by S. F. Henson
I stretch and throw on some clothes, expecting Traitor to thump on my door any minute. I usually barely make it out of bed before his fist woodpeckers on the other side. Today, though, I get completely dressed—shoes, packed bag, and everything—and no Traitor.
He knows where I was yesterday. He found out about the reporter and the letter and has some terrible punishment waiting.
Nervous, I poke my head into the hall. The house is still and quiet as death. The deer head-shaped clock over the bathroom mirror says it’s seven forty-five. I’m supposed to be at school … now.
I rush through brushing my teeth and am darting down the stairs when the front door bangs open. Skunky hurries in so fast we almost slam into each other.
She pulls back just in time. “Oh. Um, you’re late.”
Thanks, Captain Obvious.
“Well, let’s go,” she says.
My instinct is to take an involuntary step backward, but I hold my ground. “Go? Go where?” What is Traitor going to do to me for violating his gag order?
Skunky rolls her eyes. “School. Get a move on.”
Traitor’s truck is in the yard, so why is she here? “Where’s … my uncle?” I’m not sure what to call him out loud.
“Dell had to fix a leak for Mrs. Roger. His truck wouldn’t start, so I had to pick him up and come back for you since you can’t be trusted to operate a vehicle on your own. This is what I get for knowing jack shit about plumbing.”
So, he doesn’t know? This isn’t some elaborate plan to dump me on the street?
Skunky snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Earth to nazi. Are you ready to go?”
I glare at her. Part of me wishes I’d pushed her over the banister that first day and gotten it over with. I shake the evil thoughts away. “Yeah, except food.”
She glances at her phone and groans. “Hurry up, will ya?”
I dart into the kitchen and grab a Pop-Tart and a loaf of bread to make a sandwich.
“I’ve got places to be, too, you know,” she calls.
“Give me a sec.” I rifle through the stack of junk mail on the counter, looking for a baggie. My hand hits something heavy. I move the papers and there it is: Traitor’s key ring.
“I’ll give you some freaking lunch money. Let’s just go!” Skunky yells.
This could be my only chance. Traitor’s keys are like a third arm. I can’t believe he left them behind, dead truck or not. I swing my backpack around and sweep the keys into the big pocket.
“Okay, okay!” I pick up my Pop-Tart and trot back into the living room. “I’m ready.”
Skunky marches to her truck. I follow, slower, conscious of the key ring with every step, paranoid she’ll hear it jangle and demand to know what I’m doing with it.
We don’t say anything else on the way to school. The air isn’t as hostile as it was last time we were alone, but her body is still taut as a power line, like she’s ready to snap if I say or do the wrong thing.
It’s eight thirty when we pull into the school lot. I scoop my backpack up off the floorboard. There’s a metallic clank as I slip my arm through the strap.
“Hey,” Skunky says.
Panic tightens my chest. What’s my story? I grabbed them by accident? That’ll never fly. I should’ve tossed in some of the junk mail to make it look like I knocked a bunch of shit from the counter into my bag in my rush.
Skunky’s hand plunges into the center console, and for one horrible second I’m certain she’s grabbing a pistol.
But it’s a phone.
A small, black, low-tech thing.
I relax a little.
She holds the phone out to me. “If you’re going to be running off places after school, Dell needs to be able to get in touch with you. Our numbers are already programmed. Leave it on at all times.”
My hand grazes hers as I take it. She flinches slightly, but not as bad as I thought she would.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. I think you need a police tracking bracelet. Just don’t use it during school. Get it taken away and I’ll kill you.”
She’d love that, wouldn’t she? I guess it’s an improvement, though. After our last argument, I’m pretty sure she would’ve killed me for breathing too loud.
“Oh, and here.” She hands me a five-dollar bill. “For lunch.”
I take the money and slip out of the truck, impressed with my ability to have an almost civil conversation with her.
I’m halfway to my locker before I realize I’ve never been late before. Can I just walk into class, or do I need some sort of special permission? I’d rather be even later than get called out in front of the entire class, so I turn around and head for the office.
