Page 52 of Blade

“I heard things after I left. About Indy, of course. But also about you,” she says. “We all knew about your dinner parties with Dawn.”

My heart stops. I thought this was the part of my story I lived alone. In secret. Even from the Orphans. When Dawn would pick me up from down the street. “Don’t tell the others.”

And then the night when there were three place settings, and the light came on from the path to the guest cottage. It was after everyone had left but me. Kayla, Jolene, Indy. I was the last Orphan. I thought no one knew.

“Coach Emile is joining us for dinner.”

My God, how many hours I’ve spent deconstructing the time I spent at the house on the mountain. The fifth light along the access road. And that one night—when Emile joined us.

And right then, as this memory flashes, Kayla looks me dead in the eye.

“I know you came here to see if I could have killed him.”

And then:

“The truth is, Ana—the only person I know who might want Emile dead—is you.”

Chapter Nineteen

Excerpt from Testimony of Dr. Gerard Westin

Ada Olson: When did you learn about Indy’s injury?

Dr. Westin: The bruise?

Ada Olson: Yes. You were seeing her twice a week, correct? For the Fear Training?

Dr. Westin: Ha! I always found that amusing—a term of endearment really. It was just sports conditioning. And yes, I knew about the bruise.

Ada Olson: What did you do to help, if anything?

Dr. Westin: I told her to get the rotation. If she could get the rotation, she could land the jump.

Ada Olson: So you told her to keep injuring herself?

Dr. Westin: No—that’s not what I said. You don’t understand how it works. Athletes fall down, and it hurts, but they get back up. It’s a valuable life lesson. And with Indy, the psychologywas even more complicated. I believed she was holding back on purpose. That as much as she said she wanted to go home, she didn’t want Dawn to claim a victory—or her mother for that matter. It was a deep inner conflict.

Ada Olson: You believed that she was falling on purpose? To be defiant?

Dr. Westin: Oh yes. I think her subconscious defiance toward Dawn and her mother was holding her back from getting the height she needed.

Ada Olson: Are you saying her falling was a form of self-harm?

Dr. Westin: In a way, yes.

Ada Olson: You didn’t see it as Dawn purposefully hurting her?

Dr. Westin: No.

Ada Olson: And the other girls? What about the things Dawn did to them?

Chapter Twenty

Ana

Before—Ten Months at The Palace

Ana kept waiting, but none of the Orphans spoke about it again. That night in the field. The black van. The four boys. The man with the beaded necklace. Not even the bite marks on her neck. She’d hidden them at the rink beneath a black sleeveless turtleneck Indy loaned her, and the rest of the time by wearing her hair down.