But it was just an old mannequin sticking out from an open box. Probably something the art students used for figure-drawing class, blank faced and nude. Harmless.
Even so, it took several seconds for adrenaline to stop flicking between Noam’s nerves like static.
At last he exhaled an unsteady breath and moved forward, dragging the mirror out of the way to search behind it. All he found were cartons of markers and ancient printer paper. And even when Noam moved on from that grid and searched another three-square-foot block—and another, and another—he found nothing but junk.
Noam’s phone buzzed in his back pocket. He drew it out and glanced down at the screen. Sighed.
“What’s up, Ames?” he answered.
“Where are you?”
“I’m downtown. Why?”
A beat of silence. He imagined her drumming her fingers against her thigh, could perfectly envision the frown on her face. “Is that the truth?”
“Yes. What the hell?”
“Not like you haven’t been telling a whole lot of stories lately,” Ames said brusquely. “So if you’re really downtown, you want some company? Bethany keeps trying to get me to help with her math homework, and honestly, I’m fucked up right now, and I don’t want her to notice. Bad influence.”
Of course you’re high. You always are.Noam bit his lip to keep from saying it aloud and turned his gaze toward what was left of the room—another forty feet, easily. This place was massive, probably covered the whole area beneath the cafeteria. “No,” he said. “I’m actually about to head back. If you’re still up, I’ll take over Bethany duty, though.”
Although he wasn’t sure why Taye didn’t help out. Taye was the math prodigy.
“So says the guy who was in remedial math this time last year,” Ames pointed out dryly—and now that he was looking for it, Noam could detect the slur to her words. “Besides. Aren’t you like ... toogoodfor tutoring now?”
“I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean.”
“You’re the new Dara. You’re Lehrer’s protégé. That makes youcoolto people who don’t know any better.”
Noam grimaced into the darkness. “You’re saying it’s gone to my head?”
“Has it?” There was a sharper edge to Ames’s voice now. The implication:If you really understood, you wouldn’t be where you are right now. Or where she clearly thought he was, at least—with Lehrer, despite everything.
“I’m heading back,” Noam said again. “I’ll see you in a few minutes. Okay?”
But when he got back, Ames barely even spoke to him, just took one look at him, then snorted and shook her head, like she knew something he didn’t. And he supposed that was exactly what she thought.
So Noam lay awake in Dara’s narrow bed until four, staring across the room—past the clothes on the floor, past the lump-under-the-covers that was Taye—at the bed where he’d kissed Dara the first time. Where they’d discovered each other’s bodies, that one perfect set of moments fractured again minutes later. Dara was on the other side of the city, maybe even lying awake himself right now thinking how much he loathed Noam for the choices Noam made.
And he was right. Everything that happened now Noam had chosen.
He had no one to blame but himself.
The next day, after Lehrer had finally dismissed him from their private lesson by lighting a cigarette and waving him off, Noam skipped his next class and headed to the second floor of the west wing instead.
By now, Noam was such a fixture in the government complex that no one even glanced twice at him—not unless it was to tilt their head in recognition. Or sycophancy, given his connection to Lehrer; Noam wasn’t quite clear which.
No one asked if he had someplace better to be.
So when Noam knocked on the door to Holloway’s office, he knocked like he had every right to disturb the home secretary in the middle of a workday.
The receptionist who opened the door was the same one he ran into last year, when he pretended to be Dara and stole emails off the very computer he sensed in the adjoining office now. This time, though, the computer was actually in use.
“I’m here to see Minister Holloway,” Noam said. “He’s expecting me.”
This time, the receptionist didn’t bother asking his name.
Noam lingered there in the anteroom while the woman announced him to Holloway. Noam could barely hear the murmur of muffled voices through the closed door.
