Endangered

by Lamar Giles

  She says, “I’m talking action shots. The city in descent. The sidewalk rushing toward the lens. Very dramatic. I’m going to call it From Grace. You’re going to need a lot of commitment to top this shoot, Panda.” She shows me her back. Faces the drop.

  I say, “Please, don’t . . .”

  “Oh, stop!” she says. “Take my picture so we can get this over with.”

  CHAPTER 44

  “ROZ, WAIT.”

  “You’re stalling!”

  “I need a good shot of your face. Let me at least get that.”

  She spins toward me so fast, I’m afraid the momentum will carry her over. Roz remains on the floor with me and the cops, tears streaming down her cheeks, like she’s already grieving for herself. “Hurry.”

  With stone-still hands, I lift my phone to eye level, and I’m seeing her in duplicate. The real her, visible over the top edge of my phone, and the digital image on my screen. A shutter tap ends this.

  Only not the way she thinks.

  I scream, “Drück JETZT ab!”

  Roz’s expression shifts. She senses the deception, though she’s clueless about how she’s being deceived. How could she know?

  As smart as she is, I’m willing to bet she doesn’t speak German.

  Before she can be thwarted, Roz faces the ledge and gets a steady grip on her camera. This is the moment when she throws herself from the building.

  It’s interrupted by the bright flashes going off across the street like lightning in a cloud. I imagine the SBOOF . . . SBOOF sound of each explosion.

  I didn’t bring my phone for its camera abilities, I brought it for its phone abilities. It’s been on speaker the whole time, connected to Taylor and Beck as they made their way to the top of the Patriot Trust Building with my equipment.

  Drück JETZT ab! means “Shoot now!”

  My beloved Nikon, a 1200 Lux strobe, and my umbrella-like reflector are with them. Gear meant to generate the brightest possible flash with a shutter click. Enough to distract Roz in the low evening light. Enough for me to close the distance between us.

  A camera trap.

  For a dangerous animal you can’t capture by normal means, just as Petra Dobrev recommends.

  I catch Roz by the strap on her Canon, a sturdy piece of canvas and nylon looped over her shoulder. It bites into her neck when I yank, towing her toward me, into my arms, away from her goal.

  “No, no!” she shrieks, clawing at any exposed flesh she can reach.

  Squeezing her waist, enduring her sharp little nails tearing at my skin, I feel another set of arms around me. The Kind Uncle cop.

  We’re sliding back toward the elevator, the both of us, like two fish on the same hook. At the midway point two officers separate me and Roz.

  “You have no right!” She takes pieces of me with her when she’s pulled away. “My concept! My shoot!”

  She’s still swiping at my face when the police pin her to the dusty floor and secure her wrists with plastic ties.

  I think they’ll do the same for me, but I don’t resist, so they allow a set of EMTs to attend to me first. A cop remains nearby, his left hand resting on his Taser.

  I’m bleeding from several places, but feel no pain. The adrenaline rushing through me is a welcome anesthetic, though I know it won’t last. At the Patriot Trust Building, the flashes continue.

  My focus is drawn there, stays there, as I’m swabbed with gauze soaked in stinging liquid. When the paramedics pull them back, they’re all sorts of colors from soot black to alarmingly red.

  There’s blood on my face. And my neck. And on my chest.

  The female paramedic assures me I’m going to be okay.

  I know.

  Because, this time, there is no blood on my hands.

  EPILOGUE

  LAIR. IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING MY confrontation with Roz in the Cablon Hotel, after the authorities search her house and find what they find, that word keeps popping up in the news reports. Like some supervillain’s secret hideout at the bottom of the ocean, or inside a volcano. That’s the allusion they are going for. Roz as Lex Luthor, Evil Genius. It’s buzzy.

  They never show Roz’s picture or say her name because of her age. She is “the girl.” Meant to be anonymous, though footage of her house, and her bedroom, and her private things hanging loose and silky from tossed drawers become part of the news cycle.

