I can’t stop crying.
I’m soaking my pillow like a fucking baby, all tears and snot and embarrassing sobs.
I’m glad Rakel isn’t here.
How did I fuck that up so bad?
I’m stupid, just like Dean said. I think I understand what’s going on around me, and then I don’t, not even a little bit.
I didn’t see what was going on between Rocco and my sister until it was almost too late. I wasn’t able to help Hedeon. I don’t know what the hell is going on with Miss Robin. I’m a shit Spy.
Maybe Lola’s right about everything—if Dean thought I was an idiot all along, maybe Anna and Chay do, too. Maybe Ares does, and Hedeon. Even Rakel might only be tolerating me.
I’m spiraling down a greased slide into a pit of slime.
All my darkest thoughts and worst fears are waiting for me at the bottom.
I’m worthless. No one loves me. No one ever will.
Except Zoe.
The thought comes to me—one tiny beacon of light in the blackness.
I still have my sister.
I could call her right now.
I snatch up my phone, already dialing before I remember there’s no service down here.
Without bothering to grab so much as a sweatshirt, I run out of my room and back up the stairs to ground level. I hurry north to the wall, too impatient to find my usual secluded spot on the far corner of campus. Instead, I wedge myself between the leafless orange trees and call my sister.
The phone rings several times. My stomach clenches up, thinking she’s not going to answer.
Then Zoe’s cheerful voice trills, “There you are! I haven’t talked to you in forever!”
I’m already crying again before I can even say hello. Poor Zoe has to wade through my gulps and sobs to try to figure out what the fuck is going on.
“Are you okay?” she cries. “Did somebody hurt you?”
“No,” I say, miserably. “I just . . . Dean and I broke up.”
“Oh,” Zoe says.
I can tell this isn’t exactly a surprise to her, which only makes me cry harder.
“I’m sorry, conejita,” Zoe says, “but maybe it’s for the best.”
“No it isn’t!” I cry.
“But Cat—”
“You don’t understand,” I sob.
“Then explain it to me,” Zoe says.
She’s such a good sister. She always wants to be on my side.
“I want to understand,” Zoe says. “Tell me how this whole thing happened.”
She doesn’t know what she’s asking. Still, I’m going to tell her. I’m so tired of carrying this secret.
I take a long, shuddering breath.
“I killed Rocco Prince,” I say.
The silence on the other end of the line is deep enough to drown an ocean.
“No,” Zoe whispers.
“I did. And Dean saw me.”
I can almost hear her mind whirring, putting together the pieces with astonishing speed.
She knows it’s the truth. Only her image of her sweet baby sister prevented her from seeing it before.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Zoe murmurs.
“I didn’t want you to worry. I wanted you to be free.”
“I can’t believe it, Cat. How did you—”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
I’m still filled with a sick sense of dread every time I remember waiting on the wall for Rocco Prince to arrive. Knowing that he was stronger than me, faster than me, and maybe smarter, too . . . Knowing that if one of us was about to die, it could just as easily be me . . .
“It worked, and that’s all that matters. No one else knows.”
“Thank god for that,” Zoe breathes.
“Dean promised not to tell. In return for, ah, a few favors.”
“What!” Zoe shrieks, outraged. “Did he—”
“No! I mean, not exactly. It’s complicated.”
Now she’s fuming on the other end of the line, imagining the worst.
“We weren’t friends at first, but then we were, and then it turned into something romantic . . .”
I’m trying to explain to Zoe what I barely understand myself: the long progress of Dean’s and my relationship from hatred to lust to love.
If it ever was love at all.
“He changed, and so did I. We connected in a way I’ve never felt before. And I thought we were . . . I thought it was something special. But now I fucked it up. Or he did. I don’t know, I’m so confused . . .”
Zoe sighs, trying to parse my rambling to find the truth.
“He really hurt me,” I sob, remembering Dean’s words cutting me deeper than any knife.
You thought I would like that? Are you fucking stupid?
You’re nothing to me.
“If he hurt you, then he doesn’t love you,” Zoe says.
It’s not what I want to hear. But the wrenching pain in my chest tells me that she might be right.
“When someone loves you, they’ll do anything to keep you safe.”
I want Zoe to be wrong. She’s never wrong, though.
“What should I do?” I ask her.
“Stay away from him,” Zoe says. “And make sure no one else finds out about . . . you know.”
“He won’t tell,” I assure her.
As furious as Dean might have been, he’ll keep my secret anyway. I still feel certain of that.
A dry branch creaks behind me.
I whirl around, thinking Dean came looking for me.
There’s nothing there.
It was probably just a squirrel, or one of the several cats that prowl the school grounds.
“And by the way, Cat . . .” Zoe says.
“What?”
“Thank you for what you did. I hate what it must have cost you . . . but just know, I’m finally happy. Finally at peace. Because of you.”
Her words put warmth in my chest, where there had only been ice.
“It had to happen,” I tell her. “It’s exactly what you said—when someone loves you, they’d do anything to keep you safe.”
I’m gripping the phone tight, wishing I could hug my sister just as hard.
“Te amo, hermana,” she says.
“Te quiero,” I reply.
23
Dean
After Cat leaves the Bell Tower, I stay up there alone for hours, pacing back and forth in an agony of indecision.
I fucking hate what Cat did. I hate the image she put in my head of my mother and her new fucking family, her new child, the one that replaced me.
I hate knowing that she’s living in Chicago, fully moved on without me.
And yet, pathetically, I find myself scrabbling through the torn-up pieces of paper on the floor until I find the ones that show my mother’s face.
I try to piece them together again.
It doesn’t work. I destroyed them past recognition.
I want to go find Cat. But she doesn’t want to see me right now.
Actually, she said she never wants to see me again.
Did she really mean that?
If she did, then I don’t know what I’ll do.
Something fucking drastic.
Close to midnight, I finally leave the Bell Tower. I wander around campus until I happen upon a party in the old stables on the northwest corner of campus. The festivities are nowhere near as well-organized as when Miles Griffin used to run the show, but the music is loud and Louis Faucheux is selling 40s for $100 a pop.