“Oh. Then why are you being so strange?”
“Because I didn’t buy it.”
My stomach twists into a knot. Something unpleasant crawls down my spine, a feeling like a centipede is slithering along my skin, its tiny insect legs cold and prickly.
“Who bought it?”
“Pakhan.”
The only sound that breaks the following silence is the whirr of the microwave. We stare at each other until the timer bell rings, then Mal says, “He’s invited us to dinner. We leave in ten minutes.”
“Now? It’s got to be one o’clock in the morning.”
“The time is immaterial.”
I’m sensing all kinds of weirdness coming off him. It makes my already frazzled nerves fray even more. “This isn’t good, is it?”
He hesitates. “It’s unexpected.”
He’s hedging his answers. There’s something he doesn’t want me to know, and it freaks me
