Quarantine: The Loners (20 page)

The night became a dazzling blur. The colors, the sparklers, the flames. David held close to Lucy. Her laugh was fast and childlike. She had one pointy tooth that only showed when she smiled all the way. Her fingers would graze the inside of his wrist. They shared more juice. Wandering performers interacted with the crowd in spontaneous dramatic scenes.

At a game booth run by art Geeks, kids could pay one ticket to take whacks at papier-mâché sculptures of soldiers in haz-mat suits. David demolished one as Lucy cheered. They stumbled from spontaneous sing-alongs to dance perfor-mances to poetry slams. One Geek took his clothes off and streaked through the auditorium. The music thumped.

The houselights flashed, signaling everyone to their seats.

David and Lucy were ushered to the best seats in the place, a gift from Zachary. As they settled in and the lights went down, Lucy slid her fingers between his. The curtain parted, and the stage lit up. Zachary took the stage to begin the school’s most popular ongoing play,
Sunday Morning
.

David was surprised to discover that Zachary was a fine actor. His grandiose personal flourishes didn’t exist onstage.

He was completely in character. He was Paul, a normal kid from the suburbs, on a lazy Sunday morning. Paul went to the grocery store; he read a book; he walked his dog. David understood why McKinley students never tired of dipping into Paul’s world. It was a world with no threats, no danger, nothing but real-world leisure and everyday chores, the things that they ached to be bored by again.

He let himself be carried away by the delicate world onstage.

Paul was David. David was Paul. And nothing mattered anymore. He wasn’t in McKinley. He was in Paul’s living room, then in Paul’s backyard, under the open sky.

“Lucy,” David whispered.

“Yes, David,” Lucy said, her head on his shoulder.

“Is there anything between you and Will?” Her head lifted up.

“I . . . Will is just a friend,” she said.

While David could still feel the breeze of Paul’s world on his face, he leaned over and gave Lucy a soft, slow kiss.

WILL WANTED TO VOMIT. HE WATCHED DAVID
kiss Lucy. His lips against her lips. His tongue digging into her mouth. Her hand was on her chest, covering the necklace Will gave her. He hated the look on Lucy’s face; she was in heaven.

Her eyes were closed, and she coiled her arms around David’s body. David held her face in his hands.

“Hey, man,” someone rapped their knuckles on the back of his head. Will spun around. It was Ritchie. He looked at Will, totally astonished. “What the hell are you doing, Will?” he said, then lowered his voice to a fierce whisper. “You’re supposed to be on guard duty.”

Will didn’t have an answer. He looked down where David and Lucy were seated. Lucy was resting her head on David’s shoulder.

Will found it hard to breathe. The auditorium was immense, but it felt like it was pressing down on him. He broke away from Ritchie and pushed past a Geek guard. Will bolted out a fire door into the raked hall that ran the length of the auditorium.

The guard took off after him and shouted to a cluster of costumed drama Geeks at the end of the hall to stop him. Before they could react, Will blasted through them like bowling pins.

He ran past dressing rooms, catching a fleeting glimpse of a make-out session in one, a pile of ragged costumes in another, and in the third,he saw a momentary reflection of himself in a full-length mirror, the biggest mirror he’d ever seen intact.

It would have been worth a fortune in the market.

Will careened into art studios. A shirtless guy poured black paint over his face, then rubbed his head against a bedsheet that was stretched across the wall. Will slipped on some paint and slammed his body against the sharp corner of a metal table, cutting open his lower back. He shouted in pain and kept running. He blazed past wire sculptures, reconstituted furniture, graffitied canvases, and finally a series of charcoal drawings. They were head and shoulders portraits of the old faculty members, but in all of the drawings, they were vomiting blood.

“Get that guy!” A mob of Geeks burst into the workshop.

“You get him, I’m trying to work!” the shirtless guy snapped back.

Will was already out of the room. As he sprinted down the hall and rounded the corner, the Geeks’ shouts faded. A minute later he skidded into the foyer of the school. It was empty.

He couldn’t run anymore; he wasn’t out of breath, he was heartbroken. He dragged himself to an out of the way corner and sat underneath a shattered window. Will gritted his teeth so hard he thought they would crumble.

David knew how Will felt, and he’d stabbed him in the heart anyway. It was revenge, pure and simple, cold and calculated.

Will’s eyes overflowed. He tried to wipe the tears away, but more kept dripping out.

Will could finally see how much his brother hated him.

