Quarantine: The Loners (10 page)

Varsity had a giant stockpile of food in the gym.

If Will returned with a garbage bag of food on top of the gold necklace, that would be the killing blow. Lucy would forget all about David, wouldn’t she? He had an idea, and before he could decide whether it was a good one, his hand reached out and knocked loudly on the door. He ran back into the shadows behind a line of lockers. All was still. Will gradually stepped back into the hall. His heart walloped in his chest. He crossed the hall, put his hand on the gym door handle, and opened it. Will stepped inside. There wasn’t a soul in the gym.

Holy shit. He was inside Varsity headquarters. The place was a mess. Party cups were strewn all over the basketball court. There were individual rooms separated by hanging sheets; free weights littered the ground; there was a lounge area; and on the opposite end, a gigantic pile of food cascading down the extended bleachers. Will guessed the pile could have fed the entire school population for a week. It was obscene. Will’s pulse pounded with fear and with a raw hatred for Varsity.

Will bounded over to the food. He had to work fast; who knew how much time he had left? He shoveled food into his bag. His hands shook. His breaths were short and shallow. It was taking too long to fill the bag. He shoved bread in there, jam, sugar, salami, cookies, canned chili. He couldn’t believe it. There was so much. The bag ran out of space. Will cinched it up and dashed toward the exit.

A basketball in the middle of the court caught Will’s eye. He stopped. He knew he shouldn’t. It was stupid. Pointless. His luck couldn’t last forever. But then again, who could say they shot a three pointer in the middle of Varsity’s home base?

Will ran to the basketball and picked it up. As soon as he touched the ball, he felt a surge of bravery. He checked the main entrance. Nothing. He dared to dribble the basketball once. The
thwap
of the ball on the floor exploded like cherry bomb, sending tinny shock waves of sound to the farthest corners of the gym. It sounded too good not to do it again.

Will dribbled. Then again. Each loud bounce was like a middle finger in Varsity’s face. His heart beat faster with each
thwap
.

He took a moment to line up his shot. One more long breath.

He let it fly. The ball arched gracefully toward its target. Just as it swished through the hoop, savage bellows echoed in from the market hall outside the main entrance.

Varsity.

Before the ball even hit the ground, Will grabbed his heavy bag and launched himself toward the west entrance. The voices were approaching too quickly. He shifted his momentum, reversed, and dove behind the bleachers. The main entrance doors flew open. The entire gang thundered into the gym. They raged, kicking chairs over, tearing down whatever they could lay their hands on. Will braced himself and stared out at them through the slats of the bleachers.

He watched as the Varsity guys started punching each other and smacking themselves in the head. They howled. A pack of them ran onto the bleachers and stomped and kicked all around Will’s hiding place. He had seen video footage on the Internet of a zoo where all the monkeys went crazy in their cage at once. This wasn’t much different.

“I WANT BLOOD!”

Will’s stomach twisted into a knot. He recognized Sam’s voice. Varsity roared in response. Will spied Sam through the slats of the bleachers. He was standing on a chair with his arms outstretched, looking down at his gang like some crazed preacher. His yellow hair looked unnatural against his skin.

He looked bigger than Will remembered.

“We won’t let this stand!” Sam said.

Varsity cheered louder.

Hilary glided over to Sam and entwined her arm around the inside of his leg. She looked up at him with a soft smile and said something that Will couldn’t hear. Sam’s expression lost some of its menace. He held up his hand, signaling that he needed a minute. He climbed down from the chair. The gang entertained themselves with vicious conversations about David. Sam and Lucy walked over to the bleachers. Will lost sight of them, but he could hear their conversation; they were very close.

“Are you sure about this?” Hilary asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“What if you captured him and kept him as your prisoner?”

“He has to die,” Sam said.

“But if you locked him up in the equipment cage and kept him there, he’d have to pay for it day after day, and then, baby, he’d end up wishing you killed him.”

There was a pause.

“Why do you want this?” Sam asked.

“If you kill him it will spook the other gangs. They’ll want to take us out.”

“They’re not strong enough to take us out.”

“They could band together,” Hilary said.

“Together, they aren’t strong enough! What are you up to?”

“Strategy, baby.”

“You still love him.”

