The Reckoning of Noah Shaw Read online

  Dalrymple and Victoria exchange a glance, but it’s M who speaks, again. “Mara will come for you, then he’ll come for her. And I’ll be here when he does.”

  “This is all about him?” I say. “You’ve let your life be dictated by a man you loathe—”

  “I haven’t let him do anything. I can’t escape him.” She says it matter-of-factly, but her expression is shuttered. Boarded up like an abandoned house.

  I push her. “So, you’ll bring the professor to you by getting the rest of us all together, finish him off, even though he knows the future, likely knows you’re planning this. And then you’ll, what, steal all our Gifts? That’s quite a lot of power,” I finish.

  “It would be a lot of power,” Victoria concedes, ignoring the first bit. “I expect we’ll lose one of us before it’s done.”

  Which one, though.

  “So all that shite you fed me about saving Mara from herself, needing my memories or whatever—”

  “Both are true,” M cuts in. “Mara does need to be saved from herself. Your memories will help us do it, when she comes, and when he follows her. They’ll help everyone—Mara, the teens who’ve been dying because of your father’s legacy—”

  “And you, most of all,” I finish.

  M doesn’t reply, at first. Then she says, “I want what was taken from me. I want to know who I was before I gave myself this name. I told you the truth, about that.”

  “Why not have Isaac restore your memories, then?” I say.

  Her eyes slit. “I would have been satisfied, once, knowing where I came from. But now I want to know why.”

  She could have my memories, if that were all she truly wanted. If that were all they’d be used for. But it isn’t. There’s something else she wants, and she needs me and Mara to get it.

  I try to hide how sick I feel at the thought of whatever love Mara might still have for me being used against her, in any way. Because I’ve used her myself. Being with her was like walking with the shadow of death beside me, a door marked EXIT comfortingly within reach. Her power over it, and the power I unconsciously wished I had over her—it’s intoxicating. Addictive. And every warning to stay away—from the professor, because she’d weaken me, or ruin me—only drew me in closer. Made me desperate to keep her in my orbit, whilst surrounding her with reminders of the worst moments of her life.

  How much of who she’s become is because of what he and Kells made her believe she should be? If she’d never been led to believe she was a murderer from the start? Who would Mara be if she’d never met my father . . . or me?

  I ruined her. Not the other way around.

  You were supposed to slay the dragon, but you fell in love with it instead.

  My father’s words.

  Slay the dragon. Save your girl.

  That’s what M wrote before shepherding me here.

  They were both wrong. I haven’t saved my girl. I damned her.

  To be used again by others, for their own ends, or to dangle her in front of me to make me serve them.

  I don’t have a full understanding of what Jamie’s here for, not truly, not yet. And I’ve no idea who else they’ve rounded up—Goose and Ceridwen, likely, and God knows how they might use them.

  I think back to what Isaac said before, about the originals appearing in my memories. A wanted man, he called me.

  Whatever the thing you want most is, that’s what they’ll use to get what they want from you.

  I’ve wanted many things. Not to have to feel any more deaths. To protect the people I care about. To save Mara, most of all, though she doesn’t need or want me to. Even leaving her was a way to try and change her, to get her to be the version of her I wanted, instead of the version she chose to be. The version I wish I could forget.

  Maybe I can do both. Forget her and save her from being used—by anyone, even or especially me.

  I look at Isaac, sitting now with one ankle crossed over his other knee. I don’t know what choices are left to me, but I decide to put them in the hands of a stranger I trust, and a friend I don’t.

  “Mara is what I want most,” I say to Isaac, meeting his gaze, holding it for dear life. “She’s what I want most in the world.” Then, to M, I say, “If my remembering is what you want, I’ll do it. Just don’t hurt Mara. I won’t need any encouragement.” My glance shifts to Jamie, who seems to be chewing on the inside of his cheek.

  “Isaac?” M asks him. “Do you?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t care,” he says easily, without hesitation. “I’m not the one who’ll be stuck with them.”

  Victoria nods at Jamie. “I’d still feel more comfortable if you’d . . . say something. I’m sure you can understand.”

  Jamie obediently takes a couple of steps toward Isaac’s chair. When he speaks, his voice is resonant and commanding. “Make Noah remember. Make him remember everything.”

