The Unbound

SIXTEEN

DA NEVER LIKED the word illegal. Semantics. There was no line between legal and illegal, he’d say, only between free and caught.

And I’m caught at the station, handcuffed to a chair next to Detective Kinney’s desk. My fingertips are stained black from ink, and Kinney’s holding up the page with my prints.

“This right here,” he says, waving the sheet, “isn’t just a piece of paper. This is the difference between a clean record and a rap sheet.”

My eyes hover on the ten black smudges. Then he folds the page and slides it into his desk drawer. “This is your one and only warning,” he says. “I’m not going to book you today, but I want you to think about what would happen if I did. I want you to think about the ripple effect. I want you to take this seriously.”

Relief pours over me as I drag my eyes from the drawer to his face. “I promise you, sir, I take it very seriously.”

The detective sits back in his chair and considers the contents of my pockets on the table in front of him. My cell phone. My house key (he left the one around my neck). Da’s lock pick set. And my Archive list. I hold my breath as he takes up the paper, running his thumb against it as his eyes skim the name—Marissa Farrow. 14.—before he drops it back on the desk, face up. He takes up Da’s lock pick set instead.

“Where did you get this?” he asks.

“It was my grandfather’s.”

“Was he a deviant, too?”

I frown. “He was a private eye.”

“What happened to your hands?”

“Street fight,” I say. “Isn’t that what deviants do?”

“Don’t talk back to me, young lady.”

My head is starting to hurt, and I ask for water. While Kinney’s gone, I consider the drawer with the page of prints, but I’m sitting in the middle of a police station, surrounded by cops and cuffed to the chair, so I’m forced to leave it there.

Kinney comes back with a cup of water and the news that my parents are on their way.

Terrific.

“Be glad they’re coming,” scolds Kinney. “If you were my daughter, I’d leave you in a cell for the night.”

“She goes to Hyde, doesn’t she? Amber?”

“You know her?” he asks, his voice gruff.

I hesitate. The last thing I want is for Amber to hear about this incident, especially since I’ll need her case updates more than ever. “It’s a small school,” I say with a shrug.

“Kinney,” calls one of the other officers. He strides toward us.

“Partial prints are back on the Thomson girl’s necklace,” says the officer.

Thomson. That must be Bethany’s last name.

“And?”

“No match.”

Kinney slams his fist on the desk, nearly upsetting the cup of water. I almost feel bad for him. These are cases he’s never going to close, and I can only hope I catch whoever’s doing this before they strike again.

“And the mother’s boyfriend?” asks Kinney under his breath.

“We rechecked the alibi, but it holds water.”

My gaze drifts down to Kinney’s desk. And that’s when I see the second name writing itself on the Archive paper.

Forrest Riggs. 12.

Kinney’s attention is just drifting back to the table when I rattle my handcuff loudly, hoping he reads my panic as natural teenager-in-trouble panic and not don’t-look-at-that-paper panic.

“Sorry,” I say, “but do you think you could take these off before my parents get here? My mom will have a stroke.”

Kinney considers me a moment, then gets up and wanders off, leaving me chained to the seat.

Ten minutes later, Mom and Dad arrive. Mom takes one look at me cuffed to the chair and nearly loses it, but Dad sends her outside, instructing her to call Colleen. Dad doesn’t even look at me while Kinney explains what happened. They talk like I’m not sitting right there.

“I’m not pressing charges, Mr. Bishop, and I’m not booking her. This time.”

“Oh, I assure you, Detective Kinney, this will be the only time.”

“Make sure of it,” says Kinney, unlocking the cuff and pulling me to my feet, his heavy static only making the headache worse. He hands me back my things, and Dad ushers me away before Kinney can change his mind.

I try to wipe the ink from the fingerprint kit on my skirt. It doesn’t come off.

I feel the eyes on me as soon as I’m through the doors and look up expecting to see Eric watching. Instead, I see Sako. She’s on a bench across the street, and her black eyes follow me beneath their fringe. Her gaze is hard to read, but her mouth is smug, almost cruel.

