Breathless (12 page)

Toby pulled me back. "No way. That's way too dangerous. I'm not letting you out my sight."

"My thoughts exactly," said my dad.

So I went to school. Toby fawned over me the whole way there. I tried to respond to Toby. He seemed genuinely concerned about me. And I was grateful, especially since Toby had seemed distant lately. But I couldn't appreciate it since I was so worried. I tried to pay attention in class, but I was too distracted. I kept thinking about Jason wandering around in the woods somewhere, running from the man who'd been in my house last night.

In my imagination, Jason looked exactly like he had the first night I'd seen him, desperate and terrified, running for his life. The man didn't seem polite or civil anymore at all. In my mind, his face was twisted into an evil sneer, and he was gaining on Jason.

Try as I might, I couldn't help but picture him catching Jason. I imagined all kinds of unspeakable horrors that he imposed on the boy. Gunshots riddling Jason's body. The man stabbing Jason over and over like in a horror movie. Jason tied up and bloody.

The man beating him or burning him or cutting him. It was horrible.

Ms. Campbell asked me to read my journal prompt in first block. I hadn't even written one. I just shook my head, muttering that I couldn't. In French, we had twenty minutes at the end of class to work on a translation. I tried to complete it, but the words kept swimming in front of my eyes, changing places with each other, sinking into the page.

In history, my father's substitute put on a movie. Unfortunately, it was a documentary about the Holocaust. Watching those people be tortured and killed on the screen only fueled my macabre fantasies. I almost left the room three times, and towards the end of class, I broke down in tears.

The bell rang, and I just sat in my desk with my head down, my shoulders shaking as I sobbed.

Toby touched my back. "Was it that bad?" he asked. "Did that man scare you that bad?"

I lifted my tearstained face. "No, it's not me," I said. "I'm worried about Jason. I can't imagine what's happening to him right now."

Toby pulled his hand back like I'd burned him. "Oh," he said.

I didn't say anything else. But I didn't understand why Toby wasn't worried about Jason. Sure, he didn't seem to like him very much, but Jason was a human being.

Surely Toby had to respect that much at least. Even if he didn't like Jason, he couldn't wish him pain, could he?

I mopped at my face and got up. We went to lunch. Lilith met me in the lunch line.

She and Toby stared each other down. I knew Lilith wished Toby would leave me with her, and I also knew that Toby wasn't going to go anywhere without me. They were going to have to put up with each other if they wanted to be around me. They glared at each other, then both broke eye contact.

Lilith focused on me. "God, Zaza, are you okay? Have you been
crying?
"

"I'm fine," I said.

"It must have been awful," she said. "That weird man in your house. You must be so freaked out."

I nodded. She could think what she wanted.

"She's worried about Jason," said Toby in a flat voice.

Lilith met Toby's eyes, a look of concern on her face. "Really?" she asked.

Toby nodded.

Why weren't they at each other's throats? I hadn't heard them speak one civil word to each other in four years.

Lilith looked back at me. "Zaza," she said, "I thought I told you not to get attached to him."

"You did what?" demanded Toby.

Lilith looked back at him. "He saved her from Adam and Joe one day. She seemed... I didn't know what to say to her."

"Adam and Joe," repeated Toby, confused. He turned to me. "Why didn't you tell me about that?"

I shrugged. That seemed so long ago. Like another life. What did it matter now, anyway?

"You shouldn't have done that," Toby said.

I glared at him. "I didn't want you to get like this," I said.

"I meant Lilith," said Toby, shooting her a loaded gaze.

"I guess not," said Lilith. "Didn't make any difference anyway."

There was something about their conversation that was strange, but I couldn't think about it, because I was still too worried about Jason. Even as I watched them talk, a new horror occurred to me. Maybe the man wasn't alone. Maybe there was a group of them. Maybe they would capture Jason and torture him and then hang him by his neck in the woods somewhere, and no one would find his body but the birds—

I gasped, covering my mouth with my hand, banishing the image from my brain. If anything happened to Jason, I didn't know what I'd do. I couldn't handle it. I needed to know if he was okay. I needed to be
doing
something. I was going to sneak out of school and go look for him. I had to. I couldn't stay here any longer. I was going crazy.

