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She finally meets my gaze. “Sure.”
I go to try to turn my desk, but Addison moves hers instead. People with two fully functioning legs can do such things faster. She slides her book for me to share with her, then places her hand over the page to stop me from reading. “This doesn’t mean I like the Terror. I’m really pissed at them. If they weren’t around, maybe Breanna would still be here.”
Yeah—“I get it. I’m pretty mad at them, too. I have been for a while.”
A few beats of her digesting my answer and then she asks, “Where are you sitting at lunch today?”
I used to sit at a table that contained Jana. I sat as far from her as possible, but we still shared the large round plastic space. “Not sure.”
“Want to sit with me?”
Definitely. “Okay.”
The ends of Addison’s lips lift, she removes her hand from the book and reads the first question aloud.
CHEVY
COACH TEACHES FRESHMAN GEOGRAPHY. Multiple world maps cover the walls in his room and little else. Most teachers try to make places welcoming by adding posters of baby animals or maybe posting some sort of inspirational saying on the bulletin board. He’s got none of that. World maps put up with gray tape. That’s his best.
It’s his planning period and I’m supposed to be an aide in wood shop—keeping the freshmen from cutting their fingers off. Parents get pissed when that happens.
I knock on Coach’s door and he pops his head up from the pile of papers on his desk. “Tell me before I lose my mind. I taught you what the capital of the US is, right?”
Already knew it before I took his class. “Washington, DC.”
“Thank God. These kids are morons.”
Considering how many of them I’ve had to stop this year from losing digits, I have to agree. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yeah.” He leans back in his seat, causing it to roll. “Take a seat.”
The chair in front of his desk is too small for me, like it belongs in an elementary school, but when Coach tells you to sit, you sit. He’s a great guy. As big as a tank. Played football in college, then a year in the pros until he busted his knee. Gentle black man when he chooses, but on the field the man morphs into a rabid wolf, tearing hunks out of us until we break.
He’s made teammates of mine cry. He’s run me so hard I’ve vomited on the sidelines. He demands respect, we give it and bust our asses to receive it in return.
“I heard about what happened to you,” he says. “Want you to know that my church and I were pulling for you. We had a special prayer session for you the morning you were gone. The entire team came. I even heard that some of the guys had grouped together and went searching for you and Violet in case you had been dropped off on the side of the road. You had a lot of people thinking of you.”
Didn’t know any of this. Something deep and unknown inside me shifts. People said prayers for me and Violet. It’s weird and welcomed. “Thank you.”
“You doing okay? I heard you were roughed up.”
I shrug. “About the same as playing Riverside.”
Coach grins, but it’s short-lived. “Listen, I’m going to give it to you straight. There are some in the school’s administration who have never been happy I’ve had you on this team.”
My skin begins to feel stretched and there’s not much I can do as I balance sitting in this tiny chair.
“Some people argue the Terror are a gang and you know the school board doesn’t allow anything gang-related within the school.”
Son of a bitch.
“This is why I ride your back to make sure it appears like your loyalties are with the team and not the Terror. I take a lot of heat for sticking my neck out for you, but after this kidnapping...parents are scared.”
“I wasn’t kidnapped by the Terror.” I cross my arms over my chest and dare him to push me on it.
“I know. But you were taken by a rival motorcycle club. Maybe if this was fifteen years ago, things would be different, but now with terrorist attacks, school shootings and workplace shootings... Hell, insane assholes are shooting up movie theatres. People get scared. The members of this community know you’re the son of a Terror member.”
“A man who died before my birth.” A man who might have been loyal to the people who took me.
