and my insight. That’s usually how the game’s played.…”
Just then Helen arrived with the coffees. To go. Jazz and Howie snatched theirs up.
“It’s not a game, douche,” Jazz said.
“Yeah, and if it were,” Howie said, “you would seriously suck at it.”
They scooted from the Coff-E-Shop. Jazz shot one last look over his shoulder. Weathers still sat at the table in the window, glaring out at the two of them, his eyes lifeless and burning at the same time. He’d had a glimpse of the world beyond the Nod when Billy was arrested, and would spend the rest of his life doing anything to claw his way back to it.
But he wouldn’t get there by climbing up on Jazz’s shoulders.
Somewhere up the street, a dog barked. Jazz thought of Rusty. Great. An encounter with Doug Weathers and now thinking of Rusty. He knew that this was going to be a bad day.
Sure enough, school was torture.
Jazz wanted nothing more than to get back out to the field. With every hour that passed—with every minute that passed—the field was reverting to its natural state, losing any remaining evidence. If Howie hadn’t lost his nerve last night…
Well, no point thinking about that now. He wanted to get out there and poke around, ideally in the hours before sunrise. To see the field the way the killer had seen it.
But school dragged.
Jazz didn’t like school, but not for the usual teen reasons. He didn’t like school for the same reason that he didn’t like any situation where he was surrounded by people.
“It’s like this,” he’d explained once to Connie. “If someone gave you a single rose, you’d be happy, right?”
They had been sitting in Jazz’s Jeep at the nearby state park. Connie had feigned confusion, peering in the glove compartment, twisting to look in the backseat. “I don’t see a rose. There’s no happiness here.”
“Okay,” he went on, “now imagine someone gives you ten thousand roses.”
“That is a whole lotta roses,” she said. “That’s too much.”
“Right. Too much. But more than that, it makes each individual rose much less special, right? It makes it hard to pick one out and say, ‘That’s the good one.’ And it makes you want to just get rid of all of them because none of them seem special now.”
Connie had narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying when you’re at school you just want to get rid of everyone?”
It wasn’t that. Jazz wished he knew how to explain it. It wasn’t a matter of wanting to kill people. It was simply that when there were so many people, didn’t they seem, well, expendable? With fifteen hundred students at Lobo’s Nod High, would anyone really notice if a few went missing? The more people there were around him, the less personal they became. The less real.
People matter. It was a tough lesson; it was the opposite of what Billy had taught Jazz all his life. All these people, you see ’em , Billy would say at a ball game or at the park or in a movie theater or mall. All these people aren’t real. They don’t have real lives. They don’t have hearts. They don’t matter. Only you matter.
“Lots of people had crappy childhoods,” Connie had told him. “Some of them even grew up the same way as a serial killer, but they didn’t turn into serial killers. It’s not like there’s a manual you can follow and it makes a kid grow up to kill people.”
“If anyone would know how to custom-design a sociopath, it’s Billy,” Jazz had said.
“But you don’t want to kill people,” she’d said with finality, and Jazz had let the conversation die right there. Because the only honest response would have been:
It’s not that I want to or don’t want to. It’s just…I can. I could. It’s like…I imagine it’s like being a great runner. If you knew you could run really fast, wouldn’t you? If you were stuck walking somewhere, wouldn’t you want to let loose and run like hell? That’s how I feel.
Instead of saying any of that, he’d let it
Just then Helen arrived with the coffees. To go. Jazz and Howie snatched theirs up.
“It’s not a game, douche,” Jazz said.
“Yeah, and if it were,” Howie said, “you would seriously suck at it.”
They scooted from the Coff-E-Shop. Jazz shot one last look over his shoulder. Weathers still sat at the table in the window, glaring out at the two of them, his eyes lifeless and burning at the same time. He’d had a glimpse of the world beyond the Nod when Billy was arrested, and would spend the rest of his life doing anything to claw his way back to it.
But he wouldn’t get there by climbing up on Jazz’s shoulders.
Somewhere up the street, a dog barked. Jazz thought of Rusty. Great. An encounter with Doug Weathers and now thinking of Rusty. He knew that this was going to be a bad day.
Sure enough, school was torture.
Jazz wanted nothing more than to get back out to the field. With every hour that passed—with every minute that passed—the field was reverting to its natural state, losing any remaining evidence. If Howie hadn’t lost his nerve last night…
Well, no point thinking about that now. He wanted to get out there and poke around, ideally in the hours before sunrise. To see the field the way the killer had seen it.
But school dragged.
Jazz didn’t like school, but not for the usual teen reasons. He didn’t like school for the same reason that he didn’t like any situation where he was surrounded by people.
“It’s like this,” he’d explained once to Connie. “If someone gave you a single rose, you’d be happy, right?”
They had been sitting in Jazz’s Jeep at the nearby state park. Connie had feigned confusion, peering in the glove compartment, twisting to look in the backseat. “I don’t see a rose. There’s no happiness here.”
“Okay,” he went on, “now imagine someone gives you ten thousand roses.”
“That is a whole lotta roses,” she said. “That’s too much.”
“Right. Too much. But more than that, it makes each individual rose much less special, right? It makes it hard to pick one out and say, ‘That’s the good one.’ And it makes you want to just get rid of all of them because none of them seem special now.”
Connie had narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying when you’re at school you just want to get rid of everyone?”
It wasn’t that. Jazz wished he knew how to explain it. It wasn’t a matter of wanting to kill people. It was simply that when there were so many people, didn’t they seem, well, expendable? With fifteen hundred students at Lobo’s Nod High, would anyone really notice if a few went missing? The more people there were around him, the less personal they became. The less real.
People matter. It was a tough lesson; it was the opposite of what Billy had taught Jazz all his life. All these people, you see ’em , Billy would say at a ball game or at the park or in a movie theater or mall. All these people aren’t real. They don’t have real lives. They don’t have hearts. They don’t matter. Only you matter.
“Lots of people had crappy childhoods,” Connie had told him. “Some of them even grew up the same way as a serial killer, but they didn’t turn into serial killers. It’s not like there’s a manual you can follow and it makes a kid grow up to kill people.”
“If anyone would know how to custom-design a sociopath, it’s Billy,” Jazz had said.
“But you don’t want to kill people,” she’d said with finality, and Jazz had let the conversation die right there. Because the only honest response would have been:
It’s not that I want to or don’t want to. It’s just…I can. I could. It’s like…I imagine it’s like being a great runner. If you knew you could run really fast, wouldn’t you? If you were stuck walking somewhere, wouldn’t you want to let loose and run like hell? That’s how I feel.
Instead of saying any of that, he’d let it
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