Midmorning

viii. eleven days

I hadn't forgotten about him.

After the match, the Slytherins were sick on their defeat. Not so ill that they hung their heads, but when we passed them in the halls, they kept low, ashen voices, if there was any conversation in the air at all.

Tom had come across them, mouthing words of either mockery or overcast consolation. I studied his face long enough, but still couldn't tell—and definitely studied too long when he caught my stare, eyes racing up and down and I remembered what I must've looked like: freshly pooled tears, red blotching my face. He didn't pity me because killers didn't but if I hadn't known better, he looked humane.

'I'm going to the library,' I spoke quietly as to not ruin Wren's mood, wrenching myself from the crowd and passing Tom on my way, eyes locking for the milliseconds I spent within his radius before I was gone.

Which brought me to now. I'd stayed in the library for hours, and I returned the day after. My mind was stuck on the chamber, all its pillars, walls, bones, flesh. I'd brought my sketchbook and prised a worn pencil from my inner blazer pocket, drawing Slytherin's grand statue—but then remembered I was drawing a dead man and thought it better to draw a skull, edges of the rough idea coarse; I replicated the snake pouring out of Slytherin's mouth, the image impressed into my memory as well as onto the page before me.

'What's this?'

I started at Tom's voice on my neck.

'It's nothing, I'm just doodling.'

'Appears too particular for a doodle,' he noted because he knew when I lied, 'You're very talented.'

I scoffed. 'Thank you.' I still didn't look at him, slicing in the serpent's sharp teeth.

We sat in the same detention-silence as he just watched me draw, leaving me undisturbed but not alone. I'd have thought sitting next to someone so dangerous would've amplified my anxiety, but with the given situation, it rested a mystifying kind of comfort, the way you feel too hot for a blanket but desire the cushion of its weight. It was a soothing reminder of my expiry. Someone like Wren would've fled.

He severed the silence.

'Briar?'

'Yes?'

'Can you do something for me?'

I couldn't imagine how many other girls he'd spoken to like this, in the voice they wanted to be spoken to, the voice that finally found the roll and bass they liked to hear and was practised until he could use it anywhere, for anything: can you do something for me, Allie, Carmen, Lana, Briar? You'll listen to me because I'll listen to you, I'll give you what you want, even death. So, can you do something for me?

He read my mind. 'I've hardly spoken.'

'I have the right to be angry.'

'We still have our challenge in place,' he said, 'So allow me.'

Finally, I looked at him, sarcasm washing my features. His good looks were wasted. 'What do you want me to do, Tom?'

He returned the same derision. 'I want you to write me a list.'

I studied him carefully. 'Consisting of?'

'Things you've never done, but want to do.'

I skimmed a finger around the outline of my ébauche as my mother would call it. 'People who don't want to die usually write those to distract themselves from the fact that they will,' I told him, 'Like reincarnation. They like to think they'll come back because they're too afraid of saying goodbye—now, if they have that list and believe in reincarnation'—I looked back at him—'it means they're so scared of death they'll do anything to live again.'

He let a smirk grace his face. 'And you think I believe in reincarnation?'

'Oh, no,' I said, 'You're more scared of death than that. You're so scared that you won't even let yourself die.'

To demonstrate, I flipped the page in my sketchbook, drawing a line. 'Here, on this end, is me,' I said, writing my name on the tail of the left, 'And on this end is you.' And I wrote his name on the opposing end, pressing so hard that the graphite glistened. I then wrote a title at the top: The Suicide Scale. Some levity to save face.

'See, you're here because I'm pretty certain you want to be immortal,' I said, 'You can correct me if I'm wrong, but hear my theory first.'

He sucked his teeth. 'It seems I don't have much choice.'

'So,' And I'd never been so excited to speak to a serial killer, 'I figured that taking lives must mean you enjoy playing God. You like the idea of taking and giving life—which is what you did on the night you could've taken mine. But you saved it. Not because you wanted to save me—you'd never have the mind of God—but because you could. I can only imagine that someone like that would either be here'—I pointed to my end—'leading to a very quick self-inflicted demise right after their killings, or here'—I pointed to his end—'wanting to continue their noble work until time gives up on them.'

Tom raised his brows, nodded, drank my every word. He knew I could speak them aloud because I had nothing to lose. I silently asked him if I was anywhere close to the truth, to which he said, 'You're not even halfway there.'

'Quarter way, then?'

'Don't be irritating.'

'Don't call me irritating.'

'I don't take demands.'

His voice pierced me then, killing the debate.

'Write the list.' I hadn't noticed how warm Tom's presence was until he pulled away. 'Obey, and I'll do what you ask of me.' Kill you. I'll kill you. I'll grant you death. But our conversation is in earshot so I'll make it sound like I'll write an essay for you, take the pressure off, not your life.

'I will,' I said the way a child may say yes, I'll do the dishes. If I get that toy you promised, I'll do it.

If you kill me, I'll do it.