Salome looks around. “Troy didn’t come with you?”
I point over my shoulder. “Is there still a body sprawled on the sidewalk?”
Kelli’s mouth falls open. “Did you do that to him?”
“Yeah, just for fun. One right hook and—”
Salome boots my bad ankle, and I buckle.
“Troy!” She and Kelli push by me. I stand alone on the steps and picture the scene behind me. I hear Troy laugh. Salome joins him. I turn to wait for Salome and hear the door unlatch behind me.
“It’s about time.” Brooke grabs my forearm and yanks. It’s her party, so I let her pull me in.
IT’S LOUD AND DIM, and the shadows of everyone I know are there—except Troy, who probably still lies on the sidewalk.
Feels strange to see kids from school, but I drag forward, hurtling by comments like I did trees down the mountain.
“Hey, Jake, whatcha been up to?”
“School’s been a bore since you left.”
“Salome was looking for you.”
“What?” I pull against Brooke and strain to find the speaker.
“Let’s go out back,” Brooke hollers in my ear. “The hot tub was empty last time I checked.” She pulls me through the house, onto the patio. The tub’s not empty now.
Twenty kids sit around and laugh, and we move nearer, push through the crowd.
“Hey, brother.” Scottie’s narrow-eyed gaze wanders from me to Brooke. He pulls his arm free from the girl at his side. “You’re not with Salome?”
Kyle and his brown leather jacket walk up from behind. “Forget her.” He jams Scottie’s head beneath the waterline. Two girls laugh and step out of the water, and the crowd cheers.
“Come on.” Brooke pulls me off the patio, away from the pool, and behind the flower gardens.
“Listen, Brooke—”
“We don’t need anyone else tonight.” She reaches her arms around my neck and kisses me, hard and deep, but it takes me nowhere, and my mind wanders. To the hot tub, to the street, to Salome.
My hands move on instinct and reach for the buttons of her blouse.
There are two kinds of pretty. Brooke, she’s part-time gorgeous—when you’re with her, when her half-covered body drapes over yours. Right then, there’s no doubt, she’s something for the eyes. But Salome, she’s pretty always—when you’re at home and haven’t seen her in days, or she won’t talk to you. She’s fill-the-brain pretty.
I let Brooke’s blouse drop, and pause. She doesn’t notice. Her hands grope, and her voice whispers my name, and this is the last place I want to be.
I pry her like a suction cup away from me, steady her at the shoulders. She blinks and cocks her head.
“It’s okay. I’m okay with this.” She lunges at me, and inside a switch flips. The dark cloud descends. I not only don’t want her, I loathe her—loathe being near her. I push her away, reach down, and hand her the blouse.
“Put it on. I need to go.”
I emerge from the flower garden to Salome and drippy Scottie. They stand close to where we were. Depending on the noise level, maybe they were too close. Maybe they heard.
“There you are.” Salome reaches for my hand, looks me in the eyes, and pauses. “Oh, tell me no.”
“No! Nothing,” I say. “I stopped.”
Brooke runs out, hands clutched around the top pressed against her. “Oh, hi, Scottie, Salome.” She turns to me. “Guess everyone is looking for you.”
“I—I need to go.” I push out of this gruesome party and toward the gate.
SALOME SPENDS SATURDAY locked away at home, where she doesn’t take my calls and destroys my weekend.
I spend the day in the garage, sharpening saw blades and staring at my jacket shred. Maybe it is cursed, but it brings me comfort. I set down my blades, work the leather, and wander onto the driveway. She can see me clearly from there. I whistle, wander back beside the truck, and repeat the process.
I gaze into her window, see her shape, and glance away.
Come out here. Let me explain.
But she doesn’t, and after thirty trips down to the mailbox, I quit. I head inside, slam the garage door behind me. I won’t see her tomorrow either—she’ll be rotting away at Brockton Baptist—morning service and afternoon meetings and evening service. It’s awful having God as your competition.
Monday arrives, and I haven’t seen her in three days. There’s a buzzy jitter inside, one only she can calm.
