Rebel, Bully, Geek, Pariah (21 page)

“We still need music,” I said, just to fill the silence that had settled.

York jumped up in response. “I'll get you music.” He swayed on his feet for a moment, trying to catch my eye, but I stubbornly looked away. Finally he stomped out of the great room and started banging around in the deeper recesses of the cabin.

“What's his problem?” Boston muttered.

“Maybe he's PMSing,” Andi said, but she gave me a sly wink. “Way to keep him on the ropes.”

Boston tilted his head, confused. “I was the one who caught him with the rope.”

Andi dropped onto the couch next to Boston and patted his hand. “Don't worry, little one. You'll understand someday.”

I smiled at the pair of them—the sassy former queen bee and the clueless genius. I didn't really know them, but I knew enough to decide they didn't deserve this trouble.

I perched on the edge of the sofa, my hand straying to Mama's violin to finger the strings.

“I've made my decision,” I said.

Their heads swiveled in my direction.

“I'll do it.” My voice cracked when I said it, so I repeated myself more surely the second time. “I'll do it.”

Boston's face broke into a wide grin, but Andi looked uncertain.

A voice behind me said softly, “You don't have to.”

We turned to see York frozen in a doorway, a radio cradled under his arm.

“You don't have to go in by yourself,” he said. He moved into the room and dropped the radio on the coffee table. “I'll go with you.”

Finally I looked him in the eye. His offer only solidified my resolve.

“I know my way around a police station,” I said. “I'm not afraid to do it alone.”

Because I didn't feel alone at all. Everyone in the room was looking at me—
really
looking at me—like I mattered. And for once the looking didn't make me want to hide.

“We'll be close by,” York promised. He turned to Andi and Boston. “Right?”

Boston nodded eagerly. “Totally!”

Andi didn't answer right away. She was still wearing that critical expression, and I could tell she was holding something back, but she finally forced a smile. “Sure.”

A sense of relief went around the room, and I was happy to be the cause of it. I may have been an accessory to a crime—
or two, or three
—but I hadn't really done anything all that terrible. I would explain our situation and get us all out of this, and then maybe we'd come back to this cabin someday under different circumstances, as something other than accidental fugitives.

Or maybe I was delusional. But the only way to find out was to trust them—to take the fall and pray they'd be there to catch me.

“Everything's going to be fine,” Boston promised.

“Because we're innocent,” York said. “Mostly.”

I agreed. Everyone agreed.

We were feeling less and less like bad guys by the minute.

York turned on the radio and clicked a button, flipping through static and fuzz until he found a clear signal.

Boston nixed it right away. “No metal music.”

York clicked again.

“Ugh. I hate country,” Andi complained. Her eyes flicked to me. “No offense.”

I shrugged. “None taken.”

The next station pounded out the opening beats of an old punk-rock anthem.

“These guys are poseurs,” York said. “But this song's all right.”

“Yeah, I like this one,” Andi agreed.

“Me, too,” I said, and Boston nodded his consent.

We all smiled. It was nice to have something in common besides a felony.

York cranked the volume, and I lost myself in the pounding drums and three-chord guitar riffs. The song was an angry love letter to an ex-girlfriend, but I'd always pulled a different meaning from the lyrics.

I've never felt a need like this

How can so much bad feel like so much bliss

It's my unfortunate addiction!

I know deep down you're ugly

But all I see when I'm with you is your beauty

You're my unfortunate addiction!

When I was old enough to understand Mama's disease, I'd played this song on repeat more times than I could count. It had just the right amount of despair and fury, and was just loud enough to drown out anything but feeling.

The line between love and hate wears thin

But I'll die—I'll DIE—if I don't see you again

It's my unfortunate addiction!

You're my unfortunate addiction!

As the chorus swelled, York played air guitar, and Andi drummed her knees.

Boston is right
, I thought, feeling it all the way to my bones.
Everything
is
going to be fine.

But because it's just my luck, seconds later, everything was absolutely, completely, most definitely not fine.

 

27

THE SONG HIT a crescendo with a blaze of light.

And I don't mean that as a metaphorical compliment to the music.

I mean the cabin literally exploded with light, blasting through the front glass wall and bouncing around the room, glaring off every reflective surface, until it finally settled into two solid beams shining on us like laser pointers.

Headlights.

Instinct dropped me to the floor behind the couch, and a split second later, Andi and Boston were rolling over the back of it to join me. Only York had the presence of mind to shut off the radio and kill the few small lamps we had on in the great room. Then he crouched down next to us, breathing heavily.

“It's Mom and Dad, isn't it?” Boston whimpered. “We're in so much trouble.”

“Maybe it's just a neighbor,” York said. “We were being kind of loud out on the water. Someone at a cabin farther down the lake might have heard us.”

“Can you get rid of them?” Andi whispered.

York held a finger to his lips, then tiptoed toward the front door, avoiding the beams of light. I could barely make out his shape in the dark, but I heard the slow soft click of the dead bolt locking into place and saw a tiny sliver of light open up next to the door as he moved aside a curtain.

Car doors slammed. An engine died. But the lights kept blazing.

“Fuck,” York breathed. It was the smallest of whispers, but it carried the weight of doom.

“Oh God, it
is
them,” Boston cried. “Our parents. They're going to kill us.”

In a flash, York skidded across the floor, landed next to us on his knees, and clamped a hand over Boston's mouth.

“Shut. Up.”

I shivered. Something was very wrong.

“It's not your parents,” I whispered.

York shook his head, his eyes somber and scared. “Get your shit,” he said. “We're going out the back.”

“What about the backpacks?” I asked. The corner of the kitchen where we'd stashed the drugs suddenly seemed very far away.

“Leave them!” Andi said, and we all hushed her. She lowered her voice but not her urgency. “Leave them all here. Let the police come find them.”

