“Gave them my backup phone. I always keep it on me,” Anwar replied quietly, shivering again when he felt Bilal’s warm breath on his skin. The fencer breathed out a laugh. Nothing about that response would’ve shocked Bilal. Anwar had been obsessed with Gillian Flynn and Ian Fleming novels his entire life, and was somewhat convinced that he could be the star in his own potential high-octane thriller scenario.
“Of course you do,” Bilal said, amused, and then he brought his head up once again, but this time it was Anwar who eagerly closed the gap between them.
Like before, Bilal held Anwar close, kissing him and holding him like his life depended on it.
It felt like Anwar was in a dream, one he was terrified to wake up from. It was as though the events of the past twenty-four hours had rewound the clock, to a time before when they were still together, and things were still good between them and the world. This felt like the worst lie of them all.
It is a lie, the angel on his shoulder finally hissed in agreement.You and Bilal are over. Mr. Button is dead. All is not well in the world.
Anwar felt a pang in his chest. He couldn’t keep dreaming. He knew that you had to wake up from them eventually. It wasn’t smart to stay deluded.
He drew back again and whispered, “Billy?”
Bilal responded with the same gentleness with which he held him. “Yeah?”
Anwar felt his senses slowly returning as he remembered the other reason he hadn’t left the Manor yet. The reason that had been weighing on him for several hours now.
“We need to talk,” Anwar said.
He could see Bilal’s defenses going up, could see the panic rising behind the boy’s eyes.
“About the Prodigy Ball,” he continued, and when he felt Bilal’s muscles tense around him, he quickly added, “I think I saw something last night… something I couldn’t tell the police or anyone about, because I didn’t know what the consequences would be. But I’m scared that not saying anything would be worse than saying something at this point.”
Bilal sat up, suddenly on high alert, his eyebrows bunching together. “What… what did you see?”
“I, uh… got lost looking for the bathrooms on the yacht, this was a little while before the award was announced. I ended up on the lower deck, near what I guess was your dad’s office or something? I knew I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I couldn’t find my way out. Anyway, your dad, he was talking to someone—your sister, I think. They were arguing, and she said… she said she wished he was dead.”
“My sister?” Bilal repeated in disbelief.
“Yes,” Anwar said. “I saw her through the glass pane in the door to your father’s office. They were talking and she seemed really upset about something and yelled at him. I didn’t want to tell the police in case your sister would get in trouble over nothing… People have fights with their parents all the time, I told myself… but I don’t know, I keep thinking, what if not saying anything at all was worse than saying something?”
“Which sister?” Bilal asked. Anwar could feel the fencer’s erratic pulse.
Anwar hesitated. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt him.
“Which sister?” Bilal repeated.
Anwar pushed himself up and looked straight into his ex-boyfriend’s wounded eyes. “Perdita.”
4:05P.M.—THE BUTTON MANOR
“I’m telling you, there’s something she isn’t saying,” Fola whispered to Octavius.
The two siblings were at the edge of the slowly emptying drawing room as more guests were sent home. The west wing bell had just finished ringing and was now dangling from one of the foyer’s walls. The bell was usually used to signal when breakfast, lunch, and dinner were ready, not when it was time to release more murder suspects.
The bell had been rung so many times in the last two hours, Octavius’s erratic heartbeat hadn’t had a chance to settle down once. He wasn’t sure he could ever hear that bell again and think of anything else but death.
“How do you know she’s hiding something?” Octavius questioned as they stood side by side watching the remaining guests, who were concentrated in the center of the drawing room.
There was an agitated boy seated on the ground nearby thumbing a Rubik’s Cube; a girl and her mother a few paces away having a semi-hushed argument, the mother saying something about wanting to call the family lawyer; and a trio of prodigies looking at them disdainfully.
Earlier the guests had seemed to be a lot nicer, some even came up to them to offer their condolences, but as the clock ticked on, people were becoming less patient and less sympathetic. A few guests were now giving them funny looks… like they blamed Octavius and his sister for them being trapped in here.
Octavius looked away quickly, his heart rattling a little more than it had before. Fola didn’t seem to notice.
“I know she’s hiding something because I can feel it,” Fola stated.
“You canfeelit?” Octavius said.
