The Blood Between Us (16 page)

What did she hope to accomplish from stealing his work, exactly? Was this about getting into an Ivy League school? I was the one who’d assisted Dad in the lab. Did she hope to erase my involvement completely? Or was this about the money she could get from selling the work, plain and simple? I remembered what she had said at the dinner party the night before about going into pharmaceuticals. How like Grace to turn this all into a horrible joke.

The randomness of the universe is always increasing

“Ya know what?” I chewed the bite of cheese, dough, and pepperoni in my mouth and swallowed, chasing it down with a swig of cola. Maggie’s hood was still warm beneath me, even though we’d been out here for almost an hour.

It was well after curfew, but that just meant the drop-off overlooking the campus was empty and quiet. The sky stretched on forever above us, framed by the shadowy treetops. It might have been a perfect evening . . . if I had any idea what I was doing out here with Caroline. We weren’t on a date. I wasn’t even sure I thought about her in that way. Not that I could think about much of anything
but Grace’s secret lab. No matter what I did, my mind just kept trailing back to Grace. Caroline deserved better than that.

“What?” Caroline was wearing a worn-out band T-shirt and ripped jeans under an oversized camouflage jacket that looked like she’d picked it up at the military surplus store or something. There was a rank insignia on the sleeve. I thought it might have been for a staff sergeant, but couldn’t be sure—I hadn’t played enough Call of Duty to recognize rank, apparently. Maybe it had belonged to her dad or something. I didn’t ask. I kept wondering if she was cold but didn’t say anything about it. It was weird to see her in anything that wasn’t her school uniform.

I sucked some sauce off my thumb and said, “This pizza really sucks.”

She laughed and dropped the crust that she’d been holding into the open pizza box. “So true. Why do we keep eating it?”

I lay back on Maggie’s hood, stretching my arms up and placing my hands behind my head. Then I rolled to the side to face her and shrugged, a smirk on my lips. “Maybe you’re doing it to impress me. But I have to tell ya, I’m only interested in friendship.”

“Oh really? Just friendship, eh?” She looked at me with a disbelieving smile.

I nodded for emphasis, teasing her a little. “Really. Friendship and bad pizza.”

“Well, my heart’s really broken over that bit of news. You should have told me before I brought you out here to convince you I’m dating material.” She laughed, nice and loud. It was the sweetest sound that I had ever heard.

“Too late now. Of course . . .” I reached out and pinched her jacket sleeve, giving it a gentle pull. “I might be able to be persuaded. It’s been known to happen a time or two before.”

“No. You seem pretty set in your ways to me.” She tugged her sleeve from my hand and lay down beside me, looking up at the sky. She said, “The stars are pretty. See that constellation there? They call it the Northern Cross. It’s supposed to be the image of a swan. Do you know much about Greek mythology?”

Sensing a make-out session wasn’t on the agenda, I lay back and looked up. “Not as much as I should, I suppose.”

“Well, the story about the Northern Cross tells of two close friends, Cygnus and Phaeton, who were constantly competing with each other. One day, they challenged each other to a race across the sky, around the sun, and back to Earth. But you know how competitive types can be.” She paused, and for a moment, I wondered if she was referring to Grace and me. But then, it was always hard to figure out
just what Caroline was talking about. “In order to gain the advantage, they both cut too close to the sun, and their chariots were burned up. They fell to Earth and were knocked unconscious. When Cygnus woke up, he looked for Phaeton, only to discover his friend’s body trapped by the roots of a tree at the bottom of the Eridanus River. Cygnus repeatedly dove into the river, but couldn’t reach his friend’s body. While he sat grieving on the bank of the river, Cygnus begged for Zeus to help him. Zeus said that if he gave Cygnus the body of a swan, he would be able to dive deeply enough to retrieve Phaeton’s body and give him a proper burial. The only catch was that if Cygnus did turn into a swan, he’d also have to give up his immortality and would only live as long as a swan would normally live. Cygnus agreed. And in honor of this great unselfish act, Zeus placed Cygnus’s swan image into the night sky. Kind of a love story between the two of them, really.”

I swallowed hard, now feeling like she could be talking about Grace or Josh. I wondered if she had any idea what had transpired between my best friend and me. Had someone seen? Were rumors spreading through the school that Josh and I had kissed? Absently, my fingers found my lips. What had it meant to him? What did it mean to me? And how would it affect our friendship? My voice caught in my throat for a moment. “That’s so sad.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s beautiful.” She sighed, watching the night sky. “To think that someone could love someone else so much that they would give up everything for them.”

