Busted (Stacked Deck Book 11)

by Emilia Finn

  Anyone would think our parents need the security to contain all the delinquents they created. Nope. Just Emma, Bry, and Luke. Most of the rest of us are normal citizens who respect bedtimes and federal laws.

  EmKat and I sneak across my parents’ lawn, ducking as we pass the front window so my mom and dad don’t see us, then we make a mad dash across our next door neighbors’ – Em’s Uncle Aiden and Aunt Tina – then we race into Jack’s yard and around to the side gate that leads into his backyard.

  Annie, the black Labrador that Em so enjoys drawing, is supposed to be the world’s smartest and most diligent guard dog on the planet, but she wags her tail as we push the gate open with a muted creak. She should be inside sleeping, perhaps at the end of Jack and Britt’s bed, but she meets us out here most nights that we sneak out, then she comes for a walk. Her own little adventure. Her own act of rebellion against those who say we should remain locked up.

  Or… a small part of my brain acknowledges, she really is the world’s best guard dog, and her escorting us into the forest each night is her doing her job.

  Either way, she turns as we enter her yard and silently close the gate, then she dashes across the grass and stops at the slat of wood in the fence that we long ago discovered is without its screws. The top screw remains, to keep the wood in place, but the bottom screw was removed, so now we have only to swing the slat to the side and slide through to freedom.

  I go first, drop into a squat and duckwalk my way through the gap, then I turn back and help Em through. Annie waits at the back, she sniffs at Em’s hair, her shirt, her jeans, and makes Em giggle at the tickles, then as soon as she’s through and standing tall again, tall enough that her forehead is in line with my chin, Annie steps through and looks up as though to say, ‘Phase one of Operation Escape, complete.’

  This could be a high-energy, adrenaline-fueled, action-packed adventure… if it wasn’t something we do five to seven nights a week. Instead, it’s as routine to us as brushing our teeth before bed.

  Heading into the dense forest surrounding our estate, I keep Em’s hand in mine and glance up to try to catch glimpses of the moon through the foliage.

  “Did you know Krispen Dean asked me out today?” Em swings our arms between us, and steps a little to the right so she can glance up and catch my eye. Her lips curl into a snarl. “Krispen Dean.”

  I chuckle so my chest bounces as we move. “He’s nice. Did you break his heart?”

  “No,” she grumbles and goes back to watching Annie walk ahead of us. “I told him no thanks, but I wasn’t mean about it or anything.”

  “He’s been pining for you since your first day in second-seventh grade.”

  “Not interested.”

  “You’re the elusive one,” I laugh. “You’re older than the rest of the guys in our grade, which makes you, like…” I chuckle. “Cougar territory.”

  “Still not interested,” she snickers. “I’m all for equal opportunity and all that. Most of the people in our grade aren’t even a full year younger than me. More like six or seven months younger. We were born in the same year.”

  “Right. But you should be a junior by now, and that turns the guys on.”

  She rolls her eyes and switches our grip so instead of holding hands, she wraps her arm around mine. It makes it so our hips bump together as we walk, and it’s harder to traverse hills and dips in the forest floor, but it’s not like I’m in a rush to get where we’re going.

  “First of all,” she says on a sigh of exasperation, “Ew. I don’t want boys like Krispen Dean being ‘turned on’ by me. He’s gonna mess up tube socks and think of me, and that gives me the creeps.”

  I snort. “EmKat, I suspect there are a lot of dirty tube socks with your name on them. It’s your curse in life.”

  “Well, that’s gross,” she shivers. “Calvin Pratt asked me to go to prom with him, too.” She slows her steps and looks up. “I don’t know how I feel about football players. They’re so…” She scrunches her nose so little wrinkles fan out onto her cheek. “Arrogant.”

  “And we don’t know anyone like that,” I mock. “Are you afraid he’ll be more outspoken than you?”

  “No. But it’s football. They chase a ball for a couple hours, smash their heads in for no reason at all. It’s just…” She shakes her head. “I don’t understand it.”

