Hooked (Harlequin Teen) (29 page)

Chapter 57
Fred

I TOSSED
RYAN’S
dead cell phone into my backpack.

“Great timing,” I muttered to the opened backpack like I
expected it to answer back. I dropped to my bed and frowned at the ceiling.
Sighing, I turned to look at the clock on my nightstand.

Seven o’clock.

“It’s not too late,” I reasoned. “If I hurry, I could be there
by 7:30. Eight, at the latest.” That didn’t sound too bad. In fact, it sounded
like a reasonable plan.

I popped off the bed.

I raced to the kitchen to find Mom. She was standing at the
stove, stirring a copper pot of soup. Tomato, from the smell of it. The ladle
clinked against the sides.

“Mom,” I said, out of breath. “Mind if I drive to Ryan’s?”

“Why? Isn’t it getting kind of late?” Mom looked at the stove
clock.

“I won’t be gone long. I promise.”

“Can’t it wait till tomorrow?”

I shook my head. “I need to return Ryan’s cell phone.”

“Why tonight?”

Because tomorrow might be too late.
“He’s leaving for San Francisco and needs it before he goes.” Kind of
true.

“Oh,” Mom said, pulling her chin back. “But it is late, Fred.
And that’s a long drive.”

“I’ll be careful,” I said quickly.

Mom inhaled, considering this.

I sucked in a breath, waiting. My whole life hinged on one
simple answer. I could barely hold myself together.

“Okay, then...”

Breathing returned.

“But there and back,” she said. “That’s all. Don’t stay too
long.”

“I won’t, Mom.” I skipped across the floor and kissed Mom’s
soft cheek.

* * *

I parked the van alongside the curb in front of the
Berengers’ house. This time I didn’t worry about parking halfway down the block
where the streetlights ended.

Every light was on inside Ryan’s house, and it had to be the
cheeriest looking one I’d ever seen.

With his cell phone clutched in my hand, I climbed out of the
van and practically floated up the circular flagstone path to the front door. I
pushed my hair behind my ears and adjusted my favorite blue sweater over my
jeans. My heart raced faster than it should have, and I drew back a steadying
breath. Then I rang the bell.

“I’ll get it!” said a muffled voice on the other side of the
enormous door.

I smiled.
Riley.

The door opened to the brightness of the chandelier hanging in
the foyer. I squinted into the light.

“Oh,” said a surprised voice.

Wrong on all counts. Definitely not Riley.

“It’s you,” said the voice.

I blinked a couple of times. “Gwyneth?”

“Yes?” Gwyneth said it like she had every right to be inside
Ryan’s house beneath the birthday chandelier, and I most certainly did not.

My heart thudded to a complete stop. Gwyneth was still wearing
her pom outfit, a short purple pleated wool skirt number with a cream sweater.
The curlicue letters
LB
covered her chest. I looked
past the waves of her blond hair. “Is Ryan here?”

Gwyneth leaned against the door. “Yes,” she said. “This
is
his house.” She blinked wide. “But he’s taking a
shower.” Her lips pursed.

“Oh,” I said, suddenly nauseated. There was something about
Gwyneth Riordan that always made me feel less than a lump of dirt.

She adjusted her weight so that she balanced on the ball of her
perfectly small right foot. And she stared back at me like I was insane. “Is
that it?
Oh?
”

I exhaled and fought the urge not to run. “Could you just tell
him I stopped by to deliver his phone?” I held it out to her in my now-clammy
hand. Five minutes ago I couldn’t wait to see him. Now I wanted nothing more to
do with Ryan’s phone or his plastic girlfriend.

One of Gwyneth’s thin blond eyebrows arched. “Of course.” She
stared at the cell phone like it carried a disease. Finally, she plucked it from
my hand with two fingers.

“Thanks,” I said, turning. I couldn’t wait to be out of this
neighborhood with its stale, thick air. I should have never come. For once, I
should have listened to Mom. She had been one thousand percent right.

“Wait,” Gwyneth said.

I stopped, midstep.