“It must have been a hard choice to make.”

“When it’s love, I don’t think the choice is all that hard at all. You just feel it. Even if it scares you. It’s just there.”

Suddenly, I realized that I didn’t know what love was. Not the kind of love that Caroline was describing. Was that even real? Or just the stuff of fiction? Poets wrote about it. Singers sang about it. Hell, even scientists had theories about what was chemically happening in your brain. But did anyone really know what love was? Or was I the only one who had no real idea?

I stared up at the stars, fighting the bitter feeling in my chest from blooming any larger than it already had. I didn’t know what love was. And not just romantic love, but the emotion itself. I’d moved from a family I couldn’t recall to a foster home to a collection of people living under one roof. I thought I’d loved my parents, Viktor, and Julian. But what if I was wrong? How can you define a concept that’s so ethereal, so untouchable?

What was I doing here? Not just with Caroline, but at Wills? I should have stayed in California. My being here certainly wasn’t helping Viktor at all. And now things were complicated. With Josh. With Caroline. With Julian. With
everyone. Maybe I should have stayed away. I lay there in silence for several minutes before speaking again. “So many of the stars are dead before we see them.”

“There’s a cheery thought.”

“It’s true. The light reaches Earth on a delay, and by the time it does, so many of the stars are already gone.” I wondered how quickly all the light in my life would disappear. My parents, my friends, my dreams. My chest felt heavy. “Kinda makes you wonder why they bother shining at all.”

We both grew quiet for a long time. Just as I was about to suggest that we head back to the dorms, she rolled on her side and looked at me. “You hate being here, don’t you?”

“With you? Quite the opposite, actually.” Of course I knew what she meant, but it wasn’t like I wanted to talk about it, exactly.

But my brush-off wasn’t enough to thwart her curiosity. “At Wills. You hate it here.”

A sigh escaped my lungs and clouded the air around my face like a fog. “I do.”

“Were you in such a funk at your school out in California?”

Lacing my fingers together, I laid my hands on my chest, feeling my lungs fill and deflate as I breathed. “No. But there were no reminders there of my past. I ran away from it all.”

“Maybe facing it will be a good thing.”

“You don’t get it. I don’t want to face anything. I can’t get any of what I had back, and I don’t even know if I’d want to.”

“What bothers you more—that being here reminds you of your parents’ deaths, or that your sister, Grace, is here antagonizing you still?”

When I spoke, it was through a clenched jaw. The evening had been ruined. What was supposed to be a night of light fun and hanging out had been tainted once again by Grace. “The two are intertwined.”

“You think she had something to do with their deaths?” She paused, waiting for my reply, but I wouldn’t respond. After a moment, she said, “Did you ever stop to consider that maybe your parents just had a terrible accident in the lab? It happens all the time.”

“Not my parents. They were so careful.” The heat of anger was making its way up my neck and cheeks. I wasn’t angry with her, but at her insistence that we discuss my situation. It was nobody’s business. Nobody’s but mine.

“It’s possible.”

“No. It isn’t.” I sat up, more than ready to just call it a night. I didn’t want to talk about my sister and what happened in that lab four years before. Right then, I just wanted to go to bed and forget about it for a while.

“Anything’s possible.” Her voice was so soft, but close. I closed my eyes, blocking out the stars, blocking out the pain, blocking out everything. Then I felt Caroline’s lips against mine.

Her kiss was as gentle as her words, but like her words, there was something deeper behind it. I sucked her bottom lip gently and she pressed to me, slipping her tongue inside my mouth. Reaching up, I ran my hand over her hair, cupping the back of her head as we kissed. I imagined what it must have looked like from above us—two people, stretched out on the hood of an old car, linked in a way that I was certain I understood. It was all I wanted, that kiss. For the moment, it represented all that I had ever needed—acceptance, understanding, connection. When our lips parted, we looked at each other without speaking a word. Then she lay back down on the hood, and I joined her. We continued to gaze at the stars. After a long silence, during which I kept touching my lips with my fingertips in wonder, she spoke. Her tone was light, as if nothing intimate or surprising had just transpired between us. “You’re a good kisser.”

“Thanks.”

“But don’t get the wrong idea. I was just curious what it would be like.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Kissing me?”

“Kissing. Period.” Her words left me at a loss. What do you say to something like that? She looked up at the sky and sighed. “So many more are still alive, y’know.”

“What are you talking about?” Being with Caroline was like hanging out with a living Rubik’s Cube.

