by Jordan Dane
I didn’t know what I would tell my dad, but whatever happened next, I knew I couldn’t do it alone. Nate was in trouble on Denali and without me having a TV, or a landline phone, or a juiced cell with bars, I had few choices to get news on the rescue. Since staying at the cabin without word would drive me crazy, Dad would be my only option. I’d have to tell him why I needed his help.
But as I ran around the corner of our cabin, I skidded to a stop on the gravel. Like an answer to my prayers, Tanner Lange sat behind the wheel of his mother’s van, talking to my dad in our driveway. In an instant, it hit me.
I realized how much I’d missed him.
Tanner was a real friend, someone I didn’t have to ask for help. I don’t know what clued him in that I needed him, but somehow he knew. When I walked up to his car, he and Dad turned toward me. All I saw when I looked at Tanner’s smiling face was…
The Silver Scorpion.
When I needed him most, Tanner Lange made me a believer. Picturing him as his superhero alter-ego wasn’t a stretch, but something more clicked in me when I saw him. It made my face flush hot. Oh, my, God! I had a strong urge to kiss him.
When that strange impulse flashed through my mind, it lingered as if it had every right to stay. I couldn’t unthink it and I couldn’t stop myself from imagining what kissing him might feel like. That toasty feeling for my friend Tanner hung there in my brain like someone else planted it there.
But the only one who could’ve done that—was me.
“Hey, Tanner.” I waved.
With my chest still heaving for air, I felt a wet trickle down my spine under layers of clothes and my jacket, but not even sweating could stop me from grinning. I desperately wanted to talk to my best friend alone, but Dad stared at both of us like he’d figured something was up.
“Tanner was just about to tell me why he’s driving alone. If memory serves, that violates his driver’s permit.” With crossed arms, my father said under his breath, “This should be interesting.”
From the look on Dad’s face, he fully expected Tanner to lie and come up with a really lame excuse, but my father didn’t know Tanner.
“I stole my mother’s car, sir. Seemed like a good idea at the time. So in light of being charged with grand-theft auto, violating my permit pales in comparison…sir.”
Dad raised an eyebrow and glanced at me before he finally said, “You’re gonna have to do better than that, son. You better come inside.”
“Can I have a moment alone with your daughter, sir?”
Before Dad gave his answer, Tanner turned off his engine and held out his car keys to my father.
“A show of good faith, Mr. Chandler.”
Dad had always liked Tanner. According to my father, the kid had a brain that he used once in a while and he showed respect toward adults, something Tanner picked up from his military dad. Although my father probably hoped those good qualities would have rubbed off on me, somewhere he’d given up on that notion and made peace with his disappointment. I had to admit there were times I wondered why Tanner had stayed my friend, too.
But as my father stared at the keys dangling in front of him, I watched the boy behind the steering wheel. Imagining the man he’d become wasn’t much of a stretch. Tanner could’ve made a different choice about what he’d told my father. He could’ve told him about the rescue attempt on Denali and that the fate of two boys from our school was being played out on the news.
Knowing my dad, he would’ve definitely had more sympathy for Tanner if he thought his trip had been urgent. Who wouldn’t get caught up in a high-profile news story about two Palmer kids, happening near Healy, right? But Tanner had kept my father focused on his illegal driving and his first felony—coming off like a criminal—for one reason.
He was being a good friend. Whatever I wanted to tell my father, Tanner would leave that up to me, because that’s what a good wingman did. He had my back. Pretty clever for a comic-book, reality-show freak. Despite being in the dark, Tanner had broken the law, pissed off his parents and risked his whole summer—for me. I should have felt bad about the nasty stuff heading his way, but a little ember burning inside me never let that happen. Inside I smiled.
And inside smiles were best of all.
“You’ve got five minutes,” he told Tanner as he grabbed his car keys. After he shifted his gaze to me, he added, “I’ll be keeping track.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
My father looked stern, but I could tell he was oddly amused. After I kissed his cheek, I waited until he went inside the cabin and closed the front door before I ran to the passenger side and climbed in. Tanner wasted no time in telling me the latest.
“Heard on the radio driving up here, they found ’em, Abbey. A helicopter is taking them to Fairbanks Memorial, but there’s no real word on their condition.”
I felt a smile coming on. Nate and Josh were rescued, but when Tanner couldn’t look me in the eye, my grin faded fast.
“What’s wrong? That should have been decent news. There’s more, isn’t there?”
Tanner gripped his steering wheel and sighed.
“They reported that one of them had a compound leg fracture and other injuries, but that the other guy was unresponsive. That’s not good news, Abbey.”
“They didn’t say which one?”
“Nope, they never said.” He clenched his jaw and stared out his windshield.
I had a bad feeling the unresponsive one was Nate, the boy with the jacked-up soul. When I heard Tanner’s news, I flashed back to that night by the fire pit when Nate seemed out of control as he grabbed me and begged for my help. At the time, I didn’t understand what had happened to him, but I had a better idea now—and that scared the hell out of me. The real Nate had sounded very far away, and even now, when I felt the phantom touch of his hand on my arm, a sick feeling swept over me.
