Narc

by Crissa-Jean Chappell

  Morgan didn’t say anything.

  “The picture, remember?” I said. “The one where it looks like we’re messing around.”

  “Of course. I know who took it.”

  I sat up straight. “Who?”

  “Skully stole your phone. She confessed to me. I’m over it.”

  “Why the hell did she take that picture?”

  “She was crushing on you. God. You’re so stupid.”

  “Isn’t she gay or whatever? How was I supposed to know?”

  “I thought you were different from the other guys. I must’ve been insane.”

  “Morgan,” I said, reaching for her. “You have to talk to me. This is really important, okay? What’s the deal with the Everglades party?”

  “I don’t know who sent that message. I could totally see Finch hacking into your account because he’s real good at computers and stuff.”

  “He doesn’t even go to our school. Why is he suspicious of me?”

  “Because he figured it out.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “You brought too much attention to yourself.”

  In my entire life, nobody had ever told me this.

  “Like at Skully’s party,” she said. “You weren’t into our scene, he never saw you at the house before. Then you start asking him for drugs. And you’re, like, trying to buy a lot. Of course he’s going to be suspicious.”

  My head was spinning. As the pieces of our conversation echoed in triple speed, my brain latched onto something worse:

  “Do you think that Finch created this Everglades thing …

  to set me up?”

  She pulled the sheet closer, although the room was warm, all of a sudden. Too warm. “If he knows what you’re doing, then yes. He’ll try to get rid of you.”

  “What do you think he’ll do? How bad is it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But Finch never would’ve treated me like this.”

  “Right. What makes you think he’s such a good guy?”

  She glared. “We used to go out.”

  “Unbelievable,” I said. Finch, with the snarly hair and gross mustache. “God. Who else have you slept with?”

  Morgan slipped out of the bed. She shrugged into her prairie dress, leaving the buttons undone, and bolted down the spiral staircase. I raced after her, half-tripping because I couldn’t see shit. I pounded down the steps, around and around, calling her name.

  There was nothing I could say, except, “I’m sorry,” but she wouldn’t listen.

  When I reached the last step, I looked out through the sliding glass door at the pool, and even without my glasses, I could see that a tree had fallen into it: either torched by lightning or toppled by the wind. A thicket of leaves clogged the deep end. I should’ve gone out there and pushed the tree back into place, but I knew it wouldn’t budge.

  I just wasn’t strong enough.

  Status: UNSENT

  To: LadyM

  From: Metroid

  Subject: (No Subject)

  Dear Morgan,

  I’m sorry.

  I tried calling you a million times, but you won’t pick up. Just let me explain. If you ever talk to me again, it will all make sense. I swear. Please don’t shut me out. The Internet is dead. I even walked to the Starbucks on Old Cutler (in a lame attempt to borrow their Wi-Fi, but when I didn’t buy anything, they kicked me out).

  Now I’m at Skully’s house. She keeps asking me about you. I think she knows I fucked up, but I guess you didn’t tell her that the party’s a setup. And don’t worry. I won’t tell her anything about last night. I’m good at keeping my mouth shut. You could say I’m an expert at it. Besides. I’m not one of those guys who runs around bragging about their “conquests” or whatever. As I’ve already told you, my lack of experience is a joke. Who am I kidding? My whole life is a joke.

  If you were here, you would look into my eyes and know I’m telling the truth. The cops straight up played me. I swear to God. Do you really think I wanted to go through with this? It’s supposed to be my senior year. I didn’t need this shit dumped on me. I only did it because they threatened my little sister. I can’t let anything happen to her. My mom is basically AWOL, and I’m the only one around.

  I had to make a choice.

  Please don’t think I’m laying excuses on you. I mean, it doesn’t justify what I did. It fucking sucks, but that’s the way it is. You deserve soooo much better. I want you back in my life. I need to believe that’s possible.

  So I’m sitting on the bed at Skully’s. Holding back tears. Listening to my iPod. Every song reminds me of you. I miss the forest-smell of your hair. I miss holding you in my arms. I remember that night on the roof. Your Wintergreen kiss. The first party, when you put a rubber band on my wrist. The field at school. You: sitting on the bleachers like an Egyptian queen. God, I wish I could go back in time.

  I miss your everything.

  —A.

  Part Three

  23 : All Hallows

  The cars arrived at Skully’s an hour before sundown. I heard their doors slam before I looked through the kitchen window. About a half-dozen seniors from Palm Hammock were flicking cigarettes into the ferns. All of them wore costumes, from plastic masks to full-blown gorilla suits.

  “Who the hell are those fools?” I asked Skully.

  She dipped in front of me and lowered the blinds. The room grew darker. “Morgan’s customers,” she said.

  “So tell them she’s not here. Shit. Do you realize that if you get caught, you’re in huge trouble? What if someone rats you out, that there are drug deals going on here? The cops would drag your ass to jail. Your parents could lose their house.”

  “Chill. Nothing’s going to happen. They’re looking for a party. Just ignore them and they’ll take off.”

