“Without a court order,” Rafe says, “they can’t enforce it. Yet. Acheron retains excellent legal counsel. They’ve gotten students out of scrapes you wouldn’t believe. Of course, you would have to be enrolled to avail yourself of their services.”
Dez shakes her head. “I can’t leave my family.” She doesn’t know where Acheron is, but if it’s outside this hospital, it’s too far from Mo. “Where did you say the school is?”
“Nestled in the Sawatch range near the summit of the Colorado Rockies. About as far away from Death Valley as you can get. People find it quite scenic.”
He’s got to be kidding. This whole thing, an odd joke. Even if her brother wasn’t in the ICU, how would she get to Colorado by tomorrow?
She shakes her head. “My brother—”
“What’s your brother’s name?”
“Moses. Mo.”
“Don’t you think Mo would want you to accept? Anyone who loves you would want you to seize this opportunity.”
“Maybe next semester.”
Rafe laughs again. “There won’t be an opening next semester. This spot will be filled by midnight. If you’re not taking it, I have others to notify. People die for this.”
He pulls out a card from his wallet and hands it to her. “Here’s where I’ll be at midnight. If you’re in, meet me there. If not …” He glances around their surroundings. “Well, we’ll always have this shitty roof.”
IN THE HOSPITAL WAITING ROOM, Dez reads the Acheron acceptance letter for the hundredth time. It holds words she’s dreamed about reading—It is with great pleasure … full tuition … state-of-the-art facilities … unparalleled opportunities—but it makes her uneasy. She’s never heard of Acheron. Has no idea how they got their hands onGlimpse. And Rafe’s answers seemed more designed to confuse than clarify. Dez has always wanted to be seen, even chosen for her work, but now that it’s happening, she finds it hard to trust.
There’s a new desire rising within her, something she’s never felt before: the urge to disappear. It’s the opposite of wanting to be recognized for her art. Ever since she hurt Mo, what Dez really wants is to run away.
She reloads the Acheron website on her phone. The simple landing page bears the school’s coat of arms, the wordAcheron… and nothing else. No information about its founding date or founder. She checks Reddit and the film school Wiki page and finds only one reference to Acheron, a link to a comment on an obscure blog from three years ago saying the author had been selected but wasn’t surewhether to accept. There are two comments. One says:You’re set!The other reads,Run.
Run. The meaning on the blog is ambiguous, but as a sign to Dez it couldn’t be clearer. Her heart thrums with anxiety.Run because they think you did it. Run because this could be your only chance.
Her mom’s gone to talk to the receptionist again, but she left her purse on the coffee table. Dez knows what she keeps in there. She finds the bottle of Xanax, twists the cap. She swallows one, and then, gauging the diameter of the orange tinted bottle, she gets a strange idea. She spills the pills out into the cavity of her mom’s purse, then takes off her Dairy Barn apron, and feels the eye within. It’s still slimy, still somehow vilelywarm. She gags, her mind barely forcing back the flashback.
She hates this eye. She needs it, too, if not today then at some point when it comes down to proving her innocence. Her heart pounds. With a glance around the room, she slides the eye into the pill bottle where it fits like a glove. She pockets the bottle, throws her apron in the trash, and zips up the purse just as her mom returns, sinking into a chair one away from Dez, not next to her.
“Anything?” Dez says, feeling the Xanax do its lovely work. Her chest loosens for the first time after so many thousand caged breaths.
“Still in surgery. That’s all they’ll tell me. I don’t know how much longer I can wait.”
They’ve been at the hospital now almost twenty-four hours. Dez has less than two hours left before the midnight deadline Rafe gave her on the roof, and she still doesn’t know what to do.
“Can I show you something?” Dez says, and passes the Acheron acceptance letter to her mom.
With red-rimmed eyes, her mother scans it so quickly, Dez knows she’s barely reading.
“It’s your dream,” her mom says vaguely, passing the letter back.
“It starts tomorrow.” In other words: impossible. She’s not even going to get into Rafe de la Cruz with her mom.
“You should go.”
“What?” Dez is stunned.
“You should go, Dez.” Her mom sounds so tired, and she hasn’t once looked Dez in the eye. “We’ve got enough on our hands here.”
Enough, Dez realizes, without having to deal with Dez. Her heart breaks at how much distance she’s put between herself and her mom.
Dez knows she can’t expect her family to give her more right now. But selfishly, she wants someone to be excited about her news—not just trying to get rid of her. She thinks of calling Silas, who’d be thrilled for her, but how could she without telling him about Mo?
Mo is who she really wants to tell. And she’s the reason that can’t happen.
