Death Touch novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Roof

Trina found me at the window that night and refused to let me stay there.

"Up," she said. "Roof."

"I can't go on the roof."

"You can't touch me. You can climb a ladder. I stole cake."

She held up a foil package.

"Chocolate. Mess hall. I did a crime for you."

I followed her out the fire escape and up a rusted ladder, my gloves catching on the rungs.

The roof of the staff wing was flat tar and gravel, with the whole Montana sky laid over it.

I had never seen so many stars.

Trina sat cross-legged six feet from me and ripped the foil open with her teeth.

"Forks." She produced two plastic ones. "I'll put yours on the ledge. I'm not scared of you, I'm just practical."

"Everyone's scared of me."

"Everyone's scared of Talmadge's father. You scare them on a different level."

She stuffed cake in her mouth.

"They'll get over it. People get over everything if there's a better rumor."

I ate cake with a fork off a cold ledge, and it was the best thing I had ever tasted.

I told her about the lab, a little.

I told her I had a hundred and four lab numbers memorized and no birthday cake memories.

She told me about her mother in Tulsa and her four brothers and the time she got a goat stuck in a school bus.

I laughed so hard I got the hiccups.

"Who's the hot sergeant?" she asked casually.

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