Rebel, Bully, Geek, Pariah (26 page)

The rest of us fell prostrate on the ground out of some sort of instinct, but I couldn't take my eyes off the scene in front of me. I shoved the Super Zooms back onto my face, and then immediately wished I hadn't. It meant that I could see the surprise, then the panic, then the sheer terror on Andi's face, and for one insane moment, I knew we were both thinking the same thing: the truck was going to run her down.

But at the last second the pickup slammed on its brakes, and the sudden stop seemed to shock Andi out of the paralysis that had kept her frozen on the road, her arms still up in the air. She bolted for the field. Something pounded next to my ear, and feet raced into my vision. York had gotten up to help her.

Yes, help her!

I struggled to stand, too, but it was as if I were moving through water. Everything else was happening too fast. The doors of the
pickup were open. A man—I couldn't tell whether it was the cop with the familiar face or the other one—was right on top of Andi, and York was still yards away. It might as well have been miles.

The guy caught up to Andi in a second, his arms locking around her. She shouted something I couldn't make out, then twisted out of his grasp long enough to get one arm free. That arm sailed toward the sky in an almost elegant gesture—a ballerina taking a bow. The crooked cop redoubled his efforts and trapped her arm once again, this time lifting her all the way off her feet with his bear hug.

Fight, Andi!
I screamed it in my mind. Or maybe I screamed it out loud.

Boston cried out for his brother from somewhere on the ground behind me, and while I couldn't blame him, I silently willed York to run faster. But it was too late. The man now had Andi's dreadlocks in his fist and was forcing her face-first into the truck.

The pickup was peeling away before York was even halfway across the field.

 

34

I STARED AT the cloud of exhaust left by the pickup until every wisp of it flew away on the wind. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the spot where the truck had been, where Andi had been. I stood staring for an eternity stuffed inside a few short seconds.

Behind me, Boston was wailing “Oh my God, oh my God” over and over again. Up ahead, York was on his knees, screaming, “Help me!”

It was the latter cry that unstuck my stare and got my feet to move. I flew across the field toward York, my heart pounding. Why was he on the ground? Had he been hurt, and I hadn't noticed? But when I caught up to him, winded and aching, I saw that he wasn't on the ground in pain but in panic. He crawled through the rows of soybeans, using his hands to scatter soil and crushing plants as he went.

“The keys!” He panted without looking up. “She tossed the keys!”

The ballerina's bow.

I dropped to the ground next to him, and a few seconds later Boston was there, too, the three of us sweating and searching, our nails and the creases of our skin caked with black dirt. We worked in speed and silence, each of us knowing the unsaid: the truck could be back at any moment.

“Got 'em!” Boston leaped to his feet, a set of silver keys jingling in his filthy hands.

We moved as fast as our weary bodies could toward the SUV, driven by pure adrenaline.

“Where do we go?” York panted.

“After the truck,” I answered without thinking, at the same time Boston said, “To the police.”

Yes, that makes more sense.

“The police already have her,” York said.

“That didn't look like an arrest.” I clutched at a stitch in my side. “More like a kidnapping. I'm with Boston. We call the police.”

“Pitson, then?” York said. “For a phone?”

A phone.

The word brought me up short, then gave me new speed. I rushed forward, ignoring my groaning body and digging into Andi's messenger bag as I ran.

“Andi's phone!” I cried without looking back at the boys. My words came out choppy with exertion. “We can plug it in—power—the equipment—call the police!”

They said nothing, but I knew they had understood when two sets of feet pounded up behind me. We reached the road at the exact moment my hand closed around Andi's phone inside her bag.
Another second of searching, and my other hand found a cord. I yanked it out, praying, and . . . “Yes!” I cried. “Car charger!”

We could not be so lucky.

And, of course, we weren't.

The SUV was gutted. I mean, it still had seats and a steering wheel and all, but the electronics were gone. All that was left of the old tricked-out console and dashboard were a few raw wires stabbing uselessly into the air, their connections severed.

