Alex was mixing powder into a glass on top of the vanity.
“What’s that?” Chelsea pointed a slender finger at the drink in his hand.
“This will ensure your boyfriend forgets what he saw.”
“Are you going to kill him?” She leaned forward, fascinated by the idea.
“If I should be so lucky.” Alex held the glass to Zack’s lips. “Drink up, Zack.”
The amber liquid reeked of rubbing alcohol and burned his nostrils. He yanked one of his hands free and knocked the glass aside. Vodka splashed across his chest. Chelsea scrambled off of him with a high-pitched squeal.
“Yuck! That’ll stain!” She grabbed a cloth off the counter and dabbed frantically at her chest.
“Hold him still.” Alex’s words rang with authority.
Zack half scrambled, half fell out of the tub. His pulse pounded painfully in his ears, scattering his senses and making him dizzy with anxiety. He crawled toward the door, his instincts screaming for him to run.
Alex mixed a new concoction, pinned him to the floor, and forcibly poured it down his throat. Zack gagged and fought to spit it out. He wound up swallowing most of it.
Alex’s stormy blue eyes glinted with glee. “One more glass ought to do it.” He shook three brightly colored pills into his hand and dropped them into a second amber drink.
A distant shout made all of them freeze. “Everyone out! A neighbor called the cops!” Zack recognized Jessie’s strong, clear soprano. He guessed she was lying to end his nightmarish party.
“We have to get out of here!” Chelsea scrambled toward the door. Alex cursed under his breath, booted Zack in the stomach, and followed her.
“What if he tells them what happened?” Chelsea’s voice echoed in his head.
“Trust me, he won’t.” The bedroom door slammed, and Zack was left alone on the cold marble floor.
He heaved himself onto his elbows and inched toward the door. The floor stretched out in front of him, an impossibly long distance. The room dipped and swayed, and a wave of nausea made him gag. His palm grazed something sharp. More glass? Why was his house full of broken glass? He closed his eyes and saw cans of tomato soup the size of footballs. He tried to think calming thoughts. Alex and his friends were gone. Chelsea was gone. Everyone was gone. Jessie? His head came to rest on the bath mat.
Zack floated in and out of consciousness on a misty sea of tranquility. The noise from downstairs ebbed and faded into nothing. He heaved a contented sigh. He liked his ocean of quiet.
Someone was calling his name. He tried to answer, but the words wouldn’t come.
The bathroom door was flung open, and light flooded the room. A blurry figure rushed to his side. He strained to see around the splotches of dark that were blotting his vision.
“Zack, what happened?” Chris’s voice was shrill with panic. The dark splotches expanded, and Zack sank into blackness.
Six
A MONOTONOUS RINGING dragged Amy from sleep. She checked her watch, pulled her blankets over her head, and prayed for it to stop. It did for half a minute before starting up again. She stumbled out of bed and staggered downstairs to answer the house phone. Why was someone calling at two o’clock in the morning? She gritted her teeth against a burst of sleep-deprived rage.
“Hello?” The caller was about to receive a serious talking to.
“Amy!” Chris said her name in a shrill, panicked tone. “Is that you?”
“Yeah. Do you realize what time it is?” She propped her elbows on the kitchen counter and yawned into her hand.
“I’m sorry! I need help!”
“I’m listening.” Amy sighed.
“Zack is passed out in my parents’ bathroom. I guess he had too much to drink, but I’ve never seen him this wasted before.”
“Wake your parents.” She yawned again. “They’ll know what to do.”
“They’re both away!” His voice shot up another two octaves. “It’s only me and Zack here until next Friday.”
Amy held the phone a few inches from her ear. “Chris, take a breath. Try to calm down.”
Chris inhaled sharply. His words tumbled out, rapid and scared. “I don’t want to call an ambulance if he doesn’t need one. He’ll get in so much trouble!”
Amy blew out a breath. “How about I come over and check on him? Sue and I can stay with you until he’s better.” She didn’t care one bit if spoiled Zack Donnellson got arrested. But she did like Chris, and he needed someone.
“You will? Thank you!” His voice cracked with unshed tears.
