I reached down to pick up the book just as she did and bumped my forehead against her shoulder. She yanked herself away from me with such force that I left the book on the floor.
Ever since my first week of school, when I sought them out at recess and lunch, I had found myself drawn to the Morries. Maybe it was just that we were equally pathetic, all of us badly dressed and ragged and friendless, but it felt like something more. I felt—and maybe this was no more than an orphaned child’s longing for family—like we were related somehow. Like I was one of them.
I’d asked Gram about it long ago and she’d burst out in one of her breath-rattling laughs, spittle forming at the corners of her mouth.
“You ain’t no Morrie,” she said. “You’re way better’n any Morrie girl. Don’t you forget it, now.”
I must have looked unconvinced, because she reached out her nicotine-stained thumb and forefinger and pinched the tender skin on the inside of my arm. She could pinch surprisingly hard, making hot tears jump to my eyes, but I didn’t make a sound.
“Those Morrie boys, now, they’re a whole nother matter,” she added. “But that’s for later, and don’t you pay them no mind. I’ll let you know when, that’s what.”
There were no boys around now. I looked into Milla’s watery eyes and edged closer, almost enjoying the way she shrank from me.
“What happened yesterday?” I demanded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You were unconscious. I saw … I felt it.” I didn’t say that her hands, her forehead beneath my fingers, felt worse than unconscious, they felt … wrong. Empty. Dangerous, broken, hurt.
“Didn’t you come to my house once?” I asked in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “Last year. With that guy. You know. The one with the tattoos.”
It wasn’t much of a clue, since many of Gram’s customers had tattoos, but the man I was thinking of had blue crosses circling his neck, disappearing into his stringy gray ponytail.
I could see in Milla’s eyes I’d hit a nerve. “Wasn’t me,” she mumbled, lips barely moving as she spoke.
“Yes it was. Yes it was.”
“No. I’m, I was—”
“Why are you so scared of me?” I demanded, leaning close to her face. The bell rang loud over our heads, and I could see the kids, Cleans and Morries alike, scattering off to class, but I didn’t move.
Milla shook her head, eyes open so wide I could see the pale pink veins in the white parts. “I ain’t scared of you.”
She tried to slip away to the side, but I put out my arm and blocked her, my hand flat against the wall. Anger traced white-hot trails along my nerves. I itched to hit Milla. I could feel my palm tingle where I imagined smacking it against her bloodless cheek.
But when she dodged in the other direction, I let her go. She backed away with little shuffling steps, her book forgotten on the floor. “I ain’t scared,” she said again, and I knew she was about to turn and sprint down the hall, to sit in the back of some class with the other Morries.
“I ain’t scared,” she said one final time, giving me a look that was part triumph and part impossibly sad. “But maybe you oughta be.”
I couldn’t pay attention the rest of the day. I had done something to Milla that had fixed her. I wasn’t sure what or how, and my mind danced around the memory of yesterday, trying to make sense of it.
There had been a second, when my fingers pressed against her damp, stringy hair, when it felt as though something had shifted inside me. As though some hidden piece had broken free and now rode the currents of my bloodstream, electrified by my heartbeat and changing me from the inside out. I wasn’t at all sure I liked the feeling. Being me wasn’t exactly paradise, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to change, either.
I thought of Gram and the brief time when she’d turned almost human, when we first got Chub. She had changed—or at least I thought she had. For a while she was almost like a real parent, asking me about my day, about what I learned at school. She wasn’t great at it—she didn’t listen to my answers and I still had to do most of the chores, but when I watched her working with Chub, there was a light in her eyes, and that was more than I’d seen in her before or since.
And now she was worse than ever. Was that what was in store for me? Would I end up like her, bitter and mean? I’d tried to help Milla—I hadn’t planned it, and I didn’t understand it, but I had tried. And now I wanted to make a connection with her. No: the connection was already there—I just wanted her to acknowledge it. And instead, she’d made it even clearer that she wanted nothing to do with me.