I had leaped into the driver's seat, phone and charger in hand, and now I slumped in it, deflated. For the first time in my life, I wished very hard to be in River City and nowhere else. Adventure, I was quickly learning, was much safer inside my head.

“Well, we can't sit here,” York said, slamming the passenger door shut and strapping on a seat belt. At least they'd left us those.

Boston leaned forward from the back and shoved the keys into the ignition. “Drive!” he commanded.

My hand went to the ignition, but I hesitated. “I don't know how to drive an SUV.”

“It goes forward and back like any other car,” Boston snapped. When I still didn't move, he threw up his hands. “Fine, I'll drive.”

“Oh, we so don't have time for that,” York said, tapping the rearview mirror.

Under any other circumstances, I would have laughed. But right now, I just wished I could cry.

York closed his hand over mine on the keys, and when he spoke, I could tell he was fighting to keep his temper—his fear—under control. “Sam, please.”

I nodded and gripped the keys, ready to turn the ignition when a familiar crackle filled the car. I froze—not just my hand, but my whole body.

“Hello, friends.”

I experienced a sickening wave of déjà vu as York yanked down his visor, and the walkie-talkie tumbled out. He gripped the radio so tightly his fingers turned white. He pressed the button on the side of the walkie-talkie and barked, “We are not your friends!”

Boston gripped York's arm. “Don't talk to them!”

The boys struggled for a moment, Boston grabbing at the radio while York shook him off.

“We're not your enemies either, champ,” the voice answered.

York pressed the button to respond, but he released it again when Boston shouted, “Wait!”

I had a sudden urge to throw the radio out the window the way Andi had done with Boston's phone.

“Try another frequency,” Boston urged, breathless. “There has to be someone else we can reach—tell them to call police.”

“Yes!” I cried. “You really are a genius!”

“Ignore us again,” the voice warned, “and we'll take it out on your friend.”

“Shit,” York breathed. He looked at me, waiting for I don't know what. Maybe it was because I was in the driver's seat; maybe he just didn't want to be the one to make the call; but for whatever reason, the decision was apparently mine.

I nodded once.

York gave Boston an apologetic look, then held down the button. “We're listening.”

“Good boy. This is simple. You have something we want, and now we have something you want. Even trade.”

“No way,” Boston said. “They're lying. We call the police, and we call them
now
.”

“You go ahead and call the police,” the voice said. “Tell them we say hi.”

I sucked in a breath and smacked York's hand. He hadn't released the button in time.

“I suspect I know a little more about police work than you do.” The utter calm in the voice was infuriating—and frightening. Either he was sure his word as a cop would stand up to ours, or, worse—the whole damn department was crooked.

“Better be ready to explain why your fingerprints are all over that stash,” he said. “Why you're driving the car that ran over a cop; why you skipped town. And . . .” He paused for effect. “Why your friend is missing a few fingers.”

I whipped the radio out of York's hand and slammed down the button. “Don't you touch her!”

“It doesn't have to be like that,” the voice cooed. “Nobody wants to hurt anybody. It's not in our best interest. I'm merely trying to impress upon you the severity of our situation.”

Our
situation, as if we were partners in this.

“A simple trade will be good for all parties involved,” he said. “We can even make that car disappear for you, too. No evidence, no crime. Everyone walks away with their hands clean.”

I stared down at the dirt crusted under my nails and smeared over my skin.

Too late for that
.

We all got our hands dirty. What mattered now was how we cleaned up our mess.

York reached to take the radio back, but I held it out of his grasp. “You know where we are,” I said. “Bring her here.”

The sick bastard actually laughed. “No, no, no. No more risks. We're not doing this on the side of the road where anyone can see.”

Damn.
That was exactly why I wanted to do it here.