  Everyone at school knows, I’m sure. Which means everyone’s parents know. Which means all of Portside knows. The effort to “protect her identity” is a joke we’re all in on. I would’ve been offered the same “protection,” too, if I hadn’t forfeited my unidentified-pronoun status by giving Quinn Beck his exclusive interview in the back of the ambulance that the cops made me take to the hospital. I told the EMTs Beck was my brother. Despite him obviously being a white guy, our complexions were close enough to avoid questioning. Taylor said my looks let me get away with crap like that. If I fought the notion, it was just for posterity. I think I’m aware of what I’m capable of.

  I answer Beck’s questions—on the record—about everything. Most of it he can’t use directly because I’m a minor like Roz. As I said, we’re beyond not knowing the culprits here. Channel 9 news finds loopholes, ways to manipulate my quotes without implicating me directly, while, at the same time, pointing a neon arrow directly at my house.

  In those weeks before Thanksgiving, when journalists knock on my door daily, wanting a one-on-one like the channel 9 news intern got, at least one of my parents stays home at all times to ensure I don’t bring any more pain to our family. I’m barred from electronics, though I manage to sneak some TV when my parents sleep. While watching on mute, with the closed captions on, I notice that word. Over and over.

  The next day, I can’t shake it. With the electronics lockdown in effect, I break down and pull a dictionary off the shelf. I shouldn’t have.

  Lair (n): a wild animal’s resting place, especially one that is well hidden.

  The definition gives the corkscrew in my stomach—a near-permanent fixture now—a mighty arm wrestler’s heave, to the point where I think my lunch might rise. It doesn’t. I put the dictionary away and pick at the healing scratches on my face until Mom yells at me to stop.

  Custom PCs. Stolen records. Fake credit cards and identification. The Portside PD discover evidence of “numerous criminal activities” at Roz’s residence. Including crime scene and driver’s license photos stolen from secure state servers, the driving record of the drunk Roz set up for Ocie’s hit-and-run, hours and hours of footage from Coach Bottin being interrogated about Keachin. Also, footage of me at the police station and hospital, thanks to her gaining access to the digital security systems. More unsettling, footage of me sleeping in my bed while she watched through my own webcam. She’s been at it a long time.

  Detective Vincent explains this all to me and my parents in our living room one afternoon as the coffee Mom made cools without him ever taking a sip.

  “The Petrie girl is something new. At least for me,” he says, unsettled.

  “What’s going to happen to her?” I ask.

  “A hospital of some sort, most likely. The Myers want her thrown in the deepest hole the state will allow, but she’s a minor. Her parents—criminals in their own right: drug charges, petty larceny, fraud—are barely in the picture at all, so social services already have their fingers in this. She’ll be comfy until she’s eighteen, at least.

  “Between you and me,” Vincent continues, “her thing with Bottin’s going to work in her favor. She doesn’t turn sixteen for another three months. We could practically write his name on the sex offender registry right now.”

  There’s apprehension in him, I feel it like trouble on the wind.

  Dad picks up on it, too. “You think that’s the right call, Detective?”

  “For that pervert? Absolutely. But the girl, I think we’re lucky to have caught her affinity for violence and manipulation now. She’ll get treatment. I only hope whatever
she has—whatever she is—is something you can treat.” His eyes are on me when he says this.

  I inspired Roz’s misdeeds. My site. My crusade. Me.

  What do you think I am, Detective?

  It’s a question I don’t ask aloud. I don’t think I’d like his answer.

  My aunt Victoria is set to arrive two days before Thanksgiving. When she gets here, I know the next time I leave my house will be with a suitcase and boarding pass. So three days before Thanksgiving, I break my parents’ rules one last time.

  It’s after midnight and they’re sleeping. The lock on Daddy’s desk drawer is an easy pick; I retrieve my car keys and phone quickly. The screen got cracked during my fight with Roz, but it still works, evident by the ninety-eight missed texts from Taylor. I don’t bother to read them, I simply reply.

  Me: If u can, meet me at the playground by your house in 20 mins.

