King of Forgotten Clubs (4 page)

Our resident pyromaniac pulled into the parking lot in a baby-blue El Camino. Madison parked and got out.

“New ride?” Sam asked.

When did he notice cars, anyway? I shoved my irritation away. I would not waste any more time hating Sam. A girl’s life was at risk—and not just any girl. Kali. Who I’d thoroughly wronged.

“Something about appealing to voters,” Madison said sadly. I couldn’t remember what she used to drive, but she’d clearly been attached to it.

Birdie clapped her hands. “Now that we’re all assembled—”

“We’re not all assembled,” I interrupted. “Annabelle isn’t here yet.”

Birdie’s eyes darted back and forth.

“What do you know?” I demanded.

“I—” Birdie said.

“Leave off, Higgins,” Sam said.

I growled. No one called me by my last name. “Doesn’t it bother anyone but me that he’s here?”

“No,” Madison said. Of course. I couldn’t remember a single incident of something bothering Madison.

“Can we get on with the mission?” Birdie asked.

I huffed out a breath. “Fine. But pizza boy has to wait in the car.”

“Pak!” Birdie planted her hands on her hips.

Sam rolled his eyes. “It’s fine. I’ll go. Just don’t turn this into an hour-long meeting of the We Hate Sam Club.”

Birdie popped a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll tell them off if they try.”

Sam retreated into his car. Victory was mine. For the moment.

I looked around at what was left of the Stone Throwers. We were hardly an organized machine of terror and scheming. Not for the first time, I missed the days when we thought we could conquer the world.

“Right,” I said. “This is a rescue mission.”

“What are we rescuing, your brains or your self-worth?”

I spun around. Annabelle stood behind me, looking like a goddess of destruction in full wrath mode. “Annabelle.” I stared at her, trying to see past her aviators to decipher what she was thinking.

A muscle in her cheek jumped. “Well?”

“Well, what?” I asked.

“Who are we rescuing?”

I pulled myself out of my stupor. “Kali. I mean, Rachel. Er, the blonde with the nose piercing.”

“We’re doing
what
?” Birdie’s screech could have set off burglar alarms.

I glared at her. “I’m not asking you to destroy anyone’s life. I’m asking you to save it.”

Birdie crossed her arms.

“I’m with Birdie,” Annabelle said. “I’m not helping some bimbo get out of a mess she created herself.”

“She didn’t create it! She’s in real trouble!”

“I’ll help,” Madison said softly.

Birdie and Annabelle were too busy staring me down to notice.

“I’m out,” Annabelle said.

Birdie nodded and slid down from the car.

“Wait. I can’t do this on my own.” I didn’t have resources. I didn’t even have a plan. All I had were my friends, and if they wouldn’t help, I didn’t know what I’d do.

Annabelle didn’t stop walking.

Birdie paused. “If I help you, will you do something for me?”

“Depends.” I was desperate, but I still knew better than to declare willingness to do anything around Birdie.

“Talk to Annabelle. And I mean seriously talk.” Give Birdie a cause and she turned into a one-woman firing squad.

“I’ve been trying to talk to her.”

“No. You’ve been half-assing it, like you do everything. Don’t screw this one up, Pak.”

I gritted my teeth. It was already wrecked. Even I could see that. Anyway, if Birdie wanted the right to tell me what to do, she shouldn’t have left me. But Kali was in real trouble, and I couldn’t go toe-to-toe against a drug ring on my own. “Fine. After we’ve saved Kali, I’ll talk to Annabelle and use whatever stupid checklist you think appropriate.”

Birdie lit up. “Let’s do this.”

Exhibit I: I’m still broke.

“There’s still one piece missing,” Birdie said.

We were sitting around the table at Cheesey’s. I didn’t know why scheming and terrible food went hand in hand, but they did.

“I think it grew legs and walked away,” I said.

“Not from the pizza. The plan. There’s a piece of the plan missing.” Birdie tapped a finger on the table. “How are we going to get the money?”

“Please. We’re rich beyond anyone else’s wildest dreams. I mean, I used to be. We have to be able to get some money,” I said.

