Vengeance Bound (20 page)

My chest is full of the sting of failure. The guard is splayed facedown in the snow, which has melted to little more than a few inches of slush from Their appearance. I barely even felt Them breaking loose. How did I not sense how close They were to manifesting before Their appearance?

My hands go to my head as I pace. I have just attacked a school employee. Did anyone see? Oh, God, how am I going to explain this?

I shove away the panic and take a deep breath. First things first. I carefully turn his head to the side and check the guard for injuries. He doesn’t look like I hurt him too badly. He’s lucky he’s wearing the thick jacket, otherwise I probably would have broken a couple of his ribs. I scan the snowy ground, but there’s no sign of my presence, only the guard’s. Of course, the snow is pretty melted here. Maybe no one will notice.

I stomp down the snow around where he lies to make it look trampled. Then I run inside to the office.

There’s no time to get my revenge on Amber. I need to save my ass first.

I run to the main office. The secretary looks up in irritation. I’m interrupting her perusal of a tabloid article posing the age-old question, “Will They Get Back Together?” A couple of movie stars I don’t know stare at the reader from opposite sides of a broken heart. I can see why the secretary is annoyed at the interruption. This is clearly very important reading.

I breathe heavily, even though I’m not really winded from the run. I need to look as panicked as I feel. “Oh, God. Oh, God. They’re killing him! You need to send someone outside to help.” I make sure to pour on the Southern twang.

The secretary gives me a slight frown, her gray brows knitting together. “What are you talking about? What’s going on? Where’s Mr. Carson?”

I assume Mr. Carson is the unconscious school guard. I bury my face in my hands and talk through my fingers. “There were some creepy-looking guys outside. He was walking me in because I was late, when these guys just ran up and jumped him.” A sob tears out of me, surprising me and the secretary. It’s not fake. The guilt from nearly killing a harmless man sweeps through me, leaving me aching.

I have the secretary’s attention now. She’s out of the chair and calling for Mr. Hanes, when a burst of static erupts from the radio sitting in a charger on the secretary’s desk. Mr. Carson’s voice comes across in a groan. “I need someone to get out here to the front lawn. I’ve been attacked.”

The secretary snatches up the walkie-talkie as a whimper echoes through the static. “Bob? Can you hear me? Are you okay?” Another low moan is her answer, and she tries again. “Can you walk?” She gives me a long, appraising look. “Did you see who attacked you?”

There is silence from the other end, and my heart thumps painfully in my chest. If he knows it was me, my time in West County is finished.

And so is any chance I may have had with Niko.

The thought fills me with a wave of self-loathing. I’ve just injured a man, and all I can think of is a boy I can’t have because my closest friend here is unstable and half in love with him. I’m so pathetic.

The secretary eyes me and speaks into the walkie-talkie again. “How many of them were there, Bob? Were they students?”

Bob groans again through a burst of static. “I didn’t get a good look at them before they were on me. From the way they came at me, there had to be a couple of them. Maybe three or four. There was a girl . . .”

“She’s here. She ran to the office for help.” A massive weight lifts off my chest as I’m flooded with relief. He didn’t see me. I’m safe from discovery.

The Furies are another matter entirely. I have to hunt. At this rate it’s going to be a fight to make it through the day.

The secretary calls for Mr. Hanes again. She looks up at me with a harried look. “Here,” she says, slapping the late slip on the counter and scrawling a messy signature on the bottom line. “Fill it out and leave the white copy. You give your teacher the pink copy.”

I nod, wide-eyed. “Is Mr. Carson okay?” I ask in a quavering voice. I wish the tremor were an act, but I’m actually worried about him. There are a hundred different ways to kill a man, and They know all of them. Carson is lucky to be alive.

The secretary’s expression softens, and she pats my hand. “Don’t worry about him. He’ll be fine. You need to get to class.”

I nod and fill out the slip while the secretary picks up the phone to dial the police. I tear off the white copy of the slip and place it on the counter. Mr. Hanes rushes in from the back. The vice principal is visibly shaken as the secretary talks to him in a low voice. On my way out, he glances up at me, our eyes meeting for the briefest second before his gaze slides away. I slip out of the room before either Mr. Hanes or the secretary can think to ask me what the guys who attacked Carson look like.

