Blood on My Hands

sure. “You promise?” he asked.
    “Yes, all of it. I promise I’ll always love you, and after those first two months, we’ll talk every day and it’ll go fast. Now come on, let’s go back to the beach.”
    Slade nodded and reached up toward something. It was only then that I noticed the belt. It was hanging from one of the supports as if it had been tied there. At the other end the belt looped over on itself through the buckle. I didn’t know if Slade meant it seriously or just as a symbol, but it looked like a noose.

Chapter 16
    Sunday 4:54 P.M.
    WHEN I HEAR the punk cashier in the hardware store yell, “Hey, stop!” my first inclination is to bolt through the door and down the sidewalk as fast as I can. It would be the natural, logical thing to do in my situation, right? So I don’t know where the guile and wherewithal that keeps me from running comes from. Maybe I just know that once I start to run, I’m bound to be caught. So somehow, even though my heart is racing and I feel like I want to jump out of my skin, I force myself to stop and turn to look at her.
    She’s holding out a small brown paper bag. “You forgot this.”
    I force a smile and take the bag. “Thanks.”
    And then I’m out of there.
    At the bus stop, despite my hunger, I’m too wound up to eat the sandwich I bought. So I sit and stare down at my black fingernails. Thank God the bus comes soon and it’s almost empty. Sitting near the back, I wolf down the sandwich and wish I’d bought a second one. Then I get to work on the key rings, snipping them with the wire cutters to leave just enough of a gap to squeeze some flesh into. One goes on my lip, two on a nostril, one on an eyebrow, and the rest on my ears. Jeanie once told me something funny about piercings: When you have them, people don’t focus on you. They focus on the hardware.
    I got on the bus with no piercings. Thirty-five minutes later, at the stop by Fairchester Community College, I get off in full metallic regalia.
    I’ve come to FCC to find Tallon Marx, who is studying for a degree in math with a minor in physical education. Last year she was a teaching assistant at Soundview High, helped coach the girls’ cross-country team, and worked in PACE. Because she was cool and smart and only a few years older than us, she became a confidant and a go-to person when someone had a problem or needed the kind of advice she didn’t feel comfortable going to a friend or an adult for.
    At a house that has been divided into units, I ring Tallon’s bell and wait, praying she’s there. A lock clacks and the door opens a few inches, but it’s not Tallon; it’s her roommate, Jasmine, who has freckles and spidery red dreadlocks. “Yes?”
    A cold shiver runs through me. She’s staring right at me, at my fake piercings and spiked dyed hair. If she’s watched TV or been on the computer, will she recognize me? But there’s more confusion than recognition in her eyes.
    “Hi,” I say. “You’re Jasmine, right? Is Tallon around?”
    Jasmine frowns, as if she can’t quite figure out how I know her name and why someone who looks like me would be asking for Tallon. But the good news is that she’s treating me like a stranger, not like a suspect in a murder. “She went to the library, but she should be back soon. Is … there something I can help you with?”
    “I—” I almost say that I’m a friend of Tallon’s from Soundview High, but I catch myself. What if Tallon’s told her about the girl she knew from last year who the police are looking for in connection with a murder? “I’m here for tutoring? In math? Tallon said if she wasn’t here, you could let me in.”
    Jasmine scowls but opens the door a little bit wider. “She didn’t say anything about tutoring.”
    “Oh, yeah, she put a sign up in my school.”
    Jasmine bites a corner of her lip, obviously still uncertain about what to do.
    “I can wait out here in the hall if you’d like,” I offer with less-than-complete sincerity. I’d much rather wait inside, where there’s less chance of being spotted.
    The ploy works. “Oh, no, you can come in,” she says.
    I go in, glad to get out of the hall. Jasmine gestures to a couch covered by an Indian-print spread. The couch creaks and feels lumpy. To my right is a tiny standing-room-only kitchen.
    “Can I get you something to drink?” Jasmine asks.
    “I’m fine, thanks.”
    She twirls a dreadlock around with her finger and gestures to a door with an