The Twin They Erased novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Count

Eamon drove me back to the foot of the tower with the lights off and the engine turned low.

Neither of us said anything for the first mile.

"She'll come after you," he said at last.

"She already has. She's been coming for seven years."

"Eight thousand a month." His hands tightened on the wheel. "That's close to a hundred thousand a year, Willa. Your family pays that to keep you in a room."

"I know the number."

He stopped the truck behind the hedge and turned in his seat.

The moon came through the windshield and lit one side of his face.

I looked at the new stitches in the mirror, and then at him.

"You did good work," I said.

"It'll scar."

"Then I'll have a scar."

He lifted his hand, stopped it short of my face and put it back on the wheel.

I leaned across the seat a little, because I could not help it.

The air between us was warm.

He did not lean away.

"Ward's rule," I said softly. "Don't bleed on the cashier."

His mouth moved, and then he laughed out loud, a short helpless laugh, and put his forehead against the steering wheel.

"That's the worst thing I've ever said to a woman."

"It really is."

"Go home."

"I don't have one," I said, and got out.

I climbed the rope hand over hand with my school shoes around my neck.

The trapdoor was where I had left it, propped on a folded blanket.

I came down into my room and sat on the bed with my heart going hard, and I was still smiling when the pipe coughed.

"You're up," the girl with the cough said. "I heard you on the roof."

"Go back to bed."

"Did you do it? Did you beat her?"

"At cards," I said. "She tore up her note."

The pipe was quiet for a long time.

"There's something you should know," the girl said. "Everyone in the dorm knows it. We thought you did."

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