  “Yeah, because us fighters are so much smarter,” I tease. “We hit each other – in the head, by the way – we run around inside an octagon, and we try to be the one with the most brain cells left at the end of a fight.”

  “At least we economize our time,” she counters. “We do it in five-minute slots. None of that running around a field for hours on end.”

  “I don’t think games go for that long,” I chuckle. But who am I kidding? Neither of us know, because sport, for us, is fighting. Not football. “Are you gonna say yes?”

  She shrugs and ducks under a low branch. She slows for me to follow, then fixes her arm around mine as we continue on. “Don’t know. Ethan Poole asked too.”

  “He’s a senior!”

  Again, she shrugs. “So is Calvin. And it’s not like Mom and Daddy can fuss too much. I’m only a year younger than those guys.”

  “I guess.” I blow out a heaving breath, and draw in a fresh gulp. “Do you regret flunking outta seventh grade so you could repeat?”

  Laughing, she shakes her head and gives Annie a hand signal to keep going when she stops and watches for us. “Not even a little bit. I couldn’t handle being alone in my grade. Now I get to hang with you all day long, every day. Best trade-off ever.”

  “Even though that means you’re gonna take a whole year more to graduate?”

  “Best. Trade-off. Ever. Have you started thinking about college?”

  “Eh.” We continue our way through the dark forest, moving by muscle memory, the same track we’ve walked a million times before. “I haven’t found anything I want. I don’t think Luke’s gonna go away, either.”

  Silence overtakes us for a moment, but for the croaking of bugs and the rustle of leaves. “I think I might go,” Em ponders. “It’s only an hour away, and they have a really good arts program there that I think I like.”

  “Will you live on campus?”

  She shrugs again. “Could be fun. But I’m not sure I wanna unless you go. It would be lame if you’re not there with me.”

  “You can’t make college decisions based on what I choose,” I laugh. “It’s the rest of your life, EmKat. Choose for you, not for me.”

  “It doesn’t matter yet anyway.”

  We slow at an opening in the forest, at a road that heads out of town, and crossing over, we move back into the trees. We slow a minute or two later in front of a beat-up fort that our parents built back when they were younger than I am now.

  My dad and his sister, Aunt Iz, came from abuse and hunger, so when they needed a safe space, they would escape to the forest, or to the Kincaids’ house; Em’s dad. The guys built this fort to have some shelter, somewhere to hide away, somewhere to read books and eat peanut butter from the jar. Now it’s deserted and unused by the original creators, but EmKat and I use it a lot, and I’m fairly certain some of the others come out here sometimes.

  Em’s bag is heavy on my shoulder, but I fix it and keep moving forward until we reach the little front door, and Annie drops to the ground, declaring herself our security detail, as always.

  Releasing my arm, Em drops into a crouch and moves through until she disappears into the dark. I swing her bag off my back, open the zipper without asking, grab the flashlight I knew I’d find, and, switching it on, I toss it in and smile when it lands and Em squeaks out in pain.

  Got her.

  Chuckling, I reach back into the bag and take out a solar-powered lantern that Em no doubt leaves in the sun all day long while we’re at school. Flicking it on, I set it just inside the doorway and breathe out a sigh of contentment when it illuminates the entire inside of the fort. The beanbag c
hair. The stack of books in the corner. The empty peanut butter jars that serve as reminder of who we are.

  Maybe our families are doing really well now. Maybe we own a world-famous gym, and my dad personally trains world contenders. We have cash now, and people eat peanut butter because they want to, not because they have to. But there are humbling reminders everywhere we go. The jars in the fort. The fort itself. The hat Bry wears, and even the nighttime routine my parents have, reminding us my mom was never a kept princess. She worked hard and refused to be coddled by a man who’d finally hit it big and was able to put cash into savings.

  Em makes herself comfortable on the beanbag as I toss the remainder of her bag through the door, and while I crawl my way in, she makes herself busy pulling out a sketchpad and a tray of lead pencils.

  Her sketchbook is thick, heavy, and with something drawn on at least two-thirds of the pages. She dog-ears things she wants to go back to, and writes things into the gaps between drawings – poems, feelings, descriptor words. She lays back against the faded beanbag, flips her book open to a fresh new page, and getting her pencil ready, she finally glances up expectantly.

