Pretty Wanted (10 page)

We’d done it. He was really here.

At first, he didn’t see us—he was heading in the wrong direction—so I called out his name. He turned and I caught his dimpled grin as he made eye contact and changed course.

As soon as he was in grabbable proximity, I was up on my tiptoes, throwing my arms around him. And that’s when I noticed he was only carrying a small backpack, which should have been my first sign that he didn’t intend to stay for any period of time. That’s when I realized he was nervous, too.

I breathed in the familiar smell of his soap. “How was your trip?”

“Fine . . .” He pulled away and looked at me. “Listen, now don’t flip about this but I’m here to take you home.”

“I’m not going back there,” Aidan said.

Tre waved a hand. “I wasn’t talking about you. You can do whatever you want, Murphy. I was talking about Willa.”

“Thanks, man,” Aidan said, wiping away a fake tear. “And here I thought you really cared.”

He came all this way to try to convince me to leave? “I thought you gave up on us,” I said.

“Naw, I just gave up helping you with your plan. I can’t stand by and watch anymore.” The concern on his face, the way it stitched up his brow and burned in his eyes, was very real.

He was cautious—I knew that. He’d had his own troubles with the law, and who could blame him if he didn’t want to be sent back to boot camp? He’d been trying to toe the line, watch out for himself, and he’d been warning me all along that I was taking too many risks. He didn’t want to see me make the same mistakes that he had made.

So I got it. And it was sweet that he was so protective of me. Moving, even. But that still didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t ready to leave.

I tried to reason with him. “I’m looking at serious time in juvie now, and if I can’t figure this out before I go, it will be that much harder when I get out.”

“Do you even realize what you’re up against, Willa? You don’t know what kind of snakes are hiding under this rock you’re messing with. What if this guy Chet is part of a gang, or something much bigger? Do you really think that the two of you, unarmed, can step to someone like that? Do you know what they’re capable of?”

We’d come this far on our own, hadn’t we? I didn’t need the lecture now.

“Actually, we do realize,” I said, my voice rising with indignation. “We’ve seen them up close.”

“And the police,” he was saying over me. “They’re onto you, too. Did you know that one in three police shootings involve unarmed people? One wrong move and you’re part of that statistic.”

“We’re being careful,” I said.

“Not careful enough,” he barked but his voice broke a little. He took a breath and started over. “All I’m saying is it’s not cool anymore. This Sly Fox stuff is just not cool.”

Well. It’s not like I thought it was cool, either. What had started out as a plan to help the scholarship kids in my school had spiraled into something much more serious. What we were doing here was bigger than stealing from the Glitterati. This was about blood, my family blood. Secrets that had caused years of pain. Secrets I had to finally put to rest. Because if I didn’t do it, no one else would.

Aidan stepped in so that now he was in the middle, his shoulder cutting an angle between us. “And all I’m saying is you don’t get to show up all of a sudden and tell us what to do. We have a plan here.”

“What’s that? Ducking more FBI? Or messing with the CIA this time?” Tre leaned in. He wasn’t having it. “Back in the day, I asked you to escort Willa on this journey because I thought you would help keep her safe. But all you’ve done is put her in some risky situations. And it’s gotta stop.”

Why was he blaming Aidan for everything? It was my fault. “California was my decision, and this trip was, too. I never needed Aidan.”

“Never needed me. Wow.” Aidan shrank back. As soon as he did, I knew my words came out wrong.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” I said, closing my eyes, feeling the dizziness from the museum come back to me. Everything was happening too fast. This conversation was all wrong. I couldn’t even make sense of it.

But Aidan had already turned to walk away from us. I jumped up to follow him. Tre did, too, grabbing the back of his shirt to stop him.

“A, wait.”

“Get your hands off me.” Aidan whipped around, his arms swinging to free himself from Tre’s grasp. Only I was there between them and his hand struck my chest, his fingers tangling up in my necklace. The silk cord snapped and the cloisonné bird pendant went flying, clattering on the floor and landing underneath another plastic chair.