“Just some 411.” She paused for a deep inhale, like she was
about to reveal something ridiculously obvious and important. “Look, we’re all
real sorry about your father—”

“Don’t mention my father,” I interrupted her. I didn’t want
Gwyneth to have the slightest thought about Dad in her blond brain. I certainly
didn’t need her phony pity.

But Gwyneth was hardly concerned with what I wanted. “You know,
this little infatuation you have with my boyfriend needs to stop. It’s become
quite annoying. For everybody. I’m surprised Ryan hasn’t said something
already.” Her head nodded behind her. “Am I getting through?”

I licked my now-dry lips and tasted the last of my lip gloss.
“Totally,” I said, careful to keep my voice from cracking.

And then I turned toward the van, not even flinching when the
front door rocked shut behind me.

Chapter 58
Ryan

“HOW’D YOU GET IN
HERE?”

I trotted down the staircase in bare feet, a bath towel
draped across my bare shoulders and a shoe box underneath my arm.

The sight of Gwyneth made me groan inside, but she smiled
anyway. “The usual way,” she said, blinking innocently. Too innocently. “The
side gate was open.”

“Yeah, but what are you
doing
here?” I’d told her
last week that I didn’t want to go out anymore. It had felt good to finally make
it official.

“Why do you think?” Her smile faded. “I came to see you. To
talk.” Then her smile returned and I felt uneasy all over again. “Your parents
are out back. Your dad’s even cooking barbecue. What drugs are you feeding
them?” She snorted quietly. “They even invited me to dinner.”

I doubted that.

I wasn’t about to tell Gwyneth that my parents were doing
better lately. We all were. My eyes dropped to her hands. “How’d you get my cell
phone?”

Her eyes narrowed at the box under my arm. “What are you
doing carrying women’s golf shoes?”

I ignored her. “My phone?”

Gwyneth’s eyes fluttered. “Oh,” she said, as if she just
remembered something. “That Indian girl just dropped it by. What’s her name?”
She snapped her fingers, trying to recall.

“Fred?” I said through clenched teeth.

“She asked me to give you this.” She extended her hand. “I
invited her in, but she couldn’t stay.”

“Fred was here?” My voice turned louder. I didn’t reach for
the phone. “When?”

She shrugged like it was no big deal. “A little while
ago.”

I stepped around her and reached for the door. I pulled it
open and walked outside. In the distance, I heard an engine chugging down the
end of the street. “Shit!” I slapped the door.

“You can say that again,” Gwyneth said, hanging on my arm.
Her touch felt oppressive. “At least I know why you haven’t been returning my
calls.”

I shrugged off her arm and closed the door. Then I snatched
my cell phone out of her hand.

She stepped back, her mouth open.

“Jeez, Gwyneth.” I could barely look at her. I could barely
stand to breathe the same air. “I can’t believe you.” Like Seth, it was as if
she had turned into a different person, someone unrecognizable. Had she always
been so cruel, and I’d only just started to recognize it?

“Believe what?”

“What’d you tell her?”

“Who?”

“Fred!” I yelled.

She lifted her palms. Her eyes hardened. “Nothing.”

“Sure,” I said as I brushed toward her to the kitchen.
“That’s what I thought.”

Chapter 59
Fred

I LEFT RYAN’S
neighborhood and began the long, desolate stretch down Pecos Road toward
the freeway.

A few cars passed me, so I accelerated, thinking that going
faster could stamp out the image of Gwyneth’s perfect face and her perfect white
pom shoes—her perfect white everything—at Ryan’s front door. I felt like an
idiot for caring.

I rolled down the window, grateful for fresh air. I inhaled
greedy gulps of it as the wind whipped my hair around my face.

But then I smelled something sharp. Really putrid.

Smoke.

“Oh, no,” I moaned. I pulled myself closer to the steering
wheel, batting the hair from my eyes. Silvery wisps floated into the sky from
somewhere near the front of the hood.

“I do not believe this,” I said, just as the thin wisps morphed
into billowy clouds.

Not good.

