Sam
The police let Sam identify the body.
She doesn’t want to remember any of it, but her perfect memory mercilessly records every detail, searing the horror forever into her mind.
She spends the rest of the day at the police station, seated before a young, bespectacled detective as he asks her procedural questions.Miss Lang, my name’s Edward Sinclair. Miss Lang, do you know if anyone might have wanted to hurt your mother? Miss Lang, did you see anything suspicious in recent days? Miss Lang, did your mother tell you anything odd?
Numbly, she answers his questions and watches as he plays her the surveillance footage from the grocery store. He tells her the murder itself happened on the side of the building, where there is no tape available.
It’s unfortunately a common occurrence in the city. Perhaps someone thought she would have money on her for a grocery run.
On and on and on. They’ll continue investigating, they’ll keep her updated, they’ll order an autopsy. Sam wants to say aloud,What’s the point?What can an autopsy find? She imagines looking into a hollow chest cavity, searching for the light of her mother’s soul when it can never return.
She knows she should act more attentive, given that Dominique’s death is still under investigation and she should probably watch how she speaks to the police, so she tries her best—but after a while, Edward’s earnest voice blurs into one long train in her mind until she can barely understand him. She should be cautious, but her mother is gone, and she just doesn’t care about anything else anymore.
After they return to the Red City, Will suspects Lumines’s involvement while Diamond floats assigning a task force to find the culprit. Sam hears it all as if underwater. She imagines the room submerged in the ocean, the salt filling the cavities of her nose and mouth and throat, growing heavy in her lungs. The others sit in their positions on the couches, their hair driftingin the current, seemingly unbothered. Sam opens her mouth to scream and bubbles come out in a torrent. The others seem functional, but she is drowning.
“Sam.” She realizes Will is talking to her, his voice quiet and firm. “Did anyone at Lumines know about your mother?”
Sam struggles to focus on his words. She imagines a Lumines operative approaching her mother in the parking lot of that grocery store. Then she remembers Ari. Ari knows her mother’s name.
“Yes,” she whispers, too numb with grief to keep secrets any longer.
“Who?” Will asks.
“Shakespeare.” Her voice is barely audible.
Will tightens his lips, and Sam shakes her head. No. It can’t be him.
But what if it is? What if Ari told Lumines about her mother?
The thought is far too painful for her to bear, makes her sick to her stomach. Her mind is spiraling now, turning any little thought into evidence and creating conclusions that aren’t there.
“Have you been talking to him?” Diamond asks.
Sam’s head hurts. She can’t think straight. “Yes,” she murmurs.
“When?” Diamond says.
“There’s a beach,” Sam hears herself saying. She doesn’t even quite realize that she’s confessing their secret. “We used to meet there as kids.”
Will looks briefly at his mother before turning back to Sam. “Have you met him there recently?”
“Yes. Once. Before the trip to Oxford.”
Will leans toward her. His eyes are impenetrable, his voice flat and dangerous. “And were you supposed to meet him again?” he asks.
“Maybe,” Sam answers numbly. “I don’t know.”
Will looks like he wants to say something else, but a look from Diamond stops him. He stares at Sam, searching her gaze, before he finally straightens. “It’s good you told us.”
At last, Sam retreats to her apartment. She lies down on her bed and watches the light fade against the wall. Outside her open window, she can hear the birds singing their evening song. Eventually, she gets up and closes the window and draws the curtain, so that the tangerine rays of sunset no longer slant across her bed, and her room is shrouded in gray.
It’s good you told us.
Her thoughts spin with Will’s words. She confessed her secret meetings with Ari, but her chest feels empty at her own betrayal, no regret or guilt, just a numbness that threatens to swallow her whole.
Tomorrow is the full moon. She is going to see Ari again, except this time she will be setting a trap—Grand Central will be watching them, ready to take Ari as a hostage.
