A dreamy look of pleasure drifted across his face.

“Oh, yes, I’ll be there. Just one of the students they admit. In my jeans, with my red scarf, standing with me other students, way back, where you can’t see shit. I’ll be invisible—until the moment comes. I won’t be invisible then, of course. They’ll all be watching, all those famous people. All those rich people. Jean Lazare will come out to take his bow, and then…” He picked up the gun and caressed it. “Imagine, Mina. I might even get filmed doing it—that would be good. I’d be on every network in the world. Prime time, Mina. The whole world will watch me fire that shot.” He smiled back at his own reflection in the mirror. “I want to look good then, I want to look like—an angel of death.”

He moved back to the bed, took out some grass and some pills, and began to arrange them in a pattern on the quilt. Mina watched him, too terrified to speak.

Star selected two pills and swallowed them down: one was a White Dove, the other was speed, he said. This action made Mina even more afraid: it was the first time she had ever seen Star take drugs. He drank several glasses of water, then took her hand in his.

“You’re afraid. Don’t be.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll be coming back for you, Mina—didn’t you realize that? When it’s all over, I’ll come back here, and I’ll wash, and fix myself up. There might be blood, you see, and…” His vision glazed; he sighed, then shook himself. “So I’ll take a shower, then I’ll put on my black suit, that new shirt over there, and then, Mina, we’re going places, you and I, because I’ll be free, you see. Free for the first time in my life.”

Mina made a little murmuring sound of agreement, and it seemed to suffice. Minutes later he became restless again. He disappeared into the bathroom, locking her in the bedroom as he left. When he returned, and lay down beside her, she could see that he’d washed yet again, but he hadn’t washed well enough: there were traces of some odd white powder around his nostrils and upper lip.

He said he had another pink jewel for her, and Mina tensed. She knew why he was going to make her take that: because it would make her dreamy and dopey, and then it would make her sleep. For hours.

Mina took the pill from him and put it into her mouth. She knew she had to distract him, so she asked him to show her the gun again—and it worked. It took only a second as he rose from the bed. She just had time to spit the pill into her hand, then let her arm hang down over the side of the bed. She pushed the pill under the mattress, and Star never noticed a thing.

He smoked some grass—that very strong grass that made her feel sick, then he made her smoke it too, and when he saw she wasn’t inhaling, his eyes got that glittery look. He made her inhale, twisting her left arm up behind her back so the pain was excruciating. He made her smoke almost an entire joint, and she hadn’t eaten all day, and she could feel it start to twist about in her head and make her fears very large—huge physical things, like great birds that came swooping down at her, then drove her over some precipice and into a pit.