Between These Lines (A Young Adult Novel) (21 page)

“What
the hell?”
 

The
air moved around me and I felt a tug at the back of my waist. By the time I
found myself able to breathe and stand again, Shane was coiling the wire I had
been rigged with in his hands.

My
lungs burned for air and I felt myself pushed forward, my feet catching on the
muddy clumps of grass and marshmallow beneath me.

A
door creaked open and I was thrown against something hard. I sat there trying
to catch my breath. My heart thudded loudly, knocking against my bruised ribs.
By the time my eyes adjusted to the dark, the thudding became more
distinguishable, and I heard the sound of a boat knocking against wet wood.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Evie

It was
damp and dark in the boat house and I rubbed my arms up and down with my hands
to warm myself. I couldn’t see very much around me, but the longer I sat still
and tried not to panic, I began to make out thin slivers of orange firelight
penetrating the weathered walls of the building.

“Chase?
Are you alright?” I whispered shakily into the dark. “Please tell me he didn’t
burn you.” Fear rippled through me when he didn’t answer right away. Then, I
heard a shuffle a few yards to my left and rose to my knees to work my way
over.

“No,
sit back down, I’ll come to you,” he finally answered me, and I was flooded
with relief that he was still conscious. “I’m okay, but you have to lean
against the wall or you’ll fall into the water.”

“How
can you see?” I pressed my hands to the damp floorboards beneath me, feeling
for where the dock met the wall and scrambled backwards. The orange light from
outside was bouncing too much to stay in one place, and as soon as I thought I
could make out my surroundings, it would turn black again.

“I
guess the angle I’m at. Here . . . reach for my hand.”

I
stretched my fingers into the black in front of me. Within seconds, I felt the
cool touch of his hand, and allowed him pull himself closer inch by inch.

“Are
you sure you’re okay?” I could feel the cool cotton of his shirt hanging
between us, but I was afraid to wrap my arms around him. That marshmallow
looked awfully close and besides, I saw the blunt kick of Shane’s foot to
Chase’s stomach.

“I
could be better, but yeah, I’m alright. I guess we have to wait it out in here
for a while, huh?”

Chase’s
torso shifted and I assumed he was inspecting the wall behind us, maybe looking
for a way out. “He took the wire so that should have set off some type of alarm
back home.”

Little
by little, my eyes adjusted to the dark. I could make out his face inches away
from where I sat.

“It’ll
take a little while for them to get here,” he continued. “We’re what, about
forty-five minutes away?”

“About
that.”

Then,
I finally felt the comforting weight of his arm rest across my shoulders, and I
leaned into his side, careful to press myself against him too hard. We were
silent for a few minutes, taking in the mesmerizing rhythm of the water
sloshing against the side of the little boat sharing the space with us. It was
a good thing he warned me about the water. I was just now able to make out a
silvery movement in front of us and I could have easily fallen in, landing
between the boat and the dock. It was best to sit still and wait, avoiding the
thick ropes and metal stakes that I could now feel around our legs and feet.

“And
we’re in here because?”

I
heard Chase sigh, thinking, “To keep an eye on us?”

“Maybe
he was hoping we’d fall in.”

 
Being with Chase was comforting, at least
we were together, but the semi darkness played tricks on my mind. It was easy
to sit and think too hard, especially after what Shane had just pulled. Was it
worse to die by drowning, or by fire? Both were equally horrific in my eyes and
I couldn’t help my breath from feeling constricted in my chest.

I
pulled myself in tighter and felt for Chase’s hands, trying to talk myself into
believing how this could be considered romantic. We were alone in the dark,
sitting very, very close to one another. But the whole situation played through
my head—Shane holding the fiery stick to Chase. Chase being kicked and
dragged into the boathouse. There was nothing romantic about any of that.

“Maybe
we can find a loose board, bust it, and sneak out of here?” Chase’s tired voice
broke my morbid thoughts. He squeezed my hand, then let go, and I felt him
begin to stand next to me. Following his motions, and not wanting to get
stepped on, I held onto the rough wall and pulled myself up, feeling the
needlelike prick of splinters stab my palms.

“There
. . . has . . . to be a loose one here somewhere. It didn’t look very sturdy
from the house.” Chase grunted as he leaned his weight here and there along the
wall, but nothing budged. We were stuck.

Panic
began to settle over me. I never did well with small spaces and my breathing
was becoming a little harder to control the longer we stayed in here. Chase
reached for me and pulled me in to his chest, “Shhh. It’s okay. We’ll get out.”
I knew I was leaning against his scars.

I
didn’t have to see them to know they were there. I knew their color and the
direction they took as they fanned out across his skin, and I leaned my cheek
into them. This was what it meant to be close to someone. Not just physically
close, but unconditionally. It didn’t matter how horribly marred his skin could
look on the outside. On the inside, Chase was the most beautiful person I had
ever met.

And
suddenly, I needed to remember to thank Mr. Floyd for giving me the most
amazing opportunity; to not only see Chase for who he really was, but to see
everything more clearly, myself included. Softly, I traced the lines in his
skin, and my fingers found their way to his face.

I
leaned up on my toes and pressed my lips against his.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chase

“You don’t
have to do this,” I whispered against her cheek. The warmth of my breath and
the heat of her skin collided, blended, and became one. Evie leaned in closer,
wrapping her arms up and around my neck, and it amazed me that she still
insisted on touching me.
 
Shane’s
words bounced around inside my head—I was a disfigured freak, and now,
the group that ruled Whitley Prep had seen it for themselves. If ever I was a
friendless loner, I would certainly still be one come Monday morning.