"She's right, though, Azazel," Toby said.

What? Right about what? What was he talking about?

"You shouldn't get attached to him," Toby said.

"I'm not attached," I exploded. "I'm just worried. He's a human being, for God's sake.

I don't think it's criminal that I want him to be okay."

"You're a mess," said Toby. "You can't concentrate on anything." As if to prove his point, he nudged me forward in the lunch line.

I walked forward, annoyed. "Look," I said, "if this was happening to any of the guys, I'd be worried like this. They might be foster kids, but they're like my brothers." Even as I said it, though, I wondered if it were true. Was I a mess? Was I unnaturally worried about Jason? I did care for him, very much. But were my feelings toward Jason really brotherly?

I didn't have time to contemplate it further, because our principal came into the cafeteria. He stood in the center of the room and motioned for quiet. It took several minutes, but eventually, a hush came over the cafeteria.

"I have an announcement," said the principal. "I know many of you have heard that one of our students, Jason Wodden, is missing. A team has been looking for him all morning. I'm pleased to announce that the search is over. Jason has been found and is currently in his foster parents' custody."

I started to cry again. I couldn't help it. I was so relieved.

The principal went on. "This means that all events cancelled by members of the search party are now back in session. Bus 56 will run as scheduled this evening on its regular route, since Mr. Gafferty won't be out on the search. Thank you."

They'd found Jason! They'd found Jason. I was so glad. All of that worry, and he was okay. He was at home. He wasn't dead. I'd never felt so grateful in my life. I closed my eyes, letting the tears rush out.

I realized I had to see him. "Toby," I said, "you have to take me home."

Toby didn't look pleased with my reaction to the news or my request. "It's the middle of the school day," he said.

"You're eighteen. You can sign yourself out," I said.

"But you're not eighteen. You can't sign yourself out," he countered.

"Who cares?" I said. "Let's just leave."

"If they catch us, we'll get ISS," he said.

"I don't care!" I said.

"No," he said. "I'm not taking you. Now, let's get lunch."

"Fine," I said. "Lilith, you take me."

Lilith bit her lip. "Zaza, I don't think that's a good idea," she said.

"Come on," I said. "Like you care about ISS."

She considered. "Usually, I'm all about skipping school, but I just don't think that you should rush home to see Jason. He's probably not in the mood for company, and—"

"I'll walk," I said. Both my boyfriend and my best friend were completely insane.

Couldn't they see how important this was to me? And furthermore, didn't they care to see if Jason was okay? What was wrong with them?

"I'll take you," Toby said. He didn't sound happy about it though.

I hugged him hard. "Thank you," I said. "Thank you so much."

"And this is when you hug me," he muttered. "Great."

I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him. "You're the best boyfriend ever," I said.

"Because I'll help you ditch school to see another guy?"

I rolled my eyes. "You know it's not like that. I thought you were over this jealousy thing."

Lilith shook her head at him. "I can't believe you're doing this," she said to him.

"Shut up, Lilith," said Toby.

That was more like the Toby-Lilith exchanges I was used to. Jason was found and everything was back to normal. The world was perfect. I took Toby's hand. "Let's go,"

I said.

"Right now?" asked Toby. "But we haven't eaten lunch yet."

"I can't eat right now. I'm too excited," I said.

I was terrified teachers would stop us in the halls or in the parking lot. But both the halls and the parking lot were empty. Once we were in Toby's truck, the drive back to my house seemed to take hours and hours. I thought it would never end. On our way, I wondered how Jason was. Had he been hurt at all? Had he run away or had he been captured? If he'd been captured, had he gotten away? Would he look dirty and tired?

Would he just want to sleep? Would he tell me everything?

Fat chance of that. Jason never told me
anything.

Finally, however, we did make it back to my house. Toby didn’t come in. "I'm going back to school," he grumbled. "Maybe if I go back, I won't get in as much trouble."