  Taylor: I’ll be there in 15

  He’s sitting on a graffiti-stained bench when I arrive. Half the streetlamps in the area aren’t functional, creating pockets of darkness throughout the neighborhood. In some of those pockets, people lurk. I’m not afraid, though. I’ve seen scarier.

  Taylor sees me, leaves his bench. I climb from my car with a backpack on my shoulder and meet him halfway.

  He hugs me hard, then backs away, staring at my healing scars. “Are you all right?”

  “Not really.”

  He opens his mouth, likely to offer words of comfort. I shake my head before he starts. “I don’t get to be all right. I’m fine with that. Let’s not waste time lying about it.”

  “Why are we here?”

  “To finish.” I kneel, open the bag, and illuminate the contents with a tiny flashlight in my palm. Taylor crouches next to me for a better view of the projects I’ve been working on while in captivity.

  The first item is a slim photo album meant for displaying 4 x 6 pictures in a series of cellophane flaps. I push it into his hands. “It’s for Mei.”

  He flips through, viewing select pictures from my and my best friend’s better years. Amusement parks. Sleepovers. Good times pulled from a shoe box at the back of my closet.

  “Give it to her yourself,” he says.

  “Now’s not the right time. Not while she’s still hurt and in the hospital because of what I did.”

  I feel him tense, but that’s all he does. Before he would’ve assured Mei’s injuries weren’t on me. He’s sticking to my terms, though. No lies.

  He says, “Give it to her later.”

  “I’m not going to be around later.” I tell him about my aunt, and Georgia.

  He’s quiet for a while when I’m done. What’s there to say?

  When he speaks again, it’s about the bag. “Anything else in there for me?”

  I zip it up, and kill the light. “No. What I have for you wouldn’t fit.”

  “Are you giving me your car?”

  He laughs, but I can’t quite manage. “No. An apology. I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

  Blinking rapidly, like I’d suddenly shined the flashlight in his face, he says, “The jockstrap thing?”

  “Everything.”

  There are ghosts here. The false versions of me and him that I held on to for so long. Too long.

  “Danke,” he says. Thank you, in German.

  “No thanks necessary.” This version—the true version—of Taylor Durham is a good guy. Mei always knew.

  “There’s something else you can give Mei the next time you see her,” I say, “a message. Tell her I said her choices have never been stupid. She’s way smarter than I’ve ever been.”

  “That’s going to make sense to her?”

  “Yes. Also, she likes spinach and feta cheese on her half of the pizza.”

  I trust he’ll use that information well.

  With that, I turn back toward my car.

  “Are you going home now?” he calls after me.

  “No. I’ve got one more stop to make.”

  “Can I get shotgun?” His concern is thinly veiled.

  “Not this time, Taylor.”

  He doesn’t fight it. “Text me when you get home, okay?”

  A wave is all I give him.

  Good-bye, Taylor Durham.

  I’m in my car, on the way to my next destination. My next apology. When I arrive, I’m doused in fear I didn’t feel in Taylor’s neighborhood, or even up on the forty-second floor.

  Graveyards have always had that effect on me.

  The Portside Cemetery would be beautiful if you didn’t know what it was. It’s positioned near the Annabeth River, Portside’s skyline visible on the water’s black surface. Wavering, wavering, like there’s a second sunken city instead of a reflection.

  There’s no gate to surpass. No fence to climb. It’s open and inviting and terrifying. Some childish part of me imagines that there is a gate. Some ornate, wrought-iron thing glowing with spectral energy. One that will only be visible once I cross onto the grounds and discover that I will never be allowed to leave.

  I shake off the childish spookiness and I follow the asphalt inside.

  It takes a few minutes to orient myself to the layout of the grave markers. The map on my phone identifies the row I’m looking for.

  My engine remains running as I exit my car and walk a path that’s narrower than it has to be. Swatches of grass are wide where I am, but I’m careful not to step on anyone.

  There are lampposts along the way; I still cut the dark with my flashlight, glancing at names and dates on the dozens and dozens of tombstones flanking me. There’s a tremor in my light beam that’s got nothing to do with the cold.