I hop on my scooter and whiz down Winders Street through a semideserted world. The kids are locked up in school, their parents are incarcerated in the mill, I’m under house arrest—tough town.
I accelerate and pull into the high school parking lot and check my watch. Third hour. Phys ed. Perfect. I walk the perimeter of the campus and reach the ballfields on the far side. Across the football field, twenty girls jog the track. Well, four jog and about sixteen walk.
I stick to the tree line that skirts the field and smile. Salome runs. Of course she runs. I slip under the bleachers and work my way down to the middle of the track. I crawl forward, squeeze up through a crack, and plunk down on the metal seat, hands folded.
Salome, Kelli, and Haley jog the far side, circle round toward me. Walkers stare as they pass—or giggle or shake their heads or start to jog—but what they say or do doesn’t matter. It’s only the blonde who wears my red PROPERTY OF sweatshirt, the one who laughs free and clear. I see her, and the tingle stops. And a different type of tingle starts.
“Jake! What are you doing here?” She pulls up with Haley. They lean over the fence, while Kelli mutters and runs on.
“Thought I’d visit, is all.”
“You can’t be here.” Salome says.
Haley gazes around the track and glances all nervous like at the school, as if some drug deal is going down. “If they see you here, you’ll be—”
“Suspended? Expelled?” I ask.
“Honestly, Jake.” Salome runs her hand through her hair. “What do you need?”
“You,” I say.
Haley smiles and starts to run. Salome climbs the fence, sits down next to me.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Where’s Mrs. Hurd?” I ask.
“She’s not here today. We have a seriously obese sub watching us run from the building.” She bites her lip. “What did you mean by that?”
“What?” I ask.
“You.”
“You?”
She fists my thigh. “That’s what you said. ‘You’! I asked you what you needed, and you said ‘you’!”
“Then I said it wrong, ’cause I didn’t mean me, I meant to say y—”
Salome leans forward, hugs her legs. “How old are you?”
“Eight.”
“Eight. Well, that explains everything.” She stands, steps down, and jumps back onto the track. “We aren’t in third grade. Things can change. You know that.”
“I know. Like now? You look damn pretty in my sweatshirt.”
She stands there, shoulders hanging, mouth partly open. Like I screwed up. Like she doesn’t want my compliment.
I rise and walk down to the fence. “I meant that you look great.” Her face hasn’t twitched. “You know, compared to all of them.” I point.
“I need to go.” Salome backs away. “I really need to go right now.”
“Come over later,” I call after her. “When you disappear on me for a weekend, it gets tough.”
I stand at the fence and watch. Kelli and Haley make it around the track and slow when they reach her. Salome doesn’t look at them. Soon Kelli throws an arm around Salome and stares at me. Dagger stares. You-better-be-gone-by-the-time-we-get-around-this-track stares.
I stand and leave. I feel better, but I know something got worse.
CHAPTER 8
AT HANKING’S, MONDAY IS discard day—when odd-shaped wood hunks pile up behind the mill—so I scoot home by way of Dad’s empire. I scrounge through pallets and twisted boa
rds. Dad’s castoffs.
I find twenty planks, busted and worn. Perfect for extending my landing ramp. I load them into a Hanking’s truck and drive over to the irregular lumber pile. I feel my eyes light. It’s a gold mine.
I pitch planks and timbers onto the truck bed.
Something’s not right. These pieces are too good. They pulverize and pulpify this stuff.
My gut flutters. Something happened to Dad. He wouldn’t let this get by.
I finish loading and climb the back stairway that leads to his office. Inside, muffled voices. Dad’s letting someone have it. I scrape sawdust from the window with the heel of my hand and see the victim the same moment he sees me. Scottie.
My brother races toward the door, throws it open, and yanks me inside.
“He’s got nothing to do with this.” Dad stares at me like I want to be here, as if I’ve been standing outside with a number.
“It’s all of us, Dad.” He’s got me by the shoulders, a human shield that he pushes at Dad on every emphasized word. “Every firefighter in Brockton. This is about all of us.”
