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“Hey,” I say. “That’s mine.”
“Do you know who it’s from?” she asks, unfolding the paper.
Sure. There’s only one person it could be from. Zacharov. But I’d rather she didn’t know that.
I make a grab for the letter, but she laughs and holds it out of reach.
“Come on,” I say, but she’s already reading.
“Iiiiinteresting,” Daneca says, her gaze rising to meet mine. She holds out the note:
A taste of your future.
—Z
I snatch it out of her hand and crumple it. “Let’s take a drive,” I say, holding the key up in front of her. “We’re already cutting class—at least we can have some fun.”
Daneca slides into the passenger seat without protest, shocking me. She waits until I’ve buckled myself in before she asks, “So, what’s that note about?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Just that Zacharov wants me to join his merry band of thieves.”
“Are you going to keep this?” she asks, brushing gloved fingers over the dashboard. “It’s a pretty expensive bribe.”
The car is beautiful. Its engine hums and the gas pedal responds to even the lightest touch.
“If you keep it,” Daneca says, “he’ll have his claws in you.”
Everyone has their claws in me. Everyone.
I pull out onto the street and head for the highway. We ride in silence for a few moments.
“Before—when we were heading to class—you asked me if I ever worked anyone.” Daneca looks out the window.
“Please know that I am seriously the last person in the world to judge you.”
She laughs. “Where are we going anyway?”
“I thought we’d get coffee and a doughnut. Brain food.”
“I’m more of an herbal tea girl,” Daneca says.
“I’m shocked,” I say, taking one hand off the wheel and placing it over my heart. “But you were about to tell me all your secrets. Please, continue.”
She rolls her eyes, leans forward, and fiddles with the radio. The speakers are just as fantastic as the rest of the car. No hiss. No distortion. Just full, clear sound. “There’s not much to tell,” she says, adjusting the volume down. “There was this guy I liked when I was twelve, right before I came to Wallingford. His name was Justin. We were both at this arts-focused middle school and he was a kid actor. He’d done some commercials and everything. I was just on the edge of his friends circle, you know.”
I nod. I survive at the edge of friends circles.
“And I followed him around like a puppy dog. Every time he talked to me, I felt like my heart was in my throat. I wrote a haiku about him.”
I look over at her, eyebrows raised. “Seriously? A haiku?”
“Oh, yeah—want to hear it? ‘Golden blond hair and eyes like blue laser beams. Why won’t you notice me?’?”
I laugh, snorting. She laughs too.
“I can’t believe you remember that,” I say.
“Well, I remember it because he read it. The teacher hung up all of our haikus without telling us she was going to, and a girl in class told him about mine. It was horrible. Humiliating. All his friends would tease me about it and he would just look at me with this smug smirk. Ugh.”
