Hanna and I spent a lot of time talking over the next few days, after all the tests were administered. He was subdued in the beginning, hiding the fact that he didn't tell me a single relevant thing behind an endless stream of words. We talked about me, more than him, and by the time I realized it, he was already onto telling me more of what I needed to know. I think he just wanted to know me before he trusted me, wanted to gauge my persona and my life before he could open up. It was a fairly common tactic, but it had never been executed so subtly before, not in my experience. Hanna was, surprisingly, very bright and very deceptive, which was certainly at odds with others' perception of him. The boy had the highest, most secure walls around him that I'd ever seen, and knowing the kind of mind it took to create them made me question the apparent clumsiness and naivete. Was he acting this way on purpose? Was every move he made calculated and planned, even the times he tripped or stumbled or fumbled with things?

A logical part of me told me it was very likely. The part of me that read people by their eyes, by a feeling…that part told me it was genuinely him. He was a master of deception and a fantastic actor where it counted, to protect himself, but I couldn't get myself to fully believe everything he did was a show. Which was, of course, saying he was a klutz and childlike, but I hardly saw that as a bad thing.

It was three days before he even mentioned the corpse again. I'd never made it a point to find out his real name. I didn't want to accidentally tell Hanna. Something inside me felt that it would hurt him more than anything.

"So…where's Calvin?"

"The morgue." I knew I'd told him that before. Maybe the drugs he'd been under made him forget.

Hanna twitched, his arm moving to pull at his hair. "Why?"

I breathed out through my nose, trying to think of a delicate way to explain it. Hanna didn't see the man as dead. How could I make him understand without pushing him away? I couldn't settle for anything but direct. Hanna wasn't an idiot.

"He's a corpse, Hanna. He's dead. He has no pulse, no living tissue…there was nowhere else we could have taken him."

"I know that, but…it was never a problem before. I don't understand."

This threw me for a loop. I'd been under the impression Hanna thought he was alive. "You…knew he was dead?

"Well, yeah. I mean, he was green and covered in autopsy stitches. No heartbeat or anything. He was undead. A zombie, sort of. But he could think and speak and was alive in every sense that counted. I don't know why he just…stopped moving one day."

I didn't know how to react to that. A zombie?

"Hanna…a zombie? Do you really…"

I couldn't finish my sentence. I didn't know how. Hanna thought the man was a zombie. That he could move and think and speak and walk…how did that happen? And how could he tell me like it was such a normal thing?

"Right," Hanna said. "I should have figured you wouldn't believe me. Don't worry, I don't blame you. Most people don't know about things like that being real."

"Hanna, you can't expect something like that to hold up in court…no one would believe it. I don't even believe it. Zombies…Christ, that's just…"

"Crazy?"

Hanna's wry smile and knowing eyes tugged at something in the back of my mind. Whether it was true or not, Hanna believed it completely. There was no doubt in those eyes of his.

Suddenly, everything was far more complicated, for myself as well as for him.