Page 34 of Because I Killed Him
“Your Blood Ring.”
Jack raps his knuckles on the table. “No.”
“Take off the glove.” She sets her head in a hard-jawed, downward tilt. “Or I’ll do it for you.”
“You’d have a better chance of taking off my pants.”
“If the Copper back there had stared at your ass the way he did your Blood Ring, maybe I would.”
“Maybe you should be grateful instead.”
“Iamgrateful, but—”
A toilet flushes in the lavatory. Charlotte and I swivel toward the door. Behind the frosted glass, someone washes and dries their hands with a towel. I stand still, trying to look composed, waiting for Edmund to emerge.
Then I notice something strange. The silhouette barely reaches the doorknob’s height, too small to belong to a Blue.
The boy who steps out has an upturned nose and a shock of carrot-colored hair that looks as if a gust of wind blew it back. Freckles pepper his cheeks, and his pudgy chin makes him look much too young to be a student. There’s a food stain on the lapel of his burnt-orange suit.
“Charlotte, you old broad,” the boy says, tugging on a pair of gloves as he strolls over. “Haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays. How have you b—” He cuts himself off, squints at her, and plants a hand on his hip. “You trying to get Jack back or something?”
“No.”
“Then what’s with all the slicing and dicing?”
Charlotte touches her nose, probably her most cosmetically enhanced feature. “Uh, I—”
“And why do you smell like a fart?”
“Oh, shove off, Dickie.” She swats his hand away. “It’s not me who smells. It’s Lore.”
The boy brushes past her and circles me like a dog. He sniffs the air once, twice, curious but silent, until Charlotte jumps in to introduceus.
She begins by stating my name, age, and academic major in a formal tone, and mentions that my dad is a Green Representative. Then she moves on to her ex, Mr. Jack Carroway, a twenty-one-year-old Green first-year majoring in energy shield defense. Finally, she introduces the freckled boy as Mr. Dickie Langley, an Orange first-year. At just fifteen, he’s only the eighteenth person ever granted special permission to become a Public Person and attend Grandmaster University as a minor.
“It’s because I’m good with computers… a prodigy, if you will,” Dickie brags after we log evidence of our introductions into our Blood Rings. He pulls me into a clammy handshake, sniffs me like a dog again, and says, “Yep—you definitely dealt it.”
“I didn’t deal anything.” I yank out of Dickie’s grip. “The smell is from my seat. Whoever sat there before me spilled something.”
“The carriages are cleaned between stops, so it shouldn’t smell anymore.” He turns to Charlotte, full of purpose. “What about your seat? Did it—”
“Enough swatting at flies, Dickie,” Charlotte cuts in. “We already know the Copper was setting up a hit. The question isn’t how he planned to kill Lore. It’s whether he’s got enough backing to try again.”
“What exactly do you mean by that, darling?” Jack spins his empty shot glass on the table with two fingers.
“You’re not accusingBluesof being behind this, are you?” Dickie demands.
“No, I—of course not, I just…” Charlotte gives me a pointed look, jerking her head as if I’m supposed to take over.
I nod. “Where’s Edmund?”
“In salon six,” Jack says. “With his girl.”
“With Rebecca?” Charlotte drops her cigarette case. “I thought they broke up?”
“They did. You don’t know Ed’s new girl.”
“I still wanna know her name.”
