League of Strays (23 page)

“I’m glad,” I said. I liked her, I realized. I really did. Somewhere along the way, Zoe Carpenter had become a real friend, not just an assigned one.

“So, anyway,
you
called
me
,” she said. “What’s up?”

I was about to tell her about the call to Jenny, but my story was interrupted by a ping against the sliding glass door, followed by a more demanding clank. I drew the curtain back.

“I have to call you back, Zoe.” Even in the dark, I saw three
white pebbles—the kind Mom used to mark her vegetable seeds—lined up on the porch.
Kade
.

As I slid the door open, I thought about Jenny. “Just kiss me once,” he’d begged. And she had, right before she was thrown to the ground.

“It’s … eight o’clock,” I stammered to the dark night.

“On a Saturday,” he responded. “You aren’t going to make me beg, are you? Oh, OK. Please, Charlie,
please
.”

I peered over the railing. Kade fixed his wolflike eyes on me, then dropped to one knee, spreading his arms out in an exaggerated appeal.

Looking down at Kade like this, I couldn’t imagine him hurting Jenny. There had to be more to the story. Kade made people feel special. He made
me
feel special. And yet, Jenny had seemed so honest. If it had all been made up, why would she have talked to me? I wasn’t the police. There was no reason to resurrect a lie.

I glanced at my wrist, remembering when Kade had grabbed it to stop me from interfering with Richie and Dave’s fight at school. But that hadn’t been personal; he wasn’t trying to hurt me. He was protecting the League.

Why couldn’t I decide who to believe? Jenny seemed to be telling the truth, but whenever Kade was near, I couldn’t see him as the monster she’d described.

I was afraid to be alone with him, but I had to know what had happened.

“C’mon, Charlie! I’m begging you. Haven’t you missed me?” He flashed his biggest smile.

“OK …,” I said reluctantly, mad at myself for not being able to say no to him, “but only for a little while.”

I scrawled a note to Mom.
Studying too much. Going for a walk to clear my head. Love, Me.

I was halfway off the porch when Kade pulled me down onto the dewy grass. Tangling his fingers in my hair, he leaned over and kissed me. Startled at first, I quickly warmed to his touch and found myself kissing him back. A few minutes later, we crawled past the living room window and ran, hunched low, to the street. I hopped onto the back of his motorcycle, circling my arms around his waist. He revved the engine, and I pressed my cheek against his shoulder blades. I could feel the heat of his body rising through the leather.

We sputtered to a stop at the rusted gate to Lowell’s Cemetery. Kade tipped his bike into a ditch to hide it from passing traffic. We hiked up the hill to an impressive marble gravestone, obscured by the drooping branches of a willow tree. The headstone doubled as a backrest. Kade didn’t waste any time and dove into the hollow of my neck. Suddenly, I felt vulnerable, just him and me in the deserted cemetery.

“Can we talk?” I scooted to the side. “I feel like talking.”

Kade groaned. He moved closer and nibbled on my ear. I tensed, remembering that time when he bit it.

I gently pushed him away. “Seriously.”

“So, what do you want to talk about?” he asked gruffly.

His sudden shift in mood left me wordless. How was I going to bring this up?

Kade rolled onto his side, propping his head on a hand. “So what did Jenny tell you?”

“What?”

“Did you satisfy your curiosity?”

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t lie to me, Charlie.” He touched the tip of my nose. “Don’t. Ever. Lie.”

“How did you know?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“Nora said you were determined to find answers, that you told her you were going to call Jenny and get to the bottom of it.”

“That’s not true!”

“She said it was all garbage, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“No. What happened was—”

“Would you like to know what I said to her, Charlie?”

“Nora and I never talked about what to do,” I said. “I wasn’t even going to call Jenny. I mean, I
did
end up doing it, but her story didn’t seem believable, so I—”

“I said to her, ‘Maybe that’s what Charlie needs to do to find peace of mind. Maybe then she can finally trust me.’”

“I do trust you.” The words fell flat.

“What lies did Jenny tell you?”

I took a deep breath. “She said you assaulted her.”

“I’m not going to tell you who to believe, Charlotte. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.” He sprang to his feet and started down the hill.

I ran after him. “Come on, Kade. I need to hear your side of it.”

He scooped a handful of stones off the top of a grave and hurled them at a pigeon nesting on a battered fence. It squawked, whirring away.

“Jenny Carson had reasons to lie,” he began. “She was with a college guy in the woods behind her house. Things got out of hand, and they started to fight. She ended up in the hospital for five days with a sprained ankle and a broken collarbone. But she told everyone I followed her into the woods and beat her up. She said I was obsessed with her or something. It was obvious she was making it up, and the charges were dropped.”

He cradled my face in his hands. “She took advantage of my feelings for her and used me to protect her Neanderthal college boyfriend.” His eyes grew misty and he lowered his head to hide the tears.

I turned away, giving him a moment to recover. How I wanted to believe him. But there were holes—no, canyons—in his story. I just wanted to go home, as fast as possible.

“I believe you.” My mouth moved of its own accord.

“Thanks,” he said, but he didn’t look convinced.

“I told my mom I was going out for a walk. If I don’t go soon, she’ll drive around the neighborhood, handing out flyers.”

Kade’s eyes were flat, unreadable. I shivered, drawing my arms up into my sleeves.

“This isn’t about Jenny,” I told him. “I have to go. Seriously.”

He didn’t break his cold stare.

I lifted onto my toes and ran my lips across his stubbly jaw. Without comment, he turned around and started down the path again. At the bottom of the hill, he hopped onto his bike and
started the engine, not even glancing back to see if I’d followed him. I leaped on board. We took off, gravel shooting from his tires like gunfire. When we reached my street, Kade parked three houses down and cut the engine.