David had held it in for so long, but now it was all out in the open. And the worst was that Lucy meant nothing to David either. He’d just led her on with his quarterback bullshit act, so she could never, ever really consider Will. That’s what happened at the pool, when Lucy pulled away from him. She just saw David’s little brother in front of her, the virgin from the trail. David just had to have it all. He always got it all. He was the star. Will kicked the window frame.

He wished Smudge had never told him to go.

An hour before, Will had been stationed at the third-floor door to the Stairs. Everyone had gone to the show, mostly everyone anyway, just Will and a skeleton crew of kids remained in the Stairs, guarding the exits. He was in the middle of telling himself how unfair it all was when he heard a whisper echo in from the other side of the door.

“It’s Smudge.”

Will stayed quiet. He trotted over to the stairs and leaned over the railing to make sure the guards below didn’t hear. He didn’t see anyone. He hurried back to the door.

“It’s about Lucy. Lemme in,” Smudge said.

Will narrowed his eyes. He was curious. He pushed the barricade back just enough so that he could pull the door open a crack. Smudge was right outside, staring back at him.

Smudge’s nose was plagued with blackheads. Smudge looked grave. It didn’t suit him. It only made him look uglier.

“I saw something tonight. Something I thought you should know about.”

Smudge told him that he had seen David with Lucy at the Geek show. He said they were all over each other, for everyone to see. Will didn’t believe him, but the longer Smudge talked and the more details he supplied, the more afraid Will got.

“Trust me, Will. I’ve watched a lot of people make out. I know what it looks like when two people are about to mash lips.

This was, like, a half step away. Who knows what they’re doing now?”

The thought of David and Lucy kissing made Will even more ill than realizing that Smudge probably spent hours watching the Pretty Ones from that air vent in the pool room. Probably jerking off.

“He ain’t your friend,” Smudge continued, “I’m your friend, man. What pisses me off is that you’ve been so loyal to that asshole. I mean, you could’ve come with me the day of that food drop, but you didn’t. You stuck with him because you guys are brothers.”

Will punched the door.

“I’m sorry, man, I shouldn’t have told you.”

“No,” Will said. “You did the right thing.” That’s when Smudge offered to cover for him on guard duty for ten minutes. And Will ran all the way to the auditorium.

And then he saw them. All over each other. Licking inside each other’s mouths. He wanted to die.

Will stood up. His tears were dry now. He knew what he needed to do.

He was going to kick David’s ass.

Lucy knew she wasn’t in love yet. This was just the beginning, but it felt tremendous. She felt so full with joy that it lifted her off her feet. She’d seen the same joy bubbling up in David too. He’d unleashed his inner goofball. She spent half the night with her mouth hanging open. She couldn’t believe David’s silly voices or the imitation of a drunk giraffe he did to make her laugh. She wished she could peek into his ear and see everything inside his head.

Lucy ran around a corner and crouched down next to the stripped skeleton of a water fountain. David was chasing her.

Her cheeks hurt from smiling, but she couldn’t stop. She was breathing hard, her whole body tingled. She poked her head past the water fountain and peered down the hall. There was no sign of David. He could’ve been anywhere.

She popped up and ran. She’d get to the Stairs eventually, but she was having fun. She looked around every corner. Still, no David. Her heart drumrolled from the anticipation.

She couldn’t wait for David to catch her.

She should have been afraid, but she wasn’t. She was with David, and David would never let anything happen to her.

She raced around another dark corner. Something collided with her. Unseen arms lifted her off her feet. She tried to scream, but pure fright kicked the air out of Lucy’s chest.

Her attacker took her down to the floor quickly, but a hand slipped behind her head to soften the impact. It was David’s hand. His lips were on hers. The first kiss was soft and gentle, like they were sharing a whispered conversation. But then his body pressed heavy into hers. His lips were firm and hungry, and he made a deep humming noise that made Lucy sweat.

She lost track of time. She felt small and delicate. David pulled away and stared into her eyes. He said nothing. She didn’t look away. She didn’t dare risk losing the power of the moment. She felt connected to him, bonded to him, vulnerable to him. It overwhelmed her. She was completely lost in him.

David stood and pulled her gently to her feet. They walked back to the Stairs without saying anything. Some of the time he had his arm around her, and the rest of the time he held her hand. She thought he was pretty good at both. Everything was so right.

When they passed through the guards and the barricades of the Stairs, they paused by the armory. They were jolted from their dream state by the racket of three floors’ worth of conversations, arguments, and gossip. The Stairs sucked the life right out of her.

She grimaced at David, and he grimaced back. Lucy didn’t want to deal with the rest of the gang. She didn’t want to walk up there and have to declare themselves an item, but she also didn’t want to walk up there and pretend like nothing was going on. And then there was Will. Guilt reached its hands out at her. She pushed Will out of her mind.

