I step away from her and go to the shed door, peering outside to make sure none of the other girls are nearby before I close it. After a deep breath, I turn around to face her again.
And then I open the cut and let the guilty blood flow.
“Youknow Mr. Brophy? The man who I told you owns the grocery store?”
She raises an eyebrow. “The guy that sent the cops for the wellness check, yeah.”
“That guy,” I say. “Even before that, I guess he’d been asking questions. Out of concern, I think, and then he caught me stealing and sent the police to check in. That put you, me, Poppy, and Zinnia at risk.”
I’m trying to justify myself, trying to explain before I tell her what I’ve done.
Rose doesn’t say anything. Her face doesn’t show any expression as she leans back against the shelves, hands shoved into the front pocket of the same oversized red hoodie she arrived in months ago.
Again I find myself wishing my hair was still long, this time so that I could fiddle with it, giving my shaky hands something to do other than hang awkwardly at my sides. “We’re all underage. If the police knew we were here, they’d take us away. Send you guys back to your homes or put us in foster care, and who knows what would happen there? Sol’s told me so many horror stories about how that works and the people we could end up with.”
Rose frowns. “Yeah. I get that. But what does that have to do with where you went the other night?”
Iwrap my arms around myself, pressing my palms against my ribs. “Sol wanted me to distract Mr. Brophy. Give him something else to focus on so he would leave us alone. So I …” I take in a nervous breath. “I set a fire in his store.”
She blinks at me, like she’s sure she misheard. “You what?”
I don’t answer. I can’t bring myself to say it twice. Instead I nod, a silent affirmation that she heard me correctly.
Her eyes go wide. She stares at me like that for what feels like an eternity. But, finally, she shakes her head. “Well, I wasnotexpecting that. You set the store on fire?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I just told you,” I say. “Because Sol said we needed to keep him focused on something else so that he’d leave us alone, and—”
“So Sol told you to do it?”
I nod. “I’ve been doing these trials,” I explain, because if I’m going to share this much, I might as well share it all. “Because I’ve been here a year. It’s sort of the culmination of my Growth Sessions. It started with my hair, and then this. I … Rose, it was to protect all of us. To protectyou.”
Rose goes quiet again. I can see thoughts forming behind her green eyes, but the rest of her face is a mask. In the tense silence,I reach again for something positive. Something that will make this better somehow. The wound is ripped open, the blood shed, and now I’m desperate for her to help me bandage it.
“That’s why we have food again. Sol and I took as much as we could before I …”
I trail off, silenced by the shift in Rose’s expression. The blank neutrality has turned cold. “Please tell me you’re joking,” she says.
Her voice gives away more than her face does. I can hear the sharp edge of anger there and, beneath that, something else. Something worse.
Fear.
Slowly, I shake my head. My heart sinks into my churning stomach. I will not find healing here. Rose isn’t going to comfort me. She’s not going to tell me that I did the right thing. I’ve betrayed Sol for nothing.
“And Sol asked you to do that?” she demands. “And he’s the reason you shaved your head?”
“Yes, but—”
“That’sinsane, Iris. You realize that, right? That him asking you to do that is messed up?”
“It was to keep you all safe,” I say, words coming out more like a plea than an explanation. “I had to do it.”
“No,you didn’thaveto,” Rose argues. “You had a choice. You’ve always got a choice. You could’ve said no.”
“He would have made me leave. If I don’t do my trials, I can’t stay here.”
