Liar. Part 22

I wave. To my right I see Brandon "accidentally" knock into Erin.

"While your boy's in jail," he breathes at her, "you can get some from me." He's licking his lips the same way he did at me that day under the bleachers when he was making me the same offer.

I don't remember moving.

My hands are around his neck. I'm pressing Brandon into the wall. The Amnesty International poster behind him tears, leaving barbed wire floating at his left shoulder. My face is inches from his. He's gone red. He's coughing, struggling to breathe, clawing at my fingers.

I step away, dropping him.

"b.i.t.c.h!" he screams, sliding to the floor, rubbing his throat where my fingers have left red marks. "f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h! Is that what you did to your boyfriend?"

My urge to hurt him floods back. I step forward.

Brandon cowers. "b.i.t.c.h," he whispers.

"Don't," Tayshawn says, grabbing hold of my upper arm, pulling me away. "Leave the wuss on the floor. Beaten up by a girl again, Brandon? How many times is that this week?"

Several people laugh.

"f.u.c.k off. She's no girl," Brandon says, but he's mumbling, looking down. "Girls don't fight like that." The bruises are starting to show on his neck. "b.i.t.c.h."

I'm realizing what I've done. Shown how fast and strong I am. In front of everyone. Any doubts they might have had about my ability to kill Zach are gone now. I've done what Dad's always told me not to do. I'm lucky no teachers saw. Now it's down to whether Brandon tells or not. But at least he will respect me.

"Stop looking at me," Brandon says quietly. I doubt anyone but me can hear.

"Why would I look at you?" I say. "There's nothing to see."

"Come on," Tayshawn says, pulling me farther away. The hall has thinned out. Cla.s.ses must be starting.

We pa.s.s Erin. She's staring at me. I wonder if she's grateful that I pulled Brandon off her. Though that isn't why I did it. I don't feel sorry for Erin; I just hate Brandon. After all, Erin isn't dead, is she? Her boyfriend isn't dead either. She's not a wolf. Her life is fine.

"That was amazing," Tayshawn says. His hand is still around my upper arm. "Where'd you learn skills like that?"

"Dad used to be a boxer," I lie.

LIE NUMBER FOUR.

What I told the police isn't what really happened the last time I saw Zach.

School was out for the day. We were in the library. Both of us on giving-back-to-the-school duty. Brandon and Chantal weren't there. They'd forgotten.

"How did you find those foxes?" Zach whispered. We were in front of the fiction shelves. Zach was shelving and I was pulling out the books that did not belong.

We weren't the only ones there. The librarian, Jennifer Silverman, and a handful of freshmen, working on a project that seemed to involve a lot of loud talking and giggling.

"Wasn't a big deal," I said.

Zach wasn't listening. "I saw how you followed them. I've never seen anything like that. The path was lit up for you: this way there's foxes. I never saw a fox in the park till you showed me. You're like magic or something."

I looked down to hide my grin.

"What?" he asked. He was paying attention now.

"I kind of cheated."

"That's a shock. She lies. She cheats."

He touched my forearm. I tried to ignore it. Just pheromones. Chemical receptors. Biology. Controllable. Ignorable.

"It looked real to me," Zach said. "How'd you cheat?"

"I'd seen the burrow before," I confessed. "So I knew where the fox was going."

"Ah. Okay. You already knew? d.a.m.n."

"You should see your face."

He looked mad, annoyed, and kind of impressed all at the same time.

"You're a piece of work, you know."

I did know.

"You suck. You can't track s.h.i.t. And here was me thinking you were some kind of wild girl of the woods! d.a.m.n."

"I am. I could have tracked those foxes, I just didn't have to is all."

"Why would I believe you?" Zach asked, and I could tell he was really angry. "You lie about everything."

"Not about this. I know a lot about tracking animals, hunting. Every summer I'm upstate with my grandparents. We hunt together all the time."

"So you say."

"Scout's honor," I said.

"You're not a scout and even if you were I wouldn't believe you. You're a liar, Micah."

"I could track you," I said. "You go hide yourself in the park and you'll see how d.a.m.n easy it is for me to find you!"

"Shhh!" the librarian said, walking over to us. "I know school's out but there's no need for you to be yelling."

"Sorry, Jennifer," Zach said.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

She walked back to her desk.

"How do I know you won't cheat?" Zach said.

"I can't cheat on this one. I won't know where you're going."

Zach considered, shelved the book in his hand, turned back to the cart for another. "Alright," he said. "How you want to work it then?"

Jennifer the librarian walked over again and handed Zach some more fiction to shelve.

I ducked down and straightened the lowest shelf. She smiled at both of us and returned to her desk. Two of the books were mis-shelved: one about censorship in the USSR and the other an inorganic chemistry textbook. Neither of them belonged with novels written by people whose names began with Q or R.

