Modern Monsters (Entangled Teen) (2 page)

We got here two hours ago. Brett could be out in ten minutes or five hours. There’s never any telling with him. It depends entirely on if he found something to entertain him: a conversation he enjoys or a girl he can flirt with. I have little else to do but utilize the abundance of games on my phone to entertain myself.

It’s another two hours before Brett texts me:

you ok? where are you?

I respond, and in a few moments he emerges from the house with a smile. He’s been drinking, but Brett never gets sloppy drunk, just happy drunk. Kudos to him.

He tosses me his car keys. “Ready to get going?”

They hit my knuckles and then the ground when I attempt to catch them. “Yeah. Meet anyone?”

“Nobody worth calling later.” Brett crams his hands into his pockets and heads for the car. I grab the keys from the dirt and follow. Driving is always exciting. I’ve had my license for a year, but Mom doesn’t have money to help me buy a car, and even after saving all summer I’d only ended up with enough cash for something I’d be humiliated to be seen in. Getting behind the wheel of Brett’s semi-new hybrid is always awesome. Although I had planned to stay at his place, he informs me that he has things to do bright and early in the morning so we might as well drop me off at my house.

While Brett dozes in the passenger’s seat, I focus on getting us home in one piece, letting my mind wander. This is my car. I’m driving home from a party I was invited to, not because of who my best friend is but because people wanted me there. I have the windows down and my sunglasses on, smiling at anyone we meet because I’m not self-conscious that my hair is a mess or I’m too tall, too skinny, too dorky, or too not worth looking twice at. When I get home, I’ll have a bunch of texts waiting for me:

thanks for coming tonight, man! and it was great meeting you, let’s hang out next weekend.

It’s a common daydream of mine. One that ends when I pull up outside my house and Brett opens the door and circles around to the driver’s side as I’m stepping out. My fingers curl around the keys. “You, uh, s-sure you should be driving yet?”

“Dude, give me my keys. I’m good. I’ll text when I get home to let you know I made it in one piece, yeah?” He pries them out of my hand, claps me on the back, and gets into the car. “I’ll see you Monday.”

Then he’s driving away, and I’m left feeling—not for the first time—that this is what the world has in store for me. Being someone’s stupid, stuttering shadow. The designated driver. All of this is someone else’s life. I’m just along for the ride.

Callie is a nagging concern in the back of my brain all weekend. Did she get home okay? Was she in trouble with her parents? How hungover was she the next morning? Does she even remember that someone helped her up to a room? I have no idea where she lives, so riding my bike past her house isn’t an option. Instead, I have to wait for Monday. Second period, I work as an assistant in the front office. It isn’t hard to take a quick peek at the locker assignments to tell me where I’m likely to find her between classes.

Brett meets me in the hall and on our way to the cafeteria for lunch, I tell him I want to take a detour. He gives me a quizzical look but goes along without question. My eyes scan the crowded hall for locker numbers and when I come across Callie’s, I slow down but don’t stop. There’s no sign of her. Maybe she doesn’t go to her locker between classes; some people keep all their books with them.

As we walk away, I notice someone who isn’t Callie approach Callie’s locker. She’s about Callie’s height, but with longer, darker hair. She messes with Callie’s combination lock, pops it open, and begins clearing things out. Not just books but clothing, makeup, and miscellaneous junk.

I stop in my tracks, frowning. Why would she do that?

Brett shoves a finger into my ribs. “Hello? Earth to Victor, are we going to get lunch or what?”

Lunch. Right. I turn my gaze ahead and force my feet to move. Worst-case scenarios are running through my head. Did something happen to her? Alcohol poisoning? Choked on her own vomit? Her parents were so mad they cut her up and stuck her in the freezer? Guilt is gnawing its way up my insides; if something happened to her, will it be my fault?

“What was that about?” Brett asks.

“N-nothing. Just looking f-for someone.”

What happened to Callie?

Chapter Two

Brett drops me off at home right after school, citing some college applications to fill out and email. Fair enough. I have a test to study for, and my studying time takes about five hours longer than the average person. If I’m lucky, I’ll retain a quarter of the information I’m trying to cram into my tiny brain.

