League of Strays (26 page)

Richie shrank an inch. I tightened my hold on his arm.

Kade rested his chin on his thumb and ran an index finger across his lip. I knew the look: he was adapting his “plan” to fit the current situation, but first, he had to figure out what to do with his defectors.

A siren hummed in the distance, increasing to a wail as it drew closer. Zoe, Richie, and I glanced at one another, then ran for the hill, toppling down the muddy slope. Kade and Nora took off in the other direction.

Wild blackberry thorns tore at my arms as I broke through in search of another path. Somehow we reached the main road, with only enough time to dive to the ground as two police cars tore past. I lifted my head from a carpet of wet leaves when Kade’s motorcycle roared by from the opposite direction. Nora was in my seat, her cheek plastered to the back of Kade’s jacket.

When all was clear, we took each other’s hands and walked home in silence. It felt as if someone had died.

Thank God no one had.

I SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED TO FIND MY HOUSE
all lit up at midnight. Mom and Dad were waiting up for me. There was no way I could let them see my mud-splattered, shredded dress. I snuck around to the side yard, hiking the gown to my waist so I could climb up the tree. Back in my room, I switched to a T-shirt and jeans. With my heart galloping, I rounded back outside to the main entrance.

“Oh,” Mom said, taken aback by my casual appearance.

“I left my dress at Zoe’s,” I explained. “I’ll get it tomorrow.”

“Why aren’t you wearing it?” Mom asked. “I was hoping for a few more pictures.”

“I could only do the whole princess act for a few hours.”

“So, how’d it go, Cinderella?” Dad asked.

“It was fun, but I’m wiped,” I forced out. “Too much dancing to bad pop music. I think I’ll head to bed.”

Mom frowned. “But what—?”

“I’ll fill you in tomorrow, OK? Right now, I’ve got a date with my pillow.”

She gave a short laugh. I quickly excused myself and darted up the stairs before she could squeeze in some last-ditch questions.

In my room, I stared at my bed. I didn’t want to lie down. If I tried to sleep, I knew all the horrible images of the night would haunt me. Instead, I collapsed into my beanbag chair and whispered a prayer for Mr. Reid.
Please let him be safe in a hospital. Please let him recover. And God, please keep Kade Harlin away from me.

The next morning, while most of the student population was in REM sleep, I had my ear to the door, listening for the thud of Saturday’s newspaper against the front steps. As soon as it came, I ran to my room and tore through the local section. No mention of anything unusual happening at the Kennedy High prom. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. At least if the story had broken, I’d know whether Mr. Reid was OK.

My phone chirped. No surprise I wasn’t the only one up at this hour. I ran over to it and read the text from Zoe:

just called the hospital. he’s being released today.

I breathed a sigh of relief, then went into the directory and deleted the message.

When I came downstairs, Mom watched me too carefully. To her credit, she didn’t barrage me with questions. She just
disappeared into the kitchen, probably to retrieve one of her megavitamins with extra B-12 for energy.

A minute later, she was back. “Need a lift?” she asked, holding out a steaming mug of coffee. A full cup. The real deal. Coming from her, it was like the elixir of life.

Tears stung my eyes but refused to make an appearance. “You’re the best, Mom,” I said.

She brought a hand to her cheek. “I haven’t heard you say that since you were five years old. If I’d known, I would’ve put coffee in your sippy cup.”

I laid my head in her lap as she scratched my back. She hadn’t done that since I was five, either.

“The last few weeks of school are tough on everyone,” she said. “I’m not too old to remember.”

Her words brought back my problems. If Mr. Reid figured out who his abductors were, none of us would graduate from high school.

I gulped down the coffee, gave Mom a hug, and lumbered upstairs to look for some industrial-strength makeup to hide the circles under my eyes.

I was scared to go to school, for a lot of reasons, but becoming a hermit for the rest of my life wasn’t an option.

In chemistry, I sat on the edge of my seat, waiting for the intercom to announce an emergency assembly. It didn’t come. No news is good news, I told myself. But that wasn’t true; no news could mean they were busy gathering evidence.

While Mrs. Stanton droned on about the definition of kinetic
theory, I thought about how Kade got Jenny Carson to kiss him in the woods that day. He’d trapped her with a mix of seduction and fear, the formula achingly familiar.

I drew a map to and from my classes that would put me the farthest distance from Kade. But on my way to orchestra, he materialized from an empty classroom.

“We have to talk. Can you stop by my apartment after school?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on, Charlie, we can work this out. I explained it all to Nora. It’s just a big misunderstanding. See, I was angry at Reid for all the awful things he’d done to me, but I only wanted Richie to hurt him, not kill him or anything. Just leave a big scratch for him to wake up to.”

I focused on his chin, afraid to meet his hypnotic gaze. I’d spent too much time under his spell already.

He glanced around for potential eavesdroppers. “We can’t talk here. Please, Charlie, for me. For
us
.”

I took a breath, then gave my thoughts a voice. “I don’t want to be part of your League anymore, Kade. Leave me alone.”

“Nora doesn’t mean anything to—”

The warning bell rang. I pushed past him.

“Charlie?”

Hugging my books to my chest, I took off, walking as fast as I could to get away from him.

The hallway was jammed with kids shuffling to class like a herd of farm animals. Crowds had never bothered me before, but now I was struggling for air. I barreled into my next class,
slung my backpack against the wall, and threw myself into a chair.

I pretended that I didn’t see Kade’s face peering through the tiny window in the door.

