Agent Gallagher studied him for a second, his expression still sad. “Yes. Harper saw the pictures. She found the mine shaft.”
Jak let out a sound that was like a dying animal.
“Jak,” Agent Gallagher sat forward. “I need to know what happened. What really happened.”
Numbness swept through him and he sagged back in the chair, squeezing his eyes shut for a second. When he opened them, he said, “It happened the way I said, only there were three boys with me. One died in the fall, I pushed another one to a ledge, but he probably died too. I killed the third one. But that was la
ter. We fought over food. I tried—”
“I saw the video, Jak.”
Jak’s eyes moved slowly to the agent’s face. He couldn’t tell what was there, but he could imagine what the man was thinking. Beast. Animal. Killer.
Video. Video was moving pictures. There was video of Jak stabbing that boy and leaving his body in the snow. Sickness moved up his throat and with effort, he swallowed it down.
“Do you have any idea who those boys were?”
Jak shook his head, but slowly. “No. I don’t know anything about them.”
Silence for a minute and then Agent Gallagher said, “We think the boy you . . . fought . . . lived under Isaac Driscoll’s porch for a while. There were notes about a rat living under his porch and stealing his food, his knife. He talked about setting up a test. We think he set up that fight between you both to see what you’d do.”
Numbness. Buzzing. Sickness. Swallow it down, swallow it down.
“Jak—”
“Why did he do it? Take me. Watch me . . .” It was the same question he’d battled with since he saw the photos from Driscoll’s cabin. Why? Why me? He was filled with anger and he didn’t know what words to use.
Agent Gallagher’s jaw tightened. “We think he was doing observational experiments. At first, they were mostly about survival, strength, fortitude. We believe he meant the house you lived in to house all of you, but you were the only one who survived. His notes indicate he was planning on more specific studies on you using contrived situations, actors . . .”
“I don’t understand all those words,” he admitted, his head swimming. He didn’t like to say that, but he needed to understand.
“I’m sorry, Jak. I think Driscoll was going to use people to pretend they were someone they were not, and watch how you reacted.”
“The redheaded woman,” Jak said. His voice sounded as dead as he felt.
Agent Gallagher nodded. “Yes,” he said and his voice broke just a little. Was he sad? Disgusted? Both, Jak thought. “We saw the notes on that, the video . . .”
Jak hung his head. He wanted to cry. To howl until his voice broke and his lungs stopped working. He wanted to find a den and burrow there alone so no one would ever find him.
“Jak . . . did you kill Isaac Driscoll?”
He met Agent Gallagher’s eyes. “No. When I got to his cabin, he was already dying.”
There was silence for several minutes. “Jak, we need you to come down to the station and make a statement, but I wanted . . . I wanted to let you know all of this first. I can pick you up in the morning. How’s that?”
Agent Gallagher was being nice to him, giving him time, he knew that. He didn’t know why. Was it because he felt sorry for Jak and wanted to give him one last night of a soft bed and hot water before they locked him up? He nodded. “Thank you.”
“I’m sure once you process all of this, you’ll have questions for me too. I’ll answer anything I can.”
Jak thought he might have nodded, but he was having trouble feeling his body. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Pause. “Jak, just one final question and then we’ll talk tomorrow. Is there anything about Harper’s parents that you didn’t tell me?”
Jak met his eyes. “No. I told you everything I know about that.”
The agent studied his face for a second and then nodded. “Okay. If you need me tonight, you call, all right?” He reached into his pocket and took out a small white card, handing it to Jak. “My number is on here. If you want to call me and your grandfather hasn’t gotten you a phone yet, just ask someone around here to show you how to dial the number on the landline, all right?”
Landline. He had no idea what that was. He was lost. He’d always be lost. “Okay.”