The door clicked shut behind me. It was sort of set back in a short hallway, so I didn't see Jason right away. Timidly, I stepped out into the small office, which was lit with the golden glow of a single floor lamp, and he was then immediately visible. He was standing at the window, his back to me, his head of orange curly hair looking soft but wild. I wondered about those dark eyes of his—what they looked like at the moment. He seemed taller than when I'd seen him last, but I knew he hadn't grown any. Was Henry shorter than he was? No, I didn't think so. Henry was quite tall. It's just that Jason was bigger around the shoulders and neck, and maybe that made him seem taller. He was dressed in the Oliphant uniform, and I felt irrationally superior in my real clothes, no matter how dirty and wet they were; I wasn't wearing that awful uniform—the symbol of confinement—and he was. That gave me a little courage.

Jason kept his back to me as I approached, but I knew he'd heard me come in; he knew I was behind him. But he stayed where he was, his hands in his pockets and his back to me and the rest of the room. I had no clue where to begin. I'd reached him—come all this way—but I found myself speechless. And if he were easily angered (as I'd witnessed myself when he'd been ready to beat up Tobias) it was probably a bad idea to begin by talking about Henry. Jason wasn't stupid, though; he had to know why I'd come back to Oliphant.

I stood there in suspense for what seemed a really long time, Jason presumably intent on making this as uncomfortable as possible, but then I thought of a decent way to begin,

"Jason, it's Nadia. I came with your sisters. Ella and Mel. They want me to—I want—to talk to you." Anxiously, I awaited his response.

There was only silence for half a minute; then, he said matter-of-factly, "I don't have sisters."

"But I saw you in the picture with them--" I realized what he meant and felt stupid. Lowering my voice, I added, "You don't mean that. They really care about you."

Jason turned slowly, his dark eyes pinning me, and as he spoke, the intensity of his words built. "I said I don't have any sisters. Didn't you hear me? I have no family. Family would have tried to help me. Family wouldn't have let this happen."

His face was stolid, but his widened eyes betrayed, beneath the seething anger, hurt. I recognized both feelings easily, and rather than add to my apprehension, they calmed it. It was pain that led to Jason's bitterness. I didn't doubt that he was someone to fear if you were the object of his anger, but I didn't think I was. Had I become more astute since I'd left Oliphant, or was I fooling myself, now? I hadn't been able to figure him out before, but now his mystery seemed so obvious.

I kept my eyes locked with his, not backing down. "I wouldn't know anything about family," I said, "but you're probably right." My eyes flicked to his fists--which I noticed relaxed--and then back to his face. "I want to help you."

He smirked. "Do you? Is that why that woman brought me here? For benevolent Nadia to help poor Jason?"

I wanted to reply, but he cut me off.

"Thanks but no thanks. I don't need any more of your kind in my life."

Huffing in frustration at his rudeness, I risked angering him by saying, "And what does that mean--my kind? You mean like Henry? He's the only one you could mean."

Jason's breathing became audible. His chin trembled, and his eyes went ice cold. But I couldn't let go; I had no idea what kind of time I had.

"I swear to you that Henry knows nothing about why he was here. Why do you hate him so much? What has he done to you?"

The ire morphed into smugness again, and I was amazed and a little terrified at how quickly Jason's emotions changed. "Of course that's why you're here. Not to help me--you don't give a shit about me. It's to help him. Is he here with you? Was he too gutless to face me himself?"

"No. I don't know where he is, but he isn't here."

"Don't lie to me--"

"I'm not lying to you!" I practically shouted it, and I think that startled Jason a little, so I went with it. "You're acting like a large child! You're sitting here in this giant cage for something you didn't even do, just letting everybody walk all over you, and you talk about Henry being a coward? You're the biggest liar I've ever met! You lie to yourself, Jason. There are sisters out there who love you, a mother that loves you, but you waste all your time moping away, blaming other people for your problems, when maybe all you had to do at your trial was stand up for yourself and say you hadn't shot your own father!"

In a split second he'd closed the several feet of distance between us and raised his hands in the air as if he were going to grab me or hit me--I didn't know, but, shuddering with restraint, he curled his fingers into fists and forced his hands down.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he uttered between clenched teeth.

I knew I'd hit a potent nerve, and although I was anxious, I hoped it would get me somewhere. Our eyes were locked into one another's; he was a lot closer than I was comfortable with, but I wasn't going to back down. "I don't know. That's why I need you to explain it to me. Please, Jason. If I've done something wrong, I want to know."

He released an enormous sigh, but it wasn't exaggeration. It was as if he were letting out all the energy that had just built up in him. Then he sat down on one of the chairs nearby, and I felt able to breathe again.

"It's not you," he admitted. "It's Henry. I don't know anything about you."

I cautiously approached and took the chair across from him, feeling like Miss Pinsky-Waters, suddenly. "What do you know about him?"

"I know that he killed my dad."

