I should be terrified. But I’m not thinking about myself. The thing worrying me most is the knowledge that Dean failing to show up after class means they must have him, too.
Sure enough, as the groundskeeper shoves me inside a small, dark room on the ground floor of the tower, I immediately spot Dean chained up in the center of the cramped space, on his knees with his arms up in the shape of a Y.
“Dean!” I cry, wrenching out of the groundskeeper’s grasp and running over to him. I throw my arms around his shoulders as if I could shield him from harm. Quickly, before anyone can yank me away, he murmurs in my ear, “Don’t admit to anything, Cat—not one fucking thing!”
Now the full force of fear hits me, and my legs begin to shake. I feel very small in this tiny space, and horribly confined. The rings and shackles on the walls aren’t helping. Worst of all is the fact that I’m trapped in here with three of my least-favorite people: The Chancellor, Professor Penmark, and Lola Fischer.
Lola looks torn between gleeful satisfaction and a strange, sick nervousness. I know she put this in motion. Now she’s learning the difference between a plan and reality.
I learned the same thing the day I became a murderer. Nothing prepares you for fresh blood on your hands.
“Cat Romero,” the Chancellor says without preamble. “Did you kill Rocco Prince?”
I look at Dean’s face—pale and as determined as I’ve ever seen it. He gives one minute shake of his head.
“No,” I say firmly.
“Can you tell me what you were doing the day he died?”
“It was the final challenge in the Quartum Bellum,” I say carefully. “My team was already eliminated. At breakfast, I cut my arm accidentally. I went to the infirmary. Dr. Cross stitched the wound. We talked for a while—I helped him change the sheets on the bed. Then Dean arrived at the infirmary—his shoulder had been dislocated in the challenge. I helped Dr. Cross to reset it. Afterward, Dean and I walked back to the field together, and I sat with my roommate Rakel to watch the remainder of the event.”
In the days after Rocco’s death, I repeated this alibi to myself over and over so I’d be able to lie smoothly. But it’s been several months since I rehearsed. I stumble over my sentences.
Apparently the Chancellor already checked on my movements that day. He counters at once:
“I called Dr. Cross. He told me it’s possible that he fell asleep for a time while you were in the infirmary.”
It takes everything I have not to wince.
Dr. Cross didn’t fall asleep—I drugged him.
I don’t think he knows that, and I doubt he knows he was supposed to be my alibi. He probably answered the Chancellor’s questions blithely, not knowing that my life was in his hands.
“His head might have nodded for a moment,” I say. “But he was never asleep.”
The Chancellor watches me closely, his eyes like two black scarab beetles, crawling and biting over my skin. I know he’ll catch the slightest hint of a lie.
I use Professor Penmark’s interrogation advice while the man himself stands only a few feet away from me, smiling in his horrible way: I try not to fidget too much or too little, to give too many or too few details. I will maintain my baseline behavior no matter what.
“Lola’s lying!” Dean shouts abruptly. “She hates Cat, she’s jealous of her! She’s just trying to get her in trouble.”
“I heard her!” Lola cries. “I heard her admit what she did!”
Fuck. I knew I heard something moving behind me the day I called Zoe and spilled the whole history of me and Dean. God that was so fucking stupid! How could I have been so careless?
“She’s making it up! She doesn’t have any proof!” Dean says.
“Then what about this?” Lola cries, yanking my sketchbook out of her backpack.
“Show it to me,” the Chancellor says.
Lola passes the sketchbook. The Chancellor flips through the smudged pages, his eyes crawling over each and every drawing. He turns the book so Dean and I can see it.
“What is this?” he says. “And this?”
He shows me the drawing I made directly after I killed Rocco—the girl sitting on the edge of a dark well, looking down into the yawning emptiness. And then, several pages later, a picture of a male figure falling through dark scribbled space.
“Those are just sketches,” I say quietly. “I draw all sorts of figures.”
The Chancellor continues to turn the pages.
He passes through my drawings of Chicago—the Centennial Wheel, the Bean, the statues in Mount Olive Cemetery, the city skyline along the lake. And then after that, a portrait of Dean standing on the deck of the ship, his shirt stripped off and his face ferocious as he looks back over his shoulder at me. Then Dean again, closer up, just his face from the angle I see when he looks down at me, a mocking smirk on his lips. Dean again, lying back against the pile of pillows in the Bell Tower, with a rare expression of gentleness that only occurs after we’ve exhausted ourselves together. Then another of Dean, and another, and another.
My face is flaming. I can hardly meet Dean’s eyes.
I never told him that I draw him.
Actually, I hadn’t realized how many times I’d done it.
When I finally dare to look at him, he’s staring at the sketches, stunned.
“Those don’t mean anything,” I tell the Chancellor. “It’s just practice. I planned to go to art school . . .”
The Chancellor turns the pages back to the figure of the man falling through empty space.
“This isn’t Rocco Prince?”
“No,” I lie. “It’s just . . . a nightmare I had.”
“She didn’t kill Rocco!” Dean shouts.
“Then who did?” the Chancellor rounds on him.
“I’m not going to tell you that,” Dean says.
My mouth falls open in horror.
Why did Dean admit that he knows?
Dean shoots me a swift, repressive look, reminding me to keep my mouth shut.
“If you won’t tell us what you know—” the Chancellor says.
“Do what you have to do,” Dean says. His jaw is stubbornly set, his pale hair hanging down over one eye.
The Chancellor nods to Professor Penmark.
Penmark strips off his suit jacket, revealing a gray dress shirt with garters to hold up the sleeves. His bared forearms are lean and sinewy, his hands bony and dexterous as twin spiders.
Now at last I understand why Dean admitted a portion of guilt—so he’ll be the one interrogated, not me.
“NO!” I scream.
The groundskeeper grabs my arms and yanks me back.
Lola also takes a step backward, her hand flying up to her mouth. She’s pale, but her eyes are brightly interested, fixed upon Dean’s kneeling figure.
Professor Penmark pulls a silver knife from his belt.
“STOP!” I cry.
He ignores me. With four quick slashes he cuts off Dean’s shirt, baring his torso to the cold. Dean’s flesh glows white as chalk in the dim light. The Siberian tiger tattoo on his back seems to snarl with rage at being so rudely uncovered.
“Do you have something to say?” the Chancellor asks me, coldly.
“Don’t say a fucking word!” Dean shouts at me.