“The stars. You said that several are already dead by the time we see their light. But how many are still alive, still serving purpose, in comparison to those that no longer exist?” I wasn’t sure if she was really asking, or if she was just being an optimist.

“Percentage-wise?” I cocked an eyebrow at her before looking back at the night sky. “Actually . . . over ninety-nine percent that we see are still functioning.”

She turned her face toward me, her voice so low that I had to strain in order to hear what she was saying. “So why focus on less than one percent of what you see?”

She wasn’t asking about the stars. She was asking about the cloud of pain and doubt that seemed to follow me no matter where I went. She was asking why I chose to see the glass half empty rather than half full. But it was more than that—to me, the glass wasn’t just half empty. It was lying on the ground, broken into a hundred pieces, and would never be fixed again. Maybe it was a chemical imbalance in my brain. Maybe it was just my nature to be pessimistic and
suspicious. I didn’t have the answers, and there were too many questions. “I don’t know. I guess it’s easier for me.”

“You look at all of those living, viable stars. But you refuse to see them. You choose not to. Just think about that.” She sat up and hopped off of Maggie’s hood. As she opened the passenger’s side door, she said, “I’m tired. Take me home.”

A measure of how much push something has exerted against it

The next morning, I took my time getting out of bed.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t kissed anyone before. And it wasn’t like the kiss between Caroline and me had really meant anything, other than that we’d both been curious enough to experiment. But it felt weird seeing her the next day. Maybe it always felt weird seeing people the day after a kiss.

Of course, it felt weirder if you hadn’t seen them for a couple of days after a kiss. Weirder still if they were your best friend. Y’know. Like Josh.

The first time I’d ever kissed anyone, they kissed me. It was my next-door neighbor, Kylie, when we were in the
fourth grade. At the time, I thought it was pretty weird. I’d still thought it was weird two years later, when I kissed her older brother, Greg. Another boy named Greg kissed me at a sleepover that same year, which really made me question what it was about boys with that name. The next year, a girl named Sherry French kissed me after the seventh-grade winter dance. The irony of her last name and the fact that she’d put her tongue in my mouth didn’t escape me. I could see the appeal of that kiss, despite the hygienic question of it all, and she was nice and everything. I guess I just never got bit by the dating bug enough to think that kissing was all that big of a deal. Boys, girls. It didn’t seem like anything to go crazy over.

That is, if I’m being honest, until this weekend . . . when Josh had kissed me.

And really, kissing Caroline had been nice, too. Nice enough to warrant maybe kissing her again. If she was into that sort of thing. Maybe it would help me forget about how Josh’s skin had felt against mine, or how I’d lain awake at night imagining what might have happened if I hadn’t rushed out of the room the way that I did.

I should have stayed with him. And I was embarrassed that I hadn’t. Maybe he was embarrassed, too. I didn’t know. We hadn’t spoken since.

I got another anonymous text message while I was
brushing my teeth, and it felt like a reminder that I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about kissing at all. I was supposed to be thinking about what I’d found in Grace’s lab.

I remembered how Julian had been on his phone when I’d gotten the texts on Saturday night. I couldn’t let myself wonder if it had been Julian texting me this entire time, couldn’t allow my imagination to slide down that rabbit hole. Julian had been a good friend and mentor to me, and a lot more than that to Viktor. The idea that he would somehow involve himself in some twisted game sickened me. And for what purpose? There was already a deep wedge between Grace and me. What purpose would it serve to add suspicion to the mix? What would Julian have to gain from such a thing? Nothing. At least . . . nothing that I was aware of.

After taking a colder-than-usual shower and dressing quickly, I made my way to the dining hall. Normally, I’d see Julian there getting a cup of coffee, but today he was conspicuously absent. Grace, however, was right on time and in her usual spot at the head table, surrounded by her friends and ignoring my existence. Seeing Carter, Taylor, and Ben with her sparked a feeling of dread, but mercifully, they seemed to be ignoring me, too. My stomach rumbled, but I was loath to eat anything heavy, so I finally settled on an apple and took a seat across from Quinn. He smiled as I sat. “You look like you hardly slept. Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” I scanned the room again, but there was still no sign of Julian. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit distracted today is all. Have you seen Julian around this morning?”

Quinn shrugged and pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “Not yet. But I heard a couple of the teachers are having some big meeting with the headmaster today. Several classes are going to be open study because of it. Why?”

“I just need to ask him something.”

“Hey.” Caroline walked by, as if nothing at all had happened last night.

All I could think to say was, “Hey.”

Quinn watched her as she walked away. “She’s . . . something.”

I threw a surprised glance in his direction. “You like Caroline now?”