“No, that’s in the past. You know that.”

“You don’t want your boyfriend to get hurt, huh, bitch?”

“Sam, don’t.”

“Say another word. I dare you.”

Hilary said nothing. Sam stormed back into Will’s view and stepped up on top of the chair again. He shouted to his gathered flock.

“David dies tomorrow! Everyone will see. They’ll all see what you get when you cross us. We’ll get our blood in the morning, you can be sure of that!”

One Varsity echoed Sam. “We’ll get our blood in the morning!” The chant caught on. “WE’LL GET OUR BLOOD IN THE

MORNING!”

The gym reverberated with the threat. The senior Varsity members escorted their Pretty One girlfriends to their respective sheeted cubicles. The Varsity underclassmen all climbed onto the bleachers above Will to lie down.

“WE’LL GET OUR BLOOD IN THE MORNING!”

Will stared up, petrified.
He lowered himself to the ground, amid the trash and giant clumps of dust. He shut his eyes and tried not to make any noise, as a nest of his enemies piled up above him.

DAVID WAS FIVE YEARS
OLD. HE LAY ON
the couch eating a bowl of cereal. He could feel the warmth of his mother lying behind him. The living room of their old house was bathed in an easy morning light. He felt safe, nestled in against his mother’s body. He could smell something sweet baking in the kitchen. His mother placed one of her arms over David, squeezing his belly with affection. It all seemed too perfect.

Just as that thought entered his mind, David knew he was dreaming. Everything started to slip away. He tried to hold tight to his cereal bowl, to the couch, to his mother, but he couldn’t get back to that perfect moment no matter how hard he tried.

David opened his eyes, and he stared at the cold brushed steel of the elevator wall, only inches from his nose. There was an arm around him, but it wasn’t his mother’s. It was Lucy’s. Lucy’s body pressed firmly against his back. He could feel every curve and swell of her, the slight pant of her breath on his neck. David strained to keep any movement minimal.

He didn’t want Lucy to wake up. As he inhaled, he smelled the sweet scent from his dream. It belonged to Lucy. She smelled like cookies or something. How did she do that?

He knew he should throw her arm off of him and stand up.

He should tell her that he wasn’t her protector, and it was time for her to go. But she was so warm.

He sighed and placed his hand around Lucy’s arm. He contorted his body to slip out from underneath it. Her skin was seductively soft but goose-bumped from the endless cold of the elevator car. David and Will had adjusted to it long ago, but Lucy must have been freezing.

He sat up carefully and looked over to Will’s corner hoping that he hadn’t seen any of the cuddling. It was dark, but it looked like Will’s bed was empty. He strained his eyes to see more sharply.

Will wasn’t there.

Any fogginess from sleep burned off in a flash. He saw the bucket turned upside down in the middle of the floor. He looked up to the emergency hatch. The little bastard snuck out? Was he out of his mind?

David stepped over Lucy with as much speed as silence would allow. Before hoisting himself up to the top of the elevator car, he snagged a blanket from Will’s bed and placed it over Lucy.

David tugged a Geek’s dirty green hoodie out of his materials sack; he didn’t want to wear his own. He grabbed a can of tuna and stuffed it in the sweatshirt pocket. He might need to barter his way in or out of something. He pulled himself up to the hatch and disappeared into the pitch black above.

“Will?” David whispered into the darkness of the elevator shaft. All David heard was a stunted echo. Damn it.

David reached over the edge and located a two-foot-long metal pipe he kept duct-taped to the side of the elevator car. It was thick and heavy; the thing could definitely break a bone
.

David hoisted himself into the vent that led to the hallway.

When he emerged from the elevator control closet, he pulled on the hood, keeping it low over his brow. He concealed the pipe up the loose sleeve of his sweatshirt. His shoulder still hurt from punching Brad, but if he ran into any trouble, he hoped the pipe would make up for it.

The elevator stood at the corner of two perpendicular hallways. David had no idea which way to go. Right now, his brother could have been anywhere. He had no idea where to start looking, and he wanted to panic. David grabbed his forehead as if he was trying to squeeze out a single clear thought.

