“What kind of questions?”
“My family’s apartment. Charles Street. Security codes. Guards—how many and when.”
I don’t say anything. I’m not sure Julian realizes what this means, and how bad it is. The Scavengers have grown desperate. They’re trying to launch an attack on his house now, use him to find a way in. Maybe they’re planning to kill Thomas Fineman; maybe they’re just looking for the typical goods: jewelry, electronics that might be bartered on the black market, money, and, of course, weapons. They are always amassing weapons.
This can only mean one thing: Their plan to ransom Julian has failed. Mr. Fineman didn’t bite.
“Wouldn’t tell them anything,” Julian huffs out. “They said … a few more days … more sessions… I’d talk.”
There’s no longer any doubt. We have to get out as soon as possible. Whenever Julian decides to talk—which he will, eventually—neither he nor I will serve any purpose to the Scavengers. And they are not known for their policy of catch-and-release.
“All right, listen.” I try to keep my voice low, hoping he won’t read the urgency there. “We’re getting out of here, okay?”
He shakes his head, a tiny gesture of disbelief. “How?” he croaks out.
“I’ve got a plan,” I say. This isn’t true, but I figure I will have a plan. I’ve got to. Raven and Tack are counting on me. Thinking of the messages they left me, and the knife, fills me once again with warmth. I am not alone.
“Armed.” Julian swallows, then tries again. “They’re armed.”
“We’re armed too.” My brain is skipping ahead now, into the hallway: Footsteps come down, they go back up, one at a time. One guard only at mealtime. That’s a good thing. If we can somehow get him to unlock the door… I’m so consumed with the planning, I don’t even pay attention to the words coming out of my mouth.
“Look, I’ve been in bad situations before. You’ve got to trust me. This one time in Massachusetts—”
Julian interrupts me. “When … you… Massachusetts?”
That’s when I realize I’ve screwed up. Lena Morgan Jones has never been to Massachusetts, and Julian knows it. For a moment I debate telling another lie, and in that pause Julian struggles onto his elbows, swiveling around and scooting backward to face me, grimacing the whole time.
“Be careful,” I say. “Don’t push it.”
“When were you in Massachusetts?” he repeats painstakingly slowly, so that each word is clear.
Maybe it’s the way that Julian looks, with the blood-spotted strip of shirt knotted around his forehead and his eyes swollen practically shut: the look of a bruised animal. Or maybe it’s because I realize, now, that the Scavengers are going to kill us—if not tomorrow, then the next day or the day after that.
Or maybe I’m just hungry, and tired, and sick of pretending.
In a flash, I decide to tell him the truth. “Listen,” I say, “I’m not who you think I am.”
Julian gets very still. I’m reminded again of an animal—one time we found a baby raccoon, foundering in a mud pit that had opened up in the ground after a thaw. Bram went to help it, and as he approached, the raccoon went still just like that—an electric stillness, more alert and energetic than any kind of struggle.
“All that stuff I told you—about growing up in Queens and getting held back—none of that was true.”
Once I was on the other side, in Julian’s position. I stood, battered between currents, as Alex told me the same thing. I’m not who you think I am. I still remember the swim back to shore; the longest and most exhausting of my life.
“You don’t need to know who I am, okay? You don’t need to know where I really come from. But Lena Morgan Jones is a made-up story. Even this”—I touch my fingers to my neck, running them over the three-pronged scar—“this was made-up too.”
Julian still doesn’t say anything, although he has inched backward even farther and used the wall to pull himself into a seated position. He keeps his knees bent, hands and feet flat on the floor, as though if he could, he would spring forward and run.
“I know you don’t have a lot of reason to trust me right now,” I say. “But I’m asking you to trust me anyway. If we stay here, we’ll be killed. I can get us out. But I’m going to need your help.”
There is a question in my words, and I stop, waiting for Julian’s answer.
For a long time there is silence. At last he croaks out, “You.”
The venom in his voice surprises me. “What?”
“You,” he repeats. And then, “You did this. To me.”
My heart starts beating hard against my chest, painfully. For a second I think—I almost hope—that he’s having some kind of attack, a hallucination or fantasy. “What are you talking about?”