Double Dexter by Jeff Lindsay Page A

when you’re grown up,” I said. “It’s a very simple choice.”
    “Why can’t they just do an operation?” she moaned. “Just get it over with, and I’d even get to miss school for a few days.”
    “It doesn’t work that way,” I said.
    “Doesn’t work at
all,
” she said. “They make me look like a
cyborg
and everybody will laugh at me.”
    “Why do you think they’ll laugh at you?”
    She gave me a look of amused contempt that was almost adult. “Weren’t you ever in middle school?” she said.
    It was a good point, but not the one I wanted to make. “Middle school doesn’t last forever,” I said, “and neither will the braces. And when they come off, you’ll have great teeth and a terrific smile.”
    “What do I care; I’ve got nothing to smile about,” she grumbled.
    “Well, you will,” I said. “When you’re a little older, and you start to go to dances and things with a really great smile. You have to think of it in a long-term kind of way—”
    “Long-term!” she said angrily, as if now I was the one using bad words. “The
long
term is that I’ll look like a
freak
for a whole year of middle school and everybody will remember
that
forever and I’ll always be That Girl with Huge Awful Braces even when I’m forty years old!”
    I could feel my jaw moving, but no words were coming out; there were so many things wrong with what Astor had said that I couldn’t seem to pick one to start on—and in any case she had walled herself into such a high tower of miserable anger that whatever I said would just set her off again.
    But luckily for my reputation as an urbane negotiator, before I could say anything and have it slammed back down my throat, Rita’s raised voice came floating down the hall. “Dexter? Astor? Come to dinner!” And while my mouth was still hanging open, Astor was up and out the door and my little encouraging chat about braces was over.
    I woke up again on Monday morning in the middle of an enormous sneeze and feeling like a Turkish weight lifter had spent the entire weekend squeezing every bone in my body. For that one confusedmoment between waking and sleeping I thought the psycho who had hammered Detective Klein into a limp pudding had somehow gotten into my bedroom and worked me over while I slept. But then I heard the toilet flush, and Rita hurried through the bedroom and down the hall toward the kitchen, and normal life lurched up onto its feet and stumbled on into another day.
    I stretched, and the ache in my joints stretched with me. I wondered whether the pain could make me feel empathy for Klein. It didn’t seem likely; I’d never been cursed with that kind of weak emotion before, and even Lily Anne’s transformational magic couldn’t turn me into a soft-shelled empathy feeler overnight. It was probably just my subconscious playing connect-the-dots.
    Still, I found myself dwelling on Klein’s death as I got up and went through my morning routine, which now included sneezing every minute or so. Klein’s skin had not been broken; a remarkable amount of force had been used on him, but there had been no blood spilled at all. It was my guess—and the Passenger hissed its agreement—that Klein had remained conscious as every bone in his body had been shattered. He’d been awake and alert for every smash and crunch, every agonizing smack of the hammer, until finally, after a very impressive period of agony, the killer had done enough internal damage to allow Klein to slip away into death. It was much worse than having a cold. It didn’t sound like a lot of fun—especially not for Klein.
    But in spite of my distaste for the method, and the Dark Passenger’s contempt, I really did start to feel the limp fingers of empathy tickling at the inside of my skull—empathy, yes, but not for Klein. The fellow feeling that sent small tendrils curling into my thoughts was all for Klein’s executioner. It was totally stupid, of course—but nonetheless I began to