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Addison grabs my hand. “Which means half of the stuff they say is true. People around the Terror get shot. People who hang with them end up in bad situations. Mia Ziggler was a real person. She did get on the back of a Terror bike and she did disappear. I don’t want that for you.”
My body sways with her words. “So if I go public with Razor and the entire school calls me a Reign of Terror slut, does that have truth to it? Does that make me a whore?”
My best friend backs away like I smacked her. “No. How could you say that to me?”
Tears burn my eyes. Because that’s what I’ve been facing regardless of my relationship with Razor. Maybe Razor is right. Maybe I can’t cut it as his girlfriend, but the thought of breaking it off hurts my
heart. “I like him and he likes me.”
Addison’s eyes soften and she halfheartedly yanks a strand of my hair. “You aren’t making being your friend easy this year, brat.”
She drops her arm and I catch sight of a huge bruise. I snatch her wrist and draw up her sleeve. Disgust swims through me. “Things with your dad are getting worse, aren’t they?”
Addison jerks back and pushes down her sleeve. “It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not fine. This has to stop!”
Fire rages out of her eyes, reminding me of the Terror patch, as she raises a pointed finger in my direction. “You get to preach to me about my dangerous life if you do something about yours. Until then, I’ll back off you and you’ll back off me.”
It’s like she’s reached in and fractured my soul. “Addison—”
But she’s already gone, disappeared into the crowd of people, and has left me alone. My foot edges in the direction she retreated when fingers wrap around my wrist. A grip, then a yank.
Adrenaline shoots into my veins. It’s Kyle. He’s been doing this more and more. Dragging me into stairwells and hallways. Begging me to tell him what he can give me in return for the papers. Explaining that he feels bad, that he’s having nightmares, that he’s consumed with guilt. That he’s going insane.
In a flash, I’m in the stairwell and I’m greeted by red hair and blue eyes. It’s Violet, a girl I’ve never talked to before, and now we’re close to very alone.
“I need you to meet me after school,” Violet whispers as she leans into me.
Talk about being on an upside-down roller coaster. “What?”
“It’s Razor. He’s been shot and he’s asking for you.”
* * *
It’s after school and I’m in free fall. Two million thoughts in my mind and I can’t hold on to a single one. Violet’s charging through the green forest and I’m on her heels. We parked a quarter mile away and she’s spitting out a laundry list of warnings like...
“You’re supposed to be smart. Everyone says you’re smart. Why would Razor be asking for you? Everyone knows to stay away from him. Everyone! And he goes and says the name of the one girl who should have the brains to stay away.”
Razor was shot. With a gun. Metal entered his body at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour. Razor said he valued life. He said he took owning a gun seriously, but obviously other people don’t share his point of view.
He could be dying and I might not ever see him again and Violet won’t answer questions, at least not directly, and her nonanswers cause bile to continually inch up my throat. “Why isn’t he in a hospital?”
I’m in my sandals and have a hard time keeping pace with Violet’s blistering speed. Because I’m wearing a skirt, the long grass swats at my legs and stings my skin.
“Because they’re fucked-up, that’s why.” Twigs crack under Violet’s feet as she glances over her shoulder at me. “Razor used to be a normal kid. Well, as normal as you get being raised by thugs, but then they messed with him.”
“Who’s they?” I stumble over a root and catch myself on the bark of a towering tree. Leaves of three on a vine. I flick my hand away.
“Who do you think? The club.” She pauses. “He’s screwed up in the head, Razor, I mean—you know that, right?”
A crow caws overhead and there’s a rush of beating wings as an entire flock of birds take flight. We’re surrounded by a green canopy, but the growth is so thick that the forest floor lacks full afternoon light. Despite the heat of the October day, goose bumps form on my arms.
“He’s been good to me,” I say.
The tough expression she wears at school dissolves, and in front of me is a girl I’m not sure many people have met. “You’re probably the only person in the world who would ever admit that.”
“If I’m not allowed at the clubhouse...” Violet explained that females aren’t allowed in there without a member sponsoring them. She also said no one under eighteen is permitted. If I could pass either of those qualifications, it wouldn’t matter because the clubhouse is on lockdown—whatever that means. “And if you hate Razor so much, then why are you doing this?”