  The room is silent. The three originals are completely still, waiting, watchful. All eyes are on Isaac, as his face relaxes, as he unfolds himself from his chair, and moves easily to mine. He stands in front of me, forcing me to look up. With one hand, he glances his open palm softly against my face, then crouches down in front of me, his stare unclouded and clear.

  My heartbeat thunders against my rib cage, not knowing what he’ll say, not knowing who I’ll be after he says it. Whether I was right to trust him, or not.

  “Forget Mara,” he says, as the room begins to darken. The next words I hear are the last ones I remember, before everything goes black.

  “Both of them.”

  EPILOGUE

  ACCURSED CHANCE

  MARA

  COULD YOU BE ANY SLOWER?” I call out over my shoulder.

  Daniel glares at me through the revolving glass door. “I could be faster if I weren’t carrying your stuff and mine.”

  I roll my eyes once he’s inside. “Gimme.”

  He hands me a massive stripey duffel bag as I rise up on my toes to check out the lines. “Where’d you get this?”

  “Mom’s closet,” I lie. It was Noah’s closet. Noah’s bag. “Which line do we need to be in?”

  He glances at the board. “Uh, that one, I think,” pointing to a series of numbers. Flight 1821, departing in fifty minutes. “But I don’t know that we’ll make it—”

  “We’ll make it,” I say, scanning to see if there’s an opening in any of the lines. “Special Services! That’s us.”

  “Pretty sure that’s not what that means,” Daniel says.

  “Very sure I don’t care.” I muscle my way through an adjacent line and by the time we reach the agent at the Special Services desk, we’ve Drawn Attention to Ourselves. Oh well.

  The agent, a harried-looking, mostly bald gentleman, asks us, “How can I help you?”

  I smile my most nonthreatening smile and place my ID and Daniel’s on his desk.

  “Two tickets on the next flight to London,” I say. “Whatever it takes.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  NONE OF MY BOOKS WOULD exist without the enduring support of my family. I’m deeply grateful to my mother, Ellen, and to Jeffrey, for going above and beyond for me and for this book—so much love and thanks to you both. Infinite thanks to my incredible sister Yardana, and my almost-equally incredible brothers Martin, Jeremy, and Bret, for being exactly who you are. Most of all, as I write this, I am thankful to Grandpa Bob, and my grandmother, Janie, . You have been my champions in life since I was born. I am so lucky, and I have never and will never forget it.

  Kate, Stella, Stephanie—thank you so much, always, for it all. Stephanie, you know what you did.

  Many, many thanks to my editor, Liz Kossnar, for helping to shape this book; to Lucy Ruth Cummins, for designing yet another stunning cover; and to the entire team at Simon & Schuster for all they do to help make these books happen and for shepherding them out into the world.

  To Dana Spector and Paradigm, thank you for never stopping. And extraordinary thanks are owed to my extraordinary agent,
Faye Bender, for more than I can say.

  Last but never, ever least, thanks to you, my readers, for being here, still and always. I appreciate you more than you know.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MICHELLE HODKIN is the New York Times bestselling author of the Mara Dyer series and its companion trilogy The Shaw Confessions, and her books have been published in seventeen languages. Michelle grew up in South Florida, went to college in New York, and studied law in Michigan, before settling in Brooklyn. You can visit her online at michellehodkin.com.

  Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

  Simon & Schuster, New York

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  ALSO BY MICHELLE HODKIN

  THE MARA DYER TRILOGY

  The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

  The Evolution of Mara Dyer

  The Retribution of Mara Dyer

  THE SHAW CONFESSIONS TRILOGY

  The Becoming of Noah Shaw

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Michelle Hodkin

  Jacket photograph copyright © 2018 by Chris Crisman

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  Book design by Lucy Ruth Cummins

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hodkin, Michelle, author.

  Title: The reckoning of Noah Shaw / Michelle Hodkin.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster BFYR, [2018] | Series: The Shaw confessions ; volume 2 | Summary: Legacies are revealed, lies unraveled, and new alliances forged as Noah tries to escape the consequences of his choices and move forward without first confronting his past.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018022691| ISBN 9781481456463 (hardback) | ISBN 9781481456487 (eBook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Supernatural—Fiction. | Genetics—Fiction. | Ability—Fiction. | Suicide—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.H66vloc.gov/2018022691