashes me a perfect, practiced smile.
Smiling is the worst thing you can do if you want the world to think you’re okay when you’re not. Some people can’t help it—it’s like a tic, a tell—and others do it on purpose, thinking people will buy whatever they’re selling if it comes with a flash of teeth. But the truth is, smiling only makes a lie harder to pass off. It’s like a giant crack in the front of a mask. But I don’t know Bethany, not really, and she doesn’t know what I saw. And since she’s doing a pretty decent impression of a healthy person—much better than mine—I say, “Okay. Just checking.”