Rousseau never yelled, never used those meaty fists of his. His voice just got lower, deep and quiet, and he’d fix pitiless eyes on you like you were prey. “Half my pickers would like to eat the food or take the drugs they find, but where would the den be if they did?”

“I’d never hold back food!”

“You don’t get to choose what you turn in and what you don’t.”

“It’s just . . . oh, you know . . .”

“No, I don’t.”

“I thought . . . it’s just . . . I kept them for Rubio.”

“What, so he could get high?” He flattened both hands on the desktop. “You’re his dealer now?”

“No! No!” His outrage pounded at me like a storm wave. I slumped into the chair furthest from the desk. “Like what if they could help him? ’Cause he’s getting so much worse!”

After a moment Rousseau said, “Ah.” He puffed out a tired little laugh, touched his forehead. “Of course. The wrong gesture for the right reason.” He dropped into his own chair, leaning over the desk on folded arms and flicking the ziplock with a forefinger. “But since when are you a medic? You have any idea what these are? You can read, as I recall.”

“It was dark. I . . .” I was an idiot. “I meant to look, but then they were gone.”

He zipped open the bag to spill out the blister packs in a clatter across the desktop. “This is warfarin. Know what that is?”

I felt the sear of his gaze without looking. “No.”

“It’s a blood thinner. Also used as rat poison. Rubio would likely have read the label. But if not, you could’ve killed him.”

I shut my eyes, then buried them in my hands. “Stupid, stupid.”

“Indeed. No less than the canoe lads bulling off into risky territory. Putting your own needs before the safety of the den. It can be fatal.” He gathered the pill packs and shoved them back in the bag. “Spunk’s right to keep an eye on you.”

I nodded deep into my chest, scary close to weeping. I’d screwed up, in so many ways. Couldn’t even steal something right. Like, what if Rubio hadn’t read the label? Time to give up, empty the whole wallet onto the desk, bare my greater guilt and fling myself on the boss man’s mercy, begging him not to throw me out into the streets. I was so close to doing it. But two details nagged, enough to stiffen my back: why was the ninja girl carrying around rat poison, and how did it end up in Rousseau’s hands?

“It was Peeto, wasn’t it?”

“What was?”

“Peeto who tossed my bunk. The little creep!”

Did I hear a faint rumbling chuckle?

“No, in fact, it wasn’t.”

“Who, then?” Humiliation had rubbed me raw. Dignity be damned.

“Not exactly a need-to-know, but . . . I did.”

I looked up open-mouthed.