Black Mirror Read Online Free PDF Page A

obvious.
    Apparently I had not after all been in mortal danger.
    “Are you okay? Frances?”
    My knees hurt. So did the heels of both hands. And so did the mysterious organs of humiliation, located in invisible pouches just below each eye and in the center of the throat.
    “Yeah,” I managed.
    I found my gaze drifting beyond James, toward the woods. I saw no one else there, or anywhere around. It had obviously been James I’d just seen in the woods, even though he was a boy, not a man. My mistake, in the dark. Had the other figure been a boy too? Another Pettengill student? Somehow it didn’t seem possible; there had been something so mature about the stance—well, I’d thought that instantly of both figures, and been wrong. One hadbeen James. Still … what had they been doing? At this hour? Something about how they looked had panicked me …
    “Frances? Say something. Anything. You’re really okay?”
    “Yes,” I said absently to James as I still watched the edge of the woods. “I’m fine. Thanks.” Then I gathered myself and looked straight up at him. “But what are
you
doing out here? It’s got to be four in the morning! And who was that with you in the woods just now?” The words spilled out quickly, suspiciously. I didn’t care. His behavior
was
suspicious. What was he up to? Middle of the night drug deals? I put my hands on my hips. “Well?” I said defiantly. “Why did you chase me like that?”
    James reached into a pocket and withdrew something. Grinning, he dangled it above my nose. “To give you back your mitten.”
    I felt myself blush. I snatched the mitten but didn’t back down. “What are you doing out here?”
    He countered, easily, “Stuff. How about you?”
    “I couldn’t sleep. I needed some air.”
    James nodded. “Stuff of your own, huh?” Then in some subtle way his body shifted, and even in the dark he looked somehow … cheerful. Cheerful and
dumb.
“So hey, can I walk you back to your dorm?” James asked. “Maybe you can, you know, still get an hour or two of sleep.” In a curiously graceful, courtly gesture, he offered an arm.
    I didn’t move. James probably was dumb. Why else would anyone deliberately do an extra year of high school? You hadto be either dumb or insane. Although James might have business reasons for staying in high school. No better clients than a bunch of rich preppies, after all.
    Daniel hadn’t been a rich preppy. Again I wondered, How had he afforded his drug habit?
    Focus. I had to focus. “James, you didn’t say who that was with you,” I repeated. “Or what you were doing.”
    He gave me that smile of his, but this time I didn’t feel charmed. He said cheerily, “I’m not answering those questions, little Frances. It’s business, okay?”
    Business. Little Frances.
    In my mind’s eye I could see Daniel again. No. Not Daniel. Daniel’s corpse.
    James was still offering me his arm. His face was all dumb concern again. Or still. I wasn’t sure. I found I had taken his arm. I allowed him to guide me back toward Pettengill. Suddenly, intensely, I knew that whoever was back there in the woods, whoever it was that I had glimpsed was someone I did not want to meet.
    Business.
    And then the organs of humiliation pulsed. They pushed against my tear ducts. Business. James’s dumb grin. Grinning, while my brother was dead.
    James was talking. “Seriously, you should’ve seen yourself. You came along, stomping the ground like you thought you were the Fee Fie Foe Giant. Then you took one look at us and ran like Bambi. It was pretty hilarious.”
    Hilarious. He was going on. On and on …
    “Shut up,” I whispered fiercely. Then I screamed it. “Shut up! Shut up!”
    I could feel James’s surprise. I didn’t look at him. I wanted to say it again but I didn’t have the extra breath. I found I was already using everything I had.
    “Hey,” James was saying. “Hey, Frances.” Still holding my arm, he stopped walking and swung around to