“Now pay attention!” the voice snapped. Then he rattled off some instructions about a dirt road and a fork and a field and a left turn at the something-or-other. He talked so fast, I couldn't keep up. I struggled to yank Andi's notebook out of her messenger bag, but by the time I found a pen, he was done.

“You have one hour. Every ten minutes you're late, your friend pays for your tardiness. If I see a cop car—if I see
any
car other than that jacked-up SUV with your three pretty faces inside it—she'll lose more than a finger. Time starts now.”

“Wait!” I wailed into the radio.

But the voice was gone.

 

BEFORE

THERE WERE TWO options for serving detention at Jefferson High: before school in the empty classroom next to the indoor pool, where the chemical smell was enough to knock you out—or get you high, if that was your thing—and after school in the east-wing gymnasium.

I always opted for the latter, since you could sit in the stadium seats and spread out rather than bumping elbows at cramped desks. Also, the odds of me making it to the morning session on time were slim, considering the only thing I ever got detention for in the first place was being late to school. It's funny; I always woke up early on weekends, no matter how little sleep I got the night before, but dragging myself out of bed to come here every day was like torture.

I climbed the bleachers, choosing a spot high on the left, away from everyone else. A few students sat together in pairs, but Mr. Wayne quickly split them up and barked something about this not being social hour. I had Mr. Wayne for
sophomore health first semester, and I remembered him being pretty laid-back, but now he looked as miserable about being here as the rest of us. I wondered what teachers had to do to get detention.

He was just about to close the gym doors—once those doors closed, you couldn't get into detention and had to do double duty the next day—when one more body slipped through. From above, all I could see was a mess of long, ropy dreadlocks on top of a tall frame.

“You're late, Dixon,” Mr. Wayne said before sealing the doors behind her.

Dixon?

Now I noticed her army jacket and the messenger bag she carried in place of a boring backpack like everyone else, but her signature—that luxurious mass of long hair—was gone. She was almost unrecognizable.

Almost
.

Some things you just couldn't change, like the confident way she breezed past Mr. Wayne and dismissed him with a flick of her hand, or the way her very presence commanded attention from everyone in the room as she stomped up the bleachers.

“That's far enough,” Mr. Wayne called out, and Andi stopped two rows directly below me. Her eyes flicked upward as though she could feel my stare, and I immediately buried my face in my homework. She turned to sit, and the movement sent a wave of stale cigarette smoke spinning up in my direction.

The second her butt was on the bench, a boy to her left leaned sideways and hissed, “Nice hair.”

Andi ignored him and pulled a notebook from her bag. Over her shoulder, I could see several lines of equations, but she wasn't doing math. Her hands worked quickly, filling up the margins of the page with sketches of flowers wrapped around daggers, a snake eating a rat, and a caricature of Mr. Wayne and his oversize jaw that was so good I almost laughed out loud.

When Mr. Wayne retreated to a desk in the far corner of the gym, the boy down the row from Andi tried again.

“Did your head get stuck in a washing machine?” he whispered.

Andi cricked her neck back and forth but still didn't answer.

“Stick your finger in a light socket?”

“Quiet!” Mr. Wayne bellowed.

And the boy was quiet, bending over a binder and hastily scribbling a note. He folded the note neatly and slid it down the bench to Andi. She caught it with one hand and, without looking up, pulled a small yellow Bic lighter from her pocket. She flicked the wheel and held the flame to the still-folded note. It burned silently in a matter of seconds, and Andi shook the last little bit of paper to cool the embers, then swiped the black ashes from the bench, scattering the evidence.

The boy sneered. “
Dyke.
”

My gasp was covered up by the sound of Mr. Wayne slamming a hand down on his desk. It echoed around the gym, and all eyes turned toward it except mine. I was the only one who saw Andi's shoulders finally sink, saw her curtain of dreadlocks
fall forward as she ducked her head, saw the ink bleeding into the paper where her pen had stopped moving.

I wished I could share my invisibility with her in that moment, but some people will always be seen, whether they want to be or not.