“We’ll be there as soon as we can.” She sent him a mental hug.
Amy climbed the stairs and woke Susan with a stream of curses running through her head. How could Zack have let this happen? He was forcing his nine-year-old brother to take care of him when it ought to be the other way around. She bundled a confused and sleepy Susan in her jacket with gentle apologies and reassurances that everything was fine. She hated to ruin her little sister’s sleep on account of Zack but with her mother working the night shift, the only option was to bring her along.
The buses had stopped running, so the girls wound up taking an appallingly expensive taxi to Chris’s neighborhood. They climbed from the cab and gaped at the wreckage of the Donnellson’s lawn.
“Check out their kitchen window,” Amy said.
“Look!” Susan raced up the Donnellsons’ drive and across to a battered rosebush. She scooped something off the ground and trotted back to Amy with a can of black beans in her hand. “Guess we know what smashed the window.”
“Come on, let’s go inside and check on Chris.”
Chris threw open the door. “I’m so glad you’re here!”
“It’s okay.” Amy patted his shoulder and strode into the entrance hall. Bottles and cans lay strewed about on every available surface; some empty, some on their sides with their contents spilled around them in sticky puddles. A shattered vase lay next to the cedar coffee table, its gorgeous flowers scattered across an expensive-looking rug. The kitchen looked like a war zone. Broken glass, dented walls, a cracked microwave, and for some strange reason, an army of soup cans littered across the floor. It was as if a cyclone had exploded outward from the pantry.
Amy cautiously stepped forward, and something crunched beneath her shoe. A baby picture in an ornate frame was lying on the polished floor. She stooped to pick it up and came face-to-face with a laughing baby Zack. Amy recoiled and went to toss the portrait aside. Letters scratched into the picture’s frame caught her eye. A + J.
“Oh no, Zack fell off the wall.” Susan took the picture. “Aww, he’s cute!” She turned to Chris. “What happened after we left? Is Zack okay?”
“Let’s go find out.” Amy led the way up the Donnellsons’ spiral staircase. The second floor looked less like a battlefield. The hall was clean apart from a single painting lying face-down on the carpet. Amy bent to prop it up, and the canvas ripped in half. “I didn’t do that!” Dollar signs with scary amounts of zeroes flashed in her peripheral vision.
“Don’t worry. It was like that when I found it. My parents’ room is through here.” Chris showed them into a spacious master bedroom with thick maroon carpeting and silky bedding the color of jade. Amy gazed around in awe. Zack lived in a palace.
She headed into the attached washroom and grimaced in disgust. Zack lay on his back in a pile of broken glass with sweat and alcohol soaking his shirt. She smirked. It looked like he was sweating vodka. She knelt at his side. His eyes fluttered open but lacked all focus. His lips moved soundlessly as he strained to speak around the barricades in his mind. Panic filled his gaze. Amy placed a comforting hand over his. “It’ll be okay. Lie still.” His palm had a jagged line of crimson across his skin. He had cut himself on the glass. She checked his breathing and snatched her phone. She dialed 911 with a surreal feeling of detached concern.
Zack’s breaths were quick and shallow, and his pupils had shrunk to the size of needlepoints. This was worse
than a case of alcohol poisoning. Zack had dabbled in harder narcotics.
The operator answered as Zack began to choke.
“What’s happening to him?” Chris cried, fear flitting across his face.
“We need an ambulance!” Amy struggled to roll Zack onto his side. Her phone slipped and clattered to the floor. It landed with a splash in a puddle of vomit. “Chris, talk to them for me.”
He snatched up her phone and rattled off his address. Amy shot him a grateful look. The kid was impervious to puke. If only she had his skills. She clamped her mouth shut, battled her gag reflex, and scooped a glob of vomit from Zack’s mouth. Who knew getting up close and personal with a football player would be this disgusting? She heaved Zack into a sitting position by propping him against the bathtub. A stream of puke dribbled from his mouth. She wrinkled her nose and wiped his face with toilet paper. She was never going to look at THS’s star quarterback the same. He was the most repulsive sight she had ever seen.