The only reason Death had found him was because of me. I had let Nate down.
Listening to the pings of Tanner’s cold engine, I felt the outside chill invade his van. I had a terrible feeling that even though Nate had been found and rescued, that wouldn’t be good enough. Something clicked inside me and I knew what I had to do.
“I’ve got to see him,” I said.
“Yeah, guess I knew that was coming.” Tanner turned toward me, not even asking who or what I meant.
“But, Abbey, I gotta say this. I’m doing my best to forget about you telling me Holden was here in Healy when that clearly wasn’t the case. Why would you…?” Avoiding my eyes, he raised both hands off the steering wheel and stopped himself. “No, I’m not gonna ask. Guess you’ll tell me the truth when you’re ready, because that’s what…friends do. They trust each other.”
Trust. I knew Tanner wasn’t only talking about him trusting me. Trust worked better if it went both ways. From what I saw in his eyes, he thought I had lied to him…and that I didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth. But telling him about my hanging out with the Angel of Death, that wasn’t exactly a five-minute conversation. With my dad watching us from the cabin, it wasn’t the best time to explain to Tanner what really went on, even if I understood it myself.
“I know I haven’t been a very good friend lately,” I began. “But for the record, what I said on the phone about seeing Nate, I didn’t lie to you. I can totally see why you’d think that, but that’s not what happened.”
“Then what did happen?” he asked. “Why can’t you tell me?”
He didn’t even try to hide the hurt in his voice. Most guys would have given attitude to cover how they really felt, but not Tanner. He wasn’t afraid to be himself with me, but that made it harder. I wanted to say, “Please trust me,” but if I were in his boots, I’d have a hard time believing that, too. As much as I loved having him in my life that was the very reas
on I needed time to think things through.
Telling Tanner that ravens had connected me to memories of my dead mother and that I’d kissed the Grim Reaper, those weren’t things that rolled off the tongue without consequences. Since my mom’s death, Tanner had been the one constant in my life that made all the bad stuff tolerable. Even imagining him calling it quits made me ache inside.
Tanner’s questions still hung in the air, without an answer from me. He stared at me, trying to hide the betrayal I knew he had every right to feel. But when I met his gaze, I felt a rush of intimacy that I’d never felt with him before. I’d crossed a line that I hadn’t seen coming and there was no going back, not even if I wanted to.
Tanner and I shared something that went beyond friendship. He knew the real me—would always know the real me—and he kept coming back for more. Being loners might have drawn us together out of necessity, but it was our friendship that had made us strong enough to come out on the other side. Being alone with my best friend—a guy who made it easy to love him—it felt like I was on a high wire without a safety net, balancing between being a kid and wanting to be more.
“Something is h-happening…” Looking down, I let my fingers fumble with a zipper on his jacket sleeve. “With Nate, I mean, something I can’t explain, not in five minutes. Hell, I’m not sure I could explain it in five years, but I promise you. I will tell you everything.”
When my fingers brushed the back of his hand, I felt a rush of heat shoot to my face and I jerked my hand away. Way to go, idiot!
“What’s going on, Abbey?” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re acting all nervous and stuff.”
“Yeah, well…I’m worried.” I nodded. “Over Nate.”
“What are you gonna tell your dad?”
Good question. And boy, did I appreciate the distraction of Tanner asking about my dad. I heaved a sigh and shook my head. Telling my dad that I wanted to see an injured friend wasn’t the problem. It was the part that would come after I got to the hospital that bothered me. If Nate’s life hung by a fragile thread, how far would I have to go to help him?
“Well, whatever you tell your dad, I’ll back you up,” he promised. “But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to start with a little of the truth.”
The truth? Tanner had no idea what he’d asked me to do, but I did know one thing. I had to find a way to tell my best friend everything. He deserved to know the truth—the whole truth.
“That boy took his mother’s car and drove all the way from Palmer. Guess he thought he had a pretty good reason,” Dad said as he cocked his head with a raised eyebrow.
My father stared at me as we sat at the kitchen table. He only half bought what I hoped to sell him.
“And you’re saying he did it, just to give you the news about those missing boys?” he asked. “That’s very CNN of him.”
Hearing it come from Dad’s mouth, I didn’t buy it, either. Tanner had risked too much to see me. I grimaced and took a deep breath, giving him a shrug with only a point-five degree of difficulty. The marginal shrug gave me time to think.
Days ago, I might have been tempted to say “well, yeah” and felt okay about lying to my dad, but my normal instinct to keep him in the dark came and went, leaving me to deal with the glaring silence that had built between us. I felt too antsy to let that go on forever.
“Not…exactly,” I said.
I told Dad that I’d seen the TV news story at Miner’s. That’s why I’d been so upset. I called Tanner on a pay phone to find out if he knew more. No way would I tell him about my crush on Nate. My extravagance with a coin-operated phone had been the extent of my honesty. My turning over a new leaf, when it came to dealing with my father, would be only a quick chapter in my life.
Baby steps, I solidly believed in baby steps.
“Did Tanner drive up here, because you asked him to?”
“No. He came on his own.” I shrugged. “Guess he got worried…” About me, I wanted to say, but didn’t. “And he couldn’t reach me.”
