All Ronan had to do was go to class, do the reading, get the grade. And then he was free and he had his money from Declan and he could do whatever the hell he wanted.
Gansey checked his phone. No signal. He wanted to talk to Adam.
The breeze through the open window scented the interior of the car with leaves and water, growing things and secret things. More than anything, Gansey wanted to spend more time in Cabeswater, but class would take up much of the coming week — there could be no cutting for either of them after the talk with Pinter — and after school, he had to drag Ronan through his homework. The world was opening up in front of Gansey and Noah needed him and Glendower seemed like a possibility again, and instead of going out there and seizing the chance, Gansey had to babysit. Damn Ronan.
The light turned green. Gansey punched the accelerator so hard that the tires squealed and smoked. The Pig exploded off the line. Damn Ronan. Gansey punched his way through the gears, fast, fast, fast. The engine drowned out the pound of his heart. Damn Ronan. The needle climbed on the speedometer, touched the red warning area.
Gansey hit the speed limit. The car had plenty more. The engine did well in this cool air and it was fast and uncomplicated and he wanted badly to see what would happen in the rest of the gears.
He checked himself, heaving a ragged sigh.
If he’d been Ronan, he would’ve kept going. The thing about Ronan was that he had no limits, no fears, no boundaries. If Gansey had been Ronan, he would’ve crushed the gas pedal to the floor until the road or a cop or a tree stopped him. He would cut class tomorrow to go see the forest. He’d tell Ronan it was his problem that he was getting expelled, if he would have cared about him at all.
Gansey didn’t know how to be that person.
Beneath him, the Camaro abruptly shuddered. Gansey let off the gas and stared at all of the badly lit gauges, but nothing stood out to him. A moment later, the car shuddered again and Gansey knew he was done for.
He just had time to find a fairly flat place to pull off when the engine went dead, just as it had on St. Mark’s Day. As he coasted off the abandoned road, he tried the key, but there was nothing.
Gansey allowed himself the meager pleasure of a breathed-out swear word, the very worst he had knowledge of, and then he climbed out of the car and opened the hood. Adam had taught him the basics: changing spark plus, draining oil. If there had been a belt hanging loose or a newly jagged hose end jutting from the bowels of the car, he might have been able to fix it. As it was, the engine was an enigma.
He removed his phone from his back pocket and discovered that he had merely a sliver of reception. Enough to taunt him, but not enough to place a call. Gansey walked around the car a few times, his phone held above his head like Lady Liberty. Nothing.
Somewhat bitterly, Gansey recalled his father’s suggestion that he take the Suburban back.
He wasn’t certain how much distance he’d covered since the gas station at the light, but it felt like he must be closer to the edge of Henrietta. If he started to walk toward town, he might get reception before he found a gas station. Maybe he should just stay put. Sometimes, when the Pig stopped, it would start working again after the engine had cooled down a little.
But he was too restless to sit.
He had barely finished locking the car, however, when headlights pulled in behind the Camaro, blinding him. Turning his face away, Gansey heard a car door slam and footsteps crunch in the loose fill by the highway.
For a blink, the figure in front of him was unfamiliar, a homunculus instead of a man. Then Gansey recognized him.
He said, "Mr. Whelk?"
Barrington Whelk wore a dark-colored jacket and running shoes, and there was something strange and intense about the oversized features of his face. It was as if he needed to ask a question but couldn’t find the words.
He didn’t ask "car trouble?" or "Mr. Gansey?" or any of the things Gansey thought he might say.
Instead, he licked his lips and said, "I want that book of yours. And you’d better give me your cell phone, too."
Gansey thought he must have misheard. He asked, "Excuse me?"
Whelk produced a small, impossibly real-looking handgun from the pocket of his dark jacket. "That book you bring to class. And your cell phone. Hurry up."
It was somehow difficult to process the fact of the gun. It was hard to go from the idea that Barrington Whelk was creepy in a way that was entertaining to joke about with Ronan and Adam to the idea that Barrington Whelk had a gun and was pointing it at Gansey.
"Well." Gansey blinked. "Okay."
There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. He preferred his life to nearly all of his possessions, with the possible exception of the Camaro, and Whelk hadn’t asked for that. Gansey handed his cell phone to Whelk.
"My journal’s in the car," he explained.
"Get it." Whelk pointed the pistol at Gansey’s face.
Gansey unlocked the Camaro.
The last time he had seen Whelk, he’d been turning in a quiz about fourth declension Latin nouns.
"Don’t think about trying to take off in that," Whelk said.
It hadn’t occurred to Gansey that if the Camaro had been operating properly, fleeing would’ve been an option.
"I also want to know where you’ve been going this week," Whelk said.
"Pardon?" Gansey asked politely. He had been rummaging in the backseat for the journal, and the crinkling papers had drowned Whelk’s voice out.
"Don’t push me," Whelk snapped. "The police called the school. I can’t believe it. After seven years. Now there’s going to be a million questions. It’s only going to take them two seconds to answer a lot of those questions with my name. This is all on you. Seven years and I thought I was — I’m screwed. You’ve screwed me."
As Gansey emerged from the Camaro, his journal in his hands, he realized what Whelk was saying: Noah. This man in front of him had killed Noah.
Gansey was beginning to feel something somewhere in his gut. It still didn’t feel like fear. It was something strung out like a rope bridge, barely supporting weight. It was the suspicion that nothing else in Gansey’s life had ever been real except for this moment.
"Mr. Whelk —"
"Tell me where you’ve you been."
"Up the mountains near Nethers," Gansey said, his voice remote. It was the truth, and in any case, it didn’t matter if he lied or not; he’d entered the GPS coordinates into the journal he was about to hand over.