The run did nothing to calm the restless anxiety gnawing at his stomach. He reached the dorm in worse spirits than he'd left the stadium. He tried to distract himself by putting his things away, but he ended up pacing the room with his empty duffel bag in his hands. His fifth time around he couldn't take it anymore. He fell to his knees and yanked at his dresser, hurriedly unloading his few outfits so he could get to his safe. He punched the code in and undid the combination lock, needing to see his binder. He went through it cover to cover, checking and recounting everything.

He shouldn't have come here. He shouldn't have stayed once he heard about the district change and found out who the Moriyamas were. Andrew getting into his things should be the last straw, even though Andrew hadn't said anything yet about what was in Neil's folder. Maybe Andrew wasn't smart enough to check the slips, or maybe he'd written the folder off the second he realized it was basically a shrine to Kevin and Riko. But Neil couldn't just assume Andrew hadn't found his money. For all he knew Andrew was waiting to throw it in his face later.

Panic told him to go now, but Neil couldn't move. A quieter voice beneath his fear kept him from getting up again. Neil still remembered Kevin's breakdown at Wymack's last month. Kevin's fear cut him wide open because Neil knew that feeling. Every day Neil woke up and relearned how to breathe. He gave himself two minutes every morning to calculate his chances of getting caught, weigh the benefits of staying wherever he was, and talk himself through his fear.

Did Kevin do the same? The dead look Kevin turned on Andrew today was the same look Neil saw in his reflection. When Neil stopped acting, when he stopped worrying about who was watching, when he let go of the lies that kept him alive, that was the only expression he could make.

Neil repacked his safe and dug out the cigarettes he'd bought at the store earlier. He went to the window, undid the two locks that kept it closed, and shoved the pane up as far as he could. A screen kept him from leaning out, but he pressed against it so hard it creaked. He lit a cigarette and watched it burn. The acrid smell of smoke and fire took the edge of his nerves, but the familiar and quiet grief that followed made everything worse.