Because there was an abyss, and books contained magical incantations to raise what was hidden there: all the great mysteries. For Luke, those mysteries mattered. Someday, in the future, he might write books of his own.
But here, the only future was Back Half. Here, the truth of existence was What good would it do?
“Fuck that,” he whispered, and went to the Star Trib’s Local section with his heartbeat thudding in his ears and pulsing in the small wounds, already closing, beneath the bandages.
There was no need to hunt; as soon as he saw his own school photograph from last year, he knew everything there was to know. The headline was unnecessary, but he read it anyway:
SEARCH GOES ON FOR MISSING SON OF SLAIN FALCON HEIGHTS COUPLE
The colored lights came back, swirling and pulsing. Luke squinted through them, turned off the laptop, got up on legs that didn’t feel like his legs, and went to his bed in two trembling strides. There he lay in the mild glow of the bedside lamp, staring up at the ceiling. At last those nasty pop-art dots began to fade.
Slain Falcon Heights couple.
He felt as if a previously unsuspected trapdoor had opened in the middle of his mind, and only one thought—clear, hard, and strong—kept him from falling through it: they might be watching. He didn’t believe they knew about the Mr. Griffin site, and his ability to use it to access the outside world. He didn’t believe they knew the lights had caused some fundamental change in his brain, either; they thought the experiment had been a failure. So far, at least. Those were the things he had, and they might be valuable.
The Minions of Sigsby weren’t omnipotent. His continuing ability to access Mr. Griffin proved it. The only kind of rebellion they expected from the residents was the kind that was right out front. Once that was scared or beaten or zapped out of them, they could even be left alone for short periods, the way Joe and Hadad had left him and George alone in C-11 while they got their coffee.
Slain.
That word was the trapdoor, and it would be so easy to fall in. From the very start Luke had been almost sure he was being lied to, but the almost part kept the trapdoor closed. It allowed some small hope. That bald headline ended hope. And since they were dead—slain—who would the most likely suspect be? The MISSING SON, of course. The police investigating the crime would know by now that he was a special child, a genius, and weren’t geniuses supposed to be fragile? Apt to go off the rails?
Kalisha had screamed her defiance, but Luke wouldn’t, no matter how much he wanted to. In his heart he could scream all he wanted, but not out loud. He didn’t know if his secrets could do him any good, but he did know that there were cracks in the walls of what George Iles had so rightly called this hole of hell. If he could use his secrets—and his supposedly superior intelligence—as a crowbar, he might be able to widen one of those cracks. He didn’t know if escape was possible, but should he find a way to do it, escape would only be the first step to a greater goal.
Bring it down on them, he thought. Like Samson after Delilah coaxed him into getting a haircut. Bring it down and crush them. Crush them all.
At some point he dropped into a thin sleep. He dreamed that he was home, and his mother and father were alive. This was a good dream. His father told him not to forget to take out the trashcans. His mother made pancakes and Luke drenched his in blackberry syrup. His dad ate one with peanut butter while watching the morning news on CBS—Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell, who was foxy—and then went to work after kissing Luke on the cheek and Eileen on the mouth. A good dream. Rolf’s mother was taking the boys to school, and when she honked out front, Luke grabbed his backpack and ran to the door. “Hey, don’t forget your lunch money!” his mom called, and handed it to him, only it wasn’t money, it was tokens, and that was when he woke up and realized someone was in his room.
29
Luke couldn’t see who it was, because at some point he must have turned off the bedside lamp, although he couldn’t remember doing it. He could hear a soft shuffle