I head to class, feeling heavy even though I’ve once again avoided discovery. I have a feeling that something is happening with Them. I’m afraid that if I don’t figure out how to fix it, Alekto’s warnings will actually come true.

R.I.P., HOPES AND DREAMS

At lunch, conversation revolves around two major topics: Mr. Carson getting beat up and the visit of the drug-sniffing dogs.

Like many other schools, West County High has a bit of a drug problem. It’s not an obvious problem like in the bigger schools. No cheerleaders are getting coked up in the girls’ bathroom, and no one has died from an overdose, like the headlines you see closer to Philadelphia, but there are enough kids getting high at parties to alarm the well-intentioned parents of the West County school district.

So two years ago the school board decided to hold unannounced inspections at both the high school and middle school. During classes men in dark blue fatigues walk the dogs through, alerting school administration to any lockers that the dogs find especially interesting. The lockers are searched, and the locker owners are suspended if any contraband is found.

The inspections are random, and this morning’s visit is a surprise to everyone in the school. Everyone but me. There are few surprises when you have access to Mr. Hanes’s personal calendar.

I’m the first one to our table at lunch.

Adam sits down across from me, but he just gives me a mumbled hello and begins eating a slice of pizza. He’s been standoffish since I started ignoring him. I hate that I may have hurt his feelings, but it wouldn’t have worked out with him anyway. It’s kind of hard to spend a lot of time with a person you find pathetic.

I think I know how he feels, though. Niko treats me with the same detached politeness I give to Adam. Which, after the kisses in the vacant lot, sucks. Part of me—the part that still likes watching romantic comedies on television—was hoping he would declare his undying love for me the very next day. But here we are a week later, and he doesn’t even show up at lunch anymore.

I wish it didn’t sting as much as it does.

Tom and Jocelyn show up a short while later. As soon as she sits down, Jocelyn’s eyes gleam and she leans forward. She almost twitches, she’s so excited.

“So, did you guys hear?”

I slice off a piece of chicken breast and chew it slowly. “Hear what?”

Tom snorts. “You aren’t talking about Carson getting his ass kicked, are you?”

Jocelyn shakes her head, and her sleek dark hair shifts. Conversation in the cafeteria is unusually subdued today, and her hair sliding across her silky blouse sounds like an animal slinking through leaves. “Amber got arrested.”

I gasp, and Tom drops an F-bomb. Adam looks miserable, and his shoulders slump. I glance at him, thinking that maybe his behavior has less to do with being mad at me and more to do with Amber’s absence.

“I guess she had, like, a whole bag of pot in her locker,” Jocelyn says. I’m so surprised, I can’t even speak. This makes my plan to humiliate Amber seem childish.

The idea had been that the dogs would have alerted on Amber’s locker because of a raw steak I was going smear all over her things. After that I was going to fill her locker with every sort of embarrassing substance known to man. Condoms. Laxatives. Porn. Photoshopped pictures of her and Dylan Larchmont in several compromising positions. Those I was particularly proud of. It took me all night to get the shading just right. The plan was for the rumor mill to churn and for Amber to leave me alone. Childish, yet effective.

But this . . . this is so much bigger.

No one says anything, and Jocelyn continues. “They took her away in handcuffs. Amanda Benson is office assistant fourth period, and she said she didn’t even cry, just kept cussing at the cops.” Excitement gives Jocelyn’s eyes an eerie light, and a shiver runs down my spine.

“That sucks,” Tom says, poking at his hamburger. “I wonder if they’ll send her to jail.”

I pause in my chewing. I don’t like Amber, but she doesn’t deserve to go to prison.

“Jail?” Adam shakes his head. “No, they don’t send first-time offenders to jail for something like a little pot.” Everyone gives him a disbelieving look. He flushes. “Do they?” Huh. I wonder if he and Amber are more than just friendly? It would explain a lot of the undercurrent I’ve sensed between them.

Before anyone can answer Adam’s question, Mindi runs up, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Did you guys hear what happened to Amber?”

I nod somberly. “Jocelyn just told us.”

Mindi collapses onto the bench next to me, and I scoot down a bit to give her room. “This is just awful,” she moans.

Adam pats her hand. “Hey, don’t worry about Amber. I’m sure she won’t get any real jail time. It’s her first offense.” Even he doesn’t look like he believes that.

Mindi shakes her head, and tears leak out of the corners of her eyes. I get a flash of irritation at her waterworks. I swear she cries more than a soap opera star.