Birdie shifted in her seat. “I only have access to my account, and Mom never puts more than a couple thousand in there at a time. You’re talking about ten times that amount, Pak.”

“Well, I don’t have it.” I turned to Madison.

“Sorry, no.” She shrank into the backrest. “I don’t even have as much as Birdie. My parents think deprivation builds character.”

“This is ridiculous.” I buried my head in the arms. “How could this be our holdup?”

“Maybe we could get a loan?” Madison asked.

“Maybe Sam could get a loan,” I said. “He could put a mortgage on the business or something.”

“We are not asking Sam for money,” Birdie said. “You kicked him out, remember?”

“I can still hear you,” Sam said from behind the counter.

“Stop ruining the pretending.” I pushed back from the table. “I know how to get money.”

“We’re not robbing a bank,” Birdie said.

“Not what I meant. I need to borrow your phone.”

Birdie frowned but handed it over.

I walked outside. Took a deep breath. Dialed.

The phone rang once before Mom answered. “Hello?”

“Mom? I need your help.”

“Pak?” I tried to pretend the breathless excitement in her voice didn’t exist. “Hold on a second.” Muffled shouting played into my ear. The sound returned to normal. “I’ve got your father. You’re on speaker.”

Great. Just what I needed. “What, did you put a bet on this? How long it would take me to come crawling back?”

“No, Pak, we just want to talk to you.”

“No, you want to shuffle me off somewhere else where you can conveniently use me for photo ops.” I knew this would happen. First rule of living in glass houses:
Never trust anyone. They’re all just waiting to watch you fall.

“That’s not what we were trying to do.”

“Stop acting like a child,” my dad growled over the line.

“I’m seventeen! What do you want from me?” My explosion was met with silence.

Until, “Pak,” my mother whispered, “we’re just trying to help you.”

Except I couldn’t bring myself to believe her. I hung up. There were plenty of places to get money.

Right. Like jobs. And banks.

I walked until I found a park bench I could collapse on. This couldn’t be how my rescue mission ended. I hated how desperately important money kept turning out to be.

I didn’t know how long I sat there before she sat down beside me without a word. I tilted my head to take her in. Her brown hair was wild, her hands occupied with tearing apart another Styrofoam cup, as though she were trying to recreate the day we broke up.

“Hey,” I said, because it was all there was to say.

“They told me you wandered off this way. Just so you know, I’m not stalking you.”

“I didn’t think you were.” I wanted to wrap my arms around her and never let go. But that would be weak, and I wouldn’t let myself be weak in front of her.

“I have some money. In a savings account.” A piece of Styrofoam fluttered to the ground. “I was keeping it for college, but it’s my money. I can take it all out if I need to.”

“You don’t even like Kali.”

“I’ve never really met her.” She turned to me. “Does she matter to you?”

“Yes.” The word came out raw and bloody.

“Then she matters to me. So. You going to fill me in on this plan, or what?”

“I won’t lose your money,” I said. “I’ll make sure to get it back. You’re getting out of here and going to college.”

She bumped my shoulder. “Eh. I have a feeling no matter how far I go, I’d get pulled back into one scheme or another.”

We smiled at each other, for all the world like a pair of idiots in love. “Let’s go fight some drug dealers.”

“Wait. Drug dealers? No one mentioned drug dealers. I’m out.” Her lie was ruined when she burst into laughter. “Your
face
. Okay, let’s go. For real, this time. Blond damsels don’t rescue themselves.”

“Maybe they could if they had a sword.”

She shrugged with one shoulder. “Maybe. But it’s more fun to make the prince do it for them. That way they get a marriage out of the deal.”

“I am
not
marrying Kali.”

If it was anyone but Annabelle, I might have said she relaxed. “Last one to Cheesey’s actually has to eat there.”

Exhibit J: Bingo.

It had been a while since I’d been to the western side of L.A. Even the gleaming buildings tried to tell me I didn’t belong here as I strolled down the street in tattered jeans and an old T-shirt. Luckily, I still had enough contacts to get what I needed: a phone number.

“I’m here,” I told the earpiece I’d borrowed from Madison. I’d never have been able to juggle the bag of money at my side and Birdie’s smartphone. I hadn’t had time to get myself a new phone after the loss of the old one.