“Do you want to go hang out in the elevator?” David said.

Lucy turned to David, filled with relief. She squeezed his hand.

“Yes.”

“Wait here. I’m gonna grab some candles. I’ll be quick.” David bounded up the stairs. The elevator sounded wonderful. She couldn’t think of a more romantic place to hide.

Just them, and no one else. Her perfect night didn’t have to end just yet.

Behind the curtains of David’s quarters, the noise of the gang was softer and more distant. David fished three candles out of a tin can that was nailed to the wall. He rooted around in other cans until he found a condom. Just in case. It wasn’t like he had a plan. He’d stopped planning when he kissed Lucy in the auditorium. Lucy didn’t need him to be a hero. He didn’t have to act like everything would turn out all right. And he didn’t have to be on guard. He just had to be himself. That’s all Lucy wanted. It made him happy.

And then there was Will.

David thought he would have passed him on the way up to his room, sulking at his post. But he didn’t, and he didn’t care.

He’d deal with Will tomorrow. Not that there was anything to deal with. Lucy had told David plainly that she wasn’t interested in Will. That was that, and everything afterward just happened. Nothing more to say.

He couldn’t wait to get back to Lucy.

Something cracked hard across his back of his head. He dropped to the ground in an instant. His head struck the floor.

Hands grabbed at him. Fingernails dug into his skin. He could smell fruit and flowers. Fabric rustled above him. He struggled, but there were at least four figures tugging him around. They flipped him to his back and pinned him to the ground.

Freaks,
David thought. This was it. Oh, God. They were going to kill him.

David strained his eyes to see into the dark. Feet shuffled all around him. The closet unit he’d built was open, and clothes spilled out of it onto the floor. That was where they must have been hiding. Why wasn’t he paying attention?

Someone slapped his face then clutched his head. He felt his hands being crushed. He wanted to scream, but someone crammed a rolled-up athletic sock in his mouth.

“Daaa-vid,” a singsongy voice whispered, “pay attention, you piece of Loner trash.”

David widened his eyes to focus on his attackers. He saw six elegant silhouettes in the dim light. They were Pretty Ones.

Their legs were like silken columns towering over David. Two stood on his hands. Two held down his legs. Another pressed her palms down on his forehead with all of her weight, keeping his skull planted on the floor. One girl sashayed from side to side lazily like she was listening to a song that no one else could hear. As she moved, her skirt would flit open, and he could see all the way up. David wrenched his arms and legs around, but he couldn’t overcome their combined grip. They stared back at him blankly, with plastic smirks like evil dolls.

The girls pried David’s legs apart, and Hilary stepped into view. She lowered herself down to her knees and began to crawl on top of him. Her hair hung in front of her face. He felt her leg against his. She was shaking.

“Mmm, hot,” one of the Pretty Ones said. The others snickered quietly.

David’s heart pounded as Hilary made her way up him. It may have taken only seconds, but they were torturously long.

Hilary pulled her body up and straddled David’s rib cage.

Her weight squeezed air out of his lungs. The light cutting through the curtain entrance caught Hilary’s face as she turned. Her face was slack, and her right eye was purple and swollen. It looked inflated.

She leaned her lithe body forward. Down her dress, he saw the weight of her breast. David pressed his tongue against the sock in his mouth, and it moved a bit. He kept his eyes locked on hers, breathing hard through his nose.

“David,” Hilary said, “what happened the other night . . . was a mistake. I was weak, and you took advantage of that.” Her voice was flat, distant.

She ground down on her words. “It’s your fault this is happening now. You need to learn your place.” She looked off into the darkness as her voice failed her. “All you Scraps need to learn your place.” Barely a whisper now.

“This school belongs to Varsity.”

David worked his tongue against the sock in his mouth. His whole gang was just on the other side of that curtain, only a few stairs away. He screamed, but it was too muffled for them to hear. David kicked and thrashed his legs, but the Pretty Ones held fast.

Hilary held out a shaky hand, and one of her girls placed a slender ivory comb in it. She turned it in her fingers to reveal that the handle had been whittled into a sharp dagger.

Hilary looked out to the darkness again and shivered.

“Do it,” said a whisper from the dark.

Oh, God . . . Sam. He was here.

Hilary clamped her eyes shut.

David shook his head violently at her. The Pretty One above him held tight to his head. He pushed and pushed with his tongue, edging the sock out.

“Do it, baby,” said the whisperer from the dark.

A drop of water fell on his face. Then another. They were tears, dropping from Hilary’s chin.