  I study her sparkling eyes, and smirk. “You wanna draw me like one of your French girls?”

  Snickering, she creates a double chin with the way she snuggles back into her seat. But we’ve been doing this since forever. I know the routine. So I crawl into the middle of the fort and stop between her legs. I cross mine, face her, and lean forward so I can rest against her knees. Now she has a clear view of my face. We’re just a foot apart, her sketchpad is just an inch from my dangling hand.

  And then she switches it on. Whatever it is she does in her brain, her way of calming the hyperactive fuel in her blood, she switches out from EmKat the Crazy, and turns into the artist. Her dimple pops as she chews on her bottom lip, and her long lashes – so much longer than those of the other girls in our grade – flicker up and down, kissing her cheeks as she blinks. Her blue eyes lock on to mine, and then her hand begins moving.

  “Why doesn’t it matter yet?” I ask quietly.

  I’m allowed to talk while she draws. It helps her, she says, to compartmentalize her thoughts and draw by instinct, rather than overthinking it.

  “Hmm?”

  “You asked what I was gonna do for college, then you said it doesn’t matter yet anyway.”

  “Oh. Because we still have time to decide. The arts degree isn’t all that popular anyway. It’s not competitive, which means I don’t have to jump in yet and start working toward kissing asses to get in.”

  “At this point, they should be paying you to be there.” I glance down at her page and breathe out a happy sigh. She’s starting on my lips tonight. The shape. The shadowing. The small crinkle when I smile. “You’re really good, Em. And no one even taught you.”

  “I like that I taught myself.” Her eyes flicker between me and her page. “It’s all mine, and something no one can claim was theirs first. That’s another reason I’m hesitant about college.”

  My brows wrinkle together as I try to puzzle out her words. “How do you mean?”

  “Well, say I become famous for my art. I don’t want people to claim it was my education that got me there.”

  “It’s all you.”

  “Right.” She stops drawing for a moment, glances up, and studies my lips with such intensity that I’m certain I feel the warmth of her stare. “It’s all me,” she continues drawing again. “I like that it’s me, and not a style anyone else has done. Like, there’s traditional art, right? Realism, impressionism, abstract.” Her eyes come back to mine. “And then there’s me.”

  “EmKat style,” I murmur with a sly grin. “I could pick it out of any crowd. They could try to copy you—”

  “But they can’t be me,” she finishes. “I draw the way I draw because I am who I am. No one else can do that.”

  “So is that what you’re gonna do? Become a famous artist?”

  She uses the side of her pinkie finger to smudge a little of the lead. “Artists don’t often make money. Only the lucky few.”

  “So let’s make sure you’re one of them.” I smile when her eyes come up. “I’m gonna be on your heels the whole way. No way am I missing out. So if I have to stand on the corner, wearing a sign promoting your work, then that’s what I’ll do. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Thank god,” she murmurs under her breath. There’s no mocking in her tone. No silliness. She truly is thankful that I’m going to ride her coattails, and that, to me, is crazy.

  I can’t breathe without her. I can’t see, or eat, or sleep unless I know she’s around and within reach. And somehow, for some crazy reason, she thinks the same of me.

  “I heard Grace Rissata asked you to prom.”

  I chuckle. “She did.”

  “She’s a senior.”

  I laugh again. “What can I say? Older chicks dig me.”

  She scoffs and goes back to work. “If you say yes, I’ll say yes to Football-Head, then we can hijack their prom and do it up right.”

  “Sounds about right,” I tease. “You’re not saying yes because you like the guy, you just wanna cement your place in the yearbook as ‘most likely to be incarcerated’.”

  She rolls her eyes and switches pencils. I don’t understand it, I don’t understand most of what she does when she draws. I lack the artistic ability she has, so I’m merely her willing model and, in class, her canvas when she wants to doodle and she’s run out of her own skin to draw on. “Uncle Alex adores me.” She brings her eyes back to mine and continues drawing. “He’s never gonna arrest me.”

