The Rules (22 page)

“
Why
did I leave the tire iron with Thea?” he said.

We’ve left Thea alone too long,
Robin realized.
And we need to find Hiro, too.

Fresh panic bubbled through her body. She hurtled herself at the door. And again, jerking out of Kyle’s arms when he tried to catch her, stop her.

“Damn it!” she shouted. “Damn it!”

A cracking, popping sound was followed by the door canting off the jamb; registering that it was giving way, Robin attacked it wildly, ramming it, kicking it, grunting as Kyle reached up from behind her and threw his weight against it, too.

The door flapped backward and Robin went sprawling headlong into the room. The floor was cement and it scraped the side of her face. She barely noticed it as she scrabbled forward like an insect, hands finding Praveen’s head.

Her wet, sticky scalp.

“Praveen, okay, it’s okay,” she said in a rush. A light came on over her shoulder. Kyle was hunched behind her with a flashlight, panting. She realized she was panting, too.

Praveen’s eyes were closed, her mouth open. She was lying in a pool of blood and Robin couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing: arms and legs bent, one wrist disappearing underneath Praveen’s back.

Robin forced her hand down onto Praveen’s neck. She couldn’t tell if there was a pulse or not. Bending forward, she laid her cheek right up to Praveen’s nose. A very slight puff of air tickled her.

Still alive.

Robin pressed her shaking hand on Praveen’s arm and very, very gently squeezed. She looked toward the ceiling at the hole. It was so far to fall.

It would break anybody.

“Oh God,” August said from somewhere behind Kyle and Robin. “Look at her.”

“Shhh,” Robin whispered. “It’s okay, Praveen. You’re going to be all right.”

“We shouldn’t move her,” Kyle said. “She could have a spinal injury.”

“Oh, man, move her,” August said. “Get her out of here. Do you smell the smoke? I think this place
is
burning. I think it’s going to go up like a rocket.”

“Let me get her.” Kyle’s voice was strained, gentle. He leaned forward, gathering Praveen in his arms. Her head lolled against his chest. She looked mangled and fractured. The muscles in his arms and pecs flexed as he pushed up from his feet and straightened. Robin cradled the back of her head as it draped over Kyle’s forearm and together they stutter-stepped toward the door.

“I’ve got her,” Kyle said, placing his foot on the first step. “I’ll take good care of her.”

“I know you will,” she murmured.

“I’ll clear a space,” Beth said as she ran just ahead of Kyle and looked back over her shoulder to make sure the others were coming. Praveen’s head looked
crumpled,
like a rotting mushroom. It was sickening, frightening.

She opened the door and crossed the threshold. They couldn’t stay in here for very long. If the fire was spreading, it was slow, but there was no sense in tempting fate any more than they already had.

She grabbed the rest of the tablecloths off the tables to make a little bed on the stage for Praveen. She found another tablecloth in a cardboard box, then looked in and saw a shiny staple gun.
A weapon.
She knew exactly what she could do with it. She wasn’t going to share it or give it over to someone else. This night could turn into kill or be killed. She’d do it, if she had to.

The box also contained several coils of skull lights. She poked through them and felt a little thrill of terror when she discovered an envelope taped to one of the spirals. It read
#3 THE HUNTED
.

“No freaking way,” she whispered.

Footfalls sounded outside. August was the first one through the door. Beth turned away and slipped the staple gun under her sweater, tucking the sweater into her skirt; then Kyle entered with Praveen, and Robin shuffled beside him, holding Praveen’s head. Praveen was bleeding all over them. Her eyelids were purple. Her lips were blue. No part of her wrap looked green anymore.

Stiff-lipped, August moved past Beth to gesture into the hallway where Praveen had fallen. “I think the killer weakened the floor somehow. It was fine when I scouted this place.” He waved Kyle forward like someone deciding where to place a new sofa. “Let’s put her on the stage.”

“Which I have already planned for,” Beth bit off. She closed her eyes, murmured an apology to Praveen for being petty in Praveen’s time of need, and cleared her throat. She opened the envelope and her eyes flitted over the words.

“There’s a new clue,” she announced. Would the killer get mad that they had totally skipped number two? She remembered vaguely something about Thea having found a bucket. Screw it. She had found this clue. She took a deep breath and then she read:

As you die,

Don’t you wonder why?