I was still lost in my thoughts when I walked to the drugstore after school, and I left without the one thing I really needed, Chub’s baby shampoo. I turned around after a couple of blocks and headed back.
When I had almost reached the store, I saw something that made my heart lurch: the car that had been parked outside our house that morning was pulling into a parking space. Two men got out of the car. They were medium height with short hair, wearing sunglasses and dark jackets. They moved fast and looked strong and muscular under their clothes, and they didn’t smile or talk.
They could be anybody, I told myself—it was probably just a coincidence that I’d seen them twice. They could have pulled over in front of our house to check a map or to pee behind a tree or something, and as for going into the drugstore, everyone in town shopped there.
On the other hand, I had never seen them before. I knew pretty much everyone in Gypsum by sight, and these guys definitely didn’t look local.
If they were cops, they weren’t from Gypsum.
But if someone had caught on that Gram was dealing drugs, maybe the local cops had called in some other agency. Like—I racked my brain, trying to remember what we’d learned in civics. There was the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives … but was dealing drugs a federal crime? And who would have turned Gram in? One of her customers? Maybe they’d given up information in exchange for a better deal, if they’d been arrested for possession or something. I knew the penalties for dealing were fierce, way more serious than just getting caught with stuff.
But if they already suspected Gram, why didn’t they just get a warrant and come to the house? Maybe that was what they were doing now—trying to get enough evidence to justify a warrant. Well, they wouldn’t get it from talking to Mr. Hsiao—all I’d bought today was a box of trash bags, eyedrops for Gram and a three-pack of soap.
I needed to find out more. I waited until the men entered the shop, then walked quickly to the car. Trying to look casual, I peered through the windshield: there was nothing inside but a Styrofoam coffee cup in the cup holder.
I went back into the shop, slipping into the aisle farthest from the cash register. I studied the shaving cream and razors and strained to hear what the two men were saying to Mr. Hsiao.
“… come in regularly?” A deep voice with a slightly flat accent.
“No, like I told you, she’s as like to come in one day as the next. These kids, they don’t stick to a schedule, you know? You mind telling me what this is about?”
“An incident at her school,” a new voice said smoothly. “Can’t give the details at this point. We appreciate your cooperation. And you keeping it … under wraps.”
“And you said you were from …” That’s right, Mr. Hsiao, find out who they are, I telegraphed silently.
“State services,” the first voice said. “Here, my identification …”
There was silence for a moment; then Mr. Hsiao spoke, his voice only a little less skeptical. “Well, I’ve told you what I can. You could probably catch up with the girl, talk to her yourself, if you like.”
A moment later they were striding back out of the store. I spotted the tops of their heads going by and ducked. I counted to two hundred before leaving the store, careful not to let Mr. Hsiao see me.
I wasn’t convinced the men were from any state agency. They were too … anonym
ous, for one thing. Plus, Mr. Hsiao didn’t sound like he thought much of whatever ID they showed him.
Could they be some sort of competition? Drug dealers from the next town over, maybe all the way from Kansas City? Or had Gram got into something even worse? Did she owe money, had she stolen something valuable, cheated someone important?
The car was gone, but for all I knew it was on its way to our house. I needed to get home, but there were stretches of the road with no houses along them, no one to notice if something happened to me. But I had no idea what these men would want with me.
I didn’t care much what happened to Gram, but I couldn’t let anything happen to Chub. As I hesitated, torn between running home and trying to keep the men from seeing me, Sawyer Wesson came around a corner, walking with Milla. Sawyer was a Morrie, but he wasn’t like the others. He was quiet and careful and kept himself clean. We’d never spoken, but I’d noticed him watching me a few times during lunch or in school assemblies.
Milla saw me first, and her mouth tightened into a hard line. She put a hand on Sawyer’s arm, but he was in the middle of saying something to her as he tossed his cigarette to the ground and stepped on it.
