I ask Rashid to leave so I can think through what I will say. I tell him I’ll call once I’ve talked to Mandy and she understands what we have to do. It takes me thirty minutes to work up the courage.
When I enter her room, it’s dark. She’s taking a nap. I set the green notebook down next to the bed and crawl under the covers with her.
“Mandy,” I whisper. “We need to talk.”
She lets out a soft groan before turning over. Her purple eyes are luminous in the dark, but I see the red lining her eyes.
“You’ve been crying?”
“Yeah.” She closes her eyes and clenches her fists, her knuckles digging into her eyes as though she could rip the purple away. “I’m trapped now. It was bad enough that my dad even knew where I was, but now I’m trapped here. I can’t even run away.”
“But he can’t get in,” I say.
“Maybe he can. People are protesting. They want to get in so they can get the disease. What if he finds his way in?”
I close my eyes. I have to focus. I have to tell her about Zachary. I hug her under her maroon comforter. I can’t handle the weight of what I need to do and I taste salty tears and watery hiccups.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Missing Danny,” I say, because I’m not ready to get into the Zachary stuff. “I’m worried about us. I’m worried someone will hurt us like they hurt—”
“He just fell,” she says flatly. I stare at Wisey, her stuffed owl in the corner. His plastic yellow eyes look harsh.
“No he didn’t, Mandy. And I think I know who killed him and who is behind this disease.” I let the words breathe in the air before I continue.
She frowns. “Who?”
I swallow. “Zachary.”
I’m stuffed up from crying and can only get air through my dry lips. Mandy’s frozen face and frozen eyes stay fixed for eternity.
Finally, she sits up and moves to the corner of her bed. She hugs her knees and cleans out the dirt from under one of her fingernails with another. “Does Luke think that?”
“No, well, he isn’t sure.” Something shadowy passes in her eyes. I can’t imagine what this would be like to hear. “But Rashid and I, we’ve been looking through some of Zachary’s notes.”
“Rashid?” Mandy says. “Why would you believe Rashid?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I say, getting up from the bed. “Mandy, you’re usually so on top of things, but you’ve got a blind spot for Zachary. Please, just try to see this.” I thrust the notebook at her. She doesn’t open it. She stares. She doesn’t want to confront the truth. Not just about who Zachary is, but what it means about her that she trusted him.
But this is bigger than her. It’s bigger than our friendship.
“You can hate me if you want, but the more we know about whatever is going on with this, the better. I need to do what is right for Danny, and me and you.”
Her eyes wither then boil. “You don’t need to protect me.”
I sigh. “Mandy, listen to me, needing protection doesn’t make you weak. You aren’t your mom, you—”
“Don’t even,” Mandy says, holding a hand up. She presses her fists to her closed eyes. It must be easier for her to think of her mom as a two-dimensional weakling. It’s easier to avoid becoming a two-dimensional weakling than it is to avoid becoming a complex person, with weakness and strength, with a will that was beaten out of her. A woman who trusted the wrong man and paid dearly for it.
But Mandy can’t just stick her fingers in her ears and say lalalala. She trusted Zachary when she shouldn’t have, but she needs to wake up now.
“Mandy, he created this disease and he probably killed Danny to cover it up.”
Mandy shakes her head and swallows.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think Zachary is more dangerous than you realize.”
She looks at the comforter and pulls a thread, spinning it around her wrist. “We’re all a little dangerous.”