  I was still thinking about Morgan, wondering exactly what she said, and what was going to happen to us. By now, she had probably told everybody. It doesn’t take long for stuff to get around, especially if you’ve got a cell phone or an Internet connection. Then again, if she had blown my cover, why were all these people showing up at the house, getting ready to head out for the Glades party?

  I thought about the big bust the entire freaking narcotics unit was planning for the Everglades party. What if Morgan told Finch not to show? My sister … God. What if he came after her? I couldn’t let that happen.

  There was no way I could talk everyone out of this Everglades party. But maybe, just maybe I could steer the cops away from the girls. It was Finch they wanted, anyway. And if we didn’t catch the shot caller, we were all in danger. I racked my brain trying to find an answer.

  It was like those cartoons where there’s an angel sitting on your right shoulder and a devil on your left. Stay or go? Bail out or stick around? I couldn’t decide what to do. I looked at Skully and her little brother. They had no clue what was in store for them. I’d made a promise to keep them safe and though I was nobody’s definition of a hero, I was man enough to admit one thing:

  I couldn’t let my friends get hurt.

  The sky had turned molten. No more rain. I thought of a rhyme Dad used to say: Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.

  More people had parked on the neighbor’s freshly mowed lawn. They wore Dracula capes and bandit masks. Cowboy hats. Fairy wings. One guy showed up in a bed sheet, stirring the crowd to chant, “Toga, toga!”

  They read about the party in text message. An e-mail. A bulletin online. It seemed like the entire school was parked on Skully’s lawn. I didn’t recognize half the faces, but they kept looking at me. I waved. A few waved back. Most just stared.

  “I have to put on my costume,” Skully said.

  Then a pickup truck rolled into the driveway,
the gravel snap, crackle, popping, just like Morgan said at my first party, which felt like centuries ago. The truck had blimp-sized tires fit to wade through mud, and it was dragging a boat behind it. Even with my outdated-prescription glasses, I recognized it right off the bat. The airboat belonged to Finch, the guy in the driver’s seat.

  He beeped the horn. “How’s it going?”

  I nodded back at him.

  “You know Brent, right?” he said, jerking his thumb at another truck. The window rolled down and Brent’s face appeared, his expression unreadable.

  “Yeah. I know him,” I said.

  “You guys are supposed to be wearing costumes,” Skully said, reappearing. She was decked out in combat boots, a skin-tight dress, and a pair of strap-on angel wings.

  “So where’s your disguise?” Finch asked.

  Skully flipped him off. “Go to hell.”

  “Sure thing,” he said, turning the truck around. For a second, I thought he’d shoved a hat on the back of his head. No. A papier-mâché devil’s mask: the kind you buy off a rack at Party City. Brent had the same thing.

  “What cheap-ass costumes,” Sebastian called out, coming up behind us.

  “Better than those pajamas you’re wearing,” Finch said.

  “I’m a ninja.” Sebastian pulled a hood over his head. “See?”

  “Looks more like the Grim Reaper.” Finch tossed a cigarette out the window. “And who are you supposed to be?” he asked me. “Clark Kent?”

  “My costume is invisible.”

  “Okay, boys,” Skully said. “Enough yakking. We’ve got to jet before it gets dark. What happened to Morgan?”

  “She’s at her place, getting ready,” Brent said. “You know how that goes.”

  He gave me this weird look, like he was eavesdropping on my mind. Finch gunned the truck, spraying gravel all over the lawn. Soon we were following him in the Skully-mobile. Sebastian rode shotgun. I huddled in the backseat, checking e-mail on my cell every two seconds.

  SUBJECT: AARON

  Somebody had forwarded a message to me. At first, I thought it was one of those chain letters, the type that tell you to send this to ten people and you’ll have good luck for the rest of the day. Or whatever. As I scrolled down, I realized it was one of those cut and paste deals, where everyone keeps adding comments to the list. And it was about me.

  “I had Aaron in my math class. I always thought he was a little weird,” wrote a girl named emily1995. I didn’t know anyone named Emily. How could she call me “weird” when we never talked?

  I kept reading.

  “Honestly, I have mixed feelings about him,” said another girl (if it was, in fact, a girl) named Special K.

  How could they judge me? Just look at their idiotic screen names. Nobody goes around calling themselves Special K.

  I scrolled down more. The entire e-mail sounded like a chatroom. “There’s no way he’s a narc. He hangs with chicks all the time. That’s so gay,” wrote a guy who called himself Hercules.

  My hands were shaking. I couldn’t hit the “off” button. By accident, I clicked on one of my bookmarked links. On the Facebook page, I saw a dozen crappy cell phone pictures posted on “my” wall. Me: driving to school. Eating a corndog in the lunchroom. Running laps in gym class. Smoking a clove with Skully. Carrying Morgan up the stairs, piggyback-style.

  “He’s kind of hot, actually,” wrote someone I actually knew. Danica Stone. I clicked over to her Facebook profile and scrolled down.

  “Couple of random things … might go 2 that Glades party, but who knows what ur mom will say.”

  She’d probably say, “Learn to spell.”

  I clicked through her photos. My only defender was a girl who listed Artie Abrams from Glee as her hero and who couldn’t tell the difference between the letter O and the number zero.

