“Oh my God,” he felt like he was going to have his own panic attack. “None of this is your fault, Sas, you have to know that.”
“I was the skater!” she cried, hysterically. “I was the one who found the deal, I was the one who accepted it. And now Scott is dead, and we’re here, constantly looking over our shoulders, wondering if we are going to have to run again. This is the third place we’ve been to, you know that? They’ve found us, in the last two, and we got out in time. But this time, I don’t know if we are going to be so lucky.”
“First of all,” he said, firmly. “You will be fine. Because the boys and I, we are not going to let anything happen to you. Your parents made bad choices, and put bullshit pressure on you, that is their prerogative. Second of all, I know Jones’s gang, I remember their tricks. I’m going to get to the bottom of this, find out for myself what is happening, and take them out.”
“Chuck…” she said, hesitantly, but he shook his head.
“It shouldn’t be hard to find. Bottom feeders like them enjoy having their lives out in the open, enjoy taking the credit for everything. I’ll find out who it was and we’ll rumble until the end if we need to. Don’t you worry.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” she said, softly and he shrugged.
“You didn’t ask, kid, I offered. It’ll be fine, don’t worry about it anymore. You are safe here.”
She sniffed, wiping the tears away from her face.
“I can’t help feeling like I changed everything for you.”
That got a smile on his elfish features.
“You did. But I didn’t say it was a crappy thing. The boys here, they are like family, and we take care of family, you hear? So don’t worry about it. Now, go wash up, get some breakfast, and I’ll take you to school.”
“School?” she looked at him doubtfully and he gave her a stern look in return.
“Just because I’m a screw up, kid, doesn’t mean you have to be. Go on.”
“Are you going to tell the others?” she asked, as she got up, and he shook his head.
“No. This is best kept our little secret, until I figure out what the hell is going on. The boys ain’t never been outside of here, they don’t understand big city drama. Now, go on.”
She padded towards the kitchen, desperately wanting a cup of water after crying out on ocean of salty tears. While he waited, Chuck pulled out his phone, texting a New York number that he hadn’t spoken to in years.
We need to talk , he wrote. The reply came back, instantly.
Jimmy the Snitch, at your service.
He smiled, putting his phone away as she came back to the door. He may not be good at a lot of things, but this is what he was good at it. And finally being able to do something about the helplessness he had felt for weeks while Cassie suffered, while that was the best feeling of all.
Chapter 5
“You’re different lately,” Dave said to her, as he put down both their lunch trays at a small private table in the corner. The lunch room was noisy and crowded, per usual, but Cassie felt like he was the only person in the room. When she was with Dave, she felt like she was floating on air. She hadn’t had a panic attack in weeks, not when he was the constant source of her affection and attention. It felt like Dave cured everything when he touched her shoulder gently, to get her attention. A few feet away, Peter, Steve and Shawn were blowing straws at each other. It looked like fun, but she knew the rules; don’t even make eye contact.
“What do you mean?” she asked, tossing her hair over her shoulders. She self consciously looked down, wondering if the extra pound she had gained showed.
“I mean you seem…happier, lighter,” he gave her a smile. “Like you were worried about something and now it’s gone.”
She responded with a tiny half shrug as she took a sip of her diet Coke. She couldn’t tell him the real reason, of course. That ever since she had told Chuck what she knew in New York, she felt like she really could be free. He was taking care of it, he would get to the bottom of it, and she could take one tiny step forward and start to enjoy life. And enjoying life started with staring into Dave’s eyes.
“I guess I was just nervous, new school and all. Didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“What were you nervous about? I bet you were Homecoming Queen,” Dave said, as he took a huge bite of his sandwich. “Unless of course, you went to a school for the blind.”
She smiled, fiddling with a straw wrapper.
“No. But I wasn’t home coming Queen either. I wasn’t in school much, before.”
“Why not?”
She gulped, and took another sip of coke. There wasn’t a reason to life, all it took was googling her name.
“I was a figure skater, so I was tutored mostly. But that’s all over now.”
“Didn’t like it?” he asked, unwrapping a brownie. “My parents used to make me attend seven thousand after school things, and practice when I wasn’t doing homework. It drove me crazy, so eventually I dropped out. What are you doing tonight?”
“Huh?” It was one of the things she loved about him, his train of thought going every which way. “Uh, nothing, why?”
“The old drive in is playing a double feature. I don’t normally go out in that direction…but I thought, maybe if you wanted to go..?”
“Is this a date?” Cassie couldn’t help her bluntness, nor her wide smile.
“If you want it to be,” he replied, and she grinned even wider.
“I want.”
“Then it’s a date,” Dave said, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand. “A long date in which we start by foraging the concessions for snacks and end up with popcorn containers on our heads.”
She laughed out loud, and it felt like another weight was lifted. She hadn’t laughed like that since Scott died, since they ran away from New York. Sure, the boys were great to her, and she smiled more often. But Dave made her laugh as if she hadn’t a care in the world, as if nothing mattered but the two of them. She spent her days walking the halls with him and her night’s texting him until the early hours. Unlike the boys, she didn’t have to worry about a text limit, or consider the fact that each message was costing them. She could send him huge picture files of internet memes and not worry about whether he could afford the data charge. And although she didn’t mind those things, nor judge them, it was nice to be able to speak freely behind her phone’s keyboard.