My father sighed and ran a hand through his hair, glancing out our window at Tanner. He had his poker face on, the one he’d taught me. The one I often reflected back to him like a mirror.
“He took his mother’s car, Abbey…without permission. That’s not right. You can’t expect me to allow you to leave with him.”
“I know, Dad. That’s not what either of us expects, believe me.” I looked my father straight in the eye. “But this is important. I have to know what happened to…those boys. I can’t go on like everything’s okay, not when we’re this close to Fairbanks. It’s like two hours or something, right?”
“A little longer than that this time of year, but…close enough.” My dad narrowed his eyes and met my gaze. After another parental sigh, he finally nodded. “Okay, but I’m going with you.”
Even though I kept my face as serious as I could, inside I felt happy for the first time in a long while. My heart busted a chest-poppin’ Krump move that I’d practiced in my bedroom mirror and couldn’t even do in my dreams, but I knew Dad wasn’t done. The guy practically invented the word conditions.
“That would be great. What else?” I asked.
“I ride shotgun.”
“You’re letting Tanner drive?” No way. I couldn’t believe it.
I shot Dad my trademark crooked smirk that I sometimes practiced in my bathroom mirror and immortalized with my cell camera to post to my Ditz Face album on Facebook. Whenever Tanner posted something bizarre as his status—which was like always—I’d hit him hard with one of those babies. Dad got the real thing, full on.
“He got this far, didn’t he? And someone’s got to keep him legal,” Dad said. “But I’m reserving the right to pull the plug if he sucks.”
Dad didn’t use the word sucks every day. It was one of his special words that usually snagged my attention. He got sneaky like that sometimes.
“Tanner’s got to call his parents…and I want to talk to them, too. If he’s got a working cell, we’ll call them from the car on the way to Fairbanks. No arguments.”
“Okay.”
Dad explained something about our cabin in Healy being between Fairbanks and Palmer and how the logistics would work if Tanner’s parents got all balled up about what he’d done. I didn’t exactly listen, but I knew what to say when he got done talking.
“Sounds like a plan.” I stood up and kissed him on the cheek, saying, “Thanks, Dad.”
With a hard-to-stop grin on my face, I ran to my room to grab my fanny pack. That zippered pouch carried all the stuff I couldn’t live without—my stash of candy, money and my cool shades. But my smile left in a flash when I took a look in the mirror and grimaced. After I splashed water on my face, I brushed my hair and took a shot at looking girly—a very long shot.
By the time I came out of my bedroom, Dad stood at the front door with Tanner’s keys in his hand. He looked as if he had more questions and held back on purpose. At least, I hoped he’d hold off. Head down, I bolted by him without a word and flashed Tanner a secret thumbs-up when I got outside. With Dad playing it cool and Tanner going way beyond the call of a friend, I didn’t feel alone anymore.
I felt lucky, but Nate Holden sure wasn’t.
Just thinking about the real Nate made me realize that I didn’t really know him. We’d never met or talked to each other. Even though I knew what it felt like to kiss him—really kiss him—if he saw me, he wouldn’t even know my name.
This whole thing had become seriously messed up.
With Death done talking to me, I didn’t stand much of a chance to save Nate, either. I only knew that I had to try. I had a bad feeling that his fate might be decided by a flip of Death’s coin and I knew I had to find him. I couldn’t just stay in Healy with my fingers crossed.
I had to see the rea
l Nate with my own eyes. Maybe then I’d know what to do.
Fairbanks Memorial Hospital Fairbanks, Alaska
Fairbanks Memorial Hospital was located on Cowles Street off Airport Road, not far from Fort Wainwright. As Tanner turned his van into the medical complex, I got a closer glimpse of the hospital and my stomach twisted into a tight knot. I thought I could handle this. Guess I was wrong. I hadn’t been in a hospital since the accident for a reason. That had been the worst time of my life. Plugged into machines and tubes, I’d been in pain and couldn’t move much, which left me with nothing to do but think of Mom…and miss her.
Damn it! I really didn’t want to step foot inside, but I had to.
After we found a parking spot near the E.R., my dad offered to help Tanner with his wheelchair.
“No, sir. I got it, but thanks.”
I’d only seen Tanner off his wheels a few times. His upper-body strength always surprised me. His chest, shoulders and arms were rock-solid muscle and his routine of getting in and out of the van was quick, efficient and amazing. After he got situated, he locked the van and headed for the hospital entrance. He didn’t need me to push him, but I knew that he liked me to. It was our thing. I climbed on back of his wheelchair and scooted across the parking lot, not saying much until he broke the ice.
“You gonna be okay?” he asked in a low voice.
Typical Tanner. Even though he had his own reason for hating hospitals, he knew how much I despised them and focused on me. When Dad was out of earshot, Tanner looked back over his shoulder to make sure I’d be okay.
“Not really…” I said. “But I don’t have a choice.”
Without making a big deal, Tanner raised a hand for me to take it. Since we’d never held hands before, that really got to me. I felt a lump in my throat close down like a vise. I couldn’t have said anything if I tried, but before he saw me get all gushy, Tanner distracted me.