“Your brother isn’t one of us.” Dad says quietly.
His words pierce deep, and I feel weak, breathless.
“But someday he might be, and Kyle said that Mox—”
“Moxie Stone is the bravest man I’ve ever met. I knew him when he was first picked up. I fought beside him when you were three, and he wasn’t more than a rookie. He saved me countless times, when I was younger and stupider and thought life was a game like—” Dad glances at me, and his voice calms. “What have you got against him? And what does he have to do with Kyle? Mox is in Montana, Scottie!”
“I know, Dad. And I don’t understand it all. I’m on the hand crew, Kyle’s on Mox’s rappel crew, so I don’t know it all. But a friend warned me about that jacket, and I didn’t take it. Then Mox’s crew offered it to Kyle, and he did. He barely recovered from the accident, and now he’s terrified and keeps saying he’s going to die.” Scottie curses. “My best friend won’t tell me what is going on. That’s not right. Something’s not right. And you know how many good young firefighters we’ve lost.”
Dad is silent. He folds his arms, big and meaty.
“For once, just once, don’t make me earn this,” Scottie says. “Just believe me that, beneath all the good we do, there’s something real evil, and Kyle’s messed up in it. He called it the club and said it involves the Immortals from all different crews and Mox runs this thing.” He squeezes my arms hard. “Don’t you ever wonder why Immortals stick around all year? Why they never leave Brockton?”
“Dedication.”
“Initiation.” Scottie’s voice quavers. “Year-round initiations.”
“You’re asking me to choose between your half information and my own gut.” Dad nods and stares out the window. “Thirty-eight years fighting blazes—my gut is why I’m still alive. You’re just a boy.”
Silence. Scottie releases my shoulders and turns. I look from Dad to my brother. Their backs are turned, and they don’t budge, and it seems a good time to leave.
“If you two don’t mind, I’m gonna—”
Dad flings his arm toward me, shoos me like a fly. “Go on back to your trash heap.”
I snap, as certain and permanent as bone, and I want to smack him.
Scottie reaches out and grabs my shoulder. I pull away, and he grabs again, and hugs me, hard and real.
I go weak and lower my head onto his shoulder. Whenever I see a group part for Scottie, hear them shut up when he opens his mouth, my chest wants to burst. That’s my brother. The brilliant one. Scottie’s the right look and the right word at the right time. Always. But I hate him. I have to hate him, ’cause if I don’t, I’ll shrivel up and die.
I lift up my head and tense until he lets go.
“Go home, Jake.” Dad nods toward the door. “Scottie and I need to finish this.”
I back out and pound down metal steps. I don’t know what’s happening in there, but I can’t be near it.
I drive my treasure into the mountains, heap the scraps next to the ramp, and pound planks into place.
The club full of Immortals. My kind of place.
But soon the sky opens. I wrap my tools as rain falls in sheets, and I slowly wind down toward home.
I pull in the drive, walk toward the door. It doesn’t feel right.
Above me, a crash. The barrel of Scottie’s bat smashes out the bedroom window and shards of glass rain onto the lawn beside me.
I slowly push inside.
Dad calmly walks by, says nothing.
I reach for his arm. “Why is Scottie—”
Another crash from upstairs, and Dad pauses, stares at the floor. He turns, his eyes glazed and his voice a monotone. “The body was facedown, floating in the caves.”
The most terrifying scream fills the house—nonhuman, filled with emotions I don’t know. But it is human. It’s Scottie. And I want to run, toward him, away from him, just run.
Dad swallows hard, rubs his face with his hand, and tells me the only thing I don’t want to know.
“It was Kyle.”
CHAPTER 9
I CAN’T SLEEP.
One day Kyle’s walking into my house; the next he’s bloated and dead.
I get out of bed, step out of my room, and walk down the hall. Mom’s flower-print chair, the only remnant of her left in the house, faces out the oversize window. I sink into the cushion, put up my feet, and stare out. It’s dark at Salome’s—a safe dark.
