Page 72 of The Same Backward as Forward

Hannah the Same Backward as Forward fixes me with a look that could cut glass. “I don’t know. I try not to say much.”

Hannah, O Hannah.She is unflappable. She is Hannah, through and through.

“How’s that working out for you?” I manage to quip.

“Just fine. Get in bed.” She crosses the room, exchanging a single glance with Jackson before her hands slide around my body, and together, they lower me back onto the mattress.

I don’t even fight it. “Far be it from me to turn down an invitation from a pretty woman,” I say, knowing it will get a rise out of her, “especially when it involves a bed.”

The flash in her eyes is everything I hoped for, but it’s not enough to make me forget that I am helpless and weak and trapped—in this body, in this agony, in this place.

And a voice in my memory says,You did this to yourself.

“You deal with this,” Jackson practically spits at Hannah. He storms out. Hannah follows him as far as the threshold, but she does not leave.

Lying on my back, adrift in pain, I don’t even hear the words the two of them exchange. All I can think is:Hannah came back. Hannah is here.There are still games to play, still mysteries to solve.

Whoever I am—to her—she cannot stay away.

I don’t want to think about myself, about my dreams, but I’m starting to believe that I might not be able to solve Hannah without knowing who I am and why she hates me so very much. I think about the stone room. I think about the cliff in my other dream—and everything that came after.The chamber. A torch. A bone in my hand.COMPLICIT.

The next thing I know, Hannah is standing over me. Tears carve tracks down my cheeks. I don’t know if they are the result of pain or the fact that she is here, but Idoknow that the one thing I do not want from Hannah is her pity.

She tends to me, methodically and dispassionately, checking for any damage I might have done to myself thrashing against Jackson’s hold. It is a relief to see the neutral expression on her face, to know that Hannah the Same Backward as Forward willneverfeel pity for me.

“I guess that’s it, then,” I say. “I’m your captive for a little longer.”

“Trust me,” she says, “the second you’re well enough for us to move you, I will very happily dump you three hundred miles away and leave you to fend for yourself.”

The strength of her distaste for me gives me something to hold on to.

“Oddly enough, Idotrust you. I must be a masochist that way.” I wait for her to reply, but she doesn’t. “Why three hundred miles?” I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to know. But…

See a mystery, solve it. See a wall, tear it down.

“There are people who want you dead,” Hannah says flatly, “and right now, all of them think you already are.”

She stays. She reads the grocery list I wrote for her on that single, hard-won piece of paper.

Bourbonbecause I need some and because asking her for it makes her glare at me.

Andlemonsbecause I know more than any person should about invisible ink.

I hear footsteps outside.Jackson.Dread builds inside me. Hannah is going to leave, and I can’t shake the feeling that the hand I’ve played is not enough, that I need to give her more to puzzle over, something that will make her think of me even a fraction as often and as obsessively as I think of her.

Poetry.I have no idea where it comes from or why, to my ears, it has the ring of a prophecy.“I was angry with my friend; I told my wrath, my wrath did end.”The poet’s name escapes me. I think instead about the fact that I am not, by any measure, Hannah’s friend.“I was angry with my foe. I told it not, my wrath did grow.”

There’s an undertone in Hannah’s voice when she replies: “I don’t understand.” She hates me. I am the object of her wrath, but she will keep coming back.

I need her to keep coming back.

“I would wager, my little liar,” I say, the words reverberating through the aching, empty parts of me, “that you do.”

Chapter 9

Around the time the fever hits, I start playing a new game. It’s called Putting the Pieces Together. Once I have, maybe I can finally make the pain stop. I just need to solve her first, this girl who is careful but never fearful, who would prefer others look through her. And yet, if you catch her gaze, she will do everything in her power not to show weakness.

Because she can’t afford to.