“Why are the popcorn containers on our head?” she asked, and he shrugged.
“It is a scary movie fest. But stupid scary, not nightmare scary. B-Movie scary.”
“Like Frankenstein?” she asked. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she loved watching the Mel Brooks version over and over again. To her delight, Dave nodded.
“Yep, that’s what it is. Frankenstein and then one of the Scary Movies. Number two, I think.”
“I’m so in,” she cried. “I mean, I was in before, but this makes it even better.”
“What’s your favourite movie snack?” he asked, and she paused at that, her mind mentally scanning a concession stand.
“Um…Just cold diet coke. With lots of ice.”
“Snack, though. Candy? M&Ms? Popcorn?”
“Popcorn,” she replied at last, hoping it was air popped with no butter. Normally, she would plan to sit with her arms crossed, chewing sugarless gum. But the idea of meeting Dave’s hand on the way to the same popcorn bucket sent shivers down her spine. “How else would I get the bucket on my head if I don’t get popcorn?”
“I’ll bring scissors, so we can cut out eyeholes,” Dave said, deadpan and she laughed like a child, making people stare at her.
It attracted the attention of the boys, who paused in their antics across the room.
“Cassie’s playing her little spy part well,” Peter said and Shawn raised an eyebrow.
“That ain’t playing,” he said. “She was a skater, not an actress. She’s actually falling for that upper classer.”
“You think?” Peter asked. “Chuck was all about telling us she was one of us.”
“Yeah well,” Shawn replied, glancing at the couple again. “I’m not so sure about that.”
Chuck also didn’t seem to believe her act when she told him her plans that evening, sitting on the Criter’s kitchen counter, and painting her nails.
“The drive in? That’s not a place you want to go, Sas.”
“Why not?” she raised an eyebrow. “It’s a movie, Chuck, not an engagement.”
“Why would you even say that?” he snapped. “Point is, I know what happens at the drive ins, inside the cars, because I’ve been there a hundred times myself.”
“Seriously? First I can’t be seen with you and now I can’t go anywhere with the boy I’m supposed to be seen with? I’m not five years old anymore, Chuck, I can cross the street by myself.”
“Yeah, and taking matters into your own hands is exactly what got you where you are!” he replied, the words flying out of his mouth before he even thought about them. As soon as he said them, his eyes widened. Even the boys paused their video games in the living room, sensing the tension in the air. They had no true idea what it was about, but anyone could feel it was something big.
With a glare, Cassie hopped off the counter, screwing her nail polish shut and heading towards the door.
“Sas, where the hell are you going?” Chuck said, storming after her as she pulled on her shoes.
“Home. I have a date to get ready for.”
“You can get ready here.”
“Yeah, to hell I can,” she snapped. “Not when you’re treating me like a child, I can’t.”
“My problem isn’t that you’re going out with him. My problem is that you actually want to. You go out him now, and then there’s another and another, and before we know it, you’re calling the cops to make a noise complaint and turning your nose up at us in the hallway.”
“So let me get this straight,” she pulled on her jacket. “Your so called kind is not good enough for me, but when I want to go out with the opposite, that’s not good enough for me either? So what exactly am I supposed to do, then?”
“Those upper classers are just a different kind of scum, Sas. Or did you forget all the things I told you about, the things they did to us?”
“Dave’s not like that,” she replied and Chuck laughed.
“Really? You think he’s so innocent, that he does his own thing? There’s two kinds of them, that’s all. The ones who spit in our faces, and the ones who spit behind our back.. Is that what you want to be with? Because you walk out that door to go to him, and you’re spitting behind our back, same as them.”
“Well, Chuck,” she replied as she put her hand on the door and opened it. “Until you learn to see the world as not always against you, I guess that’s what I’m going to have to do.”
And she slammed the door behind her. Chuck kicked it so hard the frame shuddered.
“Hey!” Richard replied, grunting angrily. “What the hell?”
“Did you hear what she said? Christ, after all I’ve done for her! The little…”
“Don’t go saying things that you’ll regret,” Richard replied, his calm tone always present. “That’s the way it is, sometimes.”
“I should have known she was one of them all along,” Chuck replied, reaching for his own jacket. “Nose in the air upper classers who prefer something better every moment of their lives. After all I’ve done for her,” he repeated, shaking his head. Richard could have pried, but he didn’t. He chose to stay silent, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall as he watched Chuck pull on his shoes. Finally, when his friend was just about out the door, he spoke.
“I get the feeling there’s something you ain’t telling me.”
Chuck glared at him.
“Leave it.”
Richard held up his hands.
“I can leave it tonight, that’s fine. But one of these days, it’s got to come out. You can’t see that ever since she got here, you’ve been keeping her in a god-damn cage. Not an ounce of freedom. And take it from somebody who’s trying to raise a house with two teenagers, that’s not that way to go.”
