“Understood. But it might be you,” he says, settling into his chair. “You’re better at both than I am.”
“You’ll have to practice, too. Is it selfish that I don’t want to damage my hands scrambling up buildings? Remember how nasty Jansen’s hand was when we ran?”
“No, man. Those are your moneymakers. But I’m in the same boat on that one.”
I stare at his space-age light-up keyboard and can’t deny the honesty in that statement. “I guess I should steal a few practice locks.”
He spins in his chair. “Probably.”
Stepping into Jansen’s room, I grab a few practice pieces, and after a moment of hesitation, his largest puzzle box book.
I drop one lock on RJ’s desk, then take the rest back to my room like a thief. But unlike Jansen, it’s not a feeling I much like. Because I’m not a thief. I’m an artist forced to make another mask to save the people I love.
At least I’m good at masks.
Chapter 12
Jansen
Emma’s yelp, followed by her shouting my name, has me rushing around the corner, Fluffington weaving between my legs, his food in my hand.
“Jansen? Damn it! Can you tell me why the hell markers are trying to murder me on the stairs?” she continues, athunkfrom above distracting me, my foot catching on Fluffington’s back. I slam against the wall, pain flashing my vision white as I slide down. My sweatshirt catches on a hole in the plaster, the broken wall scraping my back as my shirt rides up, adding to the cacophony of pain ricocheting through me.
“Ow,” I breathe out, no more sound possible when it’s impossible to breathe.
“Shit,” Emma says, rushing toward me while rubbing one of her hips. She shoves Fluffington aside when he tries to crawl into my lap to get to the food. “How bad?”
“Ow,” I whimper again.
“Can you breathe? Slow and steady, Jay. Breathe through the pain, then give me a number.”
I force my hiccupy lungs to follow her directions, the pain fading enough for my vision to return. “Big, but probably not bleeding internally,” I say, once I’m able to get enough breath to speak.
“That’s not a number.”
“No, but it’s more useful.”
Emma sighs, then slumps onto the floor across from me, both of us having long given up on staying clean in this dump. “Jansen…”
I blink my eyes open and take in my girlfriend’s best friend, slash involuntary nurse, slash unwilling roommate. The pink has nearly faded from her hair, her blue eyes exhausted and angry, her lips chapped.
“I’m sorry,” I say, not so much about almost sending myself to the hospital, or about the markers I forgot on the stairs while scratching measurements for supplies next to various projects that need to happen. I’m sorry that her life has been stolen from her. That we stole her life from her.
“It’s okay. Just be more careful.” It sounds like the end of the conversation, but she leans back on her arms, staring at the chandelier over the entryway, one of the few fixtures that survived the prior tenants, likely because they needed a ladder to get to it.
“I mean, I’m sorry I got you stuck here,” I whisper, my lungs catching again as regret tightens my chest.
Telling her she was going to have to stay here until the New Year had sucked. Walker and RJ were both with me,but watching the light fade from her eyes, her fingers stilling midway through a braid, ithurt.
“Jansen—” she starts, but I cut her off.
“I’ve been trying to say this for a few days, Emma, and I need to get this out. Please.” I swallow down the pain, trying to breathe it away so I can speak clearly. “That day, I made a choice.”
“You weren’t in your right mind.”
“Maybe not. But it’s exactly the kind of choice I would have made in my right mind, too. Because my mind’s never been quite right, even if it was worse that day.” The sympathy and denial in her eyes make me close mine, not wanting to see it. “I don’t think about risks, not like other people do. I don’t worry about collateral damage. Not the way I should. I covered my tracks and assumed that would be enough—enough to keep myself out of prison. But it wasn’t enough. Because every time I take a risk, it’s not just my life I’m fucking around with. It’s everybody else’s lives around me too. The guys, Clara, they’ve been bumpers, keeping me from getting too far out of control. And the second they weren’t there, Emma, I made a choice. And that choice led to them making another choice on my behalf—calling you instead of sending me to prison.”
“Jansen,” her tone is sad, pleading, but I can’t stop. She’s at least owed this. So much more, but at least this.
