Meg Cabot - Sanctuary

But of course I wasn't thinking about Nate at all. I was thinking about Rob, and how hurt he'd looked when I hadn't introduced him to my mom. Well, how hurt did he think I felt when I found out about that wedding he hadn't invited me to? He couldn't have it both ways. He couldn't insist that we can't go out because of our age difference, then be hurt when I didn't introduce him to my mom.

The two of us definitely had some problems in our relationship that needed working out. Maybe we needed to go on Oprah , and talk to that bald doctor dude she's always having on.

"Doctor, my girlfriend is ashamed of me," I could almost hear Rob saying. "She won't introduce me to her parents."

"Well, my boyfriend doesn't trust me," I would retort. "He won't tell me what he got arrested for. Or invite me to his uncle Randy's wedding."

Yeah. The two of us on Oprah . That was so going to happen.

It wasn't until I got upstairs that I heard the voices. I have to admit that my brother Douglas, even when he isn't having one of his episodes, has a tendency to talk to himself.

But this time, someone was talking back. I was sure of it. The door to his room was closed, as always, but I pressed my ear up to it, and there was no doubt about it: There were two voices coming from Douglas's room.

And one of them belonged to a girl .

I assumed it was Claire. Maybe she was consulting with Douglas over what to get Mike for a Christmas present. Or had gone to him for advice because their relationship had run into trouble. . . .

But why would she go to Douglas with something like that? Why not me? I was clearly the logical choice. I mean, I may be a freak and all, with my psychic powers, but I am way less of a freak than Douglas, much as I love him.

I couldn't help it. I knew I shouldn't, but I did it anyway. I thumped, once on the door, then threw it open.

"Hey, good lookin'," I started to say. "What's cookin'?"

Only it wasn't Claire in Douglas's room. It wasn't Claire at all.

It was Tasha Thompkins.

My jaw sagged so loose at the sight of her, sitting all primly on the end of Douglas's bed, in her black turtleneck and gray wool jumper, I swear I felt my chin hit the floor.

"Oh," she said, when she saw me, her tear-filled brown eyes soft as her voice. "Hi, Jess."

"Wh …" I said. I couldn't think of a single thing to say. Never in a million years would I have expected to open Douglas's bedroom door and find a girl in his room. Much less one to whom he wasn't related by blood, or who was dating his younger brother. "Wh … wh … wh …"

"Close the barn door," Douglas said mildly to me, from where he sat in front of his desktop computer. "You're letting the flies in."

I snapped my mouth shut. But I couldn't think of anything to say. I just stared at Tasha, looking neat and pretty and strangely not out of place in Douglas's book- and comic book-filled bedroom.

"I just couldn't take it anymore," Tasha said, helping me out a little. "At our house, I mean. It's just so … Well, Coach Albright is there right now."

"I saw his car," I managed to croak.

"Yes," Tasha said. "Well. I couldn't stand it. Then I remembered that the last time I'd seen Doug, he'd said he had some really early issues of a comic book I like, and that I could come over sometime to see them." She shrugged her slender shoulders. "So I came over." When I didn't say anything, and just continued to stare at her, she said, looking vaguely troubled, "That's all right with you, isn't it, Jessica?"

I tried to say yes, but what came out was some kind of garbled noise like Helen Keller made in that movie about her life. So I just nodded instead.

"Don't worry about Jess," Douglas said. "She's just shy."

That made Tasha laugh a little. "That's not what I heard," she said. Then she looked guilty. For laughing, though, not because of what she'd said.

"I was asking Tasha about Nate," Douglas said casually, as if he were continuing a conversation that had gotten interrupted.

I tried to make an effort to speak intelligently. "I'm sorry," was all I managed to get out. When Tasha just looked at me, I went, "About your brother, I mean."

Tasha looked down at her shoes. "Thank you," she said, so softly, I could barely hear her.

"It turns out," Douglas said, after clearing his throat, "that Nate had a few unsavory friends."

Tasha nodded, her expression grave. "But they wouldn't have done this," she explained. "I mean, killed him. They were just a bunch of hop-heads who thought they were all that, you know?"

When both Douglas and I looked at Tasha blankly, she elaborated. Apparently, it isn't just that Chicagoans say hello instead of hey. They have a whole separate language unto themselves.

"They were the bomb," Tasha explained. "They ruled the school."

"Oh," I said. Douglas looked even more confused than I felt.

"It was all so lame," Tasha said, shaking her head so that the curled ends of her hair, held back in a second clip at the nape of her neck, swept her shoulders. "I mean, the only reason they wanted Nate around was because of Dad. You know. Prescription pads and all. Oxy makes for a wicked weekend high."

I nodded like I knew what she was talking about.

"But Nate, he was flattered, you know? I tried to tell him those guys were just using him, but he wouldn't listen. Fortunately it wasn't long before my dad found out. Nate had always been a good student, you know? So when his grades started to slip …" Tasha stared at a Lord of the Rings poster on Douglas's wall, but it was clear she wasn't seeing it. She was seeing something else entirely.

"My dad was so mad," she went on, after a minute, "that he pulled us both out of school. He took the job down here the very next day. We moved that week."

Whoa. Talk about tough love.

But I guess I could understand Dr. Thompkins's point of view. I mean, my family's had problems for sure, but drugs have never been one of them.

"So." I didn't want to bring up what was clearly going to be a painful subject for her, but I didn't see how it could be avoided. "Is that what happened to him, then? Your brother, I mean? Those, um, hopheads got him? For not giving them any more prescription pads, or something?"

Tasha shook her head, looking troubled.

"I don't know," she said. "I mean, those guys were bad news, but they weren't killers."

I thought for a minute.

"What about that symbol?"

Douglas, over by the desk, was making a slashing motion with his hand beneath his chin. But it was too late.

Tasha looked at me blankly. "What symbol?"

I had blown it. Tasha didn't know. Tasha didn't know the details of her brother's death.

"Nothing," I said. "Just … um. There's been some graffiti popping up around town, and some people were speculating that it was a gang tag."

"You think my brother was in a gang?" Tasha asked, in an incredulous voice.

Douglas dropped his forehead into one hand, as if he couldn't bear to watch.

"Well," I said. I couldn't tell her the truth, of course. About the symbol having been carved into her brother's chest. "That's kind of the rumor."

Tasha may not have been able to see things up close without the aid of prescription lenses, but she could see things far away without any problem. She glared at me pretty hard.

"Because he's black," she said, in a hard voice. "People assumed Nate was in a gang, and that he was the one going around tagging things, because he's black."

"Um," I said, throwing an alarmed look at Douglas. "Well, not exactly. I mean, you even said he was hanging out with, um, a bad element. . . ."

"For your information," Tasha said, standing up. Like almost everyone else in the world, she was taller than me. "That bad element happened to be, for the most part, white. We did not, as you seem to think, move here from the ghetto, you know."