Moore tapped his walking stick. “And what would that be, Mr. Capote?”
“Just one very simple thing. One very tiny, simple, basic fact.” Capote did a double take as he passed Joel. “Aren’t you a picture.”
“I’m fifteen,” Joel said.
“And worth waiting for, I’m sure,” Capote said. He turned to Hwa. “Oh, I am sorry. They don’t let me out, much. Not my adult alter, anyway. Everyone loves Dill, and stories about Christmas, and Harper, but try to be yourself all by yourself and suddenly everybody has to sign a waiver.”
“Do you know about serial killers?” Hwa asked.
“He was wrong about Manson,” Moore said, into the sleeve of his coat.
“Oh, never you mind that, everyone was wrong about Manson. If you read a novel about a greasy-haired little starfucker like him seducing dumb suburban girls into helping him jump-start a race war, and therefore the apocalypse, you wouldn’t believe it. It’s simply not plausible, until it actually happens.” Capote looked imploringly into Hwa’s face. “That’s the thing, my dear. There’s really only one explanation for all this that actually matters.”
“They hate women,” Moore said. “Serial killers are the zenith of misogyny.”
“No, Mr. Moore, that would be the invention of the corset,” Capote said. He took Hwa’s hands in his own. “Besides, there are plenty of serial killers who kill men. Randy Kraft, for example. And plenty of female serial killers, for that matter. You know what they say about the female of the species. But what people forget about these killers, what they always miss, is so simple. So human.”
Around them, the walls began to flicker and die. The cobblestones pixelated. The fog turned pale. In Capote’s face, Hwa saw wire frame. “What is it?” she asked quickly. “What am I forgetting? Why is he doing this?”
“Why does anyone do anything they do?” Capote asked.
Beside her, Joel vanished. Under her feet, the cobbles fell away. The fog thinned away into bright white.
“I don’t know!” Hwa broke his grip and took hold of his shoulders. “Please just tell me.”
“He wants to,” Capote whispered. “That’s why he does it. Because he wants to. Because he—”
The simulation ended. Nausea boiled up to Hwa’s throat from her gut. She ripped off the helmet so as to avoid puking in it. Mrs. Gardener stood outside the booth with Joel, who was looking sheepishly at the floor. Mrs. Gardener said nothing. One of her hands rose to pluck at the elaborate knot of the pink scarf at her neck, as though doing so might free the words that kept failing to escape her throat. But she had no time to answer, because the door to the library swung open and there was Hwa’s boss.
And he was covered in blood.
*
“Daniel!”
“I’m fine, Joel,” Síofra said.
He wasn’t fine. At least, he didn’t look like it. He looked like shit. As much as a man who looked like him could look like shit, anyway. There were purple hollows under both his eyes, and the knuckles of his hands were raw and bloody, like chewed-up meat. Blood stained his collar and his jacket. His shirt was untucked on one side. He looked tired. Very tired.
“Please excuse my appearance, Joel. I’ve come to brief Hwa on some changes to your security protocols. Then I have an appointment with your father and Katherine and Silas. I thought I’d take the two of you home, on my way.”
“What were you even doing in this tower?” Joel asked.
But Hwa already had an idea. Beaudry lived in Tower Two. She’d looked it up when she ran his profile, because he lived the closest to the school and therefore the closest to Joel. Most of the others working for Silas in Security lived in Three or Four, but Beaudry was cheap. It was why he’d said bonuses were better than parties. And Beaudry was the one whose finger she’d broken. And he had a face Síofra would know.
“It doesn’t matter,” Hwa said. “Let’s just go.”
She let Joel walk a little bit ahead of her as they moved toward the exit for the high-speed causeway. Síofra fell into step beside her, and she waited as long as she could before asking the question. “Did you—”
“Don’t ask me,” Síofra said. “It’s better for both of us if you don’t know.”
Hwa swallowed. “Right.” She caught herself staring at his hands. “You should heal those up, though.”
“I don’t know.” Síofra held his hands out in front of him. They shook slightly. Not a full-on palsied tremor, but just the smallest quiver. He clenched them, and blood beaded up in the cuts across his knuckles. Defensive wounds, they were called, in police reports. They were the reason you wore gloves in a boxing match. Because real fights did just as as much damage to you, most of the time, as they did to your opponent. “Sometimes it feels better not to let something heal.”