But
I didn’t care.

All
that mattered was it hadn’t swayed Evie’s opinion of me. She could be cowering
in the corner of the tiny boat house we were trapped in right now with her eyes
squeezed shut until someone opened the door—but she wasn’t. She was here
next to me.

It
was the closest we had ever touched. Not at my house, not on the deck, but
here. Looking down at her, every single detail about her seemed to stand out in
the dim light. I was acutely aware of how long her lashes were. How her hair
curled at her temple the slightest bit before fanning out against her cheek.
How the side of her neck fluttered when she swallowed.

She
looked up at me, and I knew we had crossed another line.

I
tilted my forehead lower, resting it along the top of her honey blonde hair,
breathing her in before tenderly lifting her chin. Before I could think it through,
before I could talk myself out of it, she leaned up and touched her soft lips
to mine, and my arms trembled as they tightened around her. I wondered if what
we were doing was still considered wrong—even if it was just a kiss. I
couldn’t imagine her kissing Shane this way. He was always so openly demanding
with her, that any affection given had to have been because he felt he deserved
it.

This
was tender . . . real.
 

It
sounded like the party had resumed outside without us. Between listening and
kissing her,

I
heard footsteps and running. There were hear voices and a strange noise, like
something small flying through the air just outside the boathouse.

“Sounds
like the marshmallow war is back on,” I whispered into her hair.

“How
long do you think we’ve been in here?”

“Twenty
minutes?” I assumed. “Not that long. Feels longer, doesn’t it?”

And
then something strange happened. Evie’s face had grown brighter in the last few
minutes and the boat bobbing in the dark water at our feet had become more
visible. The water lapping at the planks reflected silver, then orange, and
back to silver again. A snapping sound came from above our heads and we both
looked up to see the first of the flames forcing their way between the two by
fours. Evie stared up, suddenly frozen, and then the door swung open, startling
us.

Three
figures stood in the choked light. I didn’t have to look hard to know the one
in the center was Shane, but that wasn’t what gripped me. It was the smoke
beginning to curl at his feet and the sounds of panic stirring from outside.

I
reached for Evie’s hand. I finally claimed what she meant to me, though this
wasn’t quite the setting I had pictured, and squeezed it reassuringly.

“Shane,”
she started.

I
heard the unsteady lilt to her voice, then, the interruption of screams wafting
from the yard, and the sweat began to bead down my spine.

Fire.
The house is on fire.

No,
the house was fine.

Shane
stepped just inside the door frame and grabbed Evie’s arm, pulling her toward
him, then he turned to me and hurtled his fist into my stomach. By the time I
caught my breath and looked up, they were gone. I inched my way out to follow
them, but the breeze coming off the lake fed the flames, and everything
surrounding me was flammable. Oars. Boxes. Fishing tackle.

Hungry
orange tendrils licked at the ropes lining the walls, causing the fibers to
blacken and fray before my eyes. Just then, I zeroed in on the cans of
turpentine sitting in the corner, and I wondered how long it would be before
the flames caught them too.

I
gritted my teeth and propelled myself across the deck and out the door. Evie
was nowhere to be found, but Shane stood alone, panic etched across his face. I
bounded up to him, ignoring the spasms in my stomach.
          

“Where’s
Evie?” I yelled over the commotion around us.

“She
went back to look for
you
.”

Whatever
magic Evie worked to get me here was long gone. I always knew where I stood
with Shane. Max hurried to Shane’s side, his face smudged with ash as he looked
at me absolutely stupefied. “It’s supposed to be you in there. We only wanted
to scare you.”

I
looked down at the silly plastic toy he still held in his hand, its opening
oblong and distorted. I saw how the plastic, once bright red was now blackened
and melted. These idiots had fired
lit
marshmallows . . .

A
strong arm pounded against my shoulder.

“She
went back in to look for you!”

I
turned to face the boat house.

Evie.
 

I
didn’t have to think twice as my legs broke into a run across the lawn. An
opening just large enough to squeeze through cleared and I grabbed the bottom
of my shirt and yanked it over my mouth and nose, and thrust myself into the
heat. I called for her, but there was no answer, just a deafening roar that
hummed in and out of my ears, followed by a bone shattering quake.

***

I
managed to walk past kids sitting on the grass weeping, past others standing
with their hands covering their mouths in shock. Coughing, wheezing, crackling,
snapping surrounded me from every angle, filling the air. There was so much
commotion, yet everything moving seemed to slow and blur like in a dream as I
walked past it all.

In
the house, I found my keys lying on top of others in the blue plastic bowl. I
was seized by a coughing fit as the last of the smoke tried to escape my lungs.
I wiped an oily black streak across my face with the back of my hand, then
walked out to my car and drove down the long tree-lined drive, then onto the
main road.

The
wire Shane had torn from me was back at the house. Sirens were just coming up
the street, lights streaming past my window, but I could care less about
sticking around for the satisfaction of watching Shane led away from the party
in handcuffs. I could care less about waiting while the fire department doused
the property with their hoses, knowing it was too late for the boathouse.

I
had just lost another person who meant something to me, and I was having
trouble even wrapping my head around that. I clenched the wheel tightly and
half listened to the murmur of the GPS; that hollow voice seemed more determined
to help me find my way back home than I was. My hands were raw. The familiar
rise of blisters had already begun to form on both sides of my hands, creeping
up my wrists with that well known agonizing sting that never goes away.