Oh, who was I kidding? I couldn’t afford a new one.

“Set the money down,” said the diluted voice on the other end.

I dropped the bag. I was scoring the last box of rap sheet bingo: making a drug deal. Then again, my goal was not the acquisition of drugs, but the tracking of whoever was selling them. I’d needed to offer big money to make sure it was management biting and not a two-bit dealer who wouldn’t know anything.

“Walk away.”

I did. Birdie, on the other hand, stayed in position.
 

I switched calls. “Are they approaching?”

“Not yet,” she said. “Give it a minute.”

I switched back.

“Reach under the trash can. And that concludes our deal, Mr. Higgins.”

A shot of cold fear snapped my spine straight. I’d never given them my real name. “What’s under the trash can?”

The line was dead.
No, no, no
! This couldn’t go wrong, not already.

I reached blindly under the next trash can I passed. My fingers hit a square of paper. I pulled it out.

It was a rectangle of stationery with three words written on it:
Let her go.

No.

I flipped channels. “Birdie?”

“The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected,” a mechanical voice answered.

But that had to be wrong. Entire lines didn’t just disappear. I pulled at the earpiece and fumbled with it, trying to find a button I could press to make everything go right.

I had to keep calm. If I panicked, it was all over.

I made a sharp left and took off down a side street. I needed to make it to the emergency meet-up point. The rest of the team would be waiting there. We’d figure out how to handle this. It could still turn out fine.

No one was at the meeting point. I slowed until I came to a stop in front of the swing set. No one was there, and I had no idea how to make it right again. What if they had Birdie? Or Madison? Or
Annabelle
? What if my rash plan had gotten my best friend killed?

Mulch crunched behind me. I swung around.

Birdie stood there, panting as she caught her breath. “What happened?”

I took a step toward her, then another. Birdie. Birdie was okay. I broke into a run and crashed into her, engulfing her in a hug. I half-expected her to push me away, but she hugged me back instead.

“It’s okay,” she said. “We’ll figure this out. We’re infallible, remember?”

“Sure, until we screw up.” I gestured vaguely as if to encompass our history of poorly devised plans, getting caught, and failing to talk our way out of the mess.

We laughed and fell away from each other.

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.

“Annabelle’s still trying to get a lock on them. I came here after my phone went dead and you ran off. It was weird. One minute it was working, then nothing.”

I handed her the note I’d found. “They knew.”

She took in the words, eyes wide. “We have to warn Annabelle. And get Madison. We might need some firepower, after all.”

“Birdie”—I took the paper back—“I can’t ask you to fight an entire illegal operation for me. This is the point where you can back out.”

“Hey.” She grinned. “You went against Skittle for me. You went against
me
for me, and if that isn’t more terrifying than an entire gang of heavily armed cokeheads, I don’t know what is.”

“You’re right. I fear for every heavily armed one of them.” I wasn’t sure I believed it, but it felt good to smile. Being around Birdie was always like that. Nostalgia threatened to sucker-punch me. For the first time since she’d left me, I sidestepped it. I’d never get back what I’d lost. But maybe there was something greater waiting to be found. Ugh, if I didn’t get away from all this sappiness, I’d have to revoke my membership to the pessimist club.

Birdie slung a bag over her shoulder. “Let’s get Madison then find Annabelle. Those junkies won’t know what hit them.”

Exhibit K: I try to do the right thing. See for yourself how that works out.

Madison was waiting in a café near the drop site. “What happened?” she asked when we got there.

“Long story,” I said. “The short version is, we’re going after the bastards that have Kali.”

Her face lit up. “And you need to blow something up to get there?”
 

“Probably.” I was pretty sure I was lying, but I wanted to keep Madison on board, just in case.

“I’ve only got low grades in my purse. We’ll have to go to my car for the good stuff.”

On second thought, I needed to get as far away from Madison as possible.

“You’re carrying it on you?” Birdie’s voice was half horror, half awe.

Madison tilted her head. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“What do you do if someone searches your purse? Wait, is it hidden in a compact? Do you have a lipstick laser?” Birdie reached eagerly for Madison’s purse.