“My memories aren’t all there. It’s not just archery—something big is missing, since the crash.”
“Yes,” he said. “I could see that when I walked into your hospital room.”
I didn’t know how to answer. If he’d spotted the change so quickly, maybe they all had. Though Sebastian had always known me best.
We sped up to pass a flatbed trailer full of new and shiny cars. The acceleration pushed me back into my seat, an invisible hand. Sebastian kept up our speed until we were alone again on the dark highway, no other cars in sight.
Then he asked, “Are you sure it was the crash?”
“What else?”
“Your target in New York. You were close to her, right? Those pictures of you two together.”
My hand on Hiromi’s shoulder, in the darkness of some restaurant.
Mixed had been its name. It was gone now too.
“I was closer to Peter.”
“In some ways,” Sebastian said.
All those presents Peter had given me, maggot-cleaned skulls and eggs drained of their fluids. I’d taught him how to wrestle, to throw knives.
I had loved him.
“Why did the blind man fall down the well?”
Sebastian laughed. “Because he couldn’t see that well.”
He remembered the riddle I’d forgotten. But Peter wasmylittle shadow. Every week one summer, he’d brought me bitter lemon, a small sphere rattling against the inside of my teeth.
Hiromi had given me candies too.
“The car crash changed me,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I could live with a brain injury breaking me. But not simply being a Morton—we kill our lovers all the time.
Not lovers:assignments. Prey.
“Most early targets are strangers,” Sebastian said. “And your first two—”
“Because I’m a prodigy.”
He nodded slowly, eyes on the road. “And everything is a test.”
“Yes,” I said.
When Peter had fallen into disfavor, the family had sent me, because I loved him. So who would they send for me?
I had to talk about something else. “Can I ask about your twin?”
Sebastian took a moment, but he nodded.
“Do you remember her?”
“Of course. I lived with Desiree till I was eight, when my parents were arrested. She was born three minutes ahead of me—I was always trying to catch up.”