Maybe Eric’s not the one I should be worried about.

My steps have slowed, and Dad gives me a nudge toward the car. Mom’s in the front seat on the phone, but she ends the call as soon as she sees us. Across the street, Sako gets to her feet, and I clear my throat.

“See Dad?” I say, loud enough for her to hear. “I told you it was all just a misunderstanding.”

“Get in the car,” says Dad.

On the way home, I almost wish I could have another tunnel moment, lose time. Instead, I’m aware of every single second of weighted silence. The only sounds in the car are Mom’s heavy sighing and the tap of my phone as I delete the texts I sent to Jason. I can’t erase the prints from Judge Phillip’s kitchen or Bethany’s necklace, and I can’t unsend the texts or unmake the calls, but I can at least minimize the evidence. I whisper a silent apology as I erase his number.

Dad parks the car, and Mom gets out and slams her door, breaking the quiet for an instant before it resettles, following us up the stairs and into our apartment.

Once inside, it shatters.

Mom bursts into tears, and Dad starts to shout.

“What the hell has gotten into you?”

“Dad, it was an accident—”

“No, it was an accident that you got caught. But you broke into a crime scene. I come home and find your schoolbag here and your bike missing, and then I get a call from the police telling me you’ve been arrested!”

“It doesn’t count as an arrest if they don’t process you. It was just a conversation with—”

“Where is this coming from Mackenzie?” pleads my mother.

“I just thought I might be able to help—”

He throws the lock pick set onto the table. “With those?” he growls. “What are you doing with them?”

“They were Da’s—”

“I know who they belonged to, Mackenzie. He was my father! And I won’t have you ending up like him.”

I pull back. If he’d struck me, it would have hurt less.

“But Da was—”

“You don’t know what he was,” snaps Dad, running his hands through his hair. “Antony Bishop was a flake, and a criminal, and a selfish asshole who cared more about his secrets and his many lives than his family. He cheated and he stole and he lied. He only cared about himself, and I’ll be damned if I see you behaving like him.”

“Peter—” says Mom, reaching for him, but he shrugs her off.

“How could you be so selfish, Mackenzie?”

Selfish? Selfish? “I’m just trying to—” I bite back the words before they escape.

I’m just trying to do my job.

I’m just trying to keep everything together.

I’m just trying to stay alive.

“You’re just trying to what? Get kicked out of Hyde? Ruin your future? Honestly, Mac. First your hands, and now—”

“That was a bike accident—”

“Enough,” snaps Dad. “Enough lies.”

“Fine,” I growl, throwing up my hands. “It wasn’t an accident. Do you want to know what really happened?” I shouldn’t be talking, not right now, not when I’m tired and angry, but the words are already spilling out. “I got lost coming back from one of Mom’s errands, and it was getting dark, so I cut through a park, and two guys jumped me.” Mom sucks in a breath, and I look down at my bruised knuckles. “They cut me off…” It feels so strange, telling the truth. “…and forced me off the bike…” I wonder what it would feel like to tell them about my wrist. About Owen and all the different ways he broke me. “…and I didn’t have a choice…”

Mom grabs me by the shoulders, her noise scraping against my bones. “Did they hurt you?”

“No,” I say, holding up my hands. “I hurt them.”

Mom lets go and sinks onto the edge of the couch, her hand to her mouth.

“Why would you lie about that?”

Because it’s easier.

Because it’s what I do.

“Because I didn’t want you to be upset,” I say. “I didn’t want you to feel guilty. I didn’t want you to worry.”

The anger bleeds away, leaving me bone-tired.

“Well, it’s too late for that, Mackenzie,” she says, shaking her head. “I am worried.”

“I know,” I say.

I’m worried, too. Worried I can’t keep doing this. Can’t keep playing all the parts.

My head is pounding, and my hands are shaking, and there are two names on my list, and all I want to do is go to sleep but I can’t because of the boy with the knife waiting in my dreams.