The engine began to cough and sputter. My eyes dropped to the
dashboard. An angry orange light blinked back at me. I had no choice but to pull
over.

I coasted on fumes to the side of the road, my foot pumping the
brake pedal, till the pavement ended and the dirt began. Finally, the van
bounced its way to a stop, coughing and sputtering.

I shut off the engine, but the van continued to sputter and
hiss, loud at first and then softer, till all that was left were wispy circles
of silvery smoke that floated into the night sky.

My nose wrinkled from the smell as I tried to remember what Dad
had told me about smoke. Did blue smoke mean motor oil? Or gas? Either way,
smoke couldn’t be good.

I slapped the steering wheel, cursing my bad luck and going
over my options.

I was stranded on the darkest stretch of Pecos Road without a
phone. Mom would be frantic.
So
not good.

I’d have to wait till the engine cooled to try driving the van
again, and even then it might not start. And there was absolutely no way I was
walking back to Ryan’s house to beg for help. I’d rather walk through a
rattlesnake pit in my bare feet.

I threaded my car keys through my fingers and opened the door.
I locked it, not that it mattered. Who’d be desperate enough to steal the
thing?

Then I spotted the headlights of an oncoming vehicle.

I held a breath, wondering whether to pull out my thumb and
flag it down. If I were on the Rez, I wouldn’t hesitate. But this wasn’t
home.

I stood off to the side of the road, in front of the van,
waiting.

Except the car didn’t pass.

It flashed its lights and began to slow.

Instantly, my heart started to race as I squinted into the
yellow beams. The air suddenly turned colder. I wrapped my arms across my
chest.

The car pulled over behind my van, its headlights stinging my
eyes. I pressed one hand above my forehead to cut the glare, but it didn’t help
much. I heard a door slam and then the approach of footsteps in the gravelly
dirt.

“Fred?” said a voice.

“Oh, god,” I said as my head began to spin.

It was my worst nightmare on replay.

“I thought I heard your ride drive through the neighborhood
again.”

My throat thickened. It felt impossible to speak.
This can’t be happening.

“Lost?” Seth said when I couldn’t answer.

My fingers tightened around my keys. Sharp tips pressed against
my palm.

Seth walked closer to where I could see him. He wore his
baseball cap backward. His face was even paler in the glow of his headlights.
“Car trouble?” His eyes widened with mock innocence.

What is his problem?

My eyes darted across the road, wondering where I should take
my chances. I figured it was about twenty-five yards down the embankment to the
barbed wire. If I concentrated, I could probably beat him to the wire, but then
I’d have to leap over it and hope I could make it. And I could, if I had had a
running start.

“Still having trouble answering simple questions, Fred?” His
car keys jingled. He spun the key ring around his finger until he stood only an
arm’s length away.

I stepped back deeper into the gravel. “Look, Seth,” I said,
irritated that my voice had already begun to shake. “I know I’ve made you angry,
and I’m sorry. I really am. But this is getting out of control.” I took another
careful step back. My foot crunched over more loose gravel.

But he matched my step. His throaty laughter crackled in the
darkness. “You have no idea.”

“Do you really want my spot on the golf team? Is that it?”

He didn’t answer, but the sky turned eerily silent as I waited
for his answer.

“Because I’ll tell Coach Lannon tomorrow that I’m off the team
and you should have your old spot back. Will that make you happy? Then will you
leave me alone?”

Seth smacked his lips together. “Too late for that.”

He reached for my shoulder, each of his five fingers pressing
down, but I shrugged off his hand.

Then the engine of another car revved down the road.

Seth turned toward the headlights, shielding his eyes against
the glare with his arm, and I found my chance.

I darted down the embankment toward the barbed wire.

“Hey!” Seth snarled, spinning around. “Where do you think
you’re g-going?” He started to stutter. “We aren’t f-f-finished!”

The car flashed its brights, lighting up the desert. Its horn
beeped, but I had already skidded down the hill toward the Rez. Half walking,
half gliding through the soft earth, I finally reached the fence. Dirt rose up
in my tennis shoes like water.

