Shoving his hands in his pockets, he rubbed his cheek on his shoulder. "So you think I should listen to her?"
"No, you should listen to me."
Adam’s hastily constructed smile was thin enough to break. "And what do you say?"
Blue was suddenly afraid for him. "Keep being brave."
There was blood everywhere.
Are you happy now, Adam? Ronan snarled. He knelt beside Gansey, who convulsed in the dirt. Blue stared at Adam, and the horror in her face was the worst thing. It was his fault. Ronan’s face was wild with loss. Is this what you wanted?
At first, when Adam opened his eyes from the gory dream, his limbs tingling from the adrenaline of it, he wasn’t sure where he was. He felt like he levitated; the space around him was all wrong, too little light, too much space overhead, no sound of his breath coming back at him from the walls.
Then he remembered where he was, in Noah’s room with its close walls and soaring ceilings. A new wave of misery washed over him, and he could identify its source very precisely: homesickness. For uncountable minutes, Adam lay there awake, reasoning with himself. Logically, Adam knew that he had nothing to miss, that he effectively had Stockholm syndrome, identifying with his captors, considering it a kindness when his father didn’t hit him. Objectively, he knew that he was abused. He knew the damage went deeper than any bruise he’d ever worn to school. He could endlessly dissect his reactions, doubt his emotions, wonder if he, too, would grow up to hit his own kid.
But lying in the black of the night, all he could think was, My mother will never speak to me again. I’m homeless.
The specter of Glendower and the ley line hung in Adam’s mind. They seemed closer than ever before, but the possibility of a successful outcome also felt more tenuous than ever before. Whelk was out there, and he’d been searching for this for even longer than Gansey. Surely, left to his own devices, he’d find what he wanted sooner than they would.
We need to wake up the ley line.
Adam’s head was a jumble of thoughts: the last time his father had hit him, the Pig pulling up beside him with Gansey inside, Ronan’s doppelganger at the cash register on that day when he decided he must go to Aglionby, Ronan’s fist slamming into his father’s face. He was full of so many wants, too many to prioritize, and so they all felt desperate. To not have to work so many hours, to get into a good college, to look right in a tie, to not still be hungry after eating the thin sandwich he’d brought to work, to drive the shiny Audi that Gansey had stopped to look at with him once after school, to go home, to have hit his father himself, to own an apartment with granite countertops and a television bigger than Gansey’s desk, to belong somewhere, to go home, to go home, to go home.
If they woke the ley line, if they found Glendower, he could still have those things. Most of them.
But again, he saw Gansey’s wounded form, and he saw, too, Gansey’s wounded face from earlier today, when they’d fought. There just wasn’t a way that Adam would put Gansey in peril.
But there also wasn’t any way that he was going to let Whelk slide in and take what they’d worked so hard for. Wait! Gansey could always afford to wait. Adam couldn’t.
He was decided, then. Creeping quietly around the room, Adam put things in his bag. It was hard to predict what he would need. Adam slid the gun from beneath the bed and looked at it for a long moment, a black, sinister shape on the floorboards. Earlier, Gansey had seen him unpacking it.
"What’s that?" he’d demanded, horrified.
"You know what it is," Adam had replied. It was Adam’s father’s gun, and though he wasn’t sure his father would ever use it on his mother, he wasn’t taking the chance.
Gansey’s anxiety over the gun had been palpable. It was possible, Adam thought, that it was because of Whelk sticking one in his face. "I don’t want it in here."
"I can’t sell it," Adam had said. "I already thought of that. But I can’t, legally. It’s registered in his name."
"Surely there’s a way to get rid of it. Bury it."
"And have some kid find it?"
"I don’t want it in here."
"I’ll find a way to get rid of it," Adam had promised. "But I can’t leave it there. Not now."
Adam didn’t want to bring it along with him tonight, not really.
But he didn’t know what he’d need to sacrifice.
He checked the safety and put it in the bag. Climbing to his feet, he turned toward the door and just managed to stifle a sound. Noah stood directly in front of him, hollow eyes on level with Adam’s eyes, smashed cheek on level with Adam’s ruined ear, breathless mouth inches from Adam’s sucked-in breath.
Without Blue there to make him stronger, without Gansey there to make him human, without Ronan there to make him belong, Noah was a frightening thing.
"Don’t throw it away," Noah whispered.
"I’m trying not to," Adam replied, picking up his messenger bag. The gun in it made it feel unnaturally weighted. I checked the safety, didn’t I? I did. I know I did.
When he straightened, Noah was already gone. Adam walked through the black, frigid air where he had just been and opened the door. Gansey was crumpled on his bed, earbuds in, eyes closed. Even with the hearing gone in his left ear, Adam could hear the tinny sound of the music, whatever Gansey had played in order to keep himself company, to lure himself to sleep.
I’m not betraying him, Adam thought. We’re still doing this together. Only, when I come back, we’ll be equals.
His friend didn’t stir as he let himself out of the door. As he left, the only sound he heard was the whisper of the night wind through the trees of Henrietta.
Chapter 42