The A-Word (24 page)

“Little Samuels,” drawled Corey Chambers, looking red-eyed and high. He was sitting on the aisle at the very rear. He patted the inside seat next to him and I slowed, hovering over him, deciding if it was worth it to sit.

“Your brother still friends with Dave?” Corey asked. This was Corey-speak for drug intel. Spring Creek and Ima Hogg had lost their most reliable dealer when Dave had moved. I couldn’t help myself. I slapped him.

After writing me a referral, the bus driver informed me that I was banned from public school transportation until such time as the Principal Baker decided to reinstate me. I told myself it didn’t matter. I was now the perfect candidate for a hardship license—least once I got that permit … which I couldn’t get until someone drove me … that someone NOT being Amber. My vehicular issues were becoming legendary.

AT SCHOOL, EVERYONE was talking about last night and Lanie’s fall. But there was a big chunk missing. The lightning strike, the stupidity of Spring Creek High allowing the
event to continue during a terrible storm, the fire … all of it was conspicuously absent from anybody’s gossip. I began to seethe. No doubt that angel damage control was already in full swing. I waited, holding my breath, to hear the rest of what I expected. People yammering about Casey Samuels and his skydiving routine and what a lamebrain he was to be out on the field when he didn’t play football anymore.

Instead, I heard nothing.

This one and that one—students, teachers, even my guidance counselor—everyone harped on how lucky it was that Lanie hadn’t been hurt. Like she’d just landed on her feet. Still, she was taking classes off for a spa day.

I waited again for someone (Donny Sneed maybe, that would be good) to say something, anything, about Casey. I was in the mood to slap another face. But no one mentioned my brother. Not one tiny little word. Not even Donny Sneed.

I stormed to History, ready to give Bo Shivers my piece about damage control.

I was greeted by some lady with dyed red hair, a fake leather skirt, and a V-neck floral blouse that showed a heinous amount of tanned wrinkly cleavage. Sub again.

I turned and walked away. History would live without me, again. Screw it. If Lanie could have a spa day, so could I. I was halfway to the exit in the Commons area, when Maggie grabbed my arm.

Maybe I’d have twisted away from her too, but she held on tight, face serious, eyes burning with something I couldn’t place. Plus, she was wearing baggy jeans, a generic white T-shirt, and her old Girl Scouts hoodie. Maggie had not been a Girl Scout for a very long time. Maggie did not like anyone knowing she had once sold those cookies. Not that being a Girl Scout was a bad thing. Just that it was not Maggie.

“Jenna,” she said, her voice low. “I believe you.”

“You’re wearing your Girl Scouts hoodie,” I said.

The serious look did not leave Maggie’s face. “It felt like the appropriate outfit for what the universe had handed me.”

I stared at Maggie, assessing.

She stared back at me, wrapping her hoodie string around her fingers and then unwrapping. All of a sudden, I felt like sand was slipping through an hourglass, like time was running out, even though my brother was gone and two of the most important people in my life were dead liars with no answers. The future was just more of the same, only emptier. So why the prickle in my spine? Why the Spidey sense?

“You swear?” I asked her.

She nodded. She didn’t blink. She held my gaze, eyes wide. “I was up all night. I just didn’t … I might not believe a lot of things, but I always believe you. Believe
in
you. Which is the same, you know?”

Around us, Spring Creek High continued to do whatever it was Spring Creek High did. Inside me, hope rose and swelled. Maggie believed me. She
believed
me. I sniffed back the tears stinging my nose. If my heart had not already burst with sadness, it would have exploded with relief.

“You need to tell me again,” Maggie said. “Everything. From the beginning. I don’t remember much. Which is the other reason I believe you. I realized something important.” Here she lowered her voice even more. I had to lean in to hear her. “I always remember
everything
. You know that, right? And last night feels foggy.”

“There’s this damage control thing,” I said, trying to explain calmly. “It makes you remember it differently than it was.” I put a hand on Maggie’s arm. “Listen, I’m cutting world history. Bo, um, Mr. Shivers isn’t there.”

Maggie sucked in a long breath. Blew it out. I smelled raspberry yogurt on her breath. “So he’s really an ang—I mean him and your brother are both really—”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

The warning bell rang, and people were running like a noisy herd of cattle.