Times like this—when I’m on my bed hunched over books, index cards, and notes—make me wonder what it’s like to be in Brett’s head. He’s always been a brain, and his parents have pushed and pushed him to be brilliant.

But…I’ve worked hard for it, too, and I have always come up short.

I don’t know what it is. I’ve tried different methods of studying, but staying focused is impossible. By the time I finish reading chapters six and seven in my history book, I’ve forgotten most of it and have to go back and reread them a second, third, and sometimes even a fourth time. Writing notes helps, but only a little. The sound of the television in the living room is distracting, echoing down the hall. For that matter, so is the knocking.

Knocking?

Oh. The front door.

I pause, listening. Mom’s footsteps. Answering the door and saying worriedly, “Hello? Is everything okay?”

There’s an undercurrent to her voice that draws me from bed to poke my head into the hall. Beyond Mom stand two police officers, a man and a woman, and their eyes immediately move from her to me.

“We’re looking for Victor Howard. Is he home?” the lady asks.

“Victor is…” Mom turns, eyes wide and worried as she looks at me. “He’s right there. What’s going on? What is this about?”

The male responds, “Just have a few questions for him, is all.”

It takes effort to force myself slowly out of my room and down the hall. My chest is tight. “U-um, I’m V-Vic.” Stupidly, I offer my hand out to them, unsure what else to do. They glance at each other. Neither of them takes my hand.

“I’m Detective Sherrigan and this is Detective Carter, Waverly Police Department,” the man says. “We came to ask you about a party you were seen at Friday night.”

My insides are mush and my legs are jelly. I slowly lower my hand, watching Mom from my peripheral. As she steps aside to let the officers in and shut the door, her eyes are so wide that I’m expecting them to fall out of her head. Oh. The explaining I’m going to have to do after this will be amazing.

“Okay,” I say, wringing my hands together. “I-I was th-there.”

Sherrigan writes this down in his notepad. Carter remains poised, hands folded in front of her and expression grim. “Do you know a Callie Wheeler?”

My spine stiffens. “Is she okay?”

“Is that a yes?”

“Y-yes. I know her. S-sort of.”

While Sherrigan is portly and looks like he’d be a nice guy any other day of the week, Carter is the sort of cop you don’t want to mess with. Short. Hair pulled back into a serious bun, ruby-red lipstick that makes her look like she just tore out the throat of her enemies with her teeth. She doesn’t look impressed by me in the least. “Care to tell us what happened with Callie at the party that night?”

“I was at the p-party and she was, was, um, th-throwing up outside.” The words are coming harder, catching in my throat, tripping over my tongue. My hands are cold, clammy, made worse by my inability to get the words out as quickly as I want to. I can picture them in my head, but they’re getting lost somewhere in translation. “S-s-so, I…I…”

“Spit it out, son,” Carter says.

I breathe deeply. Try to start over. One sentence at a time. “I…took her upstairs. B-because, um, she was…drunk. Put h-her to bed and…and…that w-was it.” I look between the two of them, increasingly unsure if honesty is the best response right now. “Is she okay?”

“No, Victor, she’s not okay.” Carter dips her chin and peers over the top of her sunglasses. “She was raped.”

“Raped,” I repeat, because the word doesn’t have any meaning right away. It takes a second to process it, to digest it, comprehend its meaning.
Rape
. Any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person.

The word flow stops all together. I stare dumbly at the detectives.

I should have stayed with her. I should have—I don’t know. I should have done something more than what I did. I had just thought…she would be safe there in that room.

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.” Mom’s voice is a few octaves higher than usual. It happens when she’s anxious. “Is that all you came to ask him? Obviously he doesn’t know anything about this.”

Sherrigan turns to her, but I don’t think his eyes ever really leave me. “Ma’am, your son is being accused of raping Callie Wheeler.”

Gravity has suddenly gotten a very strong hold on me. I don’t move for fear that it’s going to yank me right to the floor and swallow me whole. Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I could do with disappearing right about now.