Mindi swipes at her eyes and continues. “I know, but this week has just really sucked. Last night Niko called and told me he wanted me to stay away. He said he ‘couldn’t pretend anymore.’ Pretend what?” No one looks at her, because we all know what Niko meant. It’s hard to be just friends with someone who’s obsessed with you.

Mindi is oblivious to everyone at the table. “I just need to see him, to explain that it’s not a big deal if he needs some space.” She hiccups and begins to sob. She shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she says, jumping up to run out of the lunchroom. I glance around the table. Everyone ducks their head to avoid my gaze. No one has any plans to follow her.

I stand with a sigh and leave the cafeteria. My appetite’s ruined anyway.

Predictably, Mindi is in the girls’ bathroom. Her sobs echo in the tiled room, the porcelain amplifying the sound into something that could be used for psychological torture.

This is what happens when you get involved with a boy.

A flutter of wings.
Heartbreak.

I ignore Them and tap on the door of the stall. “Mindi, it’s Cory. Do you want to talk, hon?”

Sniffles are my only answer for a few long moments, and then the stall door unlocks. I slip into the cramped space and slide the bolt closed behind me. Mindi sits on the toilet, her legs drawn up so that her arms and head rest on her knees. Her light brown hair cascades around her shoulders like a cape. I lean against the door and wait for her to start.

“I know you must think I’m a train wreck,” Mindi begins, “but I have my reasons.”

I say nothing, and Mindi continues. “Last October my mom was raped and killed.” Mindi sniffs, and turns her head to the side. “That day my dad took me to Philly to go shopping. Things’d been rough for us, but Dad just got a new job so he wanted to celebrate. Mom had to work, so she didn’t go. I guess while I was busy trying on jeans some drifter was breaking into our house. He caught my mom coming out of the shower.” Mindi swipes at her tears, and my stomach clenches. While Mindi can only imagine what her mother went through, I’ve seen it firsthand through the memories of the guilty.

Mindi gives a bitter laugh and continues. “It was the best day of my life. I was so happy, until we got home and I walked into the bathroom . . .” Mindi trails off, and the door squeaks as someone walks into the girls’ room.

We wait in silence while the person pees and washes her hands. Finally, after forever, the person walks out.

“Ever since that day, I’m afraid to be too happy, like somehow someone will know and ruin it. The last time I felt truly happy was the time I kissed Niko. I felt like I was turning into little pieces of sunshine, you know?” Guilt swells in my chest. I do know. It’s the same way I felt when I kissed Niko.

I don’t say anything, though. Mindi keeps talking.

“But now I find out that it wasn’t real. I mean, we were in the hospital, after I tried to . . . end it all. That’s where it happened. I kissed him, and he just let me. Now he says he was afraid to hurt me.” She sniffs again, and reaches for a wad of toilet paper to wipe her nose. “I guess I knew somewhere deep down that he was just trying to be nice. He never kissed me, even after I threw myself at him. I just thought he was being polite, that he was afraid to ruin our friendship. But now he tells me he wasn’t interested in me like that, was just afraid I might lose it if he said so. It’s like finding my mom on the bathroom floor all over again.” Mindi looks up for the first time. “I pretended for so long that he could be happy with me that I started to believe it. How could I have been so stupid?”

I sigh. “Guys can be that way, I guess. But he’s not the only one in the world.”

Mindi shakes her head like she doesn’t want to hear my words. “You don’t understand. It’s not just about Niko. Last night my dad got a call from the detective on my mother’s case. They haven’t had any leads in a while, so they’re kicking it over to the cold case detectives. It’s not a ‘high priority,’ they said. That’s as good as them giving up.”

I open my mouth to say something encouraging, but when I see the stormy expression on Mindi’s face, I clamp my mouth shut. She clenches her fists. “Not only has Niko given up on me, but the police have given up on my family.”

Without warning Mindi kicks the plastic toilet paper dispenser. She growls as she attacks it, like a wild animal. I squeeze backward into the opposite corner of the stall to avoid her, shocked at the sudden violence. It must have felt good, because she kicks it three or four more times, cracking the dispenser badly, before she dissolves into angry sobbing. In between heaving sobs she assaults the dispenser again and again, until it lies in pieces on the floor. I stare at the jagged pieces of plastic in shock.