He shrugged, his cheeks blushing slightly. “Well, yeah. Kinda.”

It was just a kiss, I told myself. It was likely nothing in the grand scheme of things. “You should ask her out.”

Quinn looked quizzically at me. “I thought you two were seeing each other.”

I blinked. What? Did everyone think that? Why? All we’d done was blow up a trash can and eat bad pizza. “No. We’re just . . . friends.”

“Give us a minute, would you, Quinn?” Josh seemed to
come out of nowhere. He sat on the edge of the table, dark rings under his eyes suggesting that he’d hardly slept. Every muscle in my body stiffened, then relaxed. It was just Josh. He was nothing to be afraid of.

Quinn raised his eyebrows at me but left without saying a word. After sucking in a deep breath, Josh said, “Look, Adrien. About Saturday . . .”

“What about it?” I forced myself to look him in the eye. How had I not noticed before what a beautiful shade of green his eyes were?

“I just want to apologize. I completely overstepped my bounds. I should have asked you.” His voice sounded scratchy, like he’d been crying recently. A lot. I wondered if he’d also lain awake that night, thinking about me and what might have (would have) happened if I hadn’t hurried out of the room. “I should have told you . . . about me.”

I shrugged and smiled a small smile at him. “Well, you kinda did. In a really straightforward way.”

His cheeks flushed, and he dropped his gaze to the table. He looked so full of shame, but didn’t need to. “I mean . . . before.”

Before. Before we’d kissed. Before his skin had touched my skin. Before our hearts had raced in sync with nothing but thin cotton between them. I swallowed, searching for the right words. Any words, really. “Well, I’d be lying if I
said I saw it coming. I didn’t. . . . I mean, I had no idea.”

He locked eyes with me then, and a memory from kindergarten suddenly filled my thoughts. A pinprick on each of our fingertips. Pressing the blood together. Friends forever. No matter what. When he spoke again, it snapped me back out of the memory. “I’m so sorry. The last thing I want to do is wreck our friendship.”

I shook my head. “Josh. Stop apologizing. It was . . . nice.”

Now it was his turn to be surprised. His green eyes widened. In confusion, with a touch of hope. “Oh . . .”

“Yeah . . .” My cheeks felt warm. I didn’t know exactly what I meant, except that I meant what I’d said. The fact was that the kiss had been nice. Nicer than kissing Caroline. Nicer than kissing anyone I’d ever kissed before. Hot nice. More-please nice. Don’t-stop nice. When-can-we-do-that-again nice.

But I couldn’t say those things aloud. Not yet, anyway. “I am still a little confused about why Grace was kissing you.”

He sighed, the tension in his shoulders releasing some. “I took her to the booth for privacy. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t into girls. I thought that maybe knowing that would somehow make our breakup easier on her, y’know? But when I said it, she said she didn’t believe me. Then she kissed me. It was . . . confusing.”

A frown tugged at the corners of my mouth. “Grace never
was much good at taking no for an answer. You okay?”

He forced a smile. “As long as you’re not mad at me, I’m fine.”

“Why would I be mad?” I gave his shoulder a light slug. The corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. I couldn’t help but think about how soft his lips had felt on mine.

Behind him, I spotted Julian and scrambled to my feet. “Oh shit. I’ve gotta go. Can we pick this up later?”

“Of course.” He stopped me momentarily, putting his hand on my arm, keeping his voice low. His eyes seemed brighter than they ever had. “But Adrien . . . when you said it was nice . . . what did you mean, exactly?”

“I don’t know. But . . . maybe we’ll find that out together.” Our smiles bloomed at the same time.

Julian had his arms full of books, and already he was walking in the direction of the exit. I called out to him, “Hey, Julian. Can I talk to you about something?”

He looked at me with the air of a very tired man, and he didn’t stop walking. “Can it wait? I’m on my way to a meeting with—”

“No. It can’t wait. It has to be now.” It couldn’t wait. I was done asking myself questions. I needed answers.

“Of course.” He gestured to an empty classroom and we stepped inside. I closed the door behind us, and he set the stack of books he’d been holding on a desk before turning
back to face me. “What’s on your mind?”

So much. Too much. “How long have we known each other?”

He folded his arms in front of him and leaned against the desk, looking up slightly, like he was calculating in his head. “Oh, I’d say about thirteen years now. What’s this about?”

“And in those thirteen years, I feel like we’ve gotten to know a lot about each other. I mean, you never talk much about your family or your past, but I always figured that was because you didn’t get along with them or something. So we became your family. My parents, Grace, myself, Viktor. Am I wrong?”