He said it so nonchalantly that I almost didn't catch the severity of his words. "Are you sure? You know he did?"

"I saw it. I was right there."

"You--you saw Henry--what? Holding a gun? And--and he--"

"Yes, damnit. He shot my dad. How much more bluntly do I have to put it?"

Recalculating, not wanting to anger Jason again, I took a moment. What he'd said--I just--I just couldn't believe it. Henry couldn't have killed that man. I'd feared that it might be true but not really felt that it was. I had to know. "Can you tell me exactly what happened?"

"Really?" Jason's sarcasm wasn't helping. He looked up at me from the tops of his eyes. "Are you serious?"

I gave him one of my most sincere expressions, and thankfully, he acquiesced.

"I was downtown that night," he began, hunching over, putting his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor and interlacing his fingers in an absent-minded way. "We'd been trying to do more together, my dad and me. We . . . we didn't always get along. Sometimes . . . well, I got into some stuff at school that he didn't like. But he'd drink too much too, at times. I—it doesn't matter. We'd gone to a movie or something. I can't even remember what it was. And we were walking back to the car, actually getting along for once in our lives, and he told me to go ahead because he needed to stop at a store for some cigarettes. One of those little convenience corner shops, you know? He said I could drive anyway, so I should get the car and pull it up. I was about to get my license, then.

"There was hardly anyone around, and I got in the car and drove around to the storefront. It was pretty late, actually, and I sat there and waited for several minutes. I started to think I should go in and get him, or maybe he walked back to the car forgetting he'd told me to drive up. Then I heard a shot. I knew right away it was a gun. It was almost . . . almost unreal. Like, a weird popping sound. You hear them all the time in movies, but you don't expect them in your own life. Right away, I was afraid it had something to do with my dad. I could just tell. So I got out of the car and went in the direction I'd heard the noise. There was this alley behind the store, so that's where I went, and right when I got there, this guy ran into me. Nearly shoved me over. I was confused, and he got out of my way, but I saw him throw something against the wall before he ran.

"I should've gone after him right there and figured out what happened, but I didn't. I saw someone lying in a pile in the alley and totally freaked. I knew it was my dad. I--I went to him, tried to get him to start moving, but he was gone . . . dead already when I reached him. His blood got all--all over me."

Jason's voice trembled. I noticed he was holding his hands out, now, looking at them as if seeing the blood all over again. I thought about Slim's blood being all over me and felt a momentary panic. But I was glad Jason started talking again, because I was able to overcome it.

"I left him and . . . I don't know. I think I started yelling stuff. I don't even know what. And I went to see what that guy had thrown against the wall after he ran into me. It was a gun. So I just put it all together. The guy I'd run into was who'd shot my dad. I don't know what I was thinking besides that at that point. Just saw red, I guess. I just wanted to get my hands on the guy. So I went after him. He wasn't hard to find. He'd only gotten a few alleys away and then, like, just collapsed. When I got to him, he was just . . . sitting against a wall, all freaked out. It was him--Henry. I didn't know his name or who he was or anything, but it was him."

"What'd you do?" I kept my voice soft, didn't want to startle him from his trance.

Jason's eyes flickered darkly. "I just about killed him."

"You . . . beat him up?"

He closed his eyes entirely, perhaps seeing the memory. "He didn't even fight back. I just pulled him up, hit him again, and again, and again--smashed his head against the wall . . . split it open."

My stomach hurt; I was physically ill thinking of him hurting Henry like that. Jason's father had just been shot, and I understood his anger, but I couldn't understand his violence.

"Then somebody grabbed me, pulled me off. I'm not sure who. I never got a look at him. But it's a good thing for Henry he did, or I would've killed him. I have no doubt about that. Then all of a sudden I was in a police car with handcuffs on and everything. I went to jail. They put me on trial. Somehow, the evidence pointed to me. My prints were on the gun. My father's blood was all over me. Some witness saw me run out of the alley and toss aside the gun Henry had used as I went after him. I had a history of fighting with my dad, and some guy even said I'd gotten the gun from him. I tried to tell my lawyers that there'd been someone else, but nobody could find him. They didn't believe me. Henry was nowhere, like he hadn't even existed. Then who had I beat up? Nobody could answer; they said I hadn't beaten up anybody. The kid I'd beat up. Henry—he was nowhere. None of it made sense.

"I was convicted easy. Stopped fighting it. My mother--if I could call her that anymore--she convinced me to plead guilty, not take the stand. They worked out some deal where I'd come here instead of go to prison, if I pled guilty."

"You had no chance." I didn't say it like I was agreeing with him. I said it like I knew something he didn't, and that seemed to pull him out of his reverie. "Jason, you were up against something unbeatable. Someone framed you, and I'm pretty sure I know who it was."

To my surprise, he replied, "You are the first person who's ever believed me."

"How did you know Henry was here at Oliphant?"