ZOE SENT ME A LOOK THAT SAID IT ALL: GIVE ME A
compliment, and you’ll die a slow, miserable death. So I didn’t say a word about the absence of mottled green and brown in her outfit. I ignored her jeans, white T-shirt, and brand-new red Converse. We sat down at the round table and ate our lunch like everyone else in the cafeteria.

As we discussed who had the worse student ID picture, I did my best to keep my eyes off Nora and Kade, who were falling all over each other at a table next to the salad bar. While I was busy trying to look somewhere else, I saw Richie emerge from the lunch line. I gestured for him to join us, but he sat alone. An island in a sea of kids. This was day three of my campaign to convince him to eat with us, and I wasn’t going to give up until graduation.

When he walked by to leave the cafeteria, I called out his name. He glanced around, trained to seek out Kade.

Zoe laughed. “It’s OK. We’re allowed to talk now.”

Richie gave her a slim smile. We started walking down the hall together.

“How have you been?” I asked him.

“It’s not easy losing your best friend.”

“You’ll have other best friends,” Zoe told him. “Better ones.”

“Kade was just a dream, anyway. I woke myself up,” Richie said.

Zoe didn’t have a clue what he meant, but I did. Kade Harlin was as elusive as cloud formations in the sky; as soon as you figured out the picture, it changed.

At the lockers, kids rushed by us to get to class.

“Is Mr. Reid back yet?” Richie asked.

“I heard he’s coming back today,” Nora said, adding, “People think he’s been sick.”

We knew what she meant. It was eerie, the silence. No emergency assemblies. No rumors. Even the two police officers were missing in action.

We stood there, saying nothing, until Richie broke the silence. “So long, guys.”

“So long,” I said.

He opened his locker, took out his jacket, and walked away.

“He doesn’t slouch anymore,” I observed.

“That’s good,” Zoe said. “That’s real good.”

I gathered my books in my arms, too tired to put them in my backpack, and headed to my last class of the day. I was halfway down the stairwell when he stepped in front of me.

Mr. Reid.

My breath lodged in my throat.

“Hello, Charlotte.”

It was good that he felt well enough to be at school. Bad that he knew my name.

“Uh, hi.”

He turned to give me a close-up view of his bruised profile. “Would you meet me in my office right away?”

“Well, I have this—”

“Take a seat. I’ll be there in a moment.”

I nodded as he walked away.

In the office, Mrs. Roach pointed to Mr. Reid’s door, then returned to a pile of forms. I walked in and sat down on the uncomfortable hard-backed chair in front of his desk. I wondered if I should take this moment to invent an alibi for prom night, but my brain felt paralyzed.

“Ah, Charlotte Brody.” Mr. Reid edged past me to his desk. “I suppose you know why you’re here?”

I shook my head.

He pulled out an iPhone.
The
iPhone. “Someone was kind enough to polish off their prints and return this to my mailbox this morning.” He held it out at arm’s length in front of him. “Did you know the police were able to pick up a voice when the 911 call was made from Lowell’s Cemetery on the night of the prom?” His eyes shot to my face. “I think that voice was yours.”

I swallowed hard, my mind shutting down. I couldn’t think of a response. What should I do? What should I say?

“Why do you think it was me?” I asked after a moment.

“Because I saw you talking to Kade Harlin. He seemed angry—maybe because he believed he had a traitor in his midst.”

My hands, folded in my lap, were slick with sweat. I thought of Kade’s rule:
No talking in school
. He’d broken his own edict on Monday when he’d tried to convince me that I’d misinterpreted everything that had happened.

“He’s a dangerous young man, Charlotte. I’ve been on his trail for years now because, frankly, I don’t want him at Kennedy High.”

He wasn’t the only one. I also wanted Kade to go away, to someplace where he couldn’t hurt anyone else. “He’ll be gone soon,” I said. “It’s almost graduation.”

“We both know he was behind my abduction, not to mention other unresolved incidents that have occurred at this school.” Mr. Reid leaned forward, hands steepled in front of him. “I don’t believe Kade and his girlfriend could cover them all.”

“I’m not his girlfriend!” The denial flew out of my mouth with a force and passion that caught me off guard. I repeated it, softer, allowing the truth of it to sink in.

“The 911 call picked up more than one voice, but the clarity was poor,” he said.

If the reception had been so lousy, then he couldn’t really know it was me, I reasoned. All he had was a glimpse of Kade and me talking in the hall. But somehow that knowledge, though good for my situation, did nothing for my confidence.

My eyes landed on a file on Mr. Reid’s desk, at least an inch thick. Kade’s name was written in tight script on the upper right-hand side. Mr. Reid caught me looking. He pulled it across
the desk, positioning it in front of him. “Who else was there?” he demanded.

Kade’s warning at the cemetery replayed in my head:
If you tell anyone, we’ll all get in trouble
.

I won’t tell
, I’d responded.
I could never ruin Richie, Zoe, and Nora’s future.

It was the truth. As much as I wanted to stop Kade, I couldn’t pull everyone else down. Kidnapping was a felony: the difference between jail time and living our lives as normal human beings. Zoe, the poster girl for hard knocks, didn’t deserve a kick to the curb from me. Then there was Richie, whose first act of courage was to ignore his best friend’s murderous demands. He needed a life, not a punishment. And Nora? I didn’t feel jealous if she was with Kade now. I was scared for her. I didn’t want to make her life any worse than it already was.