Dangerous Boy (15 page)

Arms full of junk food, we head to the gym to help with the Halloween Masquerade, a place I know I’ll never find Adam. He’s not exactly made of school spirit. Today we’re supposed to be making papier-mâché spiders that will be hanging from
the ceiling. We duck into one of the art rooms, and I nearly groan aloud when I see Madison standing at the back, doling out supplies like a drill sergeant.

“Oh, just shoot me,” I mutter.

Allie rolls her eyes. “She’s not
that
bad,” she says, under her breath as we approach.

“What did you do, trip on those clown feet of yours?” Madison asks, her eyes sweeping over the shoulder brace and sling.

“It was a four-wheeler accident,” I say, though I don’t know why. I don’t owe her an explanation.

“Huh. Well, whatever. I guess you can help with one hand, just don’t screw it up.”

She thrusts some cardboard pieces at me, and I grab them with my good arm while Allie gathers up the paste and the newspaper. We settle at one of the long, high tables at the back and spread the stuff out.

“Do we have a pattern?” I ask, scrunching my brows as I stare at the stuff in front of us.

“No. We have a half hour and our imagination,” she says, laughing under her breath. I’m not surprised she’s getting into this. “I kind of think we should just focus on the body, and then use some oversized pipe cleaners for the legs.”

“All right,” I say, skeptically. “Sure.”

“Okay. If you can shred the newspaper, I’ll try to figure out our base structure.” Allie holds up a thin piece of cardboard, bending it into something vaguely resembling a circle. She frowns, staring at it with her head tipped to the side.

I grab the first stack of newspaper and use my bad arm to hold the paper down and my good hand to clumsily rip thin strips.

“Have you seen Bick today?” Allie asks, reaching for a piece of tape.

“Nope,” I say, shredding another strip of newspaper. “Why?”

Allie looks up from her cardboard. “He wasn’t in biology, and we had a big test—it’s for twenty percent of our grade. What’s weird is that we were talking about how he’d already finished studying for it just before you arrived at his house yesterday, so I can’t figure out why he didn’t show up.”

“Hmm,” I say, glancing up at her. “That
is
kind of bizarre. I can text him.”

I set the newspaper down and fish my cell out of my pocket, quickly typing in
Where are you?
before dropping it back on the table.

“Do you think this is enough?” I ask, gesturing to the pile of newspaper. Already my shoulder is throbbing.

Allie shakes her head. “No, I’ve done papier-mâché before. That’ll barely cover two spider legs. Do at least twice as much.”

I nod and slide another chunk of newspaper under my arm.

Allie pulls out a long stretch of tape and wrestles with getting it over a gap in her cardboard contraption. “So…how are you feeling about the big Townsend family get-together? I assume Logan agreed to it…”

“Yeah…he did. Thankfully.”

“Huh?” Allie glances up from her cardboard. “Are you saying that he wasn’t exactly into the plan at first?”

I shove a pile of shredded paper to the side of the table. “No, not really. But I don’t think that just changing his password will be enough to get Daemon off my back.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you!” Allie rolls her eyes. “But why the sudden total-and-complete agreement? Before it felt like you were basically just gonna ask me to shut up.”

I look down at the next newspaper. “I got a third rose this morning. It had my new Facebook picture attached.”

“Oh?”

“With my eyes blacked out.”

“
Oh.
”

“Yeah,” I say, sighing. “Completely creepy.”

“You don’t think Daemon’s like, stalking you, do you?”

I cringe. “I have no idea. I mean, I’m sure he’s not
actually
a stalker. He probably just wants to screw with me. Freak me out.”

“This is serious,” Allie says. “Maybe after you and Logan talk to him, if he doesn’t back off, you should report all this stuff to the cops and get a restraining order or something.”

I rip another piece of paper, thinking about how Allie and Adam are starting to sound alike. “Yeah, I don’t know. I think we’ll probably just talk to his uncle next if he doesn’t stop being such a creep. Involving the cops seems kind of extreme.”

“I guess.” Allie sets down a rounded, taped mass of cardboard and steps back to stare at it.

My phone buzzes against the table. I pick it up, assuming that it’ll be Logan confirming the details for Sunday, but then nearly drop it when I read the message.

“What? What does it say?”

“It’s from Bick.”

“Yeah? And?”

I hold my phone out.

I’m at the hospital.

“T
urn right at the stop sign,” I say, from the passenger seat, my hands gripping the warm pizza box.

The news that Bick got into a car accident last night somehow spread all over school even though I didn’t tell anyone besides Allie and Logan about the text. But he said he was totally fine and that they’re releasing him tonight. If anything, he made it sound like the worst part was how crazy his parents were driving him, so I insisted on picking him up and bringing him home.

“Okay, we almost there?” Logan flips his blinker on and comes to a stop at the shiny new sign.

My stomach drops when I look at it. I’m anxious to get to the hospital, but Bick said he didn’t want visitors until six o’clock because he had some tests to run, so I talked Logan into distracting me until then.

I force myself to stay positive. “Not yet. Still a little while to go on my magical mystery tour!”

“All right, captain,” Logan replies, grinning at me. Then he turns and heads further down the hill, around a ninety-degree corner, and then across the bridge.

“That’s the Green River,” I say, pointing down at the water rushing beneath the bridge. Beside us is a big red barn that was converted into apartments and a pretty white silo painted
Argus Farms
. It belongs on a postcard, with its green fields and red-and-white painted buildings.

“As in the Green River Killer?”

I shrug. Did he have to ask that? With everything going on, I so didn’t need to think of that. “Yeah. But like I said, I don’t think they ever found any bodies in this part. It was further upriver and downriver they did.”