Mrs. Roger has always been nice—she’ll tell me what to do. I tap on the glass and play with my new phone while I wait. Okay, so “new” is kind of a stretch. Several of the numbers are half worn off, and lines of dirt live in the grooves. It still works, though, and there are even a few games.
I shove it in my pocket before the games tempt me too much. There are a couple teachers who are definite phone collectors.
Mrs. Roger should’ve come by now. I tap again, this time leaning through the window. I’m about to call out when I remember that Traitor’s working on her house this morning, so she’s probably not here.
Not sure who else I can ask. The counselor’s door is partly open. I take two steps and stop. I’ve avoided the counselor since I almost told him the truth about me—thank God I changed my mind. He would’ve been even less understanding than the reporter.
“You don’t have that kind of authority,” a girl growls.
I know that growl. Water Fountain Girl.
“I certainly do, Caitlyn. If you pose a threat to other students, I can have you removed.”
“I’m barely five feet tall. What sort of danger can I possibly pose?”
Her? A danger? I choke back a laugh. She’s got a stare that can freeze water, but she’s right. The only dangerous thing on her is her mouth.
“Several students have complained about your behavior.”
She scoffs. “Who?”
“And your teachers tell me your grades are slipping. You’re unfocused, aggressive. You have to take your ADHD medicine.”
I lean closer to the gap. Water Fountain’s on meds, too?
“You can’t force me to take medicine against my will.”
“No, but your parents can. You’re still a minor.”
Water Fountain laughs. “Go ahead and call, see what good it does. If you can even find them.”
Seen as dangerous, on meds, missing parents. If she weren’t so troll-y, me and Water Fountain might actually get along.
Feet shuffle on the tile and I jump back, but not quick enough. The door swings open the rest of the way.
Water Fountain glares at me. “Were you eavesdropping?”
“What? No.”
She darts into the hall, closing the counselor’s door behind her. “It was you, wasn’t it? Who said I’m aggressive. I thought you were all bad and scary, and you freakin’ tattle?”
My natural instinct is to show her how bad and scary I can be, but I notice the glisten in her eyes. She’s on the verge of tears.
“It wasn’t me,” I say.
She brushes her hair out of her eyes and starts down the hall with a humph.
I don’t want to follow her, but she’s headed the same direction as my first class. “I’m on meds, too.”
Water Fountain pauses. “You’re just saying that.”
“Do I look like the kind of guy who’d invent something to make someone like me?”
She tilts her head and scans me up and down. “You want me to like you?”
“Not what I said.”
She shrugs. “That’s what it sounded like.”
This girl is impossible. “All I’m saying is, it’s not just you. I hate that I have to take meds, but they do work. Something to think about.” I hitch up my backpack
and stalk past her.
“Thanks,” she says, low.
For both our sakes, I pretend like I didn’t hear her and keep walking.
Turns out the teachers here only give tardies for being late, which is just some tick mark beside my name. Way better than the laps we had to run at The Fort. I do get stuck in a front desk, though, so I have to ignore the weight of the keys in my bag and pay attention.
As soon as the bell rings, I beeline for second period and slip into a back-row seat. I keep my head down and quietly sift through Traitor’s keys. Most of them are out right off the bat. Nothing looks small enough to fit the lock on the trunk. By lunch, I’ve narrowed it down to eleven possibilities. I snag some Post-its off my history teacher’s desk on the way out, and mark the remaining keys with the sticky side.
I’ve never bought lunch before, so I’m not sure where to go. I follow the line winding around the edge of the lunchroom, hoping I’m in the right place.
“Nate?”
My head jerks toward the sound. Brandon cuts the line and slides in behind me.
“This is new,” he says.
“Woke up late.”
He nods knowingly. “You’re lucky. It’s chicken sandwich and tot day. Also known as the best day ever.”
I follow the lead of the girl in front of me and grab a bottle of water from the cooler by the wall.