“Angels,” I went on, hushed. “Casey, Bo, and Amber. Wings under their clothes, full-fledged heavenly beings. Although you’d never suspect it with all their bad habits. Except Casey gave up one of his, which I still have to tell you about … But that’s the point, Mags. They can walk among us and who the hell would suspect—”

“What did you say?”

I turned to see one Ryan Sloboda, eyes popping, shoving a hand through his spiked up hair.

“Um, nothing,” I said. Then, “How much did you hear?”

Did I want to know?
Still I asked.

Ryan’s face flushed, but only for a moment. Mostly his eyes were on me, dark and serious. What did this mean? Had he heard it all? Which led to the obvious next question: Was he about to stalk off and forget about me because I sounded like a looney? Calling my new history teacher an A-word. Talking about wings and damage control. Holy hell.

“That was the last bell,” I said, trying for a distraction.

Ryan looked completely heels-dug-in stubborn. Like I imagined he’d looked when he was hanging on to the Mutton-Busting sheep. “I knew it,” he said quietly, but so intensely that I backed up a step. He
was
going to break up with me, wasn’t he? “I know what I saw last night. No one seems to remember, but I do. I saw Lanie Phelps fall. I
saw
your brother … I
saw
him …”

He took my hands in his. My skin felt hot and cold and
then my insides felt good and bad and then I stopped trying to analyze my internal condition and just stood and waited. Maggie was still next to me. Uncharacteristically silent. Not even a peep, but I could hear her breathing.

“Jenna,” he said. He hesitated, working something out. I held my breath. “I couldn’t sleep,” he went on. “It makes no sense, but then I told myself that maybe some things don’t have to make sense. Some things—maybe they just are. You know?”

He was still gripping my hands.

“Ryan,” I said. “It’s okay if you don’t—”

“Here’s the thing,” he interrupted, like he had to get it out. “It’s like Maggie told you.” He glanced briefly at Mags. “I don’t know what else to do but believe you, you know? Because it’s you. Because you’re Jenna. And just because I saw something strange doesn’t mean it isn’t
real
.”

Was this his comic book leanings taking over? I didn’t much care. The words were all that mattered right now. They were the
right words
. Very right. Even Maggie didn’t remember like Ryan Sloboda did. I wanted to kiss him again—had wanted to for a while and for a variety of reasons. But for now it was enough that he believed.

“C’mon,” I said, my heart leaping like one of those salmon in a river. He
knew
. He
knew
and he was still standing here.
With me
. “We’re cutting history class, me and Mags. We’ll go somewhere, and I’ll tell you and … well I don’t know what we’ll do after that.”

My brain was in a dither. In the past five minutes I had done what I’d been avoiding for almost a year: I’d told the truth. The crazy A-word truth. The truth that my brother had made me swear I would
never tell
. This was unmapped territory. What would Bo do when he found out? What about
Amber? Would they finagle some super-charged damage control for Mags and Ryan? What if it was too powerful? What if they forgot everything—including me? But what else could I do? Casey was gone. My father was with this Olivia person in Austin. Mom was … Mom.

My personal truth? It felt good to tell them. Hell, it felt great. Scary, but okay. I was ready—more than ready—to spill the whole can of beans. No one was in charge of me now except for me.

“I’m in,” said Ryan Sloboda.

“Me, too,” said Maggie, finding her words again.

My heart did the Texas two-step. Double-time. Maybe what Casey had told me in my dream was true. Maybe I
could
figure out what even the angels in my life couldn’t. Now that I had Mags and Ryan on my side, two people who were actually alive, I might find out how Amber was killed. Even if Bo knew and didn’t want me to. Even if we’d met dead end after dead end. Because now there were three of us: Mags, Ryan, and me. We were the
living
wild cards in this deck. We were the something unexpected. It was not my intention to think of Coach Collins and his Aggie football philosophy right then. But he popped in there anyway: Maggie and Ryan were my Twelfth Men.

And if I solved this mystery with their help, then maybe what I
really needed
would happen, too. It was a long shot, but Texas was founded on long shots.

Then I could figure this whole mess out just like I’d hoped when we went to Austin—just like I’d told Casey. And when I did, Management would send him back to me.

WE SNUCK OUT a side door just as the last bell finished blaring. Hightailed it through the student parking lot, ducking
behind cars. (Including the poor Merc that I had to deal with at some point—I had found the spare key on Casey’s dresser, not that it was doing me much good.) Within seconds, we were beyond the field house, at the abandoned railroad tracks that ran on the far side of the school.