  “Right. But he’s got my face on a board at the police station with a dart stuck in the center of my forehead. He’s waiting to pounce.”

  “You’re so dramatic. Turn a little to the left.” She reaches across when I turn right, and with her hand on my jaw, she places me where she wants me. “Who got you here?” She presses the tip of her finger to a fading bruise on my cheek. “You dropped your guard.”

  “Luke.” I rest my arm on the tops of Em’s knees and settle into my new position. “Couple days ago. I’m surprised you’re only just noticing now.”

  She shrugs in response and goes back to drawing. “You gonna say yes to Grace?”

  “Maybe. You gonna say yes to the football player?”

  She shrugs again. It’s funny how our mannerisms are the same. Our senses of humor, our jokes, and our sensitivities – we’re the same person, but two halves. “Maybe. If you promise to hang with us that night. We can double date or something.”

  “Sure.” I close my eyes – she’s not drawing those – and allow myself to relax into a type of meditation. It’s late, I’m tired, and if I don’t catch z’s now while she draws, then I’m gonna be extra tired tomorrow. “Let’s make it a double date. I wouldn’t go if you weren’t going.”

  “Same.” Her breath hits the side of my face. She had ice cream before coming to find me tonight. Strawberry, perhaps the cheesecake type, with the sweet scent that tickles my nose and makes me smile. “You know anything about Pratt? Is he nice?”

  “Don’t really know him. Football star, has a million chicks asking about him at school. He probably shouldn’t be messing with a sophomore, but—”

  “I’m older.”

  “Right,” I agree. “You know Grace?”

  She makes a noncommittal sound in the back of her throat. “She runs track, I think. Cheerleader, but she’s somewhere around the middle of the pyramid. She’s not gonna graduate with a four-point-oh. She seems a little ditzy, but I’m sure she’ll graduate and become a sweet waitress or something.”

  “Harsh,” I chuckle. “Snob.”

  “No shade on waitresses,” EmKat clarifies. “I’m throwing shade on the chick who maybe thinks flirting will get her a decent job.”

  “Can’t say it hasn’t been done before.”

  I open my eyes again when Em’s sketching hand stops. The sound of the lead on the page is a ge
ntle, lulling scratch, so its absence piques my interest.

  I lift both brows when she does nothing but stare. “What?”

  “What about when we’re seniors?”

  I try to puzzle her out for a moment. Em does this; she has random thoughts that are seemingly unconnected to anything else we’re discussing. It’s like jumping a crater and hoping you land on the right foot. “I don’t get it.”

  “When we’re seniors, and it’s our prom,” she explains. “Who are you gonna ask? A ditzy sophomore who will giggle all night long?” Her lips curl back. “If we double, and your chick is a giggler, I might stab her with my fork. Then, I’m gonna stab you with a fork for making me endure that shit.”

  “No,” I chuckle, then stop. “Ya know, I actually kinda figured I’d ask you. I never imagined anyone else.”

  “Really?” Her eyes warm, soften. “Me?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess. We’re gonna say yes to Pratt and Grace because we can’t go to this prom otherwise. But when it’s our prom, why would we invite strange in? That’s weird.”

  “But…” Her brows pull closer together. “What if you have a girlfriend then?”

  “Well, then we’ll reevaluate,” I laugh. “Maybe you’ll have a boyfriend. You’ll be eighteen when we’re seniors. Guys already jizz thinking about you, so they’re gonna be worse by senior year. If you have a boyfriend, and he’s not a total fucking idiot, and I have a girlfriend that you’re not tempted to stab, then we’ll double. And if we’re single, then we’ll go together. Because you’re my best friend.”

  Em sits with that for a minute. She thinks, absorbs, and when she’s done processing, she nods and goes back to drawing. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Mm. Also, I won’t wanna stab her.”

  I close my eyes again. “Who?”

  “Your girlfriend.” Her voice is a soft whisper in the breeze. A spirit in an otherwise empty forest. “You’ll have picked her, and you’re the best picker of them all.” I feel her smile in the air. “You picked me for a best friend, so your track record is bangin’. Which means she’ll be awesome. Un-stab-able.”