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Theo nodded.
“How’d you two end up here?” Jem asked North and Shaw. “Pretty nice timing.”
“Yeah,” North said. “It reminds me of the time I saved your ass at that fucking resort.”
“Actually,” Shaw said, “Jem saved you, remember, because your trick knee gave out because you’d been slathering it in Bengay—wait, was it because you’d been slathering it or hadn’t been slathering it? How much slathering had you been doing?—and that guy was going to stab you, and Jem smashed him with a clock.” He turned toward John-Henry and beamed. “I used a phone like a morning star.”
“The details aren’t important,” North snapped.
“The universe sent me a psychic distress call,” Shaw said. “That’s how we reached you in time.”
“Yeah, right after you got your asses handed to you,” North said. “We were driving back into town and saw one of those dickweeds flip around to follow you. We both had a weird feeling about it—”
“That was the universe.”
“—so after a few minutes, we doubled back. Let me guess: you two stuck your noses where they didn’t belong, and you almost got yourselves killed doing it.”
Theo grimaced. Between the exhaustion and the headache, it was hard to think clearly. “I don’t know. Something doesn’t make sense. I don’t know why they would have come after us.”
“Theo, what’s done is done, but I think North and Shaw might be right.” John-Henry put his hands on his hips. “You went there, and you asked about this girl, and somebody started running his mouth. Then he freaked out, and he pointed out Auggie to somebody dangerous. Now we’re here.”
“But he didn’t recognize Shaniyah’s name,” Auggie said. “And he didn’t say anything really incriminating. I mean, something about a wild weekend, but that’s basically their whole marketing angle—I mean, nobody’s going to start investigating them because one guy brags about a wild weekend.”
“A normal person might not find that statement troublesome,” Tean said, “but someone with a guilty conscience might read a lot more into it. He might have heard what he said and, because he knows what went on in that club, immediately jump to the worst possible scenario.”
“He’s a piece of shit,” Jem said like he was clarifying, “and he’s a guilty piece of shit, so he’s jumping at shadows. And whoever he told probably doesn’t mind tying off a loose end, just in case.”
Auggie looked at Theo, and Theo saw the helplessness there, the frustration. It mirrored his own. “We’ve gotten too fixated on the Cottonmouth Club,” Theo said. “There’s more happening here.”
North opened his mouth, but when John-Henry shook his head, he shut it again.
“How about this?” John-Henry said. “You and Auggie kicked the hornet’s nest, and now they’re mad. That’s a good thing.”
“Because they’re going to make stupid mistakes,” Jem said.
“Like this amateur bullshit,” North said. “In a fucking Kindercare parking lot.”
“It says Kidz Academy,” Shaw said. “He has trouble with cursive. Well, reading in general. Last week, I had to read an entire report to him.”
“Because you wrote it in invisible fucking ink! And I’m the one who graduated college—”
“That one right there?” Shaw said. “That’s a Z.”
Theo caught the flicker of something on Jem’s face—a sudden tight, blankness that seemed strangely defensive—and then Jem noticed him looking, and the mask changed, for a single moment, to something else. Anger, maybe. A look Theo had seen on students’ faces before, the kind of fixed dislike some of them, especially boys, brought to the classroom of a known faggot.
But then the look was gone, and Jem turned away, tilting his head to listen to Tean whisper in his ear.
“It was amateur,” John-Henry said. “Tonight. But we know they’ve made successful hits before, and since they didn’t succeed tonight, they’ll try again.”
“We’ll stay with Theo and Auggie,” Tean said. When everyone looked at him, he ducked his chin, but his voice was firm as he added, “I can stay up and keep watch, and Jem knows how to handle himself if—if something happens.”
“If that’s ok with you,” Jem said to Auggie.
Auggie looked at Theo again, and Theo answered, “We don’t want to put you out.” But Auggie was still looking at him, and he could see what Auggie wanted him to say, so he said, “Yes. Thank you. That would be great.”
The relief actually made Auggie’s body bend slightly.
“For the next few days,” John-Henry said, “you and Auggie are going to lie low.”