“My necklace!” I scurried across the room, fell to my hands and knees and felt around for the bird until my fingers brushed against it. When it was back in my hand I saw that there was a small chip on the end, near the tail. I looked around for the missing piece, but it was nowhere to be found.

“Oh my God, Willa, I’m so sorry.” Aidan rushed over to me.

“She gave me this,” I murmured, feeling the room around us blank out into bright nothingness. “It’s not replaceable.”

My eyes brimmed with tears, a whole fountain of mixed-up emotions churning up inside me: despair, fear, loneliness, anger. It crashed and surged, threatening to spill over, wash me away with it.

Tre wanted me to give up. I could have done that, maybe—but only if I were a different kind of person.

“We can get it fixed,” Aidan said. “I promise you. I’ll make it up to you. This was my fault.”

“I don’t want to get it fixed,” I yelled. “I just want it to be whole.”

Of course, it wasn’t only the necklace. I wanted my family whole, too.

They were standing on either side of me now, both looking somewhat cowed by my reaction. And I knew that I had to lay down the law. My own law.

I cupped the little broken bird in my hand and held it out for them to see. “This necklace is all I have. Do either of you understand what that’s like?”

They didn’t say anything. Because they couldn’t understand. How could they? They had families—maybe not perfect ones, but families nonetheless.

“I need to reclaim my past now, whatever’s left of it.” My voice was hoarse but steady. In fact, of all the decisions I’d made over the past few weeks, this one felt the most certain to me. Now more so than ever. “I had to go to California because I had to find Leslie. And now I have to find out about my real mom. It’s as simple as that. No one can tell me not to do it. If they want me in custody, then they’ll have to drag me out of here.”

I saw Tre’s lower lip drop a little, as if he was going to say something, but I kept on.

“Tre, I really do appreciate you coming out here. I appreciate all of your help over these past few weeks. And yours, too, Aidan.” My eyes swept up to meet his, and I could see how intently he was watching me. “But I’m staying here. I can’t turn back now. If either or both of you want to stay, you’re welcome to. Just don’t ask me to leave, because I won’t. Not until I find out the truth.”

They exchanged a glance, and I saw something that looked like agreement.

“She’s a tough girl,” Aidan said to Tre.

“Sly Fox don’t play,” Tre replied. Then he held out a hand to me as a peace offering. “Okay, Willz. We’ll do it your way. I’ll stay. But I’m still going to keep an eye on you until this thing is done and we can go back and you can turn yourself in. If you pull any crazy stunts between now and then, I’m going to call you on it.”

I took his hand and went in for the hug. “Deal.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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EIGHT

OUR TENTATIVE PEACE
and goodwill lasted for precisely ten minutes—until we started discussing how we were going to get to (the woman we suspected was) Toni’s house. That’s when I realized that the last time we were all together, back in California, we had Cherise and her cousin Rain helping us out, and the two of them were critical in buffering the tension between our three very strong wills.

I looked up the address again, on Tre’s phone this time, and found out it was a good twenty miles away, at least a thirty-minute drive. Aidan suggested we jack a car as we’d done all through our California trip. His argument was that it was the most convenient way of getting there.

“No way,” Tre said firmly. “Not this time.”

“But it’s going to take us three times as long on public transportation,” Aidan said.

“I’m not stealing a car.” Tre gave each word emphasis, then let them hang with a starey pause so we knew he meant business. “You’re not stealing a car with me in it, and I will not ride in a stolen car. I’m not here to break laws or to encourage you to break more laws. Get over yourself and get a damn bus pass.”

Aidan knew how to hot-wire now, so it’s not like he needed Tre’s permission or guidance. But I guess deep down we both knew Tre was right. More stealing was more bread crumbs for our trail, which was already too closely watched for our comfort. I didn’t need to remind Aidan of what happened at the dorm.

It was decided then. We were going to have to catch the number 10 to the Central West End Station and transfer to the 57X, which we would take to Toni’s suburb, Town and Country.

“What kind of name is Town and Country, anyway?” Aidan asked. “Isn’t it kind of redundant and/or contradictory?”

