Thomas snatched a few new drawing pads and boxes of Derwent pencils and then stormed away. Andrew trailed behind, but he wasn’t sorry. If he could stop Thomas from ever being hurt again, he would. He’d do anything.
At the cash register, a woman with tattooed arms rang everything up while Thomas glared at Andrew until he finally sighed and held out his arms to take the unwieldy canvases. Thomas stacked up his supplies in Andrew’s grasp so that every corner dug into his ribs and jabbed at his collarbone. Thomas tucked the last box of pencils under Andrew’s chin with a somewhat snaky look of satisfaction. Fine, if this was payback, they were even now.
Andrew’s mouth made a thin line. “My wallet’s in my back pocket.”
Thomas flashed a wicked smile like a feral changeling, a creature you’d bargain your heart to and not even mind. Heslipped a hand into Andrew’s back pocket, and for a second they stood too close, lungs moving in sync, Thomas’s touch easy and familiar, like this moment meant nothing and they’d replay it a thousand times for the rest of their lives.
Then it was over. Thomas swiped Andrew’s credit card.
“You know what we need?” Thomas said, as they exited the shop with Andrew still struggling to carry all the art supplies alone. “Sugar. Since you’re burdened with the need to pay for everything right now, let’s get food.”
His glib tone sounded a little too forced, but Andrew wouldn’t comment. Let Thomas make it a joke if it made him feel better.
“I’m not hungry.” Andrew shoved a bag at Thomas. “Can you take your stuff?”
“Okay, okay.” They redistributed the bags while Thomas gave him a careful look. “When was the last time you ate? I feel like you never go to the dining hall anymore.”
Andrew did not need this right now. Eating felt like a sickening concept when the forest was filling him with nightmares.
“Let’s get milkshakes and fries,” Thomas said.
“Chips,” Andrew mumbled.
“You know they’re fries and you’re wrong. Stop correcting me with your Australianisms.” Thomas walked backward to give him a raised eyebrow. “There’s still time to become American, you know.”
“Er, no thanks. I only like one thing about this country.” It slipped out before Andrew’s brain caught up. Why did he saythat? He backpedaled madly. “Your bookstore prices, I mean. Way,waycheaper than ours.”
“Sure, that’s what you meant.” Thomas patted him on the shoulder. “Nothing to do with me and my…” He trailed off as he looked over Andrew’s shoulder. “I have an idea.”
He ducked across the road, and it took Andrew a few seconds to catch up and follow him into a store.
Carson’s Camping & Hunting.
Inside smelled of cardboard boxes and metal, tenting canvas and boot polish. The shelves stood so tight together that only a single person could walk between them. Camping supplies spilled into hunting gear, and a bearskin on the wall watched them with empty glass eyes. Andrew’s stomach turned over. He saw the entire wall dedicated to guns and he wantedout.
When he stumbled around a corner, he found Thomas standing on tiptoes in the next aisle.
“I hate this,” Andrew said.
Thomas turned around. He held a hatchet with a red blade, the tip under a protective cover. The handle fit sturdy against his palm, and it looked so violent and cold and final that it made Thomas seem lost under the weight of it. It was the last one on the shelf, and it felt like a sign.
Andrew chewed his lip. “We’ll never get that into Wickwood.”
“I can’t survive this.” Thomas sounded hollow. “I pretend it’s fine, but every time I look at you, I think about monsters ripping open your stomach and feasting. And… and you just lying there. Torn to nothing because of me. It’s stuck in my head, Andrew, itlivesthere. I can’t win this with a goddamn garden spike.”
“Okay.” Andrew took a survival first aid kit off the shelf. “But this, too.”
They paid and stuffed everything in the bottom of Andrew’s backpack, receiving no dubious looks from the man in a red flannel with a huge beard. As if teenage boys buying weapons wasn’t something to question.
Andrew’s backpack clinked as they walked back to the bus. He kept it hooked between his legs during the trip back so nothing clattered and drew attention. Thomas crammed in the seat next to him and sketched frantically—trees and forests, willows and twisted oaks. It was painful to see how much he’d missed this, craved it with a ravenous ferocity—being able to draw again where he was a god of paper and ink, and his monsters bent to his commands. Andrew loved watching him like this, the unguarded intensity.
Thomas’s knee kept bumping Andrew’s. Between them everything felt electric.
But when they pulled into Wickwood and everyone filed off the bus, Clemens put out an arm to cut off Andrew’s escape.
“I see Mr. Rye has either lost his blazer on the trip or never had it in the first place. Yearning for another detention, are we?” His smile was aggressive in its politeness. “What’s in the backpack?”
Andrew’s chest caved in.
