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Jem was silent for a beat. “He’s like a dog, you know? Wants to pee on everything. Don’t you get that vibe?”
Rod’s voice rose over the sounds of the party, and a chorus of laughs answered him.
“He’s certainly determined to be a part of IHCPA,” Tean said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to get elected president.”
“Want to see what he’s got in there?” Jem asked, cocking his head at the welcome center. When Tean didn’t answer right away, Jem added, “Around this side. Away from the party.”
Tean gave a nod, and they started around the building, heading away from the sound of voices, the clink of glasses, the twang of some old Johnny Cash song picking up. He was trying to place the song—his mom loved Johnny Cash—when everything happened fast.
As they came around the side of the building, movement made Tean bring his head up, and he had just long enough to see two men hurrying around the corner toward them. Their paths carried them on a collision course with Jem and Tean, and in that slice of a moment before they crashed into each other, Tean recognized them as two of the men from Yesenia’s hotel room: the one with the dark, deadly eyes; and the younger, good-looking one.
Then they collided. One of the men shouted, and Jem let out a furious noise, and Tean hit the ground hard. His glasses flew off. Blind, he rolled away from the sound of struggle, hands brushing the grass as he searched for his glasses.
Then a foot came down between his shoulder blades, and the muzzle of a gun jabbed him behind the ear.
9
Jem held his hands in the air. The paracord dangled from one; the antenna drooped in the other. He tried not to do anything, tried not to breathe, even. Because the man with the thousand-yard stare had a big revolver pressed to the back of Tean’s head.
“I’ll do it,” the man said.
On the other side of the welcome center, a woman squealed—the sound outraged and titillated at the same time. A fresh chorus of laughter. The Johnny Cash song cut off, and Kacey Musgraves came on.
“Drop them.”
Jem dropped the paracord and the antenna. They made soft sounds as they landed in the calf-high grass.
The one with the gun nodded to the other man—brothers, Jem thought; Emery had called them brothers, and Jem could see it now—who was holding a hand to his bloody nose. His ear was scabbed up and still looked a little puffy where Jem had gotten him with the clock radio the day before, but there was no satisfaction in seeing injuries, new or old; Jem’s one responsibility was to keep Tean safe, and now there was a gun to his head.
“Up,” the man with the gun said. He held the gun awkwardly in his left hand, Jem saw now, and his right hand was wrapped in a crude—and filthy—cloth bandage. “And don’t try anything funny.” Then he eased his boot up from Tean’s back.
“I need my glasses,” Tean said. His voice was even, but a static charge of nerves ran through the words. “I won’t be able to walk.”
“Give me a break.”
“He needs his glasses,” Jem said.
“Open your mouth again,” the one with the thousand-yard stare said to Jem, and he adjusted his bandaged hand without seeming to realize it, “and I’ll shoot him in the knee.”
“Please,” Tean said. He was a mess: dust and grass stains had ruined the cream-colored silk of the sweater polo, and his hair, like a fugitive, had seen its opportunity and taken it—somehow it now stood up all over the place, back to its normal crazy bushiness, as though Jem hadn’t ever touched it. “I’m going to slow you down without my glasses.”
“My dose,” the pretty one said, which Jem figured was probably supposed to benose. And then, words growing shrill, “He broke my dose!”
“Find his glasses,” the one with the gun said.
“I’m bleeding!”
“You got shit for brains? Find his goddamn glasses so we can get the hell out of here.”
The pretty one had big, wounded eyes, and he tried to search for the glasses by crouching, keeping one hand on his nose, and tilting his head back—which meant he was looking at the sky instead of at the ground, and patting the area around him helplessly. After half a minute of that, the one with the gun growled, “God damn it, Colin,” and kicked Tean in the ribs.
Jem growled, but he managed to stay still. For now.
Tean only grunted and scrambled sideways, and the one with the gun—Quinn, Jem thought; Emery had said Quinn and Colin, so if the pretty one was Colin, then the one who had kicked Tean, the one Jem had to kill, must be Quinn—grabbed Tean’s glasses from a clump of grass and thrust them at him. A moment later, Tean had them settled on his face, and he blinked and looked around until he saw Jem. When their eyes met, Jem gave him a tight nod. It will be ok, he thought, trying to send the words. I will make sure you’re ok.
The doc understood, of course; Tean’s dark eyes softened, and he even offered a new moon of a smile.
“Up,” Quinn said again, kneeing Tean in the back.
