For some reason, Tom felt like he’d been socked, realizing Blackburn had told her. He’d sort of thought Blackburn was discreet about the stuff from the census device. His brain felt all tangled up even thinking about Blackburn now, knowing the same guy who’d almost driven him insane had also saved his life and . . . and comforted him when he’d been hurting and sort of confused. But this was a surprise. Blackburn had talked about Tom’s personal stuff to Wyatt?

Tom hadn’t told her what he knew about Blackburn and his family. This felt like being stabbed in the back.

“What else did Blackburn tell you?” he asked her roughly.

“It wasn’t him, Tom. It was my fault.” She clutched her hands together in her lap. “It was right before vacation, after we got Jupitered. . . . That’s still a stupid term, by the way. Anyway, I knew something really bad had to have happened in the Census Chamber because you were acting so weird, so I downloaded the surveillance archives.”

Tom froze up. Oh no. She’d seen stuff. She’d seen all of it.

Yeah, he’d told his friends about his life before the Spire, sure. About those casinos where Neil raked in the money, and the crazy and colorful crowds, hopping trains and soaring from state to state in all the glorious freedom of it, or that high-rise suite over that pool with all the naked women in it, stuff like that. A bunch of things that were awesome and fantastic, the way things sometimes had been but usually weren’t.

Never that other stuff. Never any of the bad stuff. That wasn’t the person he was here.

“There were two days’ worth of footage,” Wyatt went on, her eyes darting to his, and skittering away again, “so I stuck it in my homework feed. I woke up knowing it all. But, Tom, I wouldn’t have sat and watched it all if I’d realized . . .”

“What did you think?” he blurted. “I told you it was bad.”

“I know. I didn’t know it would be that awful. That he could be that awful.”

Tom felt sick. He couldn’t look at her.

“I haven’t talked about it to anyone, you know. And . . . and I haven’t been talking to Lieutenant Blackburn, either. I’m mad at him. He was awful to you. He’s noticed, too. He ordered me to stop sending him ‘sad hurt puppy looks,’ whatever those are. Um, but I could say something, too. I’m going to say something. I’ll give him a talking to.”

Tom barely heard her. His skin crawled all over. All those memories. Those fantasies. She’d been in some of those fantasies. Not only that, but she’d seen those hours when he’d begun falling apart. She knew all of them. She’d seen it all. She’d seen him. He couldn’t seem to move.