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No, I definitely couldn’t say that last part I wasn’t even sure it was true

Besides, I still ached for Tyler

Si, and he didn’tinto the darkness

When I finally broke the silence again, ned rather than critical "She’s crazy, Simon Griffin I talked to her, and she’s out of her hed, a breathy sound that only added to the calht "She’s not crazy, she’s justunhappy"

"Unhappy et the sense she’d like to play target practice with your skull Besides, I’ot here, don’t you? How long’s this gonna last?" I doubted anyone, not even Nyla, could hear us, but I kept my voice hushed all the sa each other? Griffin says Willow’s the reason none of you are friends anymore"

I half expected a denial, but he just nodded "It’s true But probably not for the reasons Griffin said She has a way of twisting things around"

I guessed that much already Griffin see words and facts until they suited her "She didn’t say why, just that it was Willow’s fault That everything would’ve been fine if Willow hadn’t co"

Simon smiled sadly "Of course that’s the way she’d see it Revisionists have a way of changing history to suit themselves"

The sound of footsteps interrupted us, and Nyla appeared, wearing a Tied "Just a few more minutes?"

She looked from me to Siiving in "Make it fast You have five ain, I said to Siainst Willow?"

Siedand warers so I could lace thehtly curled

He spoke ently now that Nyla had put us on a clock, and at first his story mirrored Griffin’s exactly as he explained how he and Thoether "But it wasn’t Willow’s fault," he insisted at the point where their versions deviated "Willow didn’t do anything wrong, other than the fact that she was different froirls Thom and I were sent after She wasn’t like anyone we’d ever come across before She didn’t have that lost-puppy sense about her thatout the way ht have taken offense, if he hadn’t included himself in that description as well

"Here she’d been taken and experimented on and then returned, and she justwhat?" He shrugged more to himself than to me "She just accepted it, the way you would that the sky is blue and a bear shits in the woods" He looked ht in the eye and nodded "Yeah, that was it It was that no-nonsense thing about her Willow’s biggest fault, at least in Griffin’s eyes, was that Thoht maybe she could ith us, the same way Griff did"

My stomach lurched at the casual way he said Griff I wasn’t born yesterday--girls like "Griff," with their push-up bras and badass attitudes, had a way of wiggling their way inside guys’ heads, and I couldn’t stop fro if she was there now--in Si on inside my head "No matter e said," he continued, "Griffin hated Willow froo And she went out of her way to underet over it Ian interest in Willow, that didn’t mean we’d replaced Griffin But Griffin was never like that She had to be the best at everything The center of the universe She didn’t like Thoirl" He was quiet for several long seconds, and then he said, "I just never realized how far Griffin would go to get Willow out of the way" Simon spat in the sand, as if the memory were too sour to s

"What did she do?"

"At the tihters That Agent Truuy wasn’t around back then, at least not that I know of, but there was this other guy, and he was just as relentless He always seeot there Franco warned us all to be careful every time we left the caent was always one step ahead of us, and he would snag the new Returned before we could get to them" He shook his head "We started to suspect so hiht it was Willow?" I asked, piecing the puzzle togetherI don’t think she ever really believed it was Willow, but that’s what she told Franco She convinced him that all our trouble started about the time Willoed up, which was pretty much the truth She said Willow shouldn’t be trusted"

"And he believed Griffin?"