“You couldn’t be more right.” Concern filled Julian’s eyes, but it was very clear that he wasn’t certain what he had to be concerned about. Not yet, anyway.

I took a step closer and glanced over my shoulder at the door to be sure that we were really alone. “I need to ask you a question, Julian, and I need for you to be completely honest with me.”

He looked at the door, too, probably wondering who I thought might be lurking outside and why it troubled me so. “Always. You should know that by now. Now, what is it?”

“Do you trust Grace?” I was whispering now, but heatedly, the words burning my throat as I released them into
the air. “Do you have any reason to suspect that she may have been involved in the lab accident that killed our parents? Truthfully now.”

“Adrien.” It wasn’t a patronizing tone, but it was a parental one—one that made me question whether or not I had made up all of these possibilities in my anxious mind. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder and leaned in close, his tone sincere. “Whatever it is that I may think or not think, all evidence points to the fact that what killed your parents was nothing more than an unfortunate accident. Bottles were mislabeled, and because of that, certain chemical compounds were misshelved. There is simply no evidence to support Grace’s involvement. Now, perhaps even more important, what would drive you to think such things about your sister, and to ask me about what seems to be the daydreaming of an overly anxious boy?”

“I’ve been receiving text messages from someone who seems to suspect Grace of wrongdoing.” I took a deep breath, holding it in my lungs until my chest ached. When I spoke, it came out as a whisper . . . and a hope that I was wrong. “And I thought that someone might be you.”

It pained me to see the hurt in his eyes. “Why would you think that?”

“Because when they texted me Saturday night, I saw you on your phone.” Now that I was saying it out loud, accusing
him right to his face, it sounded ridiculous. Julian was nothing if not loyal.

“It has to be a coincidence, Adrien. Nothing more.” He furrowed his brow, shaking his head. When he spoke, he didn’t sound angry, just troubled. Whether more for me or himself, I had no idea. “How could you think I would hide information from the police if I had it? I adored your parents, just as I adore you and your sister. If one of you did anything to harm them, I would report it to the authorities for your own good.”

I pulled my phone from my pocket and typed in
Hello?

Julian said, “What are you doing?”

“Texting whoever’s been sending me these messages.” I hit send and waited.

Julian withdrew his phone from his pocket and held it up for me to see. No text. Which meant that it hadn’t been Julian who’d been texting me after all.

He met my eyes, his moistening out of concern. Maybe he thought I was going crazy. “I think that maybe you should talk to someone. Someone more qualified than me. A counselor, maybe. You’ve been different since your return to Wills. I think you might benefit from some professional help, Adrien.”

I shook my head, but the argument that left my lips fell flat. “I’m not going to see a counselor.”

“I’m just saying. All these years later, it seems like you haven’t really taken time to mourn the deaths of your parents. Maybe it’s time to face that, before it comes out in other ways.”

“No offense, Julian. But I think this is a bit more than a communication teacher can handle.”

Julian scoffed. “Maybe Mr. Wilson, the forensics teacher, would be better at answering your questions.”

I snapped my fingers in revelation, and I turned to leave before he’d even finished speaking.

Julian’s voice followed me out the door as I fled. “Where are you going? Adrien, I was joking!”

By the time I reached the forensics lab, I was out of breath. “Excuse me. Mr. Wilson?”

Mr. Wilson was a short, round fellow, with a pleasant face. He was wearing one of those tweed jackets with suede patches on the elbows, holding an open book in his hands titled
The Intricacies of the Human Brain
. When I whisked into his room, he looked up, snapping the book closed. “Yes?”

“My name is Adrien Dane. My parents were Allen and Claudia? They taught here a few years ago. Chemistry and botany.”

“Dane . . . Dane.” He looked up at the ceiling, as if the answers were written there. His eyes widened as his memory
connected the dots. “Ahh, yes. Horrible fire. Lab accident, I believe.”

“Yes.” I swallowed hard, pushing the make-believe image of my mother’s hand poking up from the ashes out of my mind. “I was wondering if you could answer a question about what was found at the scene of the accident.”

“Well . . .” At first he hesitated, and I wondered if he thought it was a good idea to discuss such morbid details with the surviving child of two victims. Settling whatever he had to settle in his conscience, he said, “I’m not sure how much help I can be, but I’m willing to try.”

“When I visited the house shortly after arriving, it looked like their lab had exploded and burned. Quickly, though. Because most of the house was untouched. Is there any way the explosion could have been caused by anything not chemical?”