Page 126

“Did the same wall do this?”

Chief didn’t answer.

Sadie looked from one of them to the other.

“Your parents should really have the house inspected,” she said.

Clayton started laughing, then winced.

I turned on him immediately. “Stop doing that.”

“I’m trying,” he assured me. “She keeps making it difficult.”

Chief’s eyes stayed on my face.

He wore a washed-out navy shirt and dark jeans, his hair pushed back carelessly. Against the tan of his skin, the bruise looked darker every time I glanced at it.

I took my hand away because I wanted to keep it there.

“Where are the others?” I asked.

“Riot took them in early,” Clayton said.

Something about that answer made me look at him again.

He sipped from his mug.

Chief put my bag in the back seat, then waited beside the open door.

I got in with Sadie.

Neither of them offered another explanation on the way to school.

I didn’t ask for one.

I was saving my breath for when they might consider telling the truth.

Two boys in soccer shirts were outside the athletic entrance when we arrived.

The first had dark hair cropped close at the sides and a strip of tape over the bridge of his nose. Both eyes looked puffy. His friend had a swollen cheek and a cut that pulled one corner of his mouth out of shape.

They stopped talking when Chief got out.

The one with the taped nose moved away from the door before anybody asked him to.

I looked at Clayton.

He had become very interested in locking the car.

Of course.

Whatever had happened, it had happened off school grounds, and apparently everyone involved had agreed not to talk about it.

The rumor from Monday came back. Ruckus asking where it had come from. Rook reading the screenshot without smiling.

The second list.

My imaginary accomplishments with four brothers and my failure with the fifth.