“Which police?” York asked, a sharp edge to his whisper. “The ones outside?”

Every muscle in my body tensed, bracing the way you would in a car wreck milliseconds before impact, and it made sense. We definitely seemed headed for a crash.

Andi's hands went to her throat, as if physically choking back a cry of fear. Boston was slower to catch on. I saw it happen in his eyes, above the hand York still held firmly pressed over his mouth. They grew wide, and then swelled up with tears.

The crash of shattering glass outside made us all jump. Literally—we jumped to our feet and moved as a single unit to the front door. I had only enough time to grab the violin and my purse. Andi took the instrument from my hands in the dark foyer and slid it silently into her messenger bag, and this time I let it go willingly. I had a feeling I might need my hands free.

“Are you sure it's them?” I whispered to York.

“I didn't see their faces before,” he admitted in a low voice. “And they're not in uniform. But two guys, right size
 
. . .” He hesitated, daring another peek past the curtains. “With guns.”

Outside there was another smash of glass, followed by shouting.

“It's not here!” a man's voice boomed.

“They're busting up the car,” York said. “Shit, they're coming!” He flinched back from the curtain. “Go!”

Chaos. Blind stumbling. Stampeding feet.

I let myself get herded into the kitchen, let someone loop a heavy backpack over my shoulders, and let them push me toward a side door, all with that one command screaming in my head.

GO!

I was vaguely aware of a heavy rhythmic pounding at the front door. It wasn't a knock. Someone was trying to smash their way in.

“Follow me,” York whispered fiercely. He threw open the side door and leaped out into the night. We were only steps from the cabin when a voice off to our right cried, “Here! Got 'em!”

I turned at the sound, tripping over my own feet and falling hard on my hip.

It's done
, I thought as the shadow of a man crept toward us, one hand up like a warning to stay still. His other hand hung loose at his side, holding a gun pointed harmlessly at the ground.

We'll throw ourselves on their mercy and pray that while they may be crooked, they're not killers.

But a second later the man was crying out, shielding his face from a disturbingly bright ray of light aimed directly at his eyes. In the glow, I could see the familiar lines and angles of the face I'd recognized back in the bowels of River City Park. Strong hands grabbed me under my armpits and lifted me off the ground as I followed the damaging line of light back to its source—Andi's flashlight.

And just like that, we were running again. The hands that picked me up—York's—now grabbed me by the arms, forcing me to move. Andi pounded the ground right beside us, aiming the light wildly over her shoulder.

“Sun Shot, motherfuckers!” she cried.

The pack pounded against my back, and my legs ached, but still I ran. The boys led us at top speed toward the lake, then made a sharp right at the shore, into the trees. Needle-like branches lashed at my arms, and traps made of weeds tried to tangle my feet.

Go!

About twenty breathless paces into the woods, the trees suddenly opened up around a rough shack, open on one end like a tiny barn. The boys gave no instructions, possibly because they were too winded from carrying their own heavy packs, but they motioned for us to hurry. Inside the shack, two mud-caked ATVs sat side-by-side.

We climbed on without question, me behind York and Andi behind Boston. Just before the engines of the little four-wheelers roared to life, I heard the thudding sound of feet moving through the trees. We shot out of the shed at the exact moment the men broke into the clearing. This time their guns were raised, but if they planned to fire, they didn't have time. York nearly ran over the familiar one—I swear he swerved on purpose—and then we were rocketing up a narrow trail, leaving a cloud of dust in our wake.

Boston and York were shouting at each other, but their words were lost to the thunder of the ATVs. The dirt path narrowed, and we fell into single file, York and me in the lead. He refused to slow down, even when the forest floor became uneven, pitching the ATV from side to side and bouncing it right up off the ground. I had my arms wrapped so tightly around York's chest he was probably struggling to breathe, but I didn't loosen my grip.

York let go of one handlebar to motion to Boston, and the ATV rocked dangerously on two wheels. Every muscle in my body clenched as I wondered whether it would be worse to be shot or crushed under a four-wheeler. York leveled us off at the last possible second and finally slowed to a stop. He inched the ATV to the side of the path so Boston and Andi could pull up alongside us.

“The road!” York hollered over the idling motors.

Boston killed his engine and motioned for York to do the same.

“The main road?” Boston whispered, though it sounded like a shout in the sudden silence. “They'll see us.”

Tears streaked his face, and I didn't know whether it was from driving into the wind or out of danger. I unlocked my arms from around York's chest to feel my own cheeks. Dry, as usual. But inside—inside I was more than crying. I was screaming.

“Just across it,” York said. “We have to get to the deeper part of the woods.”

“They'll check the house first,” Andi said with some certainty. Her dreadlocks stuck out in every direction, some of them looking torn apart, like they'd snagged on branches.

“You think?” I said.

She only replied, “I told you we should have left that shit behind.”

I saw her point now.

They would search the cabin, and when they failed to find their loot, they'd come after us. Again.

“It's our evidence,” Boston said, almost apologetically. “I thought we'd need it.”

“Well, we have it now,” York said. “And we can't just sit here.”

Boston's shoulders sagged, but he offered no alternative. He turned the engine over and readjusted his perch on the ATV. “No lights,” he said, turning off the four-wheeler's headlights.

York powered up and did the same. When we moved again, the pace was much slower, which scared me more than the high speeds of before. We were driving in pure darkness, barely faster than I could walk, making a racket that screamed
Here we are!

I held my breath and closed my eyes as we reached the road, but we crossed it quickly, with no sign of the crooked cops. Once we hit the trees on the other side, the boys turned on their lights and picked up speed again, racing deeper and deeper into the forest. We passed several forks in the trail until they found one that went left and took it. Now we were flying south toward River City, leaving the cabin behind.