“Some people live for pizza day,” Brandon continues. “But they always overcook it and the cheese gets hard.”
The girl stops at a salad bar full of wilted lettuce and too-yellow cheese. Brandon taps my shoulder and hands me a tray. “Skip the salad, man. The ag kids have first lunch and they don’t all wash their hands after messing with the animals.” He points to the hot bar. “Chicken sandwich gold.”
It doesn’t much look like gold to me until I compare it to the salad bar. I put a sandwich and tots on my tray and start checking for an empty corner table on my way to pay the lunch lady.
“Sit with us today,” Brandon calls.
I stop mid-stride. “Us” is Brandon and his basketball buddies, guys I’ve nodded at in the halls, but never talked to. One of them is the dude who kicked my pencil the second day.
“I don’t—” I begin, then I think of Water Fountain Girl—Caitlyn’s—conversation with the counselor. It couldn’t hurt to start giving people here the benefit of the doubt. “Okay.”
“Sweet.” Brandon heaps more tots on his tray.
I hand my money to the lady and scan the tables for Brandon’s friends. They’re sitting in the middle of the freaking room, farthest away from the exits.
It’s all right. Just lunch. No brawls have broken out yet this year. It’ll be fine.
I hope.
The guys are laughing at something as I approach, but quickly go silent.
“Um, hey,” I say.
“Hey,” Pencil Guy replies.
I stand there awkwardly, not sure where to sit.
“Dude, move over,” Brandon says from behind me. “Make room for Nate.”
Pencil Guy shifts down a seat, leaving me a spot right in the center. It’s like there’s a neon sign pointing at my head commanding everyone to make me feel as awkward as possible.
“Nate,” Brandon says, “tell the guys about that bass you caught the other day.”
I pause with my chicken sandwich halfway to my mouth. “It was pretty big.”
Please don’t make me do this, Brandon. Come on. Can’t you see how uncomfortable I am?
Brandon tosses a tater tot in the air and catches it in his mouth. “Mine was bigger.”
“Yeah, sure,” Pencil Guy says.
Brandon hits him in the forehead with a tot. “Like you’ve got room to talk, Fletch. Yours is smaller than that tater tot.”
“Ooo,” several of the guys say at once.
Pencil Guy throws a tot back at Brandon. “At least I know how to use it, Bodyguard. Yours is gonna fall off before Maddie even realizes you exist.”
Brandon shrugs. “Nah, not with Kara’s boobs to think about.”
They go back and forth like that for the rest of lunch. I have to admit, some of them are kind of funny. I’m a rock, and the rest of them are a river. Until now, I’ve been a big eyesore out in the middle of the water. But the dam broke today and raised the tide so now it flows right over me. I’m not exactly part of their group, but I’m not entirely on my own, either. I think I could live with this.
“Hey,” Pencil Guy says as we’re dropping our trays on the conveyer belt to the kitchen. “We’re playing a pickup game after school. You in?”
Part of me wants to go. I almost say yes; then I remember the key ring covered in stickies. “I can’t today.”
Brandon raises an eyebrow.
“Chores,” I say. “Maybe another time.”
Surprisingly, I actually mean it.
I rush home after school. It seems even more secluded now that I realize how far I’m running. It’s almost four by the time I see the cabin.
Traitor’s truck stops me mid-stride before I remember he left it this morning. That doesn’t mean he’s not here, though. Skunky could’ve already dropped him off. I slam the front door.
No yelling.
I don’t know how long I have, so I run up the stairs two at a time, tearing my backpack open as I go. Miraculously, all the Post-its stayed on the keys.
I burst into Traitor’s room. Every cell of my body is tense, ready for Skunky’s truck to come roaring into the yard, but the only sound is my jackhammering pulse.
The trunk is exactly how it was last time I saw it. I drop to my knees and plug the first key into the lock. It doesn’t go farther than the first tumbler. I tear off the yellow tab and flip to the next. It doesn’t even make it that far. Another key, then another, then another, until I’m down to four.
