Shade Me (31 page)

“You don't have to—”

He held up his hand to stop me. “He killed some punk named Leon. He told me. Shot him in the chest over some stupid grudge. But I still didn't say anything to anyone. I kept my mouth shut because I thought that was what you did. I thought I was going to follow in his footsteps, you know? I was going to join his gang, too, and I had to prove myself. So I said nothing.”

I tried to imagine Chris Martinez, with his blazing yellow badge, in a gang, selling drugs, stealing cars, killing people. I couldn't do it.

“Two weeks later, Leon's boys went after Javi and shot up his car.” He ducked his head, scuffed one shoe on the tile, and then looked up again. His jaw was square and tense. “Only it wasn't Javi in the car. It was our sister. Ada.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “I'm so sorry. You didn't know. . . .”

He closed his eyes. “But I did know. And now Javi is in prison and Ada is dead and it's just my mom in that house. And she lives with that pain every day. And so do I. You asked why I was so busy following you? Because I swore to myself I would never stand by and let someone get hurt again. Not if I could stop it. Especially if it's someone I care about.”

We stood there awkwardly for a beat. I didn't know what to say. Putrid brown puddled around our feet, and I squeezed
my eyes shut to make it go away.

Finally, he turned. “Anyway, I owed you that. I should go.”

“Wait,” I said, and he stopped. I went to the kitchen desk, found a scrap of paper and a pen, and jotted down an address. I handed him the paper. “In the trees behind the Dumpsters, you'll find her car. It'll have my fingerprints in it, just so you know.”

He held the scrap of paper up for a few seconds, then folded it and tucked it into his pocket. The address was no longer coming at me in blacktop black and gray. The fear was gone.

“Thank you,” he said.

My fingerprints weren't the only part of me Chris Martinez would find in that car. He would also find my stolen school records, filled with the counselor's details about my synesthesia.

It would take Martinez a while to understand what he was looking at, but he was a pretty good detective. He would eventually get it.

If we were going to finish this out, he was going to have to get it.

But I felt confident that he would. That we would. That eventually Vanessa and Luna and Bill would have to own up to what they did. To the prostitution and the drugs and the murder. I owed that much to Peyton. And to Dru. They died
for their family secrets. For
our
family secrets. It was up to me to expose them.

I followed Chris Martinez to the front door and watched him get into his car. The license plate glowed bright yellow at me. Just as it had from day one. I had a feeling Chris Martinez was nothing if not reliable. But there was something else there, as well. When I remembered sparring with him, or sitting with him on the Hollises' pool deck, I thought of violet things—flowers, grapes, purple crayons. I pressed my eyes shut, tight, and reopened them. The color was gone. But it had been there. I had seen it.

I stood by the door, leaning my temple against the door frame, as he pulled out of the driveway. My cheek throbbed. I thought about the night that Dru died. How I'd sat against the lawn chair, sobbing. Everything I'd known about my life had been a lie. I wasn't sure who my parents were, who I was. The confusion was overwhelming. And while, with Luna being handcuffed and hauled away, it looked like this was all over, in reality, it had only just begun. There were still so many questions I needed to ask. Starting with my dad. He would try to evade—that was his style—but Chris Martinez wasn't the only one determined not to give up until there were answers. I wouldn't give up until I knew who I was, who Mom was. I
couldn't
give up.

I shut the front door and then, instead of going back to the kitchen to study, snatched my chem book off the stair
where I'd left it, and took it back upstairs. I grabbed my tae kwon do duffel off my bedroom floor and stepped into some shoes.

I threw on my jacket, which smelled faintly of cigarette smoke, and remembered seeing Peyton for the first time in the hospital bed. Even in all that crimson, with her chopped hair, with her battered head and arms, she still looked beautiful.

I could see her. Her soft skin, her small nose, her long eyelashes. Her tattoo, a black-and-gray rainbow with words underneath.

Live in Color.

I walked out the front door, shouldering my duffel and digging out my car keys at the same time.

I intend to, Peyton. I intend to.

Always first, I would like to thank my friend and agent, Cori Deyoe, for encouraging me to take leaps and try new things, and for having my back no matter what happens.

This book literally never would have happened without the vision, belief, and help of the amazing Claudia Gabel, Melissa Miller, and Katherine Tegen. Thank you to all of my wonderful HarperCollins family, especially Joel Tippie, Kathryn Silsand, Valerie Shea, Roseanne Romanello, Lauren Flower, and Alana Whitman.

Thank you to Scott Brown and Alex Tison, for helping me choreograph Nikki's badass fight scenes (“Do it again, only slower”), and to Paige Wood for helping take notes while I was on the ground patting out (“Did you get that?”).

As always, thank you to my family and friends for forever supporting me. Scott, Paige, Weston, Rand, and Preston, I love you all.

And thank you, dear readers, for following me into my colorful make-believe worlds. You are my rainbow, and you are beautiful!

Photo by Lacey Crough

JENNIFER BROWN
is the author of the young adult novels
Bitter End, Perfect Escape, Thousand Words,
and
Torn Away.
Her debut young adult novel,
Hate List
, was chosen as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a
VOYA
Perfect Ten, and a
School Library Journal
Best Book of the Year. She lives in the Kansas City, Missouri, area with her husband and children. You can visit Jennifer online at
www.jenniferbrownya.com
.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.

Shade Me

Cover photography © 2016 by Michael Frost

Cover art and design by Joel Tippie

Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

SHADE ME
. Copyright © 2016 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Jennifer, date.

     Shade me / Jennifer Brown. — First edition.

         pages cm

     Summary: “A teenage girl with special cognitive abilities becomes embroiled in a mystery surrounding the brutal attack of a high-profile classmate and a sexy yet dangerous relationship with a stranger”— Provided by publisher.

   ISBN 978-0-06-232443-6 (hardback)

   EPub Edition © December 2015 ISBN 9780062324450

   [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Synesthesia—Fiction.] I. Title.

15  16  17  18  19    
PC/RRDH
    10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

FIRST EDITION

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