“You want to get together tomorrow?” I asked, sliding off. He had to think that we were back to normal.

“Maybe,” he said. His hand swung out, reaching for my shirt. I whirled around, pretending I hadn’t noticed his attempt to reel me in.

“Bye,” I called over my shoulder.

I listened for the grumble of a bike engine, but all I heard were crickets. As I walked down the street, I felt his stare pierce the back of my head. I drew my shoulders back, lifted my chin, and didn’t turn around.

It wasn’t until I was on the other side of my door that I crumpled to the floor like a bird that’s flown into a closed window.

I LEANED MY BIKE AGAINST THE MAILBOX POST, MARCHED
across the immense lawn, and pounded on the front door. An agitated “I’m coming!” came from inside. The door swung open. Nora, combing her fingers through disheveled hair, glared at me.

“Why did you tell Kade I wanted to snoop into his past?” I demanded.

“Dammit, Charlotte, it’s Sunday morning,” she complained. “Couldn’t you have waited a few more hours?”

I folded my arms across my chest. She groaned, treading back through the massive foyer.

“I thought this Jenny Carson thing was between us,” I said, following her down the hallway. “Why’d you bring Kade into it?”

Nora fell onto the couch, curling her legs under her. My new-and-improved assertive side was making her nervous.

“Look, Charlotte, Kade backed me into a corner. He sensed things had changed between you guys, and he wanted to know why. He forced me to tell him what Zoe said in the library. Come on, you know Kade. He doesn’t miss anything.”

She was right about that: Kade was a human emotion detector. He’d unearthed feelings in me that I hadn’t known existed.

“Why did you tell him I wanted to call Jenny Carson?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “He must’ve made up that part to get you to talk. Of course, you fell for it. You always do.”

I didn’t know whom to believe. She swung her feet to the floor and stomped to the door. “Kade didn’t do it, Charlotte. Maybe you have your doubts, but I don’t. He told me why Jenny lied and how badly she treated him. He was crying when he told me, Charlotte,
crying
. That bitch made the whole thing up.”

I thought about Kade’s eyes welling up. How he’d looked down so I wouldn’t see it. And he’d cried in front of Nora, too?

She leaned against the doorjamb, moving a hand to her hip. “Because I’m your friend, I’m going to tell you something. Your
boyfriend
made a move on me last night.”

“What?” The word came out like a cough.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she wiped them away. As much as I didn’t want to believe her, the performance—if that’s what it was—was compelling. But I also knew that if I went to see Kade right now, he’d have me convinced that Nora was making it all up before I could get my coat off.

“Just tell me the truth,” I said.

“We went to the harbor and climbed on board this empty boat. I think it was called the
Majestic Seas
.”

“You’re making this up. Kade wouldn’t do that.”

“He’s only with you because he has to keep an eye on the weakest link. That’s what he said. He told me that when you called Jenny, she said he’d assaulted her, and now you didn’t trust him.”

I shook my head, not because I didn’t believe her but because I did, and the truth of it was too horrible to imagine. I’d only just told Kade what Jenny had said. Nora knew because Kade had told her some time between yesterday evening and this morning.

Like late at night, on the
Majestic Seas
.

Nora started to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose, but then realized she didn’t have them anymore. “He kissed me, Charlotte.”

Without warning, she shoved me out the door. I tripped over the chaise lounge, but recovered. “I’m the one he really wants,” she added, swinging the door shut with her foot.

Moving through the hallways felt like wading through knee-deep mud. Everywhere I went, people talked about the prom on Friday: who was wearing what, where they were going for dinner, how they were getting there, and whose parents were out of town. It made me sick, mostly because I knew I wasn’t going to be there. Instead, I was supposed to celebrate in a graveyard and pretend that I didn’t have a care in the world.

Or would I? The last thing I was in the mood for was a party with the League. Maybe I could pretend to get sick a day or so before the Prom with the Dead. I could get so ill that the whole
world would want to leave me alone, and I wouldn’t have to deal with Kade.

At lunch on Thursday, I showed up at the nurse’s office. She left me alone with the thermometer long enough for me to hold it near the heat vent. An hour later, Mom picked me up.

I slept through the rest of the day, then on and off through the night. The next morning at ten, Mom leaned over me to check the digital reading.

“Ninety-seven point eight,” she said. “That’s terrific.”

“You have to stay home for twenty-four hours after a fever,” I told her. “School policy.”

Later in the day, Mom decided I was well enough to go to my private lesson, and since I didn’t want her calling Mr. Watson and discovering that I’d quit, I agreed. In a few hours, I planned to have a relapse. The kind that required another day of rest.

Sorry about the prom party,
I’d tell Kade,
but I’ve been really sick, and there’s no way my mother’s going to let me out of the house tonight.

At a quarter to four, I announced I was leaving for my lesson. I abandoned my viola in a blooming rhododendron bush and walked out of the yard, down the street, past Mr. Watson’s house, and into the woods behind the elementary school. I sat down on a tree stump and dropped my head on my arm.

At least the year was almost over. I could make it through one last plan if I had to. But I didn’t really want to punish Wanda. What she’d done to Zoe was unthinkable, but revenge couldn’t rewrite history, and hurting Wanda wouldn’t make Zoe’s pain go away—all it would do was put us deeper into debt with Kade.

Tears gushed to the surface, along with more unanswered
questions. Was Jenny Carson on a mission to destroy Kade, or was Kade on a mission to destroy the world? And what had really happened at the boat harbor between him and Nora?

Nothing happened, I told myself. Nothing.

The word filled the space in my head, blocking out unwanted thoughts. I repeated it until my body relaxed under a blanket of humid air.

A cymbal of thunder shook me from a semiconscious state. I looked up at the ink-stained clouds churning overhead.