Only then did we slow down. And we walked the tracks and I told them. I talked and talked and talked. The long version this time, not the short story of last night that Maggie hadn’t believed. My heart galloped at first, then settled because the more I spilled, the calmer I felt. Like what I had needed all along was someone who I could tell this all to. At one point the breeze picked up and my pulse zoomed. Did Bo and Amber know what I was doing? That I was outing them all word after word? If they were watching, they were hidden.

Only when I finished did I notice we’d walked all the way to Bryce’s neighborhood. We were standing in front of the Chateau Hills sign. Various SUVs and pickup trucks lumbered by, but no one hollered at us to get back to school. Briefly I thought about Terry McClain, who lived over here, too. A flash of panic zipped through me. What if he drove by and saw us? Would he recognize me? Would he narc on me to Amber, thinking to get back in her good graces? I was already on his shit list …

It was the middle of the morning. He
had
to be at work. At Texicon, right? Probably drinking some of that leftover Extra Energy while he experimented on more mice. I had nothing to fear from Terry McClain. He was just an ordinary human. Not an angel with a hopped-up Spidey sense.

“Well, Jenna,” said Ryan Sloboda. “Everything you told me makes more sense than what I was imagining. ’Cause you know. Zombie apocalypse is just for TV.”

I started, thoughts of Terry McClain fleeing my brain. “You
know this is
real
, right? Not like
The Avengers
. Not like Tony Stark.” That popped out before I thought it through, and then I felt nervous. How would he take it?

“Nothing’s like the man in the can,” Ryan murmured, eyes dancing with both fear and resolve. He drew in a breath. “Because that isn’t real life.”

He was cuter than sin, that Ryan Sloboda. Once again, it took every ounce of control I had not to kiss him in front of Mags. He knew my secret. He was still standing here. He believed me.

And he
remembered
.

What did that mean? Was he stronger than Bo’s damage control? Or—I hadn’t thought about this at first but the more we walked and talked, the more real estate it took up in my tired brain: Had Bo
allowed
Ryan to remember?

“Now what?” Mags asked.

“Well, I realized something,” Ryan said without missing a beat. “Your brother and that Bo guy and that Amber chick—they’re angels, right? We’re accepting that as true. Let’s go with that as our starting point. But here’s the thing. They would
stop
a zombie apocalypse, right? Not
cause
one.”

“Enough with the zombies,” Mags groaned.

“But that’s the point!” Ryan said. “Remember how everyone was acting last night? It was like everyone was all drugged or something. I mean I guess it’s not as weird as your brother having wings, but weird, right?”

It was.

“How would they have gotten drugged?” Mags asked. “Was it in the air or something? The cafeteria food? Maybe someone could have—”

“Extra Energy!” Ryan and I gasped at the same time. I took his hand and squeezed it. In my head, I saw all those
sample bottles lying empty on the ground. What better way to drug up a bunch of high school students? I mean, beyond the obvious stuff that guys like Dave supplied for a fee. But seriously: Free samples of some new tasty energy drink with a cute name and multiple colors?

Only why? Had Texicon done this on purpose? Laced our drinks and studied us like … lab mice? Maybe a year ago, I might not have believed it. But now I knew that anything was possible.

“Did you guys drink any?” Ryan asked breathlessly. “I didn’t. Coach doesn’t believe in that crap. Says it’s a bunch of chemicals and sugars and doesn’t do what you think it does for your electrolytes.”

Mags shot me an
I-told-you-so
smirk. I sheepishly shook my head. I was suddenly very, very glad she’d been so pissy about the whole thing.

But now what? For a few seconds I had one VERY DARK worry, that maybe Bo had
made
all this happen for a reason I couldn’t figure out. Could he be that bitter and sad somehow? It was possible.
You’re a good daughter
, he’d told me.

No. Bo Shivers was a mystery and a bastard, but even though he hid the truth under a bunch of bullshit, he never actually
lied
. So I pushed that thought away. It wasn’t like it mattered now anyway. Casey was gone. Maybe he’d come back. Maybe he wouldn’t. But he had come to me in my dream and told me I had to solve this whole mess. The mess that had started with my mom’s depression and my sickness. The mess that had started with Dr. Renfroe …