There are three sets of eyes on me. All questioning. All waiting for me to say something. I wait. Wait for Mom to come to my defense.
Victor? No, he’d never do anything like that.
Instead she’s staring at me with an expression I don’t think I’ve ever seen on her face before. Some concoction of disgust, confusion, and horror.

This is a dream. A nightmare.

It’s so stupid that I have to force myself to say, “I d-didn’t do anything…”

Carter asks, “Would you be willing to come down to the station to give a statement and submit to an exam?”

My insides are twisting, melting, knotting into an incomprehensible mess. “I j-just told you what I know.” Which was, effectively, nothing. Callie was fine when I left her.

And then she wasn’t.

Sherrigan and Carter continue to stare at me, not saying a word but clearly unwilling to take no for an answer. I look at Mom helplessly and she keeps her eyes averted, mouth screwed into a firm look of disgust. I just want her to reassure them that I wouldn’t do this. That I’m her son and I’m not perfect but I’m an okay kid and she knows me better than that, and yet…nothing. The vision of her standing there not helping me begins to blur as my eyes water.

If being questioned clears my name, then why not? I don’t know exactly what more I can say to them, but if it helps, if maybe something I say can lead them to who really hurt Callie… “I’ll go.”

The next hour slithers by in a blur. I’m a minor, which means Mom has to come with me—and yet I find myself being placed in the back of Carter’s car while Mom follows behind us in her car. Why, to keep me from talking to her? I’m too afraid to ask questions. What if it makes me look guilty?

I have a right to an attorney, Sherrigan tells me when we arrive at a small clinic twenty minutes from home. I nod at this because I’m supposed to acknowledge it, but it still doesn’t feel real. Mom lingers by her car. I see Carter approach her and speak, to which Mom shakes her head and murmurs something urgently to her while the look on her face makes my heart sink. Carter walks away, leaving Mom to get back into her car. She isn’t coming in. Maybe it’s stupid for me to be surprised. Mom hasn’t been there for me in years, so like many other things, I’m going into this blind and alone.

Nothing comes back into focus until I’m seated on an exam room table in my boxers and a flimsy hospital gown and left by myself for a few minutes.

Deep breaths. I wish Mom would have come with me. I wish my dad were a presence in my life instead of a one-night stand of Mom’s seventeen years ago. I wish I could call Brett. I wish I had left Callie to throw up in the bushes by herself. No…better yet, I wish I had never gone to that stupid party to begin with. I should have told Aaron to go screw himself.

I hear Sherrigan’s voice outside my room speaking to someone else. No matter how hard I strain, I catch only glimpses of the conversation.

“…never saw his face…”

“…more than seventy-two hours…”

“…victim said she recognized…”

They’re talking about Callie and me. I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to hear any more.

When Sherrigan finally comes back into my room, it’s with a female nurse at his side. She’s almost as tall as he is and her smile is guarded but not unfriendly.

“Hello, Victor. I’m Rosie.”

She already knows my name and I’m not sure my tongue is going to cooperate with me, so I just wring my hands between my knees and nod.

Rosie asks, “Do you know where you are?”

There’s a lump in my throat. I swallow it. “A d-doctor’s office?”

“Well, yes.” She pulls over her spinny stool and has a seat. “To be specific, this is the Sacramento RTC. We deal specifically with rape victims and, occasionally, suspects.”

Is this where they brought Callie, then? Did they shove her into one of these uncomfortable gowns and subject her to being prodded at? My chest constricts at the thought. How does someone even begin to process being violated and then having to spread her legs to let a doctor poke around?

“What’s going to happen,” Rosie explains, “is Detective Sherrigan will remain present while I collect some samples. Swabs, blood, hair, fingernail scrapings.”

God, my mouth is so dry. “Okay.”

“Did they have you sign the consent paperwork out front?”

I nod. Rosie flips through a file—my file—and frowns, glancing at the detective. “His mother can be present.”

Sherrigan clears his throat. “She, uh, opted not to.”

I can tell even he’s thrown off by that. What mother wouldn’t want to be by her kid’s side when she knows he hasn’t done anything wrong?

“Okay. Well…” Rosie shakes her head, closes my file, and sets it on the counter. “Victor, just to reiterate, you’ve consented to this examination willingly. You are not under arrest and you are free to end the exam and leave any time you want. Do you understand?”

