Free Tap & Gown by Diana Peterfreund Page B

shiny new pink skin. I wondered if it would scar. Darren’s injuries definitely would. He’d cut his head open on the boat when it had tipped over. He’d passed out in the water and, like me, had almost drowned.
    Well, either those were the stitches he was talking about or the first thing they had done to him was a good old-fashioned prefrontal lobotomy.
    I couldn’t think of anything to say to him. Did Kurt Gehry really think that his son wanted to chat with his victim? That I wanted to chat with my kidnapper?
    “And Dad said—I wanted to … thank you,” he said, the words sounding oddly unnatural from his mouth. “For letting me come here instead of jail.”
    “Okay,” I answered, because nothing else seemed to fit. Yes, I’d refused to press charges. I wouldn’t call it largesse. I lay down on the couch and curled my knees up to my chest. Where was Lydia when I needed her? Where was Jamie?
    “But it kind of sucks,” he went on. “It’s all these girls with, like, anorexia and stuff.”
    I doubted they had rehab centers reserved solely for budding sociopaths. I “hmmmmed” into the receiver to keep myself from speaking those words out loud. Though the way I remembered it, Darren Gehry had a good sense of humor. When he wasn’t trying to kill me, that was.
    “I told him you wouldn’t want to talk to me,” Darren said. “That you’d be too afraid.”
    There was a soupçon of pride in his tone. Yes, he’d terrified me. He’d set out to do so, and he’d succeeded. He was doing it now, even from a distance, even imprisoned. I sat up.
    “I’m not scared,” I said. “I’m angry. I don’t like you. I have nothing to say to you. And your repeated declarations that the only reason you’re on the phone with me right now is because your father is forcing you isn’t really helping the conversation.” Darren couldn’t hurt me.
    On the other end of the line, the teenager was silent. Was he sad? Furious? It would probably be too much to hope that my admonishment had actually made him rethink his attitude. Heck, it had probably shocked the hell out of him that I could stand up for myself. After all, I’d been plenty pliant when I’d been …
    Begging for my life .
    “Darren?” I said into the phone.
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    But I heard only a click, then a dial tone.
    “I can’t believe he actually called you,” said Angel. We were in the tomb, researching initiations of old to get ideas for the upcoming festivities.
    “According to him, his father was making him do it,” I replied. It was amazing how styles had changed to suit the times. Rites of the seventies included mind-altering substances to really get the initiates in the magical mood. Notes from the eighties were awash in references to cocaine,1*and the nineties-era clubs had printed all their invitations on recycled paper.
    My own initiation into the Order of Rose & Grave had a theme of women and power, to fit with the momentous occasion of tapping women for the very first time. The skits had all been about Cleopatra or the Salem Witch Trials. I’d have to ask Poe about some of the messages behind those skits, as things had not ended well for either Cleopatra or the goodwives of Salem.
    He probably had picked those out himself.
    “You should have hung up on him immediately,” argued Lucky, pulling down another stack of Black Books.
    “I don’t know,” said Lil’ Demon, flipping through a scrapbook of early 21st century initiation photos.
    “Maybe it’s part of his therapy. You know, apologize to those whom you have wronged.”
    “This isn’t AA,” said Angel. “And it’s clearly too soon. A short stint at Delinquents-R-Us and he’s suddenly no longer a psycho?”
    Lil’ Demon shrugged. “It depends on the rehab place. In some, you walk the walk and talk the talk and they pronounce you cured and give you massages and pedicures for a week. In others, it’s major lockdown.”
    “If I know Gehry,” said Angel, “it’s a matter of