  The grave I’m looking for is ahead. I know it before I can read the marble-carved inscription because it’s nearly buried in bouquets, both fresh and withered.

  When I’m close, I flash my light on it:

  KEACHIN JOSEPHINE MYER

  DAUGHTER—FRIEND—BEAUTIFUL ANGEL

  GONE TOO SOON

  Reflexively, I buck against the “Beautiful Angel” part, because I still remember what I felt for her. The Raging Bitch Monster. Change isn’t like a shutter click. It’s never instant.

  Maybe she was the mean girl I knew. But she was other things. Everyone is a bunch of different things, all at once. To her family, her friends, she was a Beautiful Angel. I chose to show the world a different side.

  “I’m sorry, Keachin.”

  There’s a bouquet of flowers in my bag, stolen from a vase on the center of our dining-room table. They fit nicely with the others on Keachin’s grave.

  The only other thing I’ve brought is my camera. I pull it out, power up, and turn the lens toward the waterfront. It would be such a cool shot. Tempting, but no.

  I face the marble tombstone and smash my Nikon on the top edge.

  Once, twice, the plastic crunching sounds like a car wreck on repeat. On the third strike, shards sprinkle the grass at my feet. I pick them up by the beam of my flashlight and dump the mangled mess back in my bag.

  Doing that hurts, as it should. It’s not enough. But I’m not done paying back my wrongs. I may never be done.

  That, too, is as it should be.

  We’re all something we don’t know we are.

  Or if we know, and we don’t like the truth about ourselves, we call it something else that helps us sleep at night.

  “Avenger” and “vigilante” and “karma” were the words I chose when I went after people who did despicable things. Really, I should’ve gone with “just like them.” Because I was.

  These are my thoughts on my turbulence-free flight to Georgia. My aunt Victoria has the window seat, ignoring the bright-sun view for the latest issue of Cosmo. The last two days we’ve spent together have also been turbulence-free. I’ll do my part to keep it that way.

  When we land and get the go-ahead to turn on electronic devices, I power on my phone to text my parents, and find I have a message waiting.

  It’s a picture of me and Mei on a
roller coaster. One of the photos in the album I left with Taylor.

  Me: That’s our black.

  Mei responds with a smiley face.

  It’s a start.

  When you know what you are, and it’s ugly, it’s up to you to be something else. I’ve got some work to do.

  I still love photography. My pandas. Nat Geo. I’ll return to them soon.

  Maybe after some time away from Portside, in a place where people will call me Lauren, and only Lauren. Maybe after my bestie can stand more robust communication than the occasional picture or emoticon. Maybe when I choose to see and show beauty. Without effort.

  Life’s the picture. But all good photographers know you gotta have the right lens. I’m getting there.

  There will be time for my passions—uncorrupted, without malice—again.

  For now, I’m going to work on loving people, too.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Here we go again! Writing this page is one of the most awesome parts about the publishing process. Why? Because there’s nothing cooler than doing a victory lap with all the people who helped make this possible. Without further adieu . . .

  I want to thank God for another opportunity to tell stories for a living. Best. Job. Ever.

  Adrienne, you’ve worn the Writer’s Wife badge well. I so appreciate the advice, and encouragement, and sing-alongs on those conference road trips (our vocals are INCREDIBLE when we’re alone and encased in a moving bubble). You’re a super cheerleader, expert straightener of ties, and a whole bunch of other stuff that could fill a dozen novels. Love you.

  Jamie, you’re my industry ace. My not-so-secret weapon in the fight for continued employment and uninterrupted utilities. Thank you for entertaining each and every crazy idea that pops into my head. Nobody handles a three-a.m. email like you. I just need you to work on recognizing Brad Pitt. ;)

  To my HarperCollins crew: Karen, Jess, and Olivia, thanks for all the hard work you do on my behalf. I must increase your chocolate rations this year. Also, thanks to Phoebe Yeh, the first to see the potential in our vigilante photographer.