I run fingers along the radiator and pause. I’ve reached the spot rubbed gray, where no white paint remains. Where ten-year-old hands once tied quick knots out of bedsheets. It was a fast rappel down the side of the house and a race across Salome’s yard, and it was worth it.
“How did you get up here, Jake?”
“I slid down the sheets and climbed up your bricks. Wanna come out?”
“It’s ten, no, it’s eleven o’clock, and if Mom checks on me . . .” She stares out her window. “How do you climb bricks?”
“Fast. You have to move fast.”
“You have to leave fast. I think Mom’ll be mad.”
“Yeah, okay. I just wanted to say good night.”
“You came all the way over to say good night?”
I nod my head.
“That’s nice.”
I scamper down, run home, and pull myself up the sheets, arm over arm. Salome is still watching. I know she is, and I want to make sure she sees how strong I am.
The moon shines full, and I rise. “Good night, Salome. I . . . will see you tomorrow.” I amble toward my room and freeze. Light glimmers from beneath Scottie’s door, and I turn the knob, peek in.
He places clothes into a suitcase: no duffel stuffing like when Dad was called to a blaze fire. These shirts go in slow and calculated.
“Shut the door.”
“With me inside or outside?”
He straightens, exhales, and gestures toward the desk chair with his head. I quietly slip in, close the door, sit down, and wait.
“Are you just going to watch?” Scottie turns to me and stares, as if he’s looking for something.
I shrug. “Okay, I’ll bite. Where are you going?”
Scottie snaps shut the suitcase and sets it beside the duffel on the floor. “I need to leave here. I know something I shouldn’t.” He raises his gaze to me. “I need to take care of it.”
“And you have to leave home to do it?”
“I need to leave everything to do it.”
We look at each other for a long time. He’s still here, and I miss him already. I miss his jerky big-brother act and that stupid poker face.
“Are you coming back?” I ask.
He looks down.
I nod. “Sorry about Kyle.”
“What do you care?” he hisses, runs his hand through his hair. He closes his eyes. “It’s not your fault anyway. It’s mine. All mine.”
“I’m the one who hurt h
im.”
“I’m the one who killed him.”
I frown and lick my lips.
Scottie walks toward me, reaches down, yanks me up by the shoulders. He hugs me hard. Twice he’s done this, ever, and both within a day. But this one is different. There’s no Dad here, and the hug feels better than good. I don’t know why he’s squeezing me or why I squeeze him back, but it’s right.
He pushes back. “I don’t understand you. Your wild crap doesn’t make any sense, especially when you have Salome. You have the world, and you keep risking it all.”
I bite my lip hard. “Nobody has Sal.”
Scottie picks up his bags, lets out air. “Tell Dad I was looking forward to fighting in Brockton.”
I’ve dreamed of this day. The day my brother leaves and maybe I exist. But now, holding the moment in my hand,I feel sick. “So you won’t tell me where—”
“Forest Service headquarters. I need to talk to them, turn in my gear. Then, who knows, maybe I’ll go see Mom.”
“You’re quitting?” My knees weaken. “Dad’ll freak. You’re leaving me alone with him?”
He leans into me. “You’ll be fine. Stay close to Sal, and you’ll be fine.” Scottie frowns. “Where is that cursed scrap of leather?”
“My room.”
“Get it.”
I leave and come back carrying my jacket. He grabs it from my hands, drops his suitcase, clicks it back open, and stuffs it in.
“You’re stealing my jacket.”
“I’m saving your life.”
He lifts his suitcase, and together we walk into the night.
We load his truck, he climbs in, and the Chev rumbles to life. “Promise me something?”
“A guarantee.”
“Stay away from the Fire Service. And stay away from Mox.”
“Why?”
He locks on to me. “Because they’ll be after you, and even you aren’t immortal.”
CHAPTER 10
DEATH HITS BROCKTON HARD. Usually the town shakes it off, but this death smacked it between the eyes, stayed the talk of the town for days, not hours.
Scottie’s “death,” that is.
The town’s favorite son is gone.
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