Follow the rules,

You stupid fools.

Lights, camera, action—

See the coming attraction!

“Movies?” Robin said as she plumped up the tablecloths to make a pillow for Praveen. “TV?”

“Coming attractions,” August said. “Movie trailers? I didn’t see a trailer on the property.”

“We also need to check on Thea,” Robin said. “She has to get out of the car. And we’ve got to find Hiro.”

“I’ll get Thea,” August and Beth said at the same time. Beth cast August a hostile glare. There was no way she would ever trust him again.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” August said, screwing up his pale eyes as if he gave a damn about what she thought of him. “Beth, please. You know me.”

“I thought I did,” she replied frostily, shutting out her conscience’s reminder that
she
was the one who had betrayed
him.

“I can go,” Kyle said.

“Not with August,” Robin said. Beth couldn’t be sure if Robin was blushing, but Merida the Brave kept her gaze steady the same way she had when August had told her to take off her top and run around the cannery with her and Thea.

“Kyle and I will go,” Beth announced, taking some control.

“Okay,” Kyle said, turning his back on Robin. Robin didn’t seem to care, but Beth knew a rift in the Force when she saw one.

They walked outside; then, taking a deep breath, Beth sprinted in the direction of Jackson’s car. Kyle kept up. The moon made an unenthusiastic appearance and they left their flashlights off. They had almost made it to the car when the moon gave out like a tired, dying lamp.

She stumbled in the dark, swore, and Kyle steadied her. His flashlight clicked on too loudly as he swept it along the ground. Less than a minute later the light reflected off Jackson’s lowrider. Guarded relief surged through her when she heard the dog barking. At least Inky was okay.

“Thea, it’s us, Beth and Kyle,” she whispered against the backseat window on the driver’s side, loudly enough that her friend could hear her but not so loud that anyone else could. At least, that was her hope.

Inky appeared like a jack-in-the-box, barking excitedly, his button eyes shining vampire-red in the light from the flashlight, his baby fangs bared in his most threatening expression.

“Shhh, Inky, please.” Kyle reached out and grabbed the door handle. Locked. “Thea, open up.”

No answer.

Now Beth was scared.

Kyle took a step closer and shined the light inside. They both peered in.

Thea wasn’t in the backseat.

A bloom of panic swallowed Beth up; she got out her own flashlight and shined the beam all around the inside of the car. Thea was nowhere, but there was glass on the front seat.

“Thea!” Beth hissed, raising her voice.

Inky scampered back and forth, barking, flinging himself against the windows, growling as if he had rabies.

Kyle looked at her somberly; then he laced his fingers with hers and together they ducked down and crabwalked to the other side of the car.

No.

Thea was lying flat on her back, staring blankly upward at the sky with eyes that would never again see.

No.

Blood trickled down her mouth from the side of her head, which had been bashed in, probably with the tire iron that was supposed to protect her.

On her chest was a stone, her hands folded around it as if it were a bouquet of flowers.

Kyle grabbed Beth and held her as she unraveled. She didn’t know she had completely lost it until finally she heard Kyle whispering, “Beth, Beth,” in her ear.

“The tire iron is missing,” Kyle whispered. “We have to get out of here.”

Beth sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Then she knelt down to get the rock off Thea’s chest and wipe the blood off her cheeks, when her hand touched something wet. She yanked it back and shined her flashlight downward.

There, on the ground, written in blood, were the words:

DIDN’T FOLLOW THE RULES

AUGUST’S RULE #4:
Live because Alexa can’t.

August dribbled water over Praveen’s head and dabbed at all the bloody places with a napkin. He hoped he wasn’t hurting her. The smoke was thickening. They had to get out of there pretty soon.

“I swear to you, Robin, I am not the killer.”

She poured some water on another napkin and cleaned off Praveen’s cheek. “I believe you.”

He wanted to kiss her. He wondered why she had decided he was innocent. And when.

“When my dad got hurt, I wanted to kill whoever hit him. I wanted to cut off his legs and torture him for hours. Days. I know the level of pain you’re dealing with.”

He cocked his head. “And…you wouldn’t kill that guy today.”

