HEAR by Robin Epstein

his blank stare to me. “I didn’t turn anything up on you, though, Kass. Then again, I didn’t look that hard because I assumed you were invited because you were Professor Black’s niece.”
    How reassuring. “So what did you do to get yourself arrested?” I ask Pankaj.
    â€œI was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
    â€œSpill it,” Mara demands, impatient. “Come on, Kass just gave her confession.”
    Mara seems much less annoying to me at this point than she did at the beginning of the evening. I’m starting to wonder if we might even become friends.
    â€œFine,” Pankaj says, lining up his next shot. “I spent a week in a hotel in New York. Now the hotel may have been under the mistaken impression that I was the son of one of their guests, and that error may have allowed me to stay at no cost to myself . . .”
    â€œWhy would they think that?” I ask.
    â€œBecause I may have slipped into his room when he was out, called the front desk, and said I needed another room for my teenage son. Then I may have described what I looked like and said the boy would arrive shortly to pick up his key.”
    â€œThat’s, like, the perfect plan,” Alex says.
    â€œI know. I stillcan’t believe I got caught. But the man had a suspicious wife back home, and when she saw the extra charge on the credit card, she assumed he was putting up a mistress. She called hotel security to ‘have the home wrecker booted,’ and they found me sleeping in the bed.” Pankaj examines the remaining pool balls on the table and tries to find his next shot. “It was all sort of funny. A little less amusing when they carted me off to jail.”
    I shake my head, not sure what to make of his story. Is it even true?
    â€œWhat, Legacy?” Pankaj asks.
    â€œI’m just wondering how you got here.”
    â€œBefore deciding how they were going to charge me, they did a psych workup.”
    â€œDid they think you were criminally insane?” I ask.
    His coppery eyes glitter at me in the soft lamplight. “They didn’t tell me what they were trying to diagnose,” he answers, which makes Alex laugh. “It was just two straight days of psychiatric evaluation. At the end they offered me a deal. Professor Black appeared with my court-appointed lawyer and said I could come here or take my chances in juvie.”
    â€œIt makes sense,” Dan says. “In all the decades that Professor Black’s lab has been open, this is the first time he’s handpicked his test subjects.”
    â€œHow do you mean?” I say.
    â€œNormally he uses Henley students, but he reached out to all of us, made the opportunity virtually impossible to turn down, didn’t he?”
    Before anyone can answer Dan, we hear voices and laughter in the hallway. A moment later three Henley students walk in; I’m guessing by their comfort level—and their surprise at seeing us—that they’re Hounskull members. The first through the door is a pretty brunette with porcelain skin and drink-flushed cheeks. Two large guys trail her, one with his baseball cap facing forward, the other with his turned back.
    â€œOh!” the girl exclaims.
    Alex nearly drops his pool stick. “Um . . . hi,” he stammers.
    My eyes flash between him and the girl. For a second, I wonder if they know each other, but her glance skims past Alex without any sign of recognition. As he continues to stare at her with unguarded, almost childlike fascination, his veneer of confidence fades. The reaction has the bizarre double effect of endearing him to me and making me grateful our dinner wasn’t a date after all. Had he become so blatantly infatuated with another girl while we were alone, I would have been pissed . And with everything else that’s going on, the last thing I need is to start spinning in an angry jealousy spiral.
    â€œSorry!” the girl says,