by Angel Lawson
“Hey, come on,” I say quietly. “I’m not trying to judge you. I just… I guess I’m trying to understand you a little better.”
“There’s not much to understand. I used to do it, now I don’t.” She slings her bag over her shoulder and calls out to Emory, “I’ll meet you at the truck.”
He looks up and nods, eyes darting over to me. I pick up my trash and wait as Aubrey follows Vandy up the stairs. Emory turns off the bunker lights, voice low when he says, “I’m trusting you with my sister. Do not fuck this up, okay?”
I look him in the eye and give him a promise I hope I can keep. “I won’t.”
I wait at the gas station for a good twenty minutes before Emory’s truck pulls into the parking spot next to mine. I hop out of the Jeep, feeling erratic with all of the energy building inside of me. I wasn’t lying to Emory before about doing best under pressure, but that pressure usually didn’t include having to drive with Vandy for the first time since almost killing her. I blame this restlessness for going to the truck and opening Vandy’s door for her. She’s wearing a black top and dark skinny jeans, and I’m relieved she heeded my request. Whatever sour note we’d left things on this morning isn’t going to interfere with what needs to be done.
A large canvas bag sits in her lap. Hesitantly, I reach for it, and she lets me. Inside is a large, flashy pair of paper mâché devil horns.
“Where did you get this?” I gesture to the horns.
“From last year’s homecoming float,” she says. “Each class gets a storage room at the school to keep supplies for the next year. I figured it would work.”
I nod appreciatively. “Good thinking.”
“Hey,” Emory calls to me from the driver’s seat. “I’m going to get Aubrey and we’re heading up to Sparrowood. I doubt we’ll be back before midnight.”
Vandy steps down on the running board. I offer her my hand, but she just shoots it a glare and hops down on her own. She looks back at her brother. “We’ll text when we’re done to coordinate getting home at the same time.”
“Be careful,” Emory calls to her. His eyes dart to mine. “If anything goes south, both of you get the hell out of there. At any cost.”
“Got it.”
I follow her around to the other side of my Jeep under the guise of putting the bag in the back. I reach around her for the door handle, but she stops me and shoots me another glare. “What the hell are you doing?”
I stare at her. “Opening the door?”
“I can do it myself. I know my leg is a mess, but my arms work just fine.”
I want to say that the Jeep isn’t like her brother’s truck. I don’t have running boards. But hours earlier, I’d been making a big case about her ability to scale an eight-foot fence, so there’s no way to justify helping her that isn’t some form of the truth--which is that the thought of driving with her in my car is making me fucking crazy.
“Okay,” I say instead, taking a step back. The Jeep is high off the ground, but she manages all the same. I hand her the bag and back away slowly. Even though I don’t deserve to feel annoyed and sort of cast off, I do.
Emory drives away as I get into the driver’s side and shut the door. Vandy and I are very much alone now, and our positions are not lost on me—me behind the wheel, her in the passenger seat. Her thighs are primly pressed together and her fingers curl around the edge of the seat.
Here we go.
I crank the engine, place both hands on the steering wheel, and stare out the windshield. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
There’s no need to push what ‘this’ is.
Her voice is clipped. “I’m fine.”
“Because it’s normal to be anxious,” I assure her. “I mean, it took me a long time before I was comfortable behind the wheel. My therapist used to—”
Her head whips in my direction. “You have a therapist?”
“I did.” I blow out a breath, just grateful for the lack of bite in her tone. My insides feel twisted enough. I wonder if she even realizes how big of a deal this is for me, too. “At Mountain Point. One-on-one, plus group therapy. It was a condition of my release and enrollment.”
Her fingers relax a little. “Me, too. Well, not the group, but the individual.” She looks askance at me, mouth lifting into a small grin. “Sucks, huh?”
“Yeah, it does.” I grin tightly back. “But I have a feeling they’d both think it was pretty valid for the two of us to be freaking out right now.”