Somehow I feel like this is just a formality. If I were to say screw this and walk out, would they just arrest me for not cooperating? Would Mom refuse to take me home until I did? Still, I manage a nod. “U-understood.”

Nobody I’ve ever talked to enjoys a normal physical exam, and this is even worse. Rosie has me stand. She tells me each thing she’s going to do before she does it and yet there is nothing I have ever experienced in my life like this. She takes a swab from inside my mouth. Scrapes beneath my nails. Takes samples of my hair—from more places than one. Her hands are gloved but icy. She asks me questions about my medical history, if I have any illnesses, and what I’ve been doing the last week or so that can explain any lacerations or bruises on my body. That part is tricky. I’m gangly and awkward and prone to running into things and tripping. Half the time, I don’t remember where my bruises came from.

Sherrigan’s phone rings and he hesitates but ultimately says, “I need to take this. Excuse me,” and steps into the hall. Which I’m fairly certain he’s not supposed to do. He’s shadowed me every step of the way since we got here and that tells me it must be protocol.

Now that we’re alone, I ask, “Did you d-do the exam on Callie? The…the girl they said I…”

I look down at Rosie, who is crouched in front of me, taking a photograph of a cut on my left knee. I don’t remember how it got there. She doesn’t look up. “You’re smart enough to know that I can’t answer that.”

Yeah, I guess so, but… “I just w-wanted to know if sh-she was okay.”

That makes her lift her chin to stare up at me almost thoughtfully. “Well, she was raped, so I imagine she isn’t feeling very okay right now.”

Guilty heat immediately floods to my face, and since she’s down there, in order to not look at her I have to turn my gaze to the ceiling. I wonder how often she has to do this and if she gets suspects in here who are guilty and know their DNA is going to give them away. What must that be like? I’m not sure I could personally stomach dealing with those kinds of people. “Your job sucks.”

Rosie pauses, rocks back on her heels, and laughs. “Yeah, it kind of does, doesn’t it?” She motions for me to turn around and I do, trying to hold the back of my gown shut. By now she’s seen me all kinds of naked but it hasn’t gotten any less embarrassing. “It isn’t all bad, though. I’ve helped a lot of victims find peace of mind and justice, so it’s worth it in the end. I just wish there wasn’t a need for my profession to begin with.”

It’s such an honest outpouring that it catches me off guard. “What about…” I gesture helplessly at myself. “Like me?”

“Suspects, you mean?” Another picture, this time of a bruise on the back of my thigh. Think I might have backed up into someone’s desk or something for that one. “You’re just another patient, Victor. I’ve had plenty of suspects come through here who were later proven innocent, so I try not to be judgmental right from the start.”

“Oh.” I fall silent while Rosie finishes with her photos, and when she stands up I turn to face her. “Do y-you think I did it?”

“I can’t say that I know.” She leans over my file, scribbling notes in typical doctor’s chicken scratch I can’t begin to decipher from here. Then she turns her attention back to me and her expression softens. “But I will say that if you did do it, then you’re a good actor.”

Rosie takes the collected samples and file and leaves me alone to get dressed again. Clothes have never felt so good. Sherrigan and Carter return for me before long. Rather than put me back into the car to go home, though, they lead me to some kind of break room where I’m instructed to sit at a table while they take seats across from me.

Carter says, “Rather than lug you down to the station, we figured we’d take your statement here. If that’s all right with you.”

I nod because I don’t want to be stuck with these two any longer than I have to. “I already t-told you wh-what—”

“Hold on a sec.” Sherrigan places a tape recorder on the table between us, opens his notepad with pen at the ready, and then looks at me. “The time is eleven thirty-five p.m., date is April fifteenth. Sherrigan and Carter, taking statement for the Callie Wheeler case…” He rattles off a case number and then looks at me. “Please state your name.”

For some reason, being recorded makes me break out into a cold sweat. These two really believe I hurt Callie, don’t they? I fold my hands in my lap and slouch back, unable to get comfortable in the plastic chair. “Uh…V-Victor Howard.”