Liar. Part 23

I reach across and put my hands on Tayshawn's. His are shaking. "Where?" I ask. "Where did they find the body?"

"Central Park."

That's what I was afraid of. Zach found dead, torn to pieces in the place we spent the most time together.

"Well," I say, "at least the cops won't be bothering us again."

Tayshawn manages half a laugh. "No more killer Tayshawn rumors."

"No one really believed that s.h.i.+t," I say, though it's not true.

"Right. You just believe that. Not that it matters. Because those rumors are gone now. No killer Tayshawn, no killer Sarah, no killer Micah. Just a pack of dogs." His voice breaks on dogs.

I wish I could tell him it wasn't dogs. That it was wolves. A lone wolf. But surely the police can tell the difference? Aren't the bites of dogs and wolves different? I want to ask Yayeko. Or do the police know? Is "dogs" a cover story?

Tayshawn is crying again. I squeeze his hands. "It's a lot," I say. The coffee is making my head spin. I'm not allowed anything with caffeine in it. It's like avoiding alcohol. We don't know what could happen to me, what could trigger a change. No s.e.x, no drugs, no alcohol. No nothing. That's my parents' policy.

I take a much bigger sip-to spite them. The more I drink, the more I like it. Bitter, but not as bad as it smells. I think it's making my blood move faster.

I have to find the white boy.

Then what?

Kill him?

I've never killed a person.

Or a wolf.

I need to talk to the Greats. I need to get upstate.

"Sorry," Tayshawn says. His eyes are red. "I keep imagining what it would have been like. Dogs . . ."

"Yeah."

"I guess it's better, right?" he says. "At least Zach wasn't murdered. I was afraid . . ."

He was afraid that it was me or Sarah or someone else he knew? He doesn't say it though. I never suspected them. I think I always knew it was the white boy.

"G.o.d," Tayshawn says. He touches his bottom lip, pulling at it. I want to kiss him. I wonder if it's wrong that I'm thinking about that. I'm pretty sure he isn't thinking about kissing me.

"Have you told Sarah?"

He shakes his head. "I was going to, you know, at lunch. But then I didn't find you until just before the bell."

"So you told us about Erin Moncaster?"

"Funny, huh? I saw you both there and I couldn't do it, couldn't figure out how to tell you. I still can't believe it's true. Dogs?"

"Yeah," I say. "I know."

"My uncle, he says there's a pack on a vacant lot in h.e.l.l's Kitchen. There've been a ton of complaints. That pack's attacked other dogs. They're vicious. Their owner's a crazy old guy who owns the lot. Says he has the dogs under control, but he doesn't."

"h.e.l.l's Kitchen?" I ask. I know that pack. They might be vicious but they back up when I run by. Snouts to the ground, cowering. They smell what I am. The lot is a long way from Central Park. Too far for a pack of wild dogs to roam. There's at least ten of them. How would they get all the way up and into Central Park without someone seeing and freaking? It's not exactly an empty part of the city.

We look at each other. My eyes are on his mouth. Tayshawn looks away.

"What a way to die," he says, shuddering. "I can't even imagine."

I can. I know exactly what it would be like. I've torn creatures apart. I've watched them die. It's mostly quick.

"My uncle told me if they can prove it was the old man's dogs, they'll put them down and press charges against him."

"What charges?" I ask. "Murder?"

Tayshawn shakes his head. "I don't know. I don't think so. My uncle didn't say."

"Didn't they use to do that in the old days?" I say. "Set dogs on people? Could the old man have done that?"

"But Zach's white," Tayshawn says.

"Hispanic," I says.

"White Hispanic. He didn't even speak Spanish. Plus it's now."

Not to mention that dogs had nothing to do with Zach's death. I sip at the no-longer-hot coffee. Lukewarm it's not so good.

There have been so many rumors. I'm not sure how I feel now that we have the official truth and dealing with Zach's murderer has become my responsibility.

AFTER.

The week after the funeral seems unending.

Erin Moncaster brings a tiny bit of distraction from thinking about Zach and the white boy, about Tayshawn and Sarah. Erin's certainly occupying everyone else's thoughts. I think it's because the idea of Zach being killed by dogs is too weird, too horrible for them to dwell on. So instead we hear about how Erin wept when her boyfriend was arrested, how she insisted that they were married and that they couldn't take him away from her.

They could, though. She's only fourteen and her parents didn't give permission, so the marriage isn't real.

Next I hear she's pregnant. Then that she's diseased. Or both.

Everyone is talking about her. No one's talking about me and Sarah and Tayshawn. No one knows that happened.

When Zach's name is mentioned, it's followed by silence and then a change of subject. No one's wondering who killed him because now we know. Except we don't.

I'm the only one who really knows. I'm the one who has to do something about it.

I haven't seen the white boy since after the funeral. I'm nervous, but not as nervous as if I'd seen him. Either way is bad. Friday after school I'm going upstate. I'm hoping the Greats will have answers for me. Instructions.

