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When Auggie spoke, all he said was “I know.”
“Do you really think it’s connected to Shaniyah?”
Another of those fraught silences. “I don’t know how you want me to answer that.”
“I want you to tell me what you think.”
“I don’t know. I guess I think it’s a lot of coincidences.” And then the words spilled out of Auggie. “I mean, we found that class ring, and then Shaniyah shows up at John-Henry’s office, wanting to ask about a missing boy, and then Shaniyah doesn’t come to school, and nobody knows where she is, and somebody breaks into our house to steal my computer and hard drive.” Auggie stopped, and when he spoke again, it was like he was struggling to put on the brakes. “That’s what I’m thinking.”
Theo tore a piece of crust from the forgotten sandwich. “You’re saying this has something to do with the Cottonmouth Club?”
“I don’t know if it does.”
Theo let out a noise.
“All right,” Auggie said. “I think it might.”
“DeVoy is dead.” To Theo, the man was only a name—someone Jem had gotten caught up with, someone who had led them to the snarled knot of violence the week before. “He was the one who had the stolen IDs, the drugs, those trafficked animals, right? They were in his van. And now he’s dead.”
“And he parked his van inside the Cottonmouth Club’s garage,” Auggie said. “And someone else at the club killed him.”
Theo wiped his hands with the napkin. “Nothing says we’re right, assuming the break-in at our house was connected to Shaniyah—connected to anything.” Auggie’s silence was something to fall into, and Theo heard himself saying, “We live on a secluded street. There are people—people who need money.” Addicts, the clinical voice in his head observed. Junkies. Say it. You know all about that, and Auggie’s not a fool. But Theo couldn’t finish the sentence, and the silence swallowed him.
When Auggie spoke again, his words were surprisingly gentle. “We don’t have to do anything. Emery and John-Henry are looking into it. And Tean and Jem. And North and Shaw, when they can take time off from being jackasses.” Theo heard the attempt at a joke, but he couldn’t respond to it. After a moment, Auggie said, “Nobody expects us to do anything.”
Theo shuffled papers on his desk.
“Theo, we don’t have to go.”
“No. We don’t have to.”
The bell sounded, signaling the five-minute passing period for students to return to the classroom.
“Come home,” Auggie said. “Get some sleep.”
“If it’s something specific to the high school,” Theo said. His throat felt stiff, his tongue anesthetized and fat and heavy. “Something they might not notice. Or understand.”
In his mind, he walked his nightmares again: Lana screaming, Auggie broken and bloodied.
“I called the Johnsons,” Auggie blurted.
“What?”
“This morning. After you left. I called them, and I pretended to be a social worker from the school, and—and they told me not to call back, everything was fine, Shaniyah was fine, she was visiting family in Kansas. And they were lying, Theo. I know they were lying. I checked her TikTok; she hasn’t posted anything since Saturday. Don’t be mad.”
Theo let out a sigh. It might have been relief. It was something, anyway—an externalization of what was happening inside, the stretching of old muscles, a part of him waking up. The pleasant discomfort of shaking off stiffness.
“Theo—”
“Will you go with me?”
Voices swelled in the hall; the babble moved toward the classroom.
“What—” Auggie began.
“Tonight?”
“To the club?”