Vandy looks at me for a long moment, eyes searching. “Well, you seem like you’re handling it fine.”
I hold her stare, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more honest in my life. “Before you got here, I threw up in that trash can. Over there by the Redbox.” She follows the direction of my nod, as if she could see it. “Trust me, I’m freaking out.”
“Do you think those therapists would support us doing it?” Her face blanches. “I-I mean, this? The driving thing? With everything we…”
“God, probably not.” I run my hand down my face. “At least not without a shit-ton of reflection and mindfulness exercises. Probably some deep dives into our psyches about why we’re insisting on hanging around one another again, and hey, what’s with the deep-rooted need to join this group, anyway? Are we flirting with self-destructive tendencies by putting ourselves in all these risky situations? And then we’d probably need to do some controlled breathing and talk about how our mothers were mean to us once in second grade, and now we don’t know how to safely process our attachment issues or whatever.”
Vandy lets out a laugh, and it’s nothing like the laugh she had with Tyson. This one is bright and sharp. “You’re right, that’s exactly what Dr. Cordell would say. Minus the second-grade thing. Mine was probably the Valentine's dance.”
I flinch when she reaches across the center of the car and gently pries my hand from the steering wheel. I watch in a silent stupor as she places it on the gear selector, closing my fingers around the lever.
“But I have a better idea, Reynolds.” She looks at me, her hand warm and so heavy on mine that it feels like every point of my body is pinned beneath the weight of it. She breathes, “Just drive.”
My exhale escapes in a measured gust. “Yes, ma’am.”
I put the car in reverse and take one last glance over to make sure she’s okay. Her eyes are forward but she seems less tense, at least. There’s a lock of hair hanging over her cheek and the instinct to reach over and sweep it away, tuck it behind her delicate ear, is so powerful that it’s nearly an ache not to.
Slowly, using every single lesson from Driver’s Ed, I ease the Jeep from the parking space.
I can do this.
We can do this.
Without another thought about why we’re drawn to one another, I pull onto the street and head to Thistle Cove.
15
Vandy
The first twenty minutes of the drive are excruciatingly quiet, but without even having to ask, I know that he wants to focus. He’d seemed so cool at first, when I first got into the Jeep, but I can see it now—the tension in his hands where they grip the steering wheel at perfect ten and two positions, the way his eyes keep jumping to the side of the road, the tight, ticking muscle in his jaw as it clenches. His weird new stillness is in fine form. The top of his back doesn’t even touch the seat, he’s sitting so rigidly.
He’s wearing darker, casual clothes—a black hooded sweater pulled over a shirt that, from the looks of the collar, is soft and worn. He dressed for comfort and utility, but it’s maybe not working out for him.
His forehead sparkles with a fine sheen of sweat.
He waits until we roll to a stop at an intersection to roll his window down, and he probably tries to hide it, but I can tell he’s sucking in these little breaths of the fresh air. I can tell that it’s relaxing him.
But once the Jeep starts moving again…
“It’s better when you can feel the wind whipping around, you know?”<
br />
“Reyn, I can’t—” My voice is all choked, and now I’m the one sweating, eyes squeezing shut. “I can’t—the window.” He instantly rolls it up, no questions asked. Maybe he understands.
Softly, he says, “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I fumble for the AC controls, and this time we both breathe relieved sighs when the cool air hits us. “That’s better.”
“Yes,” he agrees.
I can’t stop my mild laugh. “God, we’re a mess.”
I feel better when he grins, even though it’s still strained. “Hey, talk to me.”
I look over at him, confused. “About what?”
“Anything.” He grips the wheel tighter. “Tell me about this Thistle Cove drama.”
I realize that his silent focusing technique probably isn’t panning out as effectively as he’d intended. So I settle into my seat and start to tell the story of how the idyllic little town turned into a Lifetime movie complete with sexy school girls, illicit sugar daddies, and murder.