“That’s…pleasant.”

I snort. Pleasant. Spooky. Whatever. “It’s right again,” I say, pointing at the sign. On my lap, the pizza box warms my legs through the thick denim of my jeans.

Logan nods. “So, you’re bringing me to the romantic, non-body-dumping portion of the river?”

I laugh. “Like I told you before, nobody around here even thinks about the Green River Killer anymore. Water under the, uh, bridge.” I pause, realizing what I just said. “So to speak.”

“See!” Logan exclaims. “Now that’s why I picked you for the class project. You really have a way with words.”

“Don’t I?” I chuckle.

“So…” Logan drums on the steering wheel. “Can I ask where we’re going yet?”

“Fine…” I sigh. “I’m bringing you to a state park. Flaming Geyser. It’s kinda cool, if you’re not expecting a fiery ball of flames.”

I point to the park gate, and Logan turns right, heading through the entrance and across another bridge.

“And what, exactly,
should
I be expecting? Other than delicious pizza”—he points to my lap—“and the sheer absence of dead bodies.”

“Something more akin to a pilot light.” I shake my head. “I still can’t believe you haven’t come down here yet! You live right above it.”

“I didn’t even know there was a park down here.” Logan winds through the narrow paved road, trees sprinkling the grassy fields on either side. We pass a little ranger shack, and then cruise down the road at a slow and steady ten miles per hour. To our left, a group of people are flying elaborate remote-control airplanes. We leave them behind, eventually gliding into a parking space where the road dead-ends at a white gate with a stop sign.

We open the pizza box and each take a slice, grabbing napkins to use as pseudo-plates.

“I’m so sorry I forgot my candles and fine china. If you’d like me to use the dome light to set the mood, I’m more than willing.” Logan winks.

I nearly choke on my first bite of pizza and barely manage to use a napkin to stifle my oh-so-attractive coughing.

“So what’s number six?” he asks, shaking his head as he takes a bite of pizza.

I swallow my food and take a sip of soda to clear my throat. “Ironically? Jeeping.”

“And you’re sitting in a Jeep! I’ve cured you already!”

I roll my eyes as I set the soda can down in the cup-holder.

“But seriously,” he says, “You’re afraid of four-by-fouring?”

“Yeah. Adam has a Samurai, and Bick has his big souped-up pickup. They love going to this place up in the hills, and Allie goes with them all the time. But I’m too freaked out to go.”

“Would you go with me?” he asks, setting his pizza down on the napkin.

“Do you even know how?”

He nods. “Yeah. We used to go in Tillamook Forest, just outside of Cedar Cove. Me and a few other guys got pretty good at it.”

“I don’t know,” I say. Is he talking about the guys I saw on Facebook? His old friends? I blink, pushing all Facebook-related impressions of Logan’s past from my mind. “I just keep picturing the whole thing flipping over and crushing me.”

He puts his hand over mine. “Hey. You can trust me.”

I take in a deep breath. “The quad thing didn’t work out so well,” I remind him.

“It would have, if the wheel hadn’t broken. You know it was fun while it lasted. I had no way of knowing the wheel would break off like that.”

“Yeah, I know…” My voice trails off. We still haven’t talked about the fact that the bike was sabotaged, though by now, Adam must have told him. I saw the way he looked when I
showed him Daemon’s Facebook messages. What would he do if Daemon actually messed with that quad?

“Harper?” Logan says, picking up on my doubt. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“I wouldn’t say that…”

“Then what is it?”

“I have to ask…” I stare down at my slice of pizza. “Do you think Daemon had anything to do with it?”

“With what?”

“The wheel.”

“Harper,” he says, his voice firm. “Look at me.”

I tear my gaze away from my half-eaten dinner and meet his eyes. “Daemon wouldn’t do that. He likes to mess with people, sure, but he’s not going to hurt you physically.”

“Swear?”

Logan nods. “I promise.”

“Good,” I say, relief wooshing through me. “And yeah. I’ll go. Four-by-fouring, that is.”

He grins. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

He leans forward and kisses me, stealing my breath away, making me forget what we’d just been talking about.

Ten minutes later, we’ve both scarfed two pieces of pizza, and we’re ready to move onto the walking portion of our distraction date. I glance at my watch. Still an hour before I can go pick up Bick.

I slide out of the car, round the back, and accept Logan’s hand when he reaches out for me. We walk, side by side,
down a narrow cement path that later turns to dirt. Orange and yellow leaves crunch beneath our feet, until the sound of the river’s rushing water drowns out the rustling.

We pass the salmon ponds, round a corner, and then I say, “Ta-da!” with a flourish of my arm.

Logan peers into a small crater, to where a little flame dances.

He chews his lip. “It’s like two inches tall.”

“Three. I told you it’s all about managing expectations.” I laugh, feeling good for the first time in hours. If I were home, I’d just be worrying about Bick, my speech, Daemon…and a million other things. Somehow, just being with Logan changes me in every way that matters.

Logan slips his hand into mine, as if sensing that I’m thinking about him. “So
that
is the infamous flaming geyser, huh? Still kind of hard to believe.”

“Believe it!” I shrug, my voice ringing out. “Come on, I’ll show you the bubbling geyser.”

“Let me guess: It’s more like the tiny bubbles little kids blow than giant ones as seen on TV?” he asks, his eyes lit up. He’s having as much fun as me. In a way, I’m glad Bick wanted me to wait until six to come visit. Logan and I needed this. Time to ourselves without all the problems with Daemon and the stress of school and the mystery of dead birds and red handprints.