“Sawyer,” I called. Panic made me bold. “Sawyer, could you please walk me home?”
Only after the words were out did I realize how they sounded. I was frightened, that was all, and I just wanted some company in case anything bad happened. Sawyer was tall and broad-shouldered, with narrow eyes and black hair that reached almost to his shoulders. If you didn’t know him, it would be easy to be intimidated by him.
He stopped and regarded me. He looked surprised, then wary, his eyes clouding with doubt.
“I mean—I didn’t—” I started to explain, but what could I say? That I thought I was being pursued by government agents or members of the mob or, or, I had no idea who?
“That’d be okay,” Sawyer said, and then I saw something I’d never seen before: his smile. It was surprising how it changed his face, making him look almost sweet.
“You were comin’ to the Burger King with me, or did you forget that,” Milla spat. She refused to look at me.
“I never said—”
“Whyn’t you just go on with her, then. Seein’ as you’re so forgetful’n all, you prob’ly forgot who she is.” If it was a bluff, it wasn’t much of one, since Sawyer walked over to me without a backward glance. I had no idea what Milla meant by “who she is.” Was she referring to what had happened in gym? To the fact that I was an outcast? Whatever she meant, Sawyer either didn’t know or didn’t care, and I felt smug satisfaction as Milla stalked off the way they’d come, defeated.
We walked half a block before I managed to think of something to say, and then at the very same moment Sawyer started to talk too.
“So how are—”
“What do you—”
And then we were both laughing and saying you first, no you. Sawyer kicked at a stone and it went flying across the road, hitting a tree trunk dead-on, and I thought about how it was for me in gym class.
“Did you ever want to play sports?” I asked.
Sawyer didn’t answer for a moment. “Sometimes. I thought … I’m pretty good, you know, at throwing. I thought maybe baseball. But …”
He didn’t need to finish. I didn’t know what his home life was like, but it was safe to assume it had certain things in common with mine.
I changed the subject, and we talked about classes and teachers. I was surprised to learn that he was considering trying to get into AP American History. He’d be the first Morrie I’d ever heard of to get into an Advanced Placement class. He asked me what I liked to do after school, and I told him about Chub, and Sawyer listened and nodded and even laughed when I told him the way Chub followed Rascal around the yard, like he thought he was part dog.
“Hey,” he said when my house came into view. “I just want to say I’m really sorry about, you know, Milla and what she said. She don’t mean anything by it.”
I doubted that was true—whatever Milla thought about me, it seemed like she felt it strongly. I tried to think of a way to ask about her, and the Morries in general, without offending Sawyer. The way he’d agreed to walk with me so readily, the way he looked at me at school when he didn’t think I’d notice—I was pretty sure he had a crush on me, and it felt good. I’d never been wanted by a boy before, and I didn’t want to mess it up by making him uncomfortable.
“I … always wondered why Milla and I were never friends,” I said carefully. I was trying to figure out what to say next when a car pulled up behind us and gunned its engine. We scrambled off the shoulder into the weedy edge of the woods.
When I turned around to look, I saw that it wasn’t a car at all but a battered old green Ford pickup. The driver rolled the window down and hung out an arm.
It was Rattler Sikes.
Cold fear shot through my body as Rattler leaned out the window and looked straight at me, but when he spoke, it was directed at Sawyer.
“Git on in the truck, boy,” he said, and I could see that his teeth were surprisingly white and straight. His eyes were a brown so dark they were almost black, flinty and sparking some strong emotion. Maybe curiosity. Maybe rage.
“I don’t—she asked me to—” Sawyer started, his gaze darting between me and Rattler.
“I didn’t ask you a question, did I, boy,” Rattler said. His tone stayed even, but there was a threat in it, a shadow of violence that reached into me and curled around my heart.
“No,” Sawyer mumbled, his chin lowered.
