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"I am sure," Kami lied, the words bitter between her lips because she could not quite believe them "I a to turn her against me"

Ka to Ash His look created a chilly silence around the to go ho Jared

"Go on," Ash told him "Prove my point If she stayed away from you, she’d be safe"

Jaredthat would have been a lunge if Kami had moved away like she wanted to She didn’t She held her hands up and took a step toward him, and Jared fell back

"I am safe," Kami said, and cast a look over her shoulder at Ash She felt fury wash through her: he could tell anyone in tohat he had tried to tell Kary, though she could not tell if the anger was hers or Jared’s, and that scared her more than the way Jared had come at Ash She looked away from Ash and back at Jared She took another step forward and another, using his desire not to touch her to herd him down that busy corridor

"Jared Lynburn?" said a voice Someone touched his elbow, and they both juast, Kami’s childhood best friend, stood beside Jared and smiled up at him He didn’t move away from her "Just wanted to say welcoiving the aard ex-best-friend nod, and then gave Jared an expectant look

Jared stared at her He had a very distressing sort of stare

Nicola bore it for less than a minute, then clearly remembered she had to be somewhere else with someone not so creepy, and darted off

Jared looked to Kami "Everyone either wants to welcome me with open ar very worrying about your personality," said Kami "But what?" She turned in toward him, and he almost stumbled back into an empty classroom Kami followed him inside The room was filled with desks and chairs knocked awry, and late-afternoon light strea a little wild and completely out of place in her life She wanted to reach out to hiet coht," she said She watched hih her as well, horrible and senseless: she couldn’t stop feeling what he was feeling "I don’t knohat happened, and I have to know Jared--Jared, I’-pale eyes were fixed on her For a moment, she did not knoould respond

Yes, he said in her mind

"I just have to know the truth," Karand while I was at cricket camp You know that I told you that You haven’t told me about this I know you hated your father, and I know that the summer before last was bad, that you weren’t with your parents I know your father’s dead Tell me how he died"

Jared looked at her for another h his hair and looked away The edge of his jaas hard, scar pulled tight over his cheek

"My dad hated us," he said "Me and Mom He hated us all the tih The suave me this scar, and I ran away"

There was no emotion in his voice, stripped clean like flesh from dry bone, but Kami kne he had felt

"I slept on the streets for a few ot sick in the fall, and after I ell I thought about Moht about how I’d left her alone"

"You went back for her," Kami said

Jared’s mouth twisted "I went back," he said "It was late, and he was drunk He didn’t letout in the hall, he was shouting and she was screa, and he--he fell down the stairs Broke his neck"

"Someone pushed him, Ash said" Kami did not add, Just like someone pushed me

"When the police came, Mom said I pushed him She made sure they took aze was defiant, al her not to believe him As if he expected her not to "There was a security cah to have pushed hih to kill him, but I didn’t"

Kami suddenly kne hate like that felt, the cold absoluteness of it "I believe you," she said

His mother had betrayed him He’d come back for her, and she’d sent him to a cell Kami had talked to him when he reached out for her, lonely and desperate, even though she hadn’t knohat she was talking hirandh that had been different, had been an ordinary tragedy, an old wohtmare, she’dto turn ainst you," Kami told him "You can trust me"

There was a flicker of warmth between them, like a match lit

"Come on, Glass," said Jared "I’ll take you ho but the truth She did believe hih to kill him And she knew, could feel the wall in his

Chapter Eleven

The Haunted River

They had to swing by Jared’s locker so he could grab his jacket "A leather jacket," Ka a little too hard to play into certain bad boy clichés?"

"Nah," said Jared "You’re thinking of black leather Black leather’s for bad boys It’s all in the color You wouldn’t think I was a bad boy if I earing a pink leather jacket"

"That’s true," Kami said "What I would think of you, I do not know So what does brown leatherfor ed"

"It’s bits of dead cow; don’t ask it to perforht a spare helain

As he spoke, she reached for him in her mind, and felt the pleasure he felt in his motorbike She could taste soer