“Then how do you know what he was?”
My face turns hot, my stomach, violent, but I look right at him. “You really need to back off talking about my brother, Lex. I mean it. You of all people should know better.”
His eyes widen and his lips frown. The last time Lex and I talked about my brother was the night he almost died. He couldn’t handle it then and he shouldn’t bring it up now.
I continue to stare. I want power. I want the upper hand. I want to see the fear again on Lex’s face, like I did when I was on top of him in the biology lab. But I don’t. I see pity. I see sorrow.
“Win,” he says quietly and with more sincerity than I would ever have believed him capable of, “what if you don’t change tonight?”
There are wants and needs in this world, I think. There are hopes and guarantees. There are the things that are true and the things we need to believe in. And I’ve seen enough in my life to know I don’t believe in much. But I do not waver in the words I say to Lex: “I will.”
chapter
twenty-two
antimatter
Mind followed body.
First my eyes opened.
Then the fear sluiced through me.
I did not know where I was.
The view from the window on the opposite wall pulled me from the unfamiliar bed where I lay. But I stood too quickly. My head became a buzzing cloud. I swayed, came close to falling, but the dizziness cleared. I walked across the room and gazed outside.
It came back to me in a tumbling rush. I was in New Hampshire, the White Mountains. That made sense. Everywhere, all I saw were trees and steep angles. A certain alpine grace. I reached out, unlatched the window, and let in the breeze. No mugginess. It felt good. I began to hum, an old jukebox song springing into my head without warning.
“Hey,” a voice said. “You’re up.”
I turned to see Phoebe. She leaned against the doorway, one matchstick leg hooked over the other like a 4. The end of a lollipop stick jutted from her mouth, and her lips were stained red.
“Hiya,” she said.
I ignored her and took my first look around the room. It had a nautical theme. There was white wicker furniture and a framed display of knots hanging on the bare wood walls. A blue rug in the shape of an anchor covered the middle of the floor. A second door stood to my right. I peeked. It was a bathroom.
“Excuse me,” I said to Phoebe. My bladder hurt. I ducked in, shut the door, and stood over the toilet for a really long time. After flushing, I went to the mirror.
Ugh. I looked terrible, with drooping bags beneath my eyes and cracked lips. I ran my fingers over the neck bandages. Those, along with my matted hair, pushed me into mental patient territory. I swallowed hard. Well, considering what I’d done, I guess that wasn’t so far from the truth. I’d totally lost it. The glass. The blood.
I walked out of the bathroom and crawled onto the bed. Maybe I could will my life away with sleep. Wake up a different person. This was one of my common wishes, along with discovering the power of invisibility and winning a grand slam title. Phoebe crept over to peer down at me. Her hair had been braided in a way that showed off her enormous ears.
“You okay?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“No. Gram is going to kill me. I broke a bunch of stuff in her house.”
“I heard about that. You went seriously apeshit.”
I pursed my lips. Phoebe was right, but I didn’t approve of swearing.
“Yeah, well,” I said. “I think I’m crazy.”
“Hey,” she offered. “At least you didn’t get carsick on the way up.”
I squeezed my knees. “That was kind of the point, wasn’t it?”
“Mmm, maybe that was only part of the point.”
“What do you mean?”
She didn’t answer. Her face looked paler than usual. She shivered in a restless kind of way and began cruising around the room, touching things.
“Wait,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
Phoebe’s eyes widened. “We’re all here. My family. Gram and Grandpa. Your dad.”
“Oh.”
“Phoebe.” This came from Keith, who’d stepped in without knocking.
I tensed at the sight of him. Phoebe streaked from the room like a cat.
Keith came and sat beside me. I retreated into the corner of the bed with my back against the wall. Despite his familiar “Got Soy?” T-shirt, I hardly recognized him. He didn’t look like my brother. Downy hair coated his arms and legs, and his eyes, which had always been the same dull brown as mine, had taken on the coppery tone of his hair. Fiery sparks of red floated in the irises. His strangeness felt untrustworthy. But when Keith looked right at me, I softened.
“Drew, you really scared me.”
I continued to watch him.
“Why did you cut yourself like that?” he asked.
I wanted to die.