When I reached the barbed wire, it met my chest. Too high to
hurdle. Frantically, I searched for an opening.

I had to get as far away from Seth Winter as I could.

But then there was a new voice. “Fred?” someone yelled.
Quickly, he said, “Seth? What the hell are you doing here?” His voice echoed all
around me.

It was Ryan. And this time there was no question that he was
out-of-his-mind furious.

Chapter 60
Ryan

I PULLED MY JEEP
OFF THE
side of Pecos Road like the wheels had caught fire.

I recognized Seth’s oversize tires immediately. He’d parked
right behind Fred’s van, dwarfing it.

My breathing quickened.

I opened the door before jamming the gear in Park. I left
the keys in the ignition, the engine running.

“Where is she?” I said, running toward Seth. His arms lifted
against the glare of my headlights.

“Her v-van went all ape-shit,” Seth said, stuttering a
little. He motioned to it. Smoke drifted from beneath the hood in grayish-white
wisps.

“Just thought I’d stop and give her a ride, but she bailed
on me.” He nodded toward the open desert like Fred was the one who was
crazy.

“Fred!” I yelled, my eyes squinting against the darkness.
All I saw was black. It was like trying to focus on a single stone at the bottom
of a murky river.

Seth yelled with me. “Fred!”

I cringed at his lame attempt at helpfulness. Then I turned
to him. “What are you doing here?”

“Like I told you, just cruising down the road, saw her van
and stopped to help. End of story.”

“Liar,” I said.

“Why so paranoid?” He laughed.

“Then why isn’t she here?” My hands felt like they were on
fire, the weight of all my bad decisions electrifying each finger. Before I
could think, I turned to Seth and smashed my fist across his chin before he
could answer. It felt better than good. Seth’s bone cracked beneath my
knuckles.

Seth fell backward, cupping his jaw. “What was that for? I
think you broke my tooth!” he yelled, flexing his jaw. But then he leaped to his
feet and lunged at me before I could catch my next breath. He plowed right into
my chest.

I fell back with Seth crashing on top of me.

In the beams from the headlights, we spun around in the dirt
and gravel, arms flailing and fists flying. I tasted blood and dust. And rage.
Palpable, bitter, explosive rage. Our bodies rolled over each other, sharp rocks
piercing through my clothing. Seth’s hot breath blanketed my face each time we
spun.

I pummeled Seth till my knuckles ached. He punched me good
in the ribs and the sides, but I was too enraged to feel pain.

I almost didn’t hear Fred. “Stop it!” she yelled over
us.

I saw her legs sidestepping our bodies as Seth and I
thrashed in the dirt, back and forth.

“Stop it!” she yelled again, but we punched harder.

“Move away!” I grunted through my teeth as Seth met my side
punch with one of his. He nailed me again in the ribs.

Standing above us, Fred didn’t listen. Instead, she followed
us as we flailed and kicked and punched, begging us to stop, zigging then
zagging around us.

Then our bodies reached the edge of the road, oblivious to
the embankment. We began to roll, slowly at first, and then faster as the
incline dropped. I tasted more dirt with each roll.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four rolls in the rocky dirt?

I lost count.

Finally, we crashed in a heap against the barbed wire where
Phoenix stopped and the Gila Indian Reservation began. Seth caught the brunt of
it. His chest pushed into mine on impact.

He moaned.

“Stop it!” Fred yelled again and again, her voice frantic as
she skidded down the hill with us. It sounded like she was crying through her
screams.

The beams from the headlights barely provided any light so
far off the road. “Please. Just. Stop.” She fell to her knees alongside us as
our punches grew weaker with our exhaustion.

My whole body felt like it’d been in a grinder. Slowly, I
pulled myself away from Seth and sat back on my knees. My chest ached. My
knuckles throbbed. Every muscle in my body burned like it was on fire. I wiped
my hand across my mouth and tasted more dirt, more blood. One of my front teeth
wiggled against my tongue. I swallowed and then spat.

