One corner of his mouth lifted then relaxed in a half smile so brief if I'd blinked I would have missed it. “Old habits are hard to break.”
At first I was confused. Old habits?
Then I remembered a thousand and one playdays spent with Hayden and Damon in the woods behind our houses before my family moved closer to the university and Dad's lab: The boys dressed up in plastic armor with shields and helmets and swords left over from Halloween costumes. The feeling of dragging around that old red and gold embroidered comforter their housekeeper Hilda had given me for a robe, wearable only in the fall and winter because of the blanket's thick, hot weight. The way I'd pretended to knight the brothers with one end of a black iron curtain rod-turned-scepter, its one fleur de li-shaped finial adding to the royal illusion, and the lump I'd accidentally given Damon over his right ear from it. How many times had the boys pretended to save me from a nasty dragon or evil wizard so I could join them as a warrior queen and turn that scepter into a wand that wreaked havoc on weeds and imaginary wizards alike?
Then I realized the truth behind what he'd said. Old habits are hard to break. So he'd only saved me from some old childhood habit?
My throat tightened.
Blinking fast, I stared out the passenger window again. “So what were you doing at the protest? Helping out your buddy’s new club?”
He hesitated, then said, “Something like that.”
“What's it called again? Jerks Against Humanity?” I’d only meant to tease him, but my tone came out ruder than planned.
Before I could apologize, he frowned and said, “Not exactly.”
More silence while I waited for him to explain, until it became clear that he wasn't going to. Again. Talking to him was about as enlightening as talking to a fence post.
“So why did you join TAC anyways?” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest to keep from fidgeting.
“I had my reasons.”
“Peer pressure made you do it?”
He snorted. “You're one to talk about peer pressure. Rumor has it you’re doing weird rituals with that emo crowd of yours every weekend in the woods. Since when did you get into all that crap?”
“Crap? It’s not crap! And speaking of doing weird stuff in the woods, rumor has it you’re the expert in that area.”
He froze, even his chest no longer moving with his breathing. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“That night in the woods last summer? With Damon and all those other people? Y'all were doing magic, weren't you?” I didn't bother to give him an opening to lie again. “Gary's older brother was a friend of Damon's. He was there. He died. Gary heard the doctors tell their parents that everyone who died there looked like they'd been hit by a bomb blast or something, but they couldn't tell what the bomb materials were made out of.”
“That doesn't prove anything.”
“Gary talks about it all the time, you know. Most people believe the only way you could have survived that night is if your spells were more powerful than everyone else's there. But there is one detail Gary and the others at school are still divided on.”
“Yeah? What's that?” he said between barely moving lips.
I wasn’t sure why I kept pushing the issue. To distract myself from the fear that was trying to crush my lungs every time I looked at that truck ahead of us with my dad trapped in the back? To hurt Hayden? To finally get the truth out of him about Damon’s death?
Whatever the reason, something made me push on. “Well, some of them have this theory that the normals who died that night showed up in order to attack the ones who were doing a ritual or magic training, and both sides took each other out in some kind of massive blaze of glory or something. Their theory says you were the lone survivor because you were able to use a spell to protect yourself while everyone around you fell. Those are the people who believe you'll use your power to follow in Damon’s footsteps someday.”
"What people...Clann people? Outcasts?"
"Maybe. At least, they think they are."
Silence for several long heartbeats before he muttered, “And the others? What's their theory?”
“The others, Gary included, think you...” But the words didn't want to come out of my mouth. As irritated as I was with his insisting on lying to me, Hayden had once been my best friend. I didn't really want to hurt him. I just wanted the truth.
“Go on,” he muttered.
I took a deep breath. I'd started this. I might as well finish it. “They think you were the only survivor because...because you killed everyone else in the woods that night.”
More silence, in which I could both feel and hear my heartbeat racing in my chest and ears. And that's when I realized just how much learning the truth about that night mattered to me. This wasn’t just some distraction. I wanted to know, needed to know the truth. And yet I was scared to hear the answer.
Most of me said there was no way Hayden could ever hurt, much less kill, seventeen people. At least, not on purpose. And especially not his brother, not for any reason.
But there was this tiny part of me that just wouldn't shut up about how long it had been since I'd ended our friendship. How little I knew about Hayden now. How much a person could change over time, especially once they realized the heady and sometimes addivtive power their abilities gave them. And how accidents could happen when a novice first tried to learn how to use and control their magic.
He glanced sideways at me, his eyebrows pinched together, his eyes completely unreadable. “Which side do you believe?”
I chose my words carefully. “I'd like to believe a former friend of mine could never kill a bunch of people. And especially not his brother. At least, not without one heck of a good reason to.”
“Like?”
“Like maybe self defense. Or it was an accident.”
As I braced for his answer, an awkward silence filled the cab. And this time, Hayden was the only one who could fix it. But his next words weren't what I'd dreaded or hoped to hear.
Hayden
“They're turning off.” I had to work to keep the relief out of my voice. How the heck had we ended up talking about the one subject I'd sworn never to discuss with anyone ever again?
“Should we get closer?” she asked, those probing eyes of hers now thankfully locked on the military truck again.