I need someone to tell me what to do.

Sarah, Tayshawn, and me don't talk about what happened between us. I still want to kiss them, they show no signs of feeling the same way. I wonder if maybe they're getting together when I'm not there. I work hard to keep that thought out of my head.

My body is hollow.

The end of rumors about Zach and his death brings another kind of relief. I was sick of people, like Chantal, who'd hardly known Zach, acting as if they'd been best friends. As if his death was her own personal tragedy. Now she's forgotten all about Zach and is all gossip about Erin all the time. She's newly best friends with Kayla so she can stay up on juicy Erin gossip. She shakes her head and tsks as she pa.s.ses along each new sc.r.a.p.

Chantal's a hypocrite and every bit as big a liar as I am.

It makes me want to tear out her throat. How can anyone forget about Zach so easily?

But at least he's more mine now. Mine and Sarah's and Tayshawn's.

Though it's me who has to avenge him.

LIE NUMBER FIVE.

I don't have a brother. I made Jordan up.

What did you think? That after having me, the wolf girl, my parents would risk a second child? A second freak? Two cages in the already overcrowded apartment? Even if the kid wasn't wolfish how would you keep it from blabbing about its monster for a sister?

Not likely, is it?

Good-bye, Jordan. Imaginary or not, he sucked. Vile, sticky-fingered, foulmouthed, nasty, smelly brother.

But you want to know why, don't you?

Why did I lie about having a brother?

I wanted to see if I could do it: invent a person. Make them believable. Real. Whole. I wanted to see if you would buy it. And you did.

You buy everything, don't you?

You make it too easy.

BEFORE.

I found Zach high up a tree in the North Woods in Central Park, not near any of the paths. The tree had wide, thick branches and plenty of leaf cover. He did a good job of keeping still. I couldn't hear or see him, but his scent gave him away. It was everywhere.

The branches started a few feet above my head. Zach was using his height against me. He is-he was-over six foot four. I'm not. He could jump and touch the lowest branches. Not me.

I prowled around the tree, quiet. I couldn't feel the telltale p.r.i.c.kles of someone looking at me. Zach was high up. Maybe he'd fallen asleep. It happened. He trained so hard, worked such long hours keeping up with homework that he was often coasting on two or three hours of sleep a day. I'd seen him fall asleep in cla.s.ses, at lunch. Sometimes when we ran together he'd be close to falling asleep on his feet. If he'd gone for a ball scholars.h.i.+p he could've gotten the sleep he needed, but he wanted a full ride courtesy of his brains.

Zach wasn't crazy.

He'd seen what a sports scholars.h.i.+p can do to you. He'd seen what happened to his brother. Shredded knees and back leaving him too crippled to even walk right. No pro career for him, but his grades were only so-so, and he'd never figured out anything else he wanted to do.

Zach wanted options.

The trunk wasn't that wide. I spread my arms around it and slipped my shoes off, gripping with the soles of my feet. I was going to climb it like a coconut tree.

It was harder than it looked, but I was strong and didn't care about cutting up my hands and feet.

"Hey, there," Zach said, leaning down from halfway up the tree. I'd reached the first branch. "Want a hand?"

"Nope." I grabbed the branch over my head and hauled myself up to straddle it with my legs. Wolves might not be wild about climbing, but I like it fine.

"Well done, shorty."

"Thanks." I wiped my hands on my pants. "Told you I'd find you."

"You did. You are a superhero." He climbed down to my level. "Strong and brave with magical tracking skills. I'll never doubt you again." He was grinning to undermine his words, but he meant them. "How'd you do that?"

"Do what?" I asked, playing dumb. "Climb the tree?"

He snorted. "Find me, stupid. The park's I-don't-know-how-big. Must be thousands of trees. You can't have seen me from down there. It's not possible . . ." He stopped, leaning in, looking at me closely.

I could see the pores of his skin, tiny hairs, a few blackheads nestled against his nose.

"You're not like anyone else. What are you?"

That could have been the moment. I could have told him. I almost had a few weeks before, but, well . . . we were distracted before I could get the words out.

"There's something, isn't there?" Zach said.

What would have happened if I'd told him? Would he have laughed?

I ran my fingers over his cheek, over the light stubble.

"Tell me, Micah."

Instead I leaned forward, kissed the tip of his nose, and then his mouth. We made out, tentative and cautious, because we were up a tree, and gravity isn't kind.

When we climbed down it was getting dark.

"Run home with me?" he said. I did. More than a hundred blocks side by side, backpacks bouncing. We'd done it before. I figured we'd do it again.

We didn't.

Outside his building we stopped. Zach wiped sweat from his forehead, his upper lip. We kissed again.

"Tomorrow," he said.

I nodded.

"Will you tell me then?"

"Maybe."

He laughed.