“I swear to you, August, it stops hurting so much when you realize how unconstructive hate is. It would never help my dad regain the use of his legs. Then I just started dealing with how things have changed.”

So should he tell her that he knew Larson had hit her father? That he had put two and two together over the course of a month and was absolutely positive of it? Tell her now in case there was no later?

“I didn’t want to go through life filled with hate,” she said. Then she forced out a hollow gallows laugh. “Going through life now might not be an option.”

“How did you get over it?” His gaze was still averted as he listened, as if he could glean a clue about what to say and what not to.

She was quiet for a while and he dabbed at Praveen like an archaeologist dusting a fossil. “I think the main difference is that I know people love me,” she said. “I have my family.”

“Alexa was my family.” His stomach twisted. He could feel the tears and he swore to himself that he would not cry, not now. That would be the ultimate loser gesture—an inexcusable act of self-pity while the
Titanic
sailed toward the iceberg.

“Your parents,” she ventured, and he shook his head.

August exhaled years of loneliness, then drew them back in with the smoke. “I thought Beth…” He made an erasing gesture with his free hand. “It’s the wrong time to have this kind of conversation.”

“Maybe it’s the best time,” she said. “I don’t think you or Alexa ever had a real friend. I mean, someone who was just a nice person and liked being around you.”

“There really is no ‘me,’ ” he said without thinking. “There’s just what I can do for people.” He was shocked. He had never consciously grasped that this was exactly how he felt about himself.

“I don’t think that’s true. Beth said you write poetry. You do that for yourself.”

“It’s bad poetry. Just ask Beth.”

“What the hell does Beth Breckenridge know about poetry?”

He smiled faintly. “Thanks for that.”

She inclined her head.

“You play Clue,” he said. “I thought no one would figure out that’s where I was going with the murder weapons.”

“We don’t have a gas can in our version at home,” she quipped.

“There weren’t enough murder weapons for the hunt. I thought a gas can was in keeping with the simplicity of the design.” He studied Praveen. “Who the hell is doing this?”

“Jacob?”

“I don’t see it. I think someone dragged him off and murdered him. All this talk about the rules. I think someone’s trying really hard to make it look like I’m the murderer.”

“Or else they really are obsessive about rules.”

“I’ll bet this is the last party you’ll ever crash.” He paled. “I don’t mean it
that
way.”

“I didn’t know I was crashing. Beth neglected to mention it.” She caught her lower lip. “You don’t think
Beth
—”

“Are you kidding? She wouldn’t kill off the cool of the school,” he said.

There was a crackly sort of pressure sound from the roof, and embers cascaded like fireflies. August waved at them with a bloody hand and they winked out in ones and twos and threes.

“Time to go,” he said. “We should get everyone’s purses and belongings and put them outside.”

They worked together, and when they were done, they eased Praveen into his arms. Her head bobbed against his chest as they walked out of the warehouse, probably for the last time. He gazed at all his elaborate decorations soon to go up in flames. Last party ever. He made a little promise to Praveen and Robin that he would do everything he could to keep them both alive.

“Shouldn’t they be back from the car by now?” Robin said.

“And shouldn’t we be moving on to the next clue?” he added. “ ‘Lights, camera, action, trailer?’ I mean, if we don’t start looking, he’ll know.”

“It’s like he’s watching our every move.
With a camera,
” she said slowly. A light went on in her eyes, and she looked skyward. “Do you think that’s the clue? He could have put cameras up. He could be sitting somewhere watching us. That’s how he knows when to attack. And when to punish us for not doing what he wants.”

She raised her chin. “Are you watching me, you bastard? Do you like seeing us die? Is that what gets you off?”

“Robin?” Kyle called from the darkness.

“Kyle! Here!” Robin turned on a flashlight and waved it over her head.

Beth and Kyle emerged from the shadows, silhouetted by the flashlight. Beth lurched forward, zombielike, and it was one of the most terrifying things August had ever seen. Sure, Praveen had gone in and out, but Beth was
Beth.
This was not Beth.

“Thea,” Robin murmured. Kyle shook his head as Beth fell into Kyle’s arms.

And brave Robin pressed her face into August’s shoulder. In the distance, Inky barked and barked and barked.