Ten minutes later, Reyn seems appropriately distracted. He’s no longer stick-straight in his seat, strangling the steering wheel. “Wait, you’re telling me that the coach was having an affair with his student—also his best friend’s daughter—and her father was like, the king of the SugarBabies online match-up site?” He raises an eyebrow.
“Yep,” I reply. “Oh also? The girl’s father? He was the mayor.”
“Damn.”
“Right?” I relax a little into my seat. “You know, I kind of wonder if that’s what Afton’s doing with her dad’s friend?”
He lifts a shoulder in a loose shrug, both hands still on the wheel. He’s been a very conscientious driver this whole time, even after he began relaxing. Eyes forward, hands steady, speed level. “It doesn’t sound like it. Whatever Afton’s got going on seems a little more passion-driven than an arrangement.”
“True,” I admit, although the thought of Afton with a guy that old still grosses me out. “You really never heard about that whole story?”
“We didn’t get much news at military school.”
“There was this whole episode about it on Crime Nation.” I shift in my seat, feeling a little embarrassed to admit my guilty pleasure, but I can’t contain my enthusiasm. “God, I love a good true crime story, and this one was so close by!”
His head tilts when he says, “Sounds like you just really like journalism. Like you’ve already found that thing you’re passionate about. Like your mom.”
“I guess.” I chew on my lip, thinking. “Although, my mom’s got a drive that I don’t think I could ever have. For her, it’s less about the story and more about the glory. I’d be perfectly happy if no one ever looked at me again.”
His forehead creases as he turns off the highway. Daylight is fading, and we need to get to the school before it’s fully dark to do a little recon. The small town of Thistle Cove is in the distance, the river on one side and thick trees on the other. My mind wanders back to the girls seeking affection and money from older men, back to Afton.
“You think she’s pretty,” I say suddenly.
His eyes jump to me and back to the road so fast that it seems involuntary. “Who?”
“Afton,” I answer awkwardly. “I’ve seen you looking at her.”
There’s a long stretch of silence where I cringe internally. It isn’t until we hit a stoplight that Reyn flicks his turn signal and finally answers. “I spent three years in military school. I think a lot of girls are pretty.”
“Well, she is.” I focus out the window at the sinking sun, feeling self-conscious and strange. “Pretty, I mean.”
He looks away to turn, face neutral when he responds, “Yeah, but she’s not really my type.
“No?” I hate how quickly it comes out. “From the looks of it, you can probably take your pick. Who is?”
“I don’t know.” His hands grip and release the steering wheel. “I guess I’m still trying to figure that out.”
“I saw you go into the Devil’s tower after that first game,” I admit. “I thought you were going to meet a girl.”
“Sneaking around again?” he says teasingly.
“No.” I narrow my eyes. “If anyone was sneaking around, it was you.”
“As you know, I was meeting your brother.” He comes to a stop sign—we’re getting close now—and while the car idles, he gives me his attention. “The Stairway to Hell isn’t really on my radar right now.”
“Whatever.” I flap a hand dismissively. “I bet your name is already up there.”
His expression is guilty enough for me to know that it’s true, but he says, “I wasn’t here long enough to really make a mark.”
I idly wonder, “Do you think that, because the other girls and I are officially Devils—well, Playthings, I guess—we’ll get to put our names up there? Assuming there’s opportunity for any of us.” Not that there’ll be any for me. Who would I even go up there with? What would we even do? That train of thought brings back some of the tension I’d had from earlier.
“I’m not sure,” he says slowly, eyes going inexplicably tight. “I don’t know the rules about that—for girls. We’re in new territory, I guess. Before, the Playthings were just…” He pauses here, and I know he’s editing. “Just the girls who hung out with us. But now you’re a member.” His eyes dart over, eyebrow quirking. “Look at that, you’re already shaking up the patriarchy. Maybe you should get your own spot on the beam.”
“Yeah, right. Like anyone would want to.” I scoff. “And anyway, I’m not doing this for me. I’m in this for the sake of the community, our peers. A secret society isn’t really opening doors for anyone.”
