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As he slid into the driver’s seat, Declan said, "I don’t want to talk about it" to Ashley and slammed the door shut. The Volvo’s tires squealed as they bit into the pavement, and then Gansey and Ronan were left standing next to each other in the strange dim light of the parking lot. A block away, a dog barked balefully, three times. Ronan touched his pinkie finger to his eyebrow to check for blood, but there was none, just a raised, angry bump. "Fix it," Gansey said. He wasn’t entirely sure that whatever Ronan had done, or failed to do, was easily corrected, but he was sure that it must be corrected. The only reason Ronan was allowed to stay at Monmouth Manufacturing was because his grades were acceptable. "Whatever it is. Don’t let him be right." Ronan said, low, just for Gansey, "I want to quit." "One more year." "I don’t want to do this for another year." He kicked a piece of gravel under the Camaro. Now his voice did rise, but only in ferocity, not in volume. "Another year, and then I get strangled with a necktie like Declan? I’m not a damn politician, Gansey. I’m not a banker." Gansey wasn’t, either, but it didn’t mean he wanted to leave school. The pain in Ronan’s voice meant he couldn’t have any in his when he said, "Just graduate, and do whatever you want." The trust funds from their fathers had ensured that neither of them had to work for a living, ever, if they didn’t choose to. They were extraneous parts in the machine that was society, a fact that sat differently on Ronan’s shoulders than Gansey’s. Ronan looked angry, but he was in the mood where he was going to look angry no matter what. "I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what the hell I am." He got into the Camaro. "You promised me," Gansey said through the open car door. Ronan didn’t look up. "I know what I did, Gansey." "Don’t forget." When Ronan slammed the door, it echoed across the parking lot in the too-loud way of sounds after dark. Gansey joined Adam at his safely distant vantage point. In comparison to Ronan, Adam looked clean, self-contained, utterly in control. From somewhere, he had gotten a rubber ball printed with a SpongeBob logo, and he bounced it with a pensive expression. "I convinced them not to call the cops," Adam said. He was good at making things quiet. Gansey let out his breath. Tonight, he didn’t have it in him to talk to the police on Ronan’s behalf. Tell me I’m doing the right thing with Ronan. Tell me this is how to find the old Ronan. Tell me I’m not ruining him by keeping him away from Declan. But Adam had already told Gansey he thought Ronan needed to learn to clean up his own messes. It was only Gansey who seemed afraid that Ronan would learn to live in the dirt. So he merely asked, "Where’s Noah?" "He’s coming. I think he was leaving a tip." Adam dropped the ball and caught it again. He had an almost mechanical way of snapping his fingers around the ball as it bounced back toward him; one moment his hand was open and empty, and the next, tight shut around it. Bounce. Snap. Gansey said, "So, Ashley." "Yes," Adam replied, as if he’d been waiting for him to bring her up. "Quite some eyes on her." It was an expression his dad used all the time, a family catchphrase for someone nosy. Adam asked, "Do you think she’s really here for Declan?" Advertisement "Why else would she be here?" "Glendower," Adam replied immediately. Gansey laughed, but Adam didn’t. "Really, why else?" Instead of answering, Adam twisted his hand and released the rubber ball. He’d chosen his trajectory carefully: The ball bounced off the greasy asphalt once, struck one of the Camaro’s tires, and arced high in the air, disappearing in the black. He stepped forward in time for it to slap in his palm. Gansey made an approving noise. Adam said, "I don’t think you should talk to people about it anymore." "It’s not a secret." "Maybe it should be." Adam’s uneasiness was contagious, but logically, there was nothing to support suspicion. For four years, Gansey had been searching for Glendower, freely admitting this fact to all and any who showed interest, and he’d never seen the slightest evidence of anyone else sharing his precise quest. He had to admit, however, that the suggestion of that possibility gave him a peculiarly unpleasant feeling. He said, "It’s all out there, Adam. Pretty much everything I’ve done is public record. It’s too late for it to be a secret. It was too late years ago." "Come on, Gansey," Adam said with some heat. "Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel …?" "Feel what?" Gansey despised fighting with Adam, and somehow this felt like a fight. Unsuccessfully, Adam struggled to put his thoughts into words. Finally, he replied: "Observed."