“Did you actually do anything for her?” I ask, as Meredith heads into the kitchen to make herself a snack, always keeping us in sight.
“I don’t know,” Jared says. “I was feeling all these good things for her, all my hopes that she wasn’t hurt.” He flexes his hands. “Maybe some of that got into her.”
“Are you getting more powerful?” I ask. “Is that … something that would even happen?”
He just frowns and flops down on the sofa. Mary Magdalene sits on the arm of it, watching him, purring and kneading her paws into the fabric. “You take good care of Meredith, okay?” Jared whispers to her, touching her lightly on the nose. The cat immediately jumps off the couch and starts following Meredith around the kitchen.
“Gas main, huh?” he says to me.
“Don’t get me started,” I say, sitting down next to him. “The question is, what are we going to do about it?”
“What can we do about it? We don’t know what’s going on.”
“Come on, Jared, surely the Gods must know something–”
“Mikey, it doesn’t work like that. Don’t you think I’d be finding out if I could?”
“Finding out what?” Meredith says, scooching up on the couch next to Jared with a plate of cheese and crackers, Mary Magdalene sitting firmly on her feet.
“Finding out what’s really going on, Bite Size,” Jared says, not lying to her either.
Meredith nods seriously. “There’s still hardly anything on the internet. Rumours and theories and indie kids disappearing, but mostly it’s just people monstering other people for thinking it’s vampires again or for not thinking it’s vampires again. Everyone thinks they know better. Everyone.” She eats a cracker. “I think I’m going to give away all my Bolts of Fire stuff.”
“I think I’d want to, too,” Jared says.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” he asks me later, driving us to work after Mel came home from her day out with Call Me Steve. I could have called in sick, but I was getting antsy just sitting around the house. It felt like I was waiting for something to happen. Which has to be the worst part of being young. So many of your decisions aren’t yours; they’re made by other people. Sometimes they’re made badly by other people. Sometimes they’re made by other people who have no idea what the consequences of those decisions might be. The bastards.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“You’re not.”
“I spent an hour brushing my teeth this morning because every time felt like I hadn’t done it right.
Mel finally noticed and got me out of it.”
“See?”
“Jared, we have to do something. Make the indie kids tell us what they know. Or Nathan–”
“Jesus, Mike, would you leave him alone? I told you, he was with me and Henna at the movies.”
“He could still have some part in it. I don’t trust him. Why was he in the Field that time? What’s he doing hanging around my house in the dark?”
“His mom is like the saddest person in the world. I told him we hung around the Field, so maybe he just needed a place to get away. You’re getting obsessive.”
“Of course I am! Have you met me? They could have killed my sisters, Jared. It could have happened right there in front of me.”
“And you,” Jared says, more softly. “They could have killed you, too.”
I look at him, then back out the windshield of his tiny car. “Thanks, man.”