“Ain’t gonna tell you agin.”
Sawyer glanced at me—he didn’t meet my eyes, just gave me a quick view of his face, which was cast in misery and, it seemed to me, apology. He trudged around to the passenger side and got in. Inside the cab, he stared straight ahead.
Rattler continued to watch me. As uncomfortable as it was to be the focus of his attention, I didn’t look away. There was something in the way he looked at me, something that kept me from running.
Rattler’s voice lowered even further, a raw whisper. “You take care, hear, Hailey girl.”
The truck pulled away slowly, the tires crunching gravel and spitting up loose rocks and dead leaves. Rattler’s eyes tracked me, and just when it seemed like he would run off the road, he smacked the side of the cab with the flat of his hand and turned the wheel back straight on the road. He sped up and I smelled the exhaust from the hanging, corroded tailpipe.
I walked toward the house, and Rascal came bounding across the yard, ears flying, happy to see me—but Rattler’s voice stayed in my head. So low, I thought again, that most people wouldn’t even be able to hear it.
But I could hear. I could hear him just fine.
CHAPTER 5
SHE ALMOST DIDN’T STOP outside of town, but at the last second she took the exit that led past the Show-Me Trading Post before heading out to State Road 9.
She’d left first thing in the morning after the longest night of her life, lying in the dark and replaying that horrible scene over and over, the things she had learned about her boyfriend—and the one surprise he’d saved for last.
So much would have been different, if she had only known. It didn’t help anything to think about what might have been, but deep in the night, when the silence was most profound and the dark reached all the way into her soul, it was hard to resist.
Today she would start to put things right.
The Show-Me Trading Post was even more run-down than she remembered, a ramshackle cinder-block building with gaudy displays in dirty windows, hardly the place to buy someone a gift. But she was worried that the girl, who would never have heard about her either, might be skittish. Maybe a small token, a gesture to show that she wanted to help, could smooth things over for their first meeting.
There was nothing on the shelves that felt right, though. She considered a cardboard stand displaying fruit-flavored lip gloss, a cheap-looking bead bracelet kit, a rack of fashion magazines,
before settling on a generic MP3 player with earbuds. She could buy the girl something nicer later—once they were together, once she had proved that her intentions were good.
As she slipped the player off its hook on a Peg-Board rack near the back of the store, the door jangled and two men walked in, caps pulled low.
She shrank back, slipping into the shadow of a tall refrigerator that held soft drinks and beer. She had seen those men before, at the lab. They sometimes came to meet with her boyfriend in private. They didn’t look like scientists—not with their generic-looking dark jackets that did not entirely conceal the holsters underneath. Their visits were brief, and afterward her boyfriend usually grew distant for a day or two, saying little, staying in his office late and monitoring the high-res displays in his office that were tilted so that only he could see them.
One of the men talked to the cashier, showing her something small and flat. The cashier, a brassy-haired woman with glasses on a chain around her neck, answered in a voice loud enough to hear in the back of the store.
“No, don’t b’lieve so,” she said indifferently.
More murmuring as the man gestured insistently while his companion glanced around. She edged back into the corner between the refrigerator and the wall and flattened her body into the small space so that she couldn’t be seen from the front of the store.
“No, never,” the cashier repeated. “But then again, I ain’t from town. I live twenty miles down to Casey, so I wouldn’t probably know her, now would I.”
The man tucked the photo away—because that was what it had to be, wasn’t it, a photo of the girl—and slid a bill onto the countertop glass, then flipped a card on top of the money.
“Call if you remember anything later,” he said in a louder voice. Her heart pounded as she watched the two men turn and make their way out of the store.
So, he hadn’t waited, then. He might have believed the story she gave him last night, her terrified attempt to convince him that finding out about the girl meant nothing more to her than good news for the research. He might have believed her lies, but it hadn’t stopped him from sending the men down to Gypsum. Clearly he was determined to move forward immediately.
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