“Didn’t you already try that?” Noelle asked, her calm a contrast to his wildness.
Evan worked to catch his breath, a trickle of sweat moving slowly down his cheek. Yes. Yes, he had. He’d done the same thing when he’d woken the first time in the dark. He’d even fought when the faceless man had come into his cage to retrieve him and bring him here to this second cage. He’d flailed around like a drunk seal as the man had easily sidestepped him and swung his fists at Evan at each opportune moment. He’d knocked him out and then somehow transported him here to this room.
“Maybe your dad’s behind this,” he finally said. What other reason for this than some skewed sense of revenge?
“You asshole,” she hissed. “How dare you?” He still didn’t look up. He didn’t want to see her expression. “My father’s not the murderer.” She tossed the statement at him, and as though it were a spike, he felt it lodge in his flesh.
“He didn’t murder her. It was an accident.”
“Was ruining my mother’s name an accident too? Devastating my father? And me?”
He did raise his head then, his gaze meeting hers. She looked upset but defiant. The sight made his thoughts blur. A caged girl, eyes blazing. And for just a second, he was glad he’d brought that out in her, regardless of the cause. Because for this one moment, at least, her will had been too big to be contained. It didn’t last. She deflated against the bars, and they both sat facing each other in silence. He’d had this impression that she was meek. The way she walked, head down, arms always loaded with books. But there was fire inside her. Maybe it would help their cause.
“Why haven’t you ever asked me these questions before? Or any questions, for that matter. You’ve never even spoken to me, and we walk past each other almost every day,” he said. Maybe he should have spoken to her. But what would he say? And she’d always studiously avoided him, and so he let her be. He’d watched her without her knowing, though. He’d been . . . curious about her. Was that the right word? They hung out with completely different crowds. Not that she had a crowd around her, not like he did. As far as he could tell, she only had one friend, a mousy redhead. Both she and Noelle were from public schools and had been chosen for academic scholarships to attend the exclusive private academy. There were four scholarship recipients at Northland, and they were all treated like the outsiders they were.
“Talk to you?” She asked it as though he’d suggested she eat dirt. “There was never a point. I knew the answers then, and I know them now. I only brought it up because emotions are high. Understandably.” She waved her arm around her prison as though she needed to explain the cause of her current mental state.
“What, then? What are the answers?”
She let out a gust of breath. “Maybe you should be asking what the questions are, Evan. Why did your father have to ruin our lives rather than take responsibility for what he did?” She gave a small shrug. “Privilege. Entitlement. Opportunity.”
“Your mother was trespassing, Noelle,” he said softly. “Stalking him.”
That fire again as her eyes flared. She directed it to the wall, chewing at the inside of her cheek. “She wouldn’t have done that. And there was no evidence she was stalking him,” she bit out. “I’ve always thought he invited her over and then lied about it to cover up his own crime.”
“The jury thought otherwise.”
She stared at him for a minute, and he sensed something churning in her. But whatever it was, she held it back, obviously deciding that it didn’t matter or this was not the time. “Listen,” she said, “if we have any hope of getting out of here, we’ll need to work together. Anything else is pointless.”
He gave a nod, acknowledging that that was probably easier for him. She clearly held deep animosity toward his family, whereas he’d mostly been curious about her. To be perfectly honest, the thing that had decimated her life had been more of a tragic blip on the radar for him, an extremely unfortunate accident that his father had had to manage. He hadn’t even been at home that summer. He’d been staying with his mother in the Hamptons. And in any case, from his perspective, before the . . . tragedy, both her mother and his father had been at fault. Perhaps Noelle was right about privilege. He’d moved on, while she had not. Her mother died, though. “You’re right. We need to work together.”
Unfortunately, at that particular moment, there was no “work” to be done. No tools within their grasp. No person to appeal to. For the time being, all they could do was wait. For what, he had no idea.