seeing me hurt—I’m not her, I’m not her, I’m not fucking her—the leverage was certainly handy.
“Screw you, Cas,” Simon said unhappily, aloud this time.
But he agreed—unwillingly, unenthusiastically, warily, but he came—and we managed to head off in the wee hours of the morning. The perfect time for breaking and entering. I drove, again having appropriated Pilar’s car, and Simon hunched in the passenger seat.
It was a clear night, and the stars imprinted on me through the windshield like they had in Oscar’s memories, leaving the taste of his mind in my mouth.
“That’s what you get for taking someone’s thoughts by force,” muttered Simon.
He was one to talk. “I think it’s great that when you don’t read people, you still happen to know so much about them.”
“I try to respect people’s secrets.”
I snorted. “Oh, hey, I bet you knew too, didn’t you?”
“Knew what?”
“Don’t give me that.”
Simon cleared his throat. “I didn’t—he didn’t—Arthur never told me. I’ve never met his family. But I couldn’t not know, it’s too important to him. I could see it every time he—”
“Thought so.” It was almost funny. Checker knew, Pilar knew, Rio knew, Simon knew—the only person Arthur had prevented from knowing about his family by not telling me was me.
At least I knew where I stood. It was sort of freeing.
Simon heaved a sigh. “What are you planning to do when we get there?”
“Look for clues.” I wasn’t sure whether to expect that we’d actually run into Oscar or Coach—or D.J.—at the ranch. I’d had the sense in Oscar’s memories that he was going to the place only to take care of the animals. I’d felt his desolation.
His loneliness.
I shivered. As angry and uncomfortable as my current friendships were, going through life with nobody ever knowing I existed …
“Cas,” said Simon. “I don’t like what you did to me just now.”
“Here are some tats to go with those tits. Do you even know how many hours you kept me in your thrall yesterday morning?”
He sucked in a breath. “You know I didn’t mean to. Maybe I could have done better, but … God, Cas, you meant to do this. You—you planned it. It was violent and it was wrong and you did it on purpose.”
His voice was shaking, low and intense, and it only renewed my disgust for him. After how he had contorted and violated my entire life—the gall of it. “Say those words back to yourself.”
“What I did to you years ago was awful. Maybe unforgiveable. I’m not denying it. But does that mean—”
“Yes,” I said.
He stared out the window.
“Are you going to quote some fun little aphorism here?” I said. “Something like two wrongs not making a right, or an eye for an eye making the whole world blind?”
“No,” he said. “You weren’t doing it for revenge. It might have been better if you were.”
I had a chilling premonition of how he was going to finish.
“If you had been trying to get back at me, that would be one thing, but … you were doing it because you had an opportunity, and because … because I’m not a human being to you. Don’t try to deny it,” he added hollowly. “I could see it.”
I swallowed. Checker’s words from the car came back to me, about only being able to take clever advantage of people when one didn’t think of them as fully, equally human.
“Maybe you handed in that card when you killed me,” I said.
“Maybe.” He dipped his head, interlacing his fingers in his lap. “I’m not asking you to forgive me, Cas. I wouldn’t. But I don’t think it means I can’t tell you—this was wrong. This was really, really wrong, and I’m asking you, please—please don’t do it again.”
I shrugged uncomfortably. “Hey, look. We’re here.”
I flicked off the car headlights and nosed up outside the lane into the ranch. An old, creaking sign with illegible writing swung over the gate.
And lights were on down in the buildings. We could see them from the main road.
Simon saw it too. “Someone’s here,” he said. “Cas, are you sure about this?”
Someone here … I didn’t know whether to consider that a stroke of good fortune or bad. Could it be D.J.? I hoped so; I could level him right now. Oscar? We’d take him back with Simon’s help. Coach?
Having Simon with me at least gave us the best odds possible.
And if we encountered anyone from Pithica, as Rio suspected?
Well, Simon would just have to step up to that too. This was too good