The Skaters . . . if Will had been taken, the Skaters might have heard something. They spread gossip at every stop on their trash route. It was a safe assumption that they had already broken the story of Brad’s death over the PA in his sleep. But David could offer them a scoop. He could trade on his side of the story in return for info on Will. He started for the administrative offices, where the Skaters lived.

He didn’t get far before he was spotted. A white-haired kid was creeping out of a classroom dead ahead of him.

David accidentally locked eyes with him. He was the Scrap kid with the trampled hand from the quad. The kid’s eyelids peeled back when he saw David’s face. He waved David over with his bent fingers. The kid took off down the hall, limping fast, then stopped and looked back. He waved David forward again, with more urgency this time. What did he want?

A racket snapped David out of his thoughtshead. It came from the hallway behind him. It sounded like kicking on lockers. Then there was male laughter, a lot of it. It could’ve been a Varsity posse looking for him. He didn’t want to find out.

David ran toward the Scrap. The kid limped down the long hall and into a math classroom that stank of sour armpits.

David shut the door behind him as gently as his fear would let him. The room was a dumping ground. There were piles of junk, bloodstained rags, tied-off plastic bags with God knows what inside, and a puddle of oily brown liquid on the floor that David wanted nothing to do with. The Scrap moved an unhinged, ruined door that was resting against the wall and revealed a hole that had been burrowed through the wall.

“I’m Mort,” he said. “Remember me?” The kid smiled with pride—he was almost giddy. Mort was soaked with sweat, which dripped off his nose and slicked his hands, but he wasn’t the least bit out of breath. “Don’t worry. Come on.” Mort crawled through the wall. David followed, still fearful of the locker kickers in the hallway behind him.

The room on the other side of the wall had a malfunction-ing fire sprinkler by the ceiling that spit an uneven drizzle of water over the room. The constant flow of water had bubbled the paint on the walls and buckled the floor tiles. One fluorescent bulb in the far corner cast a sickly light on six Scraps before him. Their conversation stopped dead when David stood up.

David didn’t know the effeminate Korean kid with his eyes cast down. Next to him were a gangly set of twins, one boy and one girl, both with long white hair. David had never seen them before, but they seemed young enough that they couldn’t be more than sophomores. They each kept a finger hooked through the other’s belt loop. They looked like the dirty hillbilly kids you wouldn’t want to meet if you hoofed it too far into the mountains.

Nelson Bryant was a year below him. He was a ruddy runt of a kid who looked like he was born in the wrong century, like he should be wearing suspenders and knickers. David always felt sorry for Nelson because he was mostly deaf and wore the biggest pair of old-school hearing aids he’d ever seen. Nelson must have ditched the hearing aids when they ran out of batteries because he held a plastic chem lab funnel up to his ear like the ear trumpets David had seen in old Civil War–era photographs.

The last Scrap was Belinda Max. The ceiling light glared off of her wet scalp. David wondered how much she’d gotten in return for giving Hilary her hair. She bounced over to him.

“Mort! You found him?” Belinda said.

“Sure did,” Mort said with a laugh like a panting dog. He placed his sweaty hand on David’s shoulder. David shrugged the nasty thing off.

“Why are you looking for me?” David asked.

“Leonard, get him something to drink. Would you, um, you know, like something to eat?” Belinda said, and the Korean kid began frantically searching the room.

“Here, let me get you a dry chair,” Nelson said.

David’s discomfort grew with his impatience. He looked back to the hole in the wall that Mort now blocked.

“I don’t want a chair. What . . . what do you guys want from me?”

“Oh, no, you have nothing to worry about,” Belinda said.

“Not from us.”

“We want you to be . . .” Leonard started, his words losing all volume halfway through his sentence. He blushed and looked away when David met his eyes. He held out a bottle of dirty water. David shook his head, and Leonard backed off.

“You’re safe here,” Belinda said. “You’re with Scraps.” Belinda’s eyes filled with tears. David was confused about whether she was happy or sad. This crew of weirdos wasn’t getting him any closer to finding Will. Every second he was out of the elevator his chances of surviving until graduation were in a nosedive.

“I have to go,” David said. The locker kickers must have been gone by now.

“Yeah, but . . . let us help you,” Belinda said, spilling tears from her eyes but smiling.

“Okay. Have you seen my brother? Will Thorpe? Do you know him?”

