“You can do it,” Jack said. “Think about all the times you did this kind of thing to me when you were taller than I was. It’s payback. It’s only fair.”
“Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You’re mybigbrother.”
“There you go.” Jack handed me the phone. I glanced at the name on my screen.
Sydney.
Hey.
Can you come over?
Now?
I’d seen her that morning. We’d run together at practice, one of our best kinds of runs, both pushing the other to the limit where neither of us could speak, but where it also felt good. Legs matching stride for stride, adjusting pace to keep up with each other, taking turns pulling the other one along. The way we’d been running for years. Ella hadn’t been able to keep up this time.
I felt a brief flash of irritation. Why did Syd think I was always at her beck and call? And why was it always on me to come over, to take us everywhere? Syd had a better car than I did, but she hardly ever drove anywhere. I wasn’t really sure why.
Sam’s on his way over. But later?
Her reply popped up a few seconds later.
Can you cancel?
She did this sometimes. Wanted me to prove that we were best friends, and that she came before anything or anyone else. But I’d promised Sam. And I’d been waiting all day for this. We were going to a concert on the university quad. I knew we’d stand there listening to the music and laughing and he would pull me close and wrap his arms around me from behind, electricity wherever our skin and bodies touched.
I wrote Syd back.
Is everything okay? Is it an emergency?
Sam pulled up to the curb out front. I could already feel his shoulders underneath my palms, his hips against mine. He opened the door and got out of the car, waving and grinning at me. A message buzzed again. I glanced down. Syd.
It’s fine.
I put the phone in my back pocket and went to meet him.
34.
now
“We kind of suck at stakeouts,” I tell Yolo, who is a paisley-shaped curl of warmth in my lap. I nudge him and he unfurls, yawning, kneading his too-sharp claws into my legs. It’s morning, very early. Blue-pink light seeps over the sycamore trees that surround the school.
If the person I wished for came back, they didn’t come at 8:31. Or for hours after that. Yolo and I both fell asleep at some point. Not for long, and not well, but I did close my eyes and drift somewhere.
Maybe it didn’t work. When Yolo came back, it was immediate.
But Yolo wanted to see me. Maybe the person I wished for didn’t want to be found.
Like whoever’s been changing the marquee.
I keep coming back to that. There must be at least one other person here. Maybe two now.
“Well,” I tell Yolo, “it’s time to start breaking into things.”
I heft the bat. We can smash the front door of the school, or a window.Ooh.The main office has those big windows along the back. For sure it’s alarmed, but if it brings people running, all the better.
The door to the student government room where themarquee letters are stored is metal, with a window in it too small to climb through, but I still have the key they gave me back when I was a class officer. So once I get into the school, it should be clear sailing.
I’ve got to figure out who else is here.