I’ve been diligently taking notes and collecting evidence for my article. I take screen captures of the meeting times, photos of the box and key in my locker, the envelope, all of it. I’ve even saved the slip of paper telling me and Reyn what to do tonight. I felt a twinge of guilt as I did it, though. The Devils are so important to my brother, but he’s also graduating this year. Honestly, all three of us need to move forward and leave this kind of trouble behind.
We cross the bridge into Thistle Cove, and I point to the scrubbed remains of what had been a memorial. “That’s where she jumped. Rose Waller? They thought she was dead, but she wasn’t. She was just in hiding from her crazy dad.”
“It should make me feel better that Preston isn’t the only fucked up place in the world, but I’m not sure it does.”
The GPS leads us to the school, but it wouldn’t be hard to find, anyway. The campus takes up a central location in the middle of town, a historic three-story school building, and a big stadium ablaze with Viking pride is visible from the street. My nerves increase the instant we turn onto the property, then heighten even further when Reyn drives around back, locating the gym. The sky is little more than a blot of deep gray as he backs his Jeep into a spot by the edge of the lot and cuts the engine.
Silence fills the cab. We both unclip our seatbelts, and he rests his head back against the seat, eyes falling closed. It occurs to me that the drive here was probably the most stressful part of the night for him. Meanwhile, I’m still looking at a long stretch of tangled nerves.
He takes a breath and finally opens his eyes, looking more settled in this moment than I’ve maybe ever seen him. He says, “I want to wait until it’s totally dark,” and twists, stretching toward the footwell of the back seat. I watch curiously as he pulls a brown paper bag into his lap. His eyes look less crazed than they had while he was driving. Now, they’re just heavy, tired-looking. “I brought snacks,” he explains.
I take the bag and look inside. Chocolate, buttery croissants. I shake my head, “No thanks.”
“What?” he frowns into the bag, and I almost feel a little bad. “You don’t like them?”
I press a hand into my stomach. “Honestly, I’m too nervous to eat.”
His eyes flick to the gym. “You’re worried about breaking in? Because you know that’
s not a problem.”
“I’m not questioning your thieving superpowers.” I roll my eyes. “It’s the ‘not getting caught’ part that worries me more.”
He takes an aggressive bite from a croissant, jaw shifting as he chews it down. “Not getting caught is one of my superpowers, too.”
I watch him scarf down an entire croissant in two bites. “Boys,” I mutter.
“Hm?” He’s got a crumb hanging on the corner of his mouth and my fingers twitch.
“You all eat like animals,” I explain.
I immediately regret it when he stops mid-chew, furtively swiping at his mouth. Suddenly, he seems to adopt some manners, grabbing a napkin from the console. “Sorry, I’ve been hungry all day. There’s nothing to eat at my house.”
Now it’s my turn to frown. “Your dad doesn’t buy groceries?”
“We have grocery delivery,” he confirms. “But it’s all shit that needs to be prepared. For the record, that’s not one of my superpowers.”
I’m torn between ribbing him for being a cliché and asking what he eats every night when I see the patrol in the distance. “Oh! There’s security!”
Reyn grabs his phone from the dash clip, noting the time. “We’ll see how long it takes him to make another pass.”
Thirty minutes is the answer. Reyn wants it to be darker, though, so we sit through two more passes. When he starts pulling things from his pocket and fiddling with his phone, I know that the security guard’s next pass will be it.
“Make sure your phone’s on vibrate,” he says, watching as I do it. “And if you have an ID on you, put it in the glove box.” He watches as I do this, too, putting his wallet in next to mine. Next, he hands me a pair of leather gloves.
Stupidly, I guess, “Because of fingerprints?” Like they’re going to have CSI out here dusting for prints on account of a great helmet caper.
Reyn gives me a look that suggests he’s thinking the same thing. Generously, he merely explains, “For the fence.”