“Because,” Chuck said bitterly. “I left her last time, and look what happened.”
Richard’s brow furrowed.
“What are you talking about?”
For a second, he debated telling all, but then he changed his mind, shaking his head.
“Forget it. I’m out of here.”
“Fine. Keys under the mat, per usual, if you need a place to be.”
“Ah, Richard,” Chuck looked up at the night sky. “If I can find my way back here tonight, I sure as hell partied wrong. See you around.”
“Bye,” Richard said, shutting the door behind him, and turning around. He nearly ran full force into Peter. “What the hell?”
“What’s going on?” The younger boy asked. “I ain’t never seen Chuck and Sas fight.”
“Beats me,” Richard lied, with a shrug. “Don’t worry about it. Don’t you have homework to do?”
“Yeah,” Peter didn’t need much encouraging. “Richard, do you get the feeling that there’s something they ain’t telling us?”
“oh yeah,” Richard replied, and was about to shoo Peter back to the living room when there was a knock on the door. He pulled it open without looking. “What’d you forget?”
But there was no one there.
“What the hell…” he took a step outside. Looking around, his eyes finally landed on the ground, where a white envelope was held by the mat. Confused, he reached down to pick it up, slitting it open. Inside, was a single piece of paper, blank, except for a few typed words and a dark square. Bringing it into the hall light, he saw that it wasn’t a square at all, but a photo. There was Cassie, kneeling on an ice rink, beside the body of a boy, his eyes open and unseeing. There was blood everywhere, staining her white skating costume, and her face was streaked with tears.
Partners until the end read the message. The next bullet is for you.
Richard immediately crumpled the note and stormed to the kitchen, dialling Chuck’s phone. It went to voicemail, and he tried again. Finding no more luck the second Time, he left a message.
“Chuck, call me back, now,” he said, and slammed the phone down. Chuck was famous for not answering his phone, but tonight of all nights, it would have been a nice miracle.
He tried Cassie’s phone, but it was off, which made him worry. She was angry, and she was out with Dave, he knew that much. He just hoped that the upper classer was enough of a man to keep her safe.
Luckily, for him, Peter had wandered back into the living room, and the other two hadn’t even noticed the rest of the disturbance. Richard’s blood was boiling as he watched them. The fights, the secrecy, the whispers, it was one thing. But now, it was personal. He had a household to protect, and all it would take was one more bad fight before his brothers were taken away from him. He had worked himself to the bone to keep them here, in the home his parents had raised them in, and he would be damned if this was the end.
Chuck was his best friend, and Chuck loved Cassie, concerned himself as much with her as Richard did with his brothers. But if any of this was going to continue, he was owed an explanation, and fast. It may not have been his business before, but it was his business now that it was literally on his front door step.
He tried Chuck’s cell phone a second Time, but got the same result. Carefully, so the boys wouldn’t find it, he slid the note under the stack of letters on the counter, and went to lock the front door, closing the shades. Whoever had left it had meant it for Cassie, clearly thinking she was still here. And the next Time she walked through that door,
he needed to know why someone was so concerned with a has been skater, so concerned that they would take her life in his own home.
Chapter 6
Chuck knew he was drunk, past drunk, really, but he didn’t care. He didn’t have anywhere to be, his parents would probably be in their own stage of a drunken stupor at home, which would lead to fights. He was mad at Cassie, and she could find her own way, to everything, as far as he was concerned. Right now, the best option was to drink until he passed out, until the blackness overcame him. Which was why he accepted the umpteenth shot put in his hand willingly, downing it as if it were water. If he could get there before the sun came up, it would be a perfect world.
What he didn’t expect was to catch a flash of redhead out of the corner of his eye. Half choking on the fiery tequila, he spilt the other half down his shirt.
“Chuck, you lightweight,” Kevin laughed at him. “Next you’ll be sipping wine and knitting mittens.”
“Shut it, Kevin,” Chuck handed him back the shot glass, pushing people aside to make his way through the crowd.
Cassie had enjoyed the movie and even managed to forget how many calories were in the handful of popcorn she had nibbled on, taken just to bump into Dave’s hand. Frankenstein, as always, was her favorite. But when the credits rolled, Dave had turned to her, checking his phone.
“Do you want to go to a party with some of my friends?” he asked, kindly. “I mean, we can totally stay here, but if you want to do something else…”
“Sure,” she had replied, not thinking for a moment where it could be. “Yeah, whatever you want, that’d be great.”
And so he had kissed on the cheek, making her blush, and started the engine, heading down the street and around the corner.
Cassie could hear the music from several blocks away, the low pump of the bass and the screams of laughter. She was wondering why the neighbors didn’t complain, when they pulled up, and then she got her answer. The neighbors didn’t complain because they were all clearly at the party as well. The house was huge, and there were so many people there she couldn’t even see the door. It seemed as if the whole town, and two neighboring towns over were in attendance. And to her surprise, they weren’t all upper classers.
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