"We'll both come in on the Columbus Circle side," I said to the shelf. "Me a half hour after you."

"What's to stop you following me?"

"I won't."

Zach didn't bother to answer. He was still angry. I wondered if it was weird of me to really want to kiss him. He returned to shelving.

"Okay then. I'm leaving now. You come and find me in the park when Jennifer lets you go."

He kissed my mouth quickly and I almost blushed, looking around to make sure no one had seen. He walked over to Jennifer's desk and started sweet-talking her into letting him go early. It was three thirty. We were supposed to be shelving until four.

She let him go. Zach almost always got what he wanted.

HISTORY OF ME.

Details. They're the key to lying.

The more detailed you are, the more people believe. Not piled on one after another after another-don't tell too much. Ever. Too many details, that's too many things that can be checked.

Let them tease the information out of you. Lightly sprinkle it. One detail here, the smell of peanuts roasting; one there, the crunch of gray snow underfoot.

Verisimilitude, one of my English teachers called it. The details that give something the appearance of being real. It's at the heart of a good lie, a story that has wings.

That, and your desire, your overwhelming desire, not to be lied to. You believe me because you want what I tell you to be the truth. No matter how crazy.

And because I promised no more lies.

Which I've stuck to: nothing but the truth.

BEFORE.

It wasn't summer but it felt like it. Spring had sprung for a day and then turned hot and sweltering. Central Park was entirely green. Not like winter, with the city leaning in on the leafless skeleton trees, making sure it is never out of view. The reprieve from the city buoyed me, but it was scary, too: city is city and forest, forest. I don't like them getting muddled.

It feels as if I'm seeing myself reflected in the leaves, and in the gla.s.sphalt sidewalk. That hurts my head.

I caught Zach's scent coming out of the subway. I followed it, jumped over the fence, into the park, trying to name the parts of his scent: the meatiness, the sweat, and the something else underlying it, something sweet. No one else smelled like that. Just Zach.

The smell of him warmed me, drew me toward him. As if the finest thread stretched out between us. He was reeling me in. Tracking him would be easier than finding the foxes.

I slid into a jog, following the molecules. If they had been visible they would have glowed brighter than neon.

Before I got to the lake the strange white boy crossed my path. He didn't turn to look at me. Just ran past me in his wild and uneven way. Erratic but fast. He was out of sight down the path almost instantly, leaving a lingering pungent smell.

I shivered and continued chasing Zach.

AFTER.

"Come on," Tayshawn says, leading me down the front steps, past reception, out onto the street. We're seniors so we're allowed to go off campus for lunch but it's not lunch, it's fifth period.

"Where are we going?"

"Away," Tayshawn says. "I gotta tell you stuff."

"Like what?" Is he going to talk about what happened? Between him and me and Sarah?

Tayshawn stops on the sidewalk, leans in to whisper in my ear. "It was dogs," he says. "Zach was killed by dogs."

My knees stop working, as though the cartilage has melted. I stumble. I would fall but Tayshawn's holding me. I'm not thinking about dogs; I'm thinking about wolves. That's why Brandon kept calling me "b.i.t.c.h." He meant it literally. Will the cops be coming after me?

I'm screwed. How will I tell my parents?

How does Brandon know about me? No one outside my family knows.

"Micah," Tayshawn says. His eyes are bruised. "I know." He puts his arms around me, holds me tight.

What will they do to me?

"I know," he says again. His voice sounds thick like he's trying not to cry. "How could dogs have killed him?"

Dogs. Tayshawn's not talking about me. I breathe. He makes a kind of crooked grimace with his mouth. He's looking at me, but not accusingly. The thought of me being a wolf hasn't occurred to him. Or to anyone else. Why would it?

I'm being crazy.

"Dogs," I say, though dogs didn't. That strange white boy did.

Tayshawn wipes at his eyes, drags me into a dark cafe that's all coffee: huge coffee-making machines, giant sacks of beans. The smell so overwhelming that when we're sitting in back and drinking it hot and burned it becomes the murk we're floating in.

Tayshawn switches off the lamps on either side of us. Darker is better.

Dogs. This is what the cops haven't been telling us. This is why the coffin was closed. Zach's body was torn apart. Like prey.

I take another sip. I've never drunk coffee before. It's something else I'm forbidden. I think I like it.

Dogs. But then why were we ever under suspicion? I ask Tayshawn.

"The autopsy report was a big surprise to the police. They thought the dogs"-Tayshawn pauses, swallows-"that they got at his body after. They never thought the dogs were what killed him."

"But now they're sure it was dogs?" I sip more coffee, feeling it make my eyes widen, my spine straighten. I want to run. "Your uncle told you?"

"Yeah. He called me last night. Dogs. Not a murder. It'll be all over school pretty soon."