That was fine with me. Toby dropped me at the top of my driveway, and I ran all the way down the hill to the door. I burst inside.

My mother and father were in the kitchen with Sheriff Damon, two of the deputies, several members of the search party, and, yes, Jason. But Jason was handcuffed.

There were scratches on his face. His clothes were a little worse for wear. And the expression on his face was not happy.

I didn't care. I was so happy to see him, I bounded across the room and flung my arms around him. He couldn’t hug me back because his arms were handcuffed behind his back. But he did smile when he saw me.

"You're okay," I said. "I was so worried."

"I'm fine," he said.

I pulled back and looked into his eyes, shaking my head. "I'm so glad you're okay.

You have no idea what I thought might have happened to you."

"Nothing happened," he said, and he grinned at me. His grin looked like the grin in the picture. A real grin, not like his usual brief one.

"What are you doing here?" asked my dad.

And both Jason's and my grins faded.

I turned on my father. "I had to see for myself," I said.

"You should be at school."

"Dad!" I said. "I risked ISS to get here. I'm willing accept the consequences of my actions, nonproductive as they may be."

"Your mother's taking you back to school," he said.

"No she's not!" I said. "I'm staying here. And why is Jason handcuffed?"

My father strode over to me, took my by the arm and led me out of the house. What was wrong with him? My dad never forced me to do things. My parents always wanted me to make my own decisions. And I'd made my own decision. They couldn't make me go back to school!

But they did.

* * *

"Come in," I called.

Jason came into my room. He sat down on the bed next to me. Startled, I sat up straight. He was very close to me, and my eyes settled on different areas of his body.

His shoulders were broad. His forearms were covered in downy dark hair. His fingers were thick and powerful. I shook myself. Forced myself to look at his face. "Hi," I said.

"Azazel, you have to help me get out of here," he said.

"What?" I said. "No." After all of that, after I'd just gotten him back, there was no way I was helping him leave again. I wanted him as close as possible. I couldn't handle the worry.

"You don't understand," he said. "It's not safe for me to be here. If anything happened to you—to your family—I wouldn't ever be able to forgive myself."

I hadn't had any time to talk to Jason. Dinner had been a boisterous affair, full of the regular noise my large family made. Somehow, the subject of Jason's escape had been avoided over mounds of spaghetti and meatballs. We hadn't talked about my leaving school early to come see him either. Instead, my mother had dominated the conversation, asking the guys all about their schoolwork. Since that was the last thing they actually wanted to talk about, they'd tried to change the subject often, without much success. My mom was persistent. After dinner, I'd gone back to my room to work on the huge pile of homework I had. Now I had Jason to myself. "What happened, Jason?" I asked. "Did you run away? Did that man take you away?"

"I left," he said. "I haven't seen Hallam since last night."

"Hallam?"

"That's his name," said Jason.

I nodded.

"Sheriff Damon says that no one else has seen him since yesterday either, but that doesn't mean anything," said Jason. "He's out there. And he's not going to give up until he finds me. That's why you have to help me get out of here."

"I'm not helping you run off so that man—Hallam—can get you," I said. "If I did that, and something happened to
you,
I wouldn't be able to forgive
myself.
"

He sighed. "I can look after myself," he said. "I'd be fine. But here...I'm like a trapped rat."

It was true. Jason was practically on house arrest. He could go to school and come home. That was it. "Even if I wanted to," I said, "I couldn't." I gestured to Jason's ankle, where he wore an ankle monitor.

Jason glowered at the little black device. "Sheriff Damon was excited about putting this on me," he said. "Apparently, the department never gets to use it."

If Jason went anywhere besides school, the ankle monitor would send a signal to the police. It also transmitted his location, so that they could track him down.

"How would you get around the monitor?" I asked.

"I'd have to get it off," he said. "If I could do that, would you help me?"

"How would you get it off?"

"It's not indestructible. Of course, after I took it off, they'd know and come for me immediately." He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Maybe you're right.