“It’s definitely posh,” I said. It made me think of horseback riding and crystal chandeliers and debutante balls. Children in matching outfits, live-in staff, and family trees with long traceable lineages. All stuff I would never have. And after seeing that kind of lifestyle up close in Paradise Valley and the way people who had it usually acted, I was okay with that.

“Guess they want it both ways,” Tre said. “Rich people always do.”

“I’d say you’re pretty rich, my friend,” Aidan retorted. “So no need for the third person.”

“My pops is,” Tre said. “There’s a difference. I didn’t grow up that way. All this stuff is still new to me.”

Tre’s father was a coach for the Phoenix Suns and had been a pro baller before that, but Tre only recently reunited with him and moved to Paradise Valley after years of living in Detroit with his mom. He’d started at Prep around the same time I did, which was one of the things that had brought us together. But we both always felt a little like outsiders. Well, Tre got it before I did—he was the first to see the absurdity of the Valley Prep social ecosystem when I was still caught up in the glamour of the Glitterati.

We got on the first bus, and Tre insisted we sit separately to avoid attention. I moved toward the back, so I could watch them from behind: Tre by the side door squeezed in between a couple of senior citizens, Aidan on the front left side, sitting next to an Hispanic woman in hospital scrubs who was immersed in her Kindle. There were two little kids next to me, bickering over the fact that one of them didn’t want to be touched—the other one kept sneakily moving in, letting her leg press against her sister’s, just to bug her. I thought of Leslie, how we never even had the chance to grow up like that together. How she’d always had to act like a grown-up even when she wasn’t one. Sure, we’d been super close, but she’d been shouldering that responsibility of taking care of me the whole time. And I felt sorry, then, in a new way, for all she’d gone through, the tough decisions she’d had to make.

It was another cold day, and the snow hung like delicate lacy handkerchiefs from the long fingers of the trees. They were old trees, grander ones than I’d seen since I’d moved to Arizona where most of the plant life was squat and low. Along the street sides, they were strewn with ball-shaped clusters of Christmas lights, now unlit. Black ravens circled overhead, apparently preferring this scene to Florida heat. I didn’t blame them. It was a regular winter wonderland.

I wrapped my arms closer to my chest. The parka had the faint smell of mothballs, still, from the thrift store, but that comforted me in a weird way, thinking of how someone else had loved and taken care of this jacket before it found its new home with me.

We entered the Central West End, and the street thickened with stores and restaurants and galleries. At the station, we transferred onto the second bus and took our seats there. Soon we were on the highway.

Aidan was right, this bus trip wasn’t exactly the most convenient, but I tried to use the time to plan out what I wanted to ask Toni when we saw her. What she might be able to tell me. I rehearsed some lines in my head. Maybe it was silly but I knew I might only get this one opportunity to talk to the single-known friend of my mother’s and I couldn’t afford to mess it up.

The bus finally pulled to a stop at the intersection we’d mapped, but we were not at our destination yet. There was still a one-mile-and-change walk to Manderleigh Woods Drive.

“You want us to walk separately, too?” Aidan asked when the bus had roared onward.

Tre nodded. “Willa, you take the other side of the street.”

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered as cars rushed past us. It was a busy road with no sidewalk, dangerous for pedestrians. It reminded me of Paradise Valley, where I was the only person on a bike, where I always felt small yet brave, going against the flow. But now I didn’t particularly want to get clipped by a passing SUV, not when we were so close to finding Toni. “No offense, Tre, but I don’t see the point. We’d be the only three people walking down the street. I think anyone watching would deduce that we were together.”

Tre tipped his head. “Fine. You two can walk together. I’ll just act like I don’t know you.”

We passed a series of election signs on the side of the road. “There’s that guy Granger again,” I said.

“He’s everywhere,” Aidan said.

The sky was whiter than before. It had that heavy look to it that I remembered from living in Colorado. And then, as if on cue, it started to snow, fat flakes spinning and floating from above.

“Great,” Tre mumbled from behind us.

“I think it’s pretty awesome,” Aidan said, holding his face up to let the snow catch on his skin.

“That’s because you didn’t grow up in Michigan,” Tre said.