“The ambulance is on its way.” Chris wiped Amy’s phone with a washcloth before handing it back to her.
Amy took it between two clean fingers, placed it on the vanity, and rinsed her hands in the sink. “Okay. Now we need to get him outside.” She took his shoulders, the kids each grabbed an ankle, and they dragged him unceremoniously through his demolished palace.
An ambulance wailed up the street, and EMTs zoomed Zack onto a stretcher. “Where are your parents?” a brown-haired medic demanded, narrowing her ice-blue eyes at Amy.
She bristled. They thought this was her fault? “His parents are out of town.” She jerked a thumb toward Zack. “My sister and I are their friends.” She drew a line in the air to exclude herself and Susan from the wreckage behind them and made air quotes around the word friends.
The EMT made a derisive noise in her throat. “Hope the party was worth it. You kids better come with us.”
The trio piled into the ambulance. Amy clenched her jaw against a burst of indignant rage. Zack had better take full responsibility for any trouble with the law.
Chris called his mother on the way to the hospital to get parental permission for them to treat his brother. The trio took seats in a crowded waiting room as Zack was rushed to an OR to have his stomach pumped. Amy shook her head. Friday night in an ER. Zack had picked the worst possible time to OD. She sat between the two kids with an arm tight around each of them. Susan dozed against her shoulder, while Chris tried not to cry.
Amy squeezed his shoulder. “He’ll be fine. You did everything right.”
“If I had called nine-one-one right away …” He blinked back tears.
Amy pulled him into a hug and gently rubbed his back. “You did your best. Zack’s going to be super proud of you when he wakes up.”
Susan rubbed her eyes. “Are your parents coming home?”
Chris hung his head. “They can’t catch a flight until the morning. They only just landed in Beijing.”
In the end, with his parents out of town and his brother in a coma, Amy brought Chris back to her house for an impromptu sleepover. He dozed for a few hours and woke her at dawn begging to visit Zack. The exhausted trio trooped back to the hospital a mere three hours after leaving.
A nurse in her early twenties was manning the front desk, typing feverishly at her computer with a frantic gleam in her green eyes. She was on the heavier side with frizzy brown hair and a spray of pimples across her chin.
“We’re here to see Zack Donnellson.” Amy yawned. “This is his little brother, Chris.”
“Of course.” The nurse had a kind, pretty smile. “Head down that hall to the third door on your right. Room 112.”
“Thanks.”
Amy led the kids down the hallway. Zack’s door was ajar. Chris ambled in without knocking and beckoned for the girls to do the same.
Zack was sitting up in bed, talking on the phone. “No. Mom, I’m fine. I know. I made a stupid decision.” He nodded toward a cluster of chairs facing his bed.
Amy sat, hiding a smirk. She hoped his mother gave him the lecture of his life.
“It will never happen again,” Zack said. “I promise. Don’t let it ruin your trip. Yes, really. Stay in Beijing. I’ll ground myself until you’re back and after that you’ll ground me for even longer. Love you too.” He hung up and face-palmed.
Chris grinned. “You are so busted.”
“Grounded until I’m thirty.” Zack cringed. He shot Amy a questioning glance. “No offense, but why the hell are you here?”
“I saved your grounded ass. Do you not remember puking on me?”
“Now you mention it, sorry about that.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You owe me money for the taxi.”
“Right.” He pulled a thick wad of twenties from his wallet.
“We don’t live on Mars.” She handed half his money back.
“It’s the least I can do.” He pushed it into her hand.
She accepted the bills with the ghost of a smile. “Suit yourself, but you can’t buy me off. Those pictures I took of you dribbling vomit are already on Instagram.”
“What!”
She giggled. “Calm down, football freak. I’m kidding.”
Seven
CHARLES WOKE AT dawn on Monday to a raging storm outside his window. Sheets of rain obscured the faint morning light. Wind shrieked mournfully through the sodden trees. The branches of an oak scraped against his windowpane like fingernails on a chalkboard. He tossed and turned for a while and wrote off sleep as a lost cause.