Belinda bit her lip. She looked on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

“What?” David said, suddenly worried by her tears. “You saw him? What’s wrong?”

“It’s just . . . I’m so glad to have you here.”

“Here’s your chair,” Nelson said, and scooted a chair behind David. It hit his knees, and he sat without thinking.

“Nelson, have you seen Will?” David asked.

“Ooh, no, I don’t have any pills. Do you have a headache?” Nelson said.

That funnel didn’t seem to work very well. David’s chair was anything but dry. This was enough. He had to get out of here.

“Mort, thanks for the hiding place, but I’m leaving,” David said.

The mountain twins burst out laughing. They were having a murmured conversation. The girl snickered and gripped the boy’s arm like she’d fall over without his support. While she doubled over laughing, he picked things out of her hair like a mother baboon.

David turned to crawl back through the hole. Belinda rushed in front of him, pushed Mort out of the way, and blocked the hole with her bulk. David tensed up. This was more than weird, it was getting dangerous.

“No, but you can’t go!” Belinda said.

David tightened his grip on his pipe.

“And why’s that?”

“We need you,” Belinda said, her voice choked with emotion. “You’re the one we’ve been waiting for.” David realized he’d walked right into a trap. He let the pipe slide out of his sleeve and lifted it up, ready to swing. He clenched his face at Belinda, and she cowered.

“You lookin’ to sell me out to Varsity? Huh? I’m not your meal ticket.” David said.

“We want you to lead us. Our gang,” Belinda said. David lowered the pipe a little.

“Huh?” He would have laughed, but he was too on edge.

“A gang for Scraps,” Belinda continued, tears welling up again. “So we can have rights, fight for our fair share together, and y’know, protect each other.”

The look on her face had no hint of humor to it.

“I’ve got bigger problems right now,” David said.

“Yeah, but . . .” Belinda’s voice jumped to a desperate octave.

“No, but that’s the whole thing. If there was a gang for us, then you wouldn’t have had to do what you did yesterday. That girl woulda had someplace to go.”

David could admit that the idea was nice—safety in numbers, a team of people he could trust to take care of Will after he left, a place for Lucy as well. But how? Take on Varsity and every other gang with these six misfits at his back? They’d never stand a chance.

“I’m not your guy. I’m nothing special,” David said.

“Yeah, but no, but you are. You’re the one! You stood up to them. If other Scraps knew you were doing it, they’d join.

They’ll follow you, David,” Belinda said.

He looked over to the twins. The boy had his head tilted back and his mouth open, trying to catch droplets from the sprinkler. The girl twin held her dirty hands like a gutter to catch more water and funnel it into her brother’s mouth.

“I’m leaving,” David said, and tucked his pipe into his sleeve. He gently moved Belinda to the side. She grabbed his hand with both of hers and held on to it as he crouched and entered the hole.

“No, but please,” she said.

David looked back at her and saw a pain that he recognized, the frustration of giving your heart and soul and watching everything still go to shit anyway. For a moment he wanted to say yes, that he would be their captain, that he would take on the school, that he’d prove her right, but he didn’t speak. He let the moment pass.

“I’m sorry.”

She let his fingers slip from hers as he crossed into the stinking math room. David opened the door to the hallway and poked his head out. Totally empty. It was still early. He knew Varsity was up and lurking, but most of the school was still asleep. He might have time. He had to find out if Will was okay. He jogged in the direction of the Skaters once again.

David hit the stairs fast. He ran for a couple minutes. He was in Geek territory, not far from the auditorium. David stared down a long hallway. Geeks slept in the rooms on either side. He ran down it, hoping to reach the end as fast as he could. A third of the way down the hallway, the ceiling lights flickered on.

It must have been later than he thought. David poured on the speed, but Geeks began to spill out of the classrooms, ready to start the day. He drew his hood even farther over his face, kept the pipe at the ready up his sleeve, and slowed to a brisk walk. He felt sure that, past the green fabric of his hood, every eye in the hallway was pointed right at him. He was completely exposed.

He kept his eyes glued to the floor and only looked up when he had to. He passed a pair of kids chatting on his left side.

He waited for a comment. A shout. The clapping of footsteps after him. But nothing happened.