I turn away.

“Where are you going?” asks Dad.

“To take a bath,” I say, vanishing into the bathroom before anyone can stop me.

I find my gaze in the mirror and hold it. Cracks are showing. There’s a glass beside the sink, and I dig a few painkillers out of my medical stash under the counter and wash them down before snapping the water on in the tub.

What a mess, I think as I sink to the tile floor, draw my knees up, and tip my head back against the wall beside the tub, waiting for the bath to fill. I try to count the different things Da would give me hell for—not hearing the cops in time, getting caught, taking a full two days to notice I was being set up—but then again, it sounds like Da wasn’t as good at separating his lives as he thought.

He only cared about himself, and I’ll be damned if I see you behaving like him.

Is that how Dad really saw him? Is that how my parents see me?

The sound of the running water is steady and soothing, and I close my eyes and focus on the shhhhhhhhhhhhh it makes. The steady hush loosens my muscles, clears my cluttered head. And then, threaded through the static, I hear another sound—like metal tapping against porcelain.

I open my eyes to find Owen sitting on the counter, bouncing the tip of his knife against the sink.

“So many lives. So many lies. Aren’t you tired yet?”

“Go away.”

“I think it’s time,” he says, tapping to the rhythm of a clock.

“Time for what?” I ask slowly.

“Time to stop hiding. Time to stop pretending you’re all right.” His smile sharpens. “Time to show them how broken you really are.”

His fingers flex on the knife, and I spring to my feet, bolting for the door as he jumps down from the counter and blocks my path.

“Uh-uh,” he says, wagging the knife from side to side. “I’m not leaving until we show them.”

His knife slides back to his side, and I brace myself for an attack, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he sets the weapon down on the counter, halfway between us. The instant he withdraws his hand, I lunge for the blade; my right hand curls around the hilt, but before I can lift it Owen’s fingers fold over mine, pinning me to the counter. In a blink he’s behind me, his other hand catching my free wrist, wrapping himself around my body. His hands on my hands. His arms on my arms. His chest against my back. His cheek pressed to mine.

“We fit together,” says Owen with a smile.

“Let go of me,” I growl, trying to twist free, but his grip is made of stone.

“You’re not even trying,” he says into my ear. “You’re just going through the motions. Deep down, I know you want them to see,” he says, twisting my empty hand so the wrist faces up. “So show them.”

My sleeve is rolled up, my forearm bare, and I watch as six letters appear, ghostlike on my skin.

B R O K E N

Owen tightens his grip over my knife-wielding hand and brings the tip of the blade to the skin just below the crook of my left elbow, to the top of the ghosted B.

“Stop,” I whisper.

“Look at me.” I lift my gaze to the mirror and find his ice blue eyes in the reflection. “Aren’t you tired, M? Of lying? Of hiding? Of everything?”

Yes.

I don’t know if I think the word or say it, but I feel it, and as I do, a strange peace settles over me. For a moment, it doesn’t feel real. None of it feels real. It’s just a dream. And then Owen smiles and the knife bites down.

The pain is sudden and sharp enough to make me gasp as blood wells and spills over into the blade’s path, and then my vision blurs and I squeeze my eyes shut and grip the counter for balance.

When I open my eyes a second later, Owen is gone, and I’m standing there alone in front of the mirror, but the pain is still there and I look down and realize that I’m bleeding.

A lot.

His knife is gone, and the drinking glass is lying in glittering pieces on the counter, my hand wrapped around the largest shard. Blood runs between my fingers where I’ve gripped it and down my other arm where I’ve carved a single deep line. There’s a rushing in my ears, and I realize it’s the sound of the bathwater shhhhhhhhhhing in the tub, but the tub is overflowing and the floor is soaked, drops of blood staining the shallow water.

Someone is knocking and saying my name, and I have just enough time to drop the shard into the sink before Mom opens the door, sees me, and screams.