I pulled the flask from my back pocket and handed it to him.
“Come on.” We had a schedule to keep.
“Pray tell, Tom,” Gertie said. “What might you need an interventionfor?”
He took a drink, scowled. “This cocktail needs an intervention.”
“One must sip carefully from Jessica’s concoctions,” Gertie said.
“You guys don’t have to worry about me,” he said. “I’m going to ace my midterms and crack my roommate. He might not be my best friend yet, but only because he’s never beenanyone’sbest friend!”
As Tom went on, I remembered my seduction of Faraday—a lifetime ago. Manufacturing emotions I didn’t feel became easier with repetition: mirror her words, flatter her ego, smile.
We Mortons were old hands at seduction. Evil lives close to the heart.
But perhaps in imitation were the seeds of care.
“Nice coat, by the way,” Sebastian said to Gertie.
Each square of the quilted fabric had its own pattern, every member of the cult expressing a different flavor of devotion.
“I told the pod about Quilting Day. They wanted one.”
Tom, no fan of needlework, stared at her. “Why?”
We all ignored this heresy, Sebastian guiding us past Main, through the Shakespeare Garden, and back toward the Quad, where I’d taken Peter a year ago tonight. I’d been involved in four murders since then—five, if I counted Xavier’s Hefnd.
“What’s this called, anyway?” Tom asked, after another turn with the flask, another flinch.
“Primal,” I said. Peter had loved it, the night of his first Scream. He’d inhaled the flask and demanded more.
“It’s still the devil’s licorice to me,” Sebastian said, bringing us to a halt at the center of the Quad.
“So what’s this about?” Tom said.
Gertie and I looked at Sebastian. This reunion—the survivors of Uncle Max, and of Mary’s mors curae—had been his idea. The closer we were, the easier it would be for Gertie to guide Tom’s career.
Sebastian glanced at his watch. “I’ve invited you all here to show you a magic trick. Especially you, young Thomas.”
Tom sighed. “You have to call me just Tom now, and also—a magic trick? What the fuck?”
“Prepare to be impressed,” Sebastian said, taking the flask from Gertie.
He took a long swig, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and checked his watch one last time.
Then he unleashed.
Sebastian was a full minute early, but there was nothing bridled about his cry. Not so much a scream as a roar—exalted, triumphant, challenging the world to stop him. It echoed against the brick facades surrounding us, lofting and fading into the cold, mercifully clear air.
A few seconds later, it was answered by a chorus of yells, yelps, shouts, ululations, cries, and finally the flickering lights of Main.
Even Gertie joined in.
Tom put his hands over his ears, saying something I couldn’t hear. Sebastian screamed louder, his eyes on me.
Without decision, without expecting to, I opened my mouth and joined them—raw, rampant, anguished, destroyed—at last letting myself connect to the students of Helshire, that huge trembling organism of longing, fear, and effort.
I cried out for Peter and Hiromi and Crystal. I screamed at Faraday and Grandmother and Uncle Max and my mother and Veronica—everyone who’d turned me into a broken monster. I roared my hopes of becoming something else. Still broken, perhaps, but not a monster.