He shrugged. "After my conviction, I was brought here. To high security, at first. But after about a week, I was moved. They told me if I said nothing about my dad—if I said I was at Oliphant for fighting—I could move to low security. Everyone assumed I'd beaten someone up, which I had, of course . . . I guess they didn't understand irony. I still don't know for certain why they moved me, but I have an idea. On my way to a new room, I saw them bringing in a guy on a stretcher. He was in a coma or something. I thought I recognized him, and the more I thought about it, the more I was certain the guy they'd brought in was the guy I'd beaten up. They insisted it wasn't, but I figured that they wouldn't want us near each other because the truth would have to come out. They told me to keep my mouth shut or they'd move me to high security or even prison."

"They threatened you?"

"They know there's nothing I can do about it—not while I'm stuck in here, anyway. And Henry got a reputation quick, a couple of months after he got here. I guess he woke up and didn't remember anything, which made me even more sure it was him. There's a lot of other stuff I don't really get--why he disappeared during the trial; why someone brought him here; why he seemed to get a free pass for stirring up so much trouble. And I can't talk to anyone about it. When you came, I realized you were like him—no memory. I figured you'd murdered someone and gotten away with it, too."

I wasn't mad at him for hating me. Obviously, Jason had been manipulated, just like me and Henry. The Circuit was probably behind it all. "Something happened with me that same night, when your father was shot and you beat up Henry. I'm not sure what exactly went on, but the three of us are somehow all connected to this one event. Now that I've talked to you and actually thought about all you've said, I'm pretty positive that Henry didn't actually shoot your father."

Jason rose from his chair, his anger kindling again. "What are you talking about? I saw him do it!"

"I thought you had, at first. But Jason—did you actually see Henry stand there and pull the trigger of the gun? Were you actually there, in the alley, when your father was shot?"

He was getting worked up, but I couldn't really tell whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. "Well, no, but--"

A sudden rush of footsteps out in the hall caught our attention. There were shouts, too, but they were distant, so I couldn't understand any words. I could, however, detect urgency. Something was going on, and I had a feeling it related to me or Jason or both of us. Miss Pinsky-Waters had told me to stay. She'd said she'd take care of us, but there was no way I could believe she'd be able to.

I made a move toward the door in order to listen better to what was going on, but Jason grabbed my arm. "No." he said. "Don't go out there. I want to get out of here. How'd you and Henry do it?"

My mouth opened and closed a few times, trying to say something, but I didn't know what to tell him. I didn't need Jason with me, but I also had no idea how to get back out of Oliphant. "We can't go out the way Henry and I did. It's too far away, now. We'd never make it. But I've got to get out here, too."

"Let me go with you, please. If--if I see Henry, talk to him--maybe we can figure this out."

"Maybe . . ." I had no clue if that was a good idea, but I had no time to think. "Fine. I need to get somewhere so I can think. I--I have a place in mind. We just need to get out of here."

Jason gave the room a cursory glance, went to a window across from the door. He pulled at the bars there, which shook in their plaster. With three or four forceful pulls, he wrenched them out of the wall and threw them to the floor. I stared in amazement, but there was no time for awe. Jason was picking up a lamp and shattering the glass beyond and all of a sudden alarms went off. Then he was telling me to hurry up and I was in no way going to waste time. We climbed out of the window onto a ledge. It had begun to rain hard, and the pellets stung my face. Jason led me as we shimmied along the ledge toward a vertical drain pipe attached to the wall. Miss Pinsky-Waters must've burst into the room right after we'd left through the window, because all of a sudden, her arms, head, and shoulders were sticking out of the window, calling my name into the rain. I'm sure she saw us, but there was nothing she could do to stop me and Jason; we were going no matter what. I slipped more than once, but Jason helped me each time. He was a lot stronger than he looked, and I couldn't help thinking that it was no wonder he'd nearly killed Henry. He probably hadn't known his own strength.

When we reached the pipe, Jason didn't start sliding down it but instead kicked it loose from the wall. He said something to me, but I couldn't understand him in the wind and rain. Spotlights came on and focused on us. We shielded our eyes. When I could see again, I looked at Jason and saw that his orange curls were soaked and water was running in rivers down his flushed face. There was no more time to try to explain things to me. He wrapped a firm arm around my waist and, to my astonishment, bent over and leapt off the ledge, grabbing hold of the pipe as he went. I was pretty much hanging in midair, but everything moved so fast that I was down on the ground before I could have a heart attack. When Jason's weight had hit the pipe, it had peeled off the wall and thrown us away from the building until it bent over so far that it hit the gate surrounding Oliphant. Jason was hanging onto the end of it, so we missed the gate by a good ten feet, and when it hit the brick, the pipe stopped so sharp it dropped us twenty feet onto the ground on the other side.

As I stood up, I found myself soaked, muddy, and pained by a sprained ankle from the fall—but we were outside Oliphant. I knew then that I was lucky to have Jason with me, and without even giving myself time to recover from the shock of what had just happened, we took off into the black, rainy night.