He stepped from his bedroom and breathed deep. The salty tang of frying bacon gently mingled with hints of something sweet and chocolatey. He followed the tantalizing aroma to the kitchen. His mom stood at the counter mixing a bowl of pancake batter. Zoe Banks was short and plump with a young, welcoming face and a beautiful smile. She was casually clad in sweats and a T-shirt with her dark brown hair pulled back in a messy bun. A pan of bacon sizzled on the stove, and a pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice sat ready on the kitchen island.
“Hey, hon. You’re up early.” She wiped her hands on her flour-dusted apron to give him a quick morning hug. Her kind caramel eyes brimmed with loving concern.
He quirked an eyebrow. “And you’re ambitious. Why are you making pancakes on a Monday morning?” He took a seat at the kitchen island and snuck a peek at her years-out-of-date laptop. A photo of him at seven was set as her screen saver. He pressed a key to make his beaming face disappear, and a nearly finished news story appeared in its place.
“I have writer’s block,” she said, pouring a dollop of pancake batter into a second frying pan. “I decided to spend my thinking time making something nice to begin your week.” She smiled, smoothing the worry lines around her mouth. She knew how much he dreaded Mondays.
“Thanks, Mom.” Grateful affection hummed beneath his words. He yawned his way through two plates of pancakes and finished up her article for the Times.
“My seventy-two hours in labor has paid off.” She beamed, reading the ending over his shoulder. “I knew one day you’d come in handy.” She fact-checked his work as she bustled around in preparation for her busy day. The pancakes had put her behind schedule. “Please be safe.” She pecked him on the cheek and flew out the door.
Charles dressed casually in jeans and an admiral blue sweater and completed his outfit with black Nikes and a matching black belt. He shaved, brushed his teeth, packed a lunch, and even had time to do the dishes before facing the tumultuous outdoors.
Though the worst of the storm had subsided, the dreary sleet-gray sky still had a somber border of violent storm clouds. Several small branches littered his lawn, and lakelike puddles had formed in the street. Cars speeding down the narrow road sent freezing, opaque droplets spinning in all directions. Charles was repeatedly splashed with cold, dirty water as he plodded to the bus stop. He squelched up to the thankfully dry bench, huddled under the shelter, and began a game of Tetris on his phone.
He squeezed into a seat
on the bus and avoided eye contact with everyone as he wiped mud off his jeans. He would have been dryer traipsing to school through a car wash.
“Nice look, Banks,” a senior on the hockey team sneered.
Charles sank down in his seat, took shelter behind his math book, and engrossed himself in a practice problem.
He spent his first couple classes in peaceful but lonely solitude. Conversation ebbed and flowed around him in streams of happy chatter. He watched his peers with detached pain, an island untouched by the sea of humanity.
He found a quiet spot in the back of third period study hall and started in on a practice chem quiz. No one else was doing homework. They all had a life. One day, he vowed as he balanced a nasty equation. One day that’ll be me.
A loud conversation between two girls in the row in front of him broke his concentration. “How’d you get home Friday night?” Chelsea Brookes, the bitchiest blonde in school, asked her equally blonde friend. Charles made a face. When had THS become blonde Barbie central?
Chelsea’s friend giggled. “Peter drove me home. I think he had to carry me to the door. I was so wasted I don’t remember.”
“Raquel!” Chelsea rapped the girl’s knuckles with her ruler.
“Ouch!” Raquel snatched her hand off the desk and cradled her fingers against her stomach. “Geez, woman, what’s your problem?”
“You went out with her ex? You broke the code.” Jessie Davis, the beautiful redhead Charles had had a crush on since the beginning of time, turned in her seat to join in the blondes’ conversation. She was holding a pencil. Had she been doing homework as well? His heart leapt with joy. They were clearly meant to be!
“I did not go out with him!” Raquel covered her face as if repulsed by the idea. Charles grinned. Finally! A girl in this school with some sense. “I only said he drove me home. He was a perfect gentleman.” Charles stifled a laugh, turning it into a cough. Peter Jenkins, the gentleman gangster? So much for someone having sense.
Blood Moon's Fury: A Young Adult Fantasy Thriller (Curse of the Blood Moon Book 1) Page 5