Seth lay pinned to the fence, breathing just as heavily, the
fabric from his jacket stuck to the wire like Velcro. His arms extended against
the barbed wire like a scarecrow.

I finally stood, unsteady at first, and then considered
whether to punch Seth again, a defining one to the gut.

“No,” Fred said, taking my hand between hers. She pulled
back on my arm. “That’s enough.” In the dark, her hand moved down to mine. My
hand was wet from sweat and blood, but she threaded her fingers through mine
anyway. Her voice cut through our panting. “Please. Stop this. Enough.”

When she squeezed my hand, I blinked back sweat trickling
down from my forehead. I took one last long look at Seth. I didn’t know what to
say to him. It was like being inside an endless nightmare loop.

“Come on,” Seth said, still pinned. “Hit me. You know you
want to.” The whites of his eyes gleamed against the darkness. He laughed, but
his voice was as tired as mine, his chest writhing as he wriggled to escape the
wire.

I waited for him to break free and charge me again. I wanted
it. Bad. But he didn’t. Couldn’t.

Finally, Fred pulled at me. Together, we turned toward the
embankment. Seth’s jacket tore as he pulled away from the barbs.

“You were supposed to be my best friend,” Seth yelled into
the night, his voice echoing all around us.

My chest tightened again. Then I stopped. I turned. “I was.
Just not anymore. I’m done.”

Fred and I began to climb in the soft dirt toward the road,
our feet sinking with each step. It was like walking up a mud bank. We leaned
against each other for support, saying nothing. I just wanted to get away. And I
wanted to get Fred away from Seth, as far from his hatred as possible.

But then Seth’s laughter grew softer, almost like a
whimper.

My chest tightened again, but for a different reason.

Seth did something that he hadn’t done since we were nine
years old when his stepdad belted him, right in front of me, for forgetting to
lock his bike at school the same day it turned up stolen.

Seth started to cry.

My traitorous throat thickened, listening to each sob.

He tried to choke them back.

“Wait,” he said, more like an exhale.

We didn’t answer.

“I’m so sorry for what I did. I’m sorry, Fred.” His sobs
filled the sky. “Help me,” he begged.

I stood frozen and silent, holding on to Fred, not knowing
whether to walk backward or forward.

“Please, dude,” Seth said. “Please don’t leave. Help
me.”

“How can we trust you?” I called down to him.

Seth didn’t answer. His cries turned muffled. The ripping
noises from his jacket stopped as he continued to hang, trapped, against the
fence.

I sighed, listening to him moan. Then I knew.

Fred tugged on my hand, pulling me back, like she could read
my mind. There was just enough of a muted glow from the road to see tears in her
eyes.

Without another word, we turned around and skidded back down
the embankment.

Seth’s legs were outstretched on the ground but his back and
arms were pinned to the wire. His hands hung limply at the wrists.

“I’ll pull his right arm. You pull his left,” I told Fred as
we stood on either side.

Seth didn’t protest.

Silently, we tugged forward on both shoulders, ripping his
jacket even more as the wire twisted and pinched the fabric like sharp fingers.
If it hurt, Seth didn’t complain.

We finally freed him. He collapsed forward and gasped. Then
he drew his knees together and buried his head between them like he was too
ashamed to look at us.

I sighed tiredly, looking down at him, seeing only his dark,
cowering outline. Then I extended my hand. “Come on, Seth. Let’s go.”

He looked up, swallowed back a sob and reached for my hand.
His was slippery like mine with sweat and blood. He rose to his feet, almost
falling backward again on the first try.

Without another word, the three of us climbed up to the
road. I took Fred’s hand again, threading my fingers through hers. Seth trailed
behind us, silent, one heavy step forward at a time.

All of a sudden, two red flashing beacons lit up the
sky.

We stopped and stared up at the road. A flashlight’s beam
washed over us, and I had to squint from the burn of the glare.

“This is the police!” a man bellowed down at us from a
megaphone. His deep voice boomed across the desert. “Is everyone all right?”

It was hard not to laugh.