How long have I been up here? Feels like five minutes, but it could’ve been an hour for all I know. The next key is smaller than the others. This could be it.
I push it in the lock. The first tumbler gives, then the second, then the third.
The key is in! It fits!
With a shaking hand, I twist the key clockwise. It doesn’t move. I try the other way. Nothing. Back and forth, back and forth. Applying more pressure, then less, then lifting as I turn, then pushing down. Doesn’t matter. This isn’t the key.
None of the next three even come close.
I slump against the closet wall. I’ve searched every inch of this house. Every nook, every drawer, every loose floorboard. The key ring was my last hope.
“Where is it?” I kick the trunk. It slides toward the gun safe.
The gun safe! One of these keys has to open it. Could the trunk key be hidden in there? The safe is obviously new, so I find the shiniest key on the ring. With shaking hands, I slide the key in the lock. The tumblers fall into place. The key turns.
I’m quivering like a wet dog as I turn the handle. Three rifles and two shotguns gleam at me. I recoil to the other side of the closet.
I blink and see blood on the snow, bits of gray brain matter stuck to the tree trunks like old Silly Putty.
I’m shivering, wishing I’d brought a jacket.
I stand suddenly and burst into Traitor’s room, breathing heavy, holding my button. “I’m in a house. A house. Not woods. A house.” I mutter it over and over again, holding my button firmly.
These guns aren’t that gun. They aren’t pistols. They aren’t murder weapons.
I have to see if the key is there. I can do that without actually touching the guns. I force myself back in the closet and peer into the safe. No nooks or crannies. No hiding spots. I manage to run my hands along the inside edge in case Traitor taped the key there. No luck.
If I could hold a gun, I could shoot the trunk open. Blast the damn lock to bits.
But there’d be no hiding that. Even though we’re in the middle of the woods, these aren’t Kentucky woods. Town isn’t that far away. Neighbors would hear the gun blast and call Trait
or. He’d see the trunk blown to pieces and confirm his suspicion that I’m nothing but a gun-shooting criminal.
Besides, I could damage whatever is inside.
Not that it matters. Just the thought of picking up a gun again makes me break out in a cold sweat. I swing the safe door closed and lock it tight. It’s no use. The key isn’t anywhere.
I throw the blanket back over the trunk and slide the clothes in front of it. When I’m positive the room is how I found it, I go downstairs and cover the key ring back up with the junk mail on the counter.
What if Traitor threw the key away? Tossed it down the hole out by the woods?
The thought almost sends me back to the gun safe.
Mom is closer than she’s been in years, but still so far out of reach. I can’t give up yet. If the key doesn’t exist, then by God I’ll find a way in that trunk somehow.
654
The social worker brought candy. Like I’m a freaking four-year-old. She looked so pleased with herself as she dumped the bag of miniatures on the coffee table. Ms. Erica would’ve never pulled that shit. Of course, she never needed to, since she actually cared.
The social worker perches on the edge of the chair and looks at me hopefully. I cross my arms. She’s been here ten minutes and hasn’t said a word beyond “hello.” In fact, we haven’t moved beyond that since our screamfest.
That sounds like the name of a NSBM band. I shudder and slump further in my seat. I wish I had that damn stress ball back.
Traitor’s leaning against the kitchen door frame like always. After a while, he throws up his arms. “Oh, for God’s sake, someone say something. This is getting ridiculous.”
The social worker just stares. This must be one of the tactics they’re taught to get clients to open up. Good luck, lady. I want to talk to her about as bad as I want to scratch a swastika into my skin and go back to The Fort. Traitor clears his throat and holds up a piece of paper behind the social worker.
“Talk and she’ll leave.”
He flips it over.
“Longer she’s here, the longer your chore list gets.”
I give him an exaggerated eye roll. Whatever. He has a point. If I say something, this lady will at least get the hell out of here. “So … Snickers.” I nod at the table.