  In the front seat, Skully kept talking about my levitation trick. How cool it was when I pulled “badass magic” on Brent. How she’s totally going to learn street magic like that middle-aged Goth guy on TV.

  “Double A, will you teach me some street magic?” Skully asked.

  “Not while you’re driving.”

  Sebastian handed me a quarter. “Can you show me how to pull this out of somebody’s ear?”

  I bounced the coin across my knuckles. “Later.”

  “So how did you learn magic?” he asked. “By watching videos on YouTube or something?”

  “No, I read those square things called books.”

  Skully turned on the radio. “What’s with you, Double A? Are you pissed off because of all the drama with Morgan? She’ll be there later.”

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted Morgan to show up at the party or not. I glanced down at my phone. Another e-mail popped up. When I clicked on it, I almost choked.

  “Faker,” it said. “I hope you die.”

  I hit delete.

  “Double A?” Skully said. “Hello?”

  “I just need to close my eyes, okay?” I tugged the hood of my sweatshirt around my head like a monk.

  “Okey doke,” she muttered.

  I’d hurt her feelings. Soon I was going to hurt everybody, even the people who never talked to me, the ones who drifted through the halls and stared without saying hello. They’d look at me and whisper. They didn’t have the guts to speak to my face, to be real for once, to come clean.

  I had to go through with this. There was no turning back. No choice left to make. I couldn’t just let the girls walk into a trap, but I wasn’t sure I could tell Skully and Sebastian the truth either. Not if it meant even the slightest chance of Finch discovering me. I was still hoping for a chance to catch him without getting the girls sucked into the mess. I’d have to stay close and get them out before it was too late.

  Nobody was going to save them.

  It was all up to me.

  24 : No Fences

  Skully drove with the windows rolled down. We headed west on 8th Street, otherwise known as the Tamiami Trail, a name I recognized from the message online. A sign read U-Pick Tomatoes on a plot of land filled with nothing but dirt. Plastic chairs sat beside a canal where nobody fished.

  “Feels like the end of the world,” I said.

  My brain was going crazy. I couldn’t stop thinking about Morgan and what we did last night. It felt like a scene from TV instead of something that actually happened. I wanted to hold her again. Cover her with my hands, the only part of me that seemed real. But even my hands were liars.

  Sebastian kept bugging me to show him a coin trick. “Teach it to me. Please? Or else, give me back my quarter.” He stuck his head through the window. “Check it. That tree looks like a Chia Pet. It’s like a stuffed animal. Except that leaves grow out of it. Is it just me, or do you smell fire?”

  “It’s just you,” his sister said.

  I tried to tune them out, but Skully cranked up the radio. She and Sebastian sang along, snapping their fingers.

  “Hey, Double A,” Skully said. “Can you snap your fingers in a Z?”

  I smiled, but she could tell something was off.

  “You’re megaquiet today,” she said. “Not yourself at all.”

  “How would you know?” I mumbled. “We’ve only been hanging out for a couple months.”

  “That’s all it takes.”

  If only that were true.

  “I’m so glad I got to know you this year,” she said.

  That’s when I couldn’t take it anymore. Morgan already knew, so what difference would it make? My head was going to explode. The words got stuck in my throat. Then I told them what I’d wanted to say the whole time:

  The truth.

  “Listen,” I said. “This is going to sound weird, but we need to watch our backs tonight.”

  “What
?” She turned down the radio.

  “The cops are out for Finch. They’ve been trying to find the guy who’s supplying to the school. Get it? This party is an undercover bust.”

  Skully scraped out a laugh. “Right. A police sting in the Everglades. How do you know all this?”

  “Because I’ve been helping them.”

  She stopped laughing. Her face toggled between emotions: confusion, fear, and then a flicker of doubt. “Are you punking me? That’s not funny. You better not be making this up.”

  “I swear. I’ve never been more real in my life.” I blinked and wiped my eyes. This was worse than I imagined.

  The car swerved as Skully pulled off the road. She didn’t say a word. There was only the sound of her keys, clacking back and forth.

  “I thought it was a joke,” she finally said. “All those people talking shit about you. I mean, yeah, I know what that’s like. Now you’re saying it’s true?”

  “Please hear me out. I only did this because I got dragged into it. They were going to arrest my little sister. And now the cops are saying if this plan falls through, Finch and his boys will be looking for revenge. They’ll come after Haylie next. You don’t understand. I would do anything to keep her safe. Anything … ”

  Skully stared. “I believe you,” she said softly.

  “You do?”

  She glanced at her brother. “Yeah. I do.”

  “What’s going to happen now?” Sebastian asked. He looked so scared, I couldn’t help reaching across the seat and snatching his hand.

  “They’re going to throw us in jail. That’s what,” Skully said. “You’re telling me it’s only about Finch, but the cops don’t care. They’ll arrest everybody.”

  “Then we should turn around. Now,” Sebastian said.

  “So you’re just going to bail?” I asked. “Sorry. I can’t do that.”

  “You’re either really brave or really crazy,” he said.