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Charlotte’s voice brings me back to earth, causing my head to snap over to the door, which is only open by a sliver.
I hastily cram every single paper back into the file and shove it in the bottom drawer of Luke’s desk. I push it down deep, deeper than anything else in there, willing it to go away, to pretend I never found it, to push it out of existence.
Slamming the drawer closed, I straighten but the room spins. I remind myself to breathe.
In and out. In and out.
When I’m convinced I appear normal, I leave the room and go to where Charlotte and Annalisa are standing. They’re holding a crumbled receipt, carefully smoothing it out.
“It was in his jacket pocket,” Charlotte explains, pointing to a part of a receipt. “And it has the same day on it, with a time stamp of 5:16 p.m.”
“Howard’s Convenience. Where’s that?” I ask, praying my voice doesn’t sound as shaky as I feel.
“There’s an address on the top—”
A high-pitched, shattering noise cuts Annalisa off, and we instinctively shriek and duck for cover as glass rains over us. A heavy object flies through the air with a flash of red.
Suddenly I’m somewhere else. The edges of my vision blur. I don’t dare breathe. A white room. A doll with a knife shoved through it on the bed. Tiny pieces of glass slicing my arm. A brick with a death threat. Tony.
“You fucking coward!” Annalisa’s yelling; she’s standing at the now-broken window.
Get away from the window, Annalisa!The words are stuck in my throat.
I move into action, my limbs weak, practically falling over myself to crawl over to Annalisa, to get her away from Tony.
He’ll kill us!
“Anna!” My throat is dry. It doesn’t even sound like I’m talking.
This is it; it will be my fault my friends died. And they won’t even know why.
“That man is psychotic!” she rambles, staring into the parking lot. She doesn’t even know she’s in real danger.
My body finally catches up to my brain, and I stand up, running over to Annalisa and Charlotte at the window.
I’m about to tackle them, to tell them to get down, when Annalisa exclaims, “I fucking hate Ryan!”
I stop midtackle.
Ryan?
There it is. A very distinct red Mustang, speeding out of the parking lot.
Annalisa’s sitting on the couch, turning the note over in her hands, trying not to tear it apart. It was attached to the brick Ryan threw through Luke’s window, like a page right out of Tony’s playbook.
Still a bit shaky, and not really knowing what to do, we did the most logical thing. We called Aiden. Just hearing his deep and reassuring voice made me feel better, but more than that, Aiden always looks after us. He’s the one to go to when you need help. He asks us if we’re okay, then snaps into fix-it mode, asking questions about the mess and the window and promising to be here soon.
Annalisa leaves a message for the building manager about the broken window since he isn’t working today, and Charlotte and I carefully clean up the shattered glass. The January air that seeps in from the broken window makes the room so much colder than it already was, and I zip up my leather jacket to keep the chill out. Not long after we’ve gotten the glass cleaned up and have settled down on the couch, there’s a knock on the door, and Aiden and Julian are here, hugging us, checking us for injuries.
“We’re fine.” Annalisa pulls out of Julian’s embrace, then shoves the note in his face.
“This was attached to the brick he threw through the window. What is wrong with him? Why does he have nothing better to do than harass us?” She glares at the brick now sitting harmlessly on the counter, as if trying to make it explode with her mind.
“‘Rot in hell with your white trash, murdering brother,’” Julian reads, before passing the note to Aiden. “What is with him and his fascination with saying white trash? Clearly some of his own insecurities are manifesting here.”
Annalisa rips the note from Aiden’s hands, crumpling it up for the hundredth time and throwing it on the floor. “I don’t care! How are we killing him? I vote slowly.”
There’s another knock at the door, and we open it for Chase and Noah. Chase looks worriedly between us before his gaze finally lands on Charlotte. “Hey, are you guys all right?”
Charlotte looks away and fidgets with the hem of her sleeve.
“We’re fine,” I tell him. “Where’s Mason?”
“He’s coming. He stopped to pick up some food for everyone,” Noah says, taking in Luke’s apartment for the first time.
“We have some plywood in the back of my truck.” Julian analyzes the broken window. “It should be the right size. Let’s get this window covered up then figure out the rest.”
Annalisa’s anger is still palpable but simmering down a bit, especially now that Julian, her voice of reason, is here. She hugs Julian before he leaves and as he kisses her forehead sweetly some tension leaves her shoulders.
“You sure you’re okay?” Aiden’s standing right in front of me, concern in his cool eyes and a double meaning in his tone.
He remembers. I know it deep in my gut, know it better than I know my own name. He remembers the story of how Tony threw a brick through my window. He knows this bothered me in more ways than one. He knows what memories this brings up.
I grab his solid hand and give it a reassuring squeeze, my eyes softening as I look at him. “I’m okay.”
He studies me. I don’t think he’s totally convinced but he lets it go anyway, dropping my hand to follow the guys outside.
While they go grab the tools and wood from Julian’s pickup, Annalisa, Charlotte, and I sit still on the couch. It’s a good thing the guys thought to do that. I honestly wasn’t processing anything other than “It’s not Tony. You’re not going to die.”
“I don’t understand how Ryan knew we were here?” Charlotte wonders. “He wasn’t camping out in front of this apartment until he saw someone familiar walk in the building.”
“Maybe he was following us?” I suggest, glancing at the boys as they come back in the apartment, this time with Mason, who drops brown paper bags in front of us.
“You guys okay?” he asks, his eyes lingering a bit too long on me. I bite my lip, memories of the last time we were together at Noah’s party rushing back to me.
“We’re fine. I’m pissed.” Annalisa answers for us, then returns to our conversation as we dig into the fries and chicken nuggets Mason brought. “Was he stalking us?”
Charlotte raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you think he has something better to do with his time than follow us around all day?”
Annalisa scoffs. “Clearly not. He had time to come to Luke’s apartment, figure out which one was his, get a brick, attach a note to it—”
“We get it, we get it.” I cut her off. “But how—?”
“Um, it might be my fault.”
We all look at Chase. He’s got a french fry half raised to his mouth, his face growing red as we stare at him.
“What do you mean? How could it possibly be your fault he’s crazy?” Annalisa asks.
“No, not the crazy part, but the how he knew you were here part.” He finishes the fry and awkwardly dusts off his hands.
Everyone turns their full attention to him. Julian, Noah, and Aiden pause, too, holding the plywood in midair.
Chase takes a breath. “I ran into him at the gym earlier. And you know him, running his mouth, being annoying, and talking about how I hang around with white trash, etcetera, etcetera.”
Julian raises an eyebrow at us at the white trash part, as if to say See? He’s manifesting.
When Chase doesn’t continue, Annalisa prompts him. “And?”
He looks sheepish. “And I may have told him that you girls were here at Luke’s to prove his innocence.”
The room explodes with disbelief and exhausted choruses of “Chase!” and “Why?!” and “Seriously?!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” He defends himself. “Ryan just gets under your skin, you know?”
“And you guys thought I was the one who’s bad at keeping secrets,” Noah mumbles.
“You still are,” Mason replies.
“Nuh—”
Mason cuts off Noah’s denial. “How about the time you told our freshman homeroom class that I asked out Tammy Klied but she told me she’d rather eat dirt than go out with me.”
Whoa. Tammy Klied’s rude.
Noah tilts his head as if thinking. “Okay, that’s fair. But to this day, I’ve never told anyone that you believed in Santa Claus until you were, like, fourteen. I’m taking that to my grave.”
“Noah!” Mason exclaims.
“What? I didn’t . . . ohhhh.” Realization dawns on Noah, and he starts laughing. “Okay, but come on. That’s hilarious.”
Mason mutters some insults and throws a crumpled-up take-out menu at Noah, who’s still laughing.
“Anyway,” Annalisa draws the conversation back. “What are we doing about Ryan?”
“I thought we were done starting wars with Ryan and friends?” I jump in quickly.
We cannot keep escalating things. We cannot give him more fuel to look into us, into me. We cannot let him keep ruining the time I have left with my friends.
Annalisa folds her arms across her chest. “We’re not the ones starting a war! We’re just gonna be the ones finishing it.”
I look helplessly at Aiden, who’s already looking at me, as everyone throws out suggestions.
“Why don’t we finish it by focusing our energy on getting Luke out of jail?” he proposes.
The room quiets down as it sinks in that Aiden’s right.
“Did you guys find anything?” Julian asks, walking around the tool bag to stand next to Annalisa.
We show them the receipt we found from Howard’s Convenience.
“Maybe they have cameras? Maybe he was still there when it happened?” Mason suggests, looking up the location of the store on his phone. “It’s closed now.”
“Okay. Why don’t we worry about fixing this window for now and we can check it out tomorrow after school?” Aiden reasons, nodding at the broken window.
Annalisa still doesn’t look satisfied but reluctantly agrees. There’s nothing we can do until tomorrow.
