Quarantine: The Loners (17 page)

THEY THINK I’M WEAK.

That one thought echoed inside Sam’s head. He knew they were thinking it. His own gang. The whole school. Everyone saw what happened in the quad. They saw David and his gang of beggars kick Sam’s ass.

“Come on and throw with us, Sammy! Get that blood moving!”

Sam looked down from the bleachers at Alan Woodward, who slapped a football in his fat hands. His round cheeks were red like cherry bombs, and Sam wished they’d explode.

“No,” Sam said.

Piss off, you fat lump.
It wasn’t that Alan was a bad guy. It was just that he was an idiot. Ninety percent of Sam’s day was dealing with idiots, keeping them happy so they didn’t gang up and kill him. It was starting to drag him down. But he couldn’t slip now. That was what everybody was waiting for.

Alan shrugged and shuffled off. He cocked his arm and threw the ball to a group at the other end of the gym. Sam admired the tight, spiraled throw. It was a nice toss. The guys at the other end elbowed and shoved each other to get a clean grab at the ball. Their shoes squeaked on the varnished floor.

It sounded like the squeal a dog made when you hurt it.

When Sam was seven, he had a curly-haired black dog named Trixie. It was a stupid name, because Trixie was a boy. His mom named it. She wanted a daughter but only had sons, so the dog became Trixie. It was one of those miniature dogs that women kept in their pocketbooks. Twitchy. Fragile.

Every time he petted it he could feel its brittle ribs. It used to chase him around the house trying to hump his leg. Nasty little thing. Nothing was more disgusting than its little furry hips thrusting away at his ankle. It scratched at every door he hid behind, always wanting to hump him more. And no one helped him, all the adults just laughed. “Look, Sammy’s afraid of Trixie. How cute!” They stopped laughing when he stomped down on the thing and snapped its back. He could still hear the dull crunch. His father beat him for that. “What’s wrong with you?” he yelled. No one seemed to understand. The per-verted little thing was assaulting
him
. It was self-defense.

“Hi, baby.”

Hilary walked up the bleacher. She sat beside Sam and slid her hand down his thigh to his knee. Her nails made a zipping sound along synthetic fabric of his breakaway pants. She kissed him on the cheek.

“How come you’re not playing with the boys?” she said.

“Where’ve you been?” Sam asked. He readied himself for one of her lies.

“Downstairs. I said it was okay for people to have the drop party at the pool. How was the market? Did it make you feel better?”

“Saw your boyfriend.”

Hilary pulled her hand off his knee. “Why do you say things like that?”

Sam laughed. “Relax, baby. It was a joke.”

“I hate it,” she said, her eyebrows digging down deep.

Just what he needed, Hilary pissed at him. He took her hand and put it back on his knee. He touched her face with his other hand and turned it toward him with a little force.

She kept her eyebrows angry and her lips tight. She was playing angry, another lie.

“You don’t like jokes?” he said.

“Not funny, Sam. Just not funny,” she said, doing her vulnerable act. There was still no one hotter than her. Sam leaned in to kiss her but stopped. There was a one-inch smudge of filth on the underside of her jaw. He swiped it with his finger.

“What is this?” he said.

He looked at the dirt on the pad of his forefinger. She looked at it too. Dirt and grime were prevalent in McKinley, but not on Hilary. She was always clean, made up, and smelling sweet.

“It looks like dirt, Sam.”

“It was on your face,” he said, his words heating up.

“Okay, so?” Hilary said, then let out an exasperated breath.

“When are you going to stop acting like this?” She was avoiding the question. She was covering for something. She was lying and lying and lying.

Hilary lowered her voice. “You’re starting to freak people out.”

Someone was laughing. Sam snapped his head toward the gym floor where Alan’s half-assed game was under way. His team was huddled near the basketball foul line. Alan was braying like a donkey over some joke. He hated Alan’s laugh.

Sam caught his eye from fifty feet away. That sort of thing didn’t happen accidentally. Alan was talking about him. He knew it.

“Would ya come on and play, Cappy?” Alan shouted over the gym. He was trying to cover his ass.

“Go,” Hilary said, a little anxiety in her voice. “They need you, Sam.”

Sam didn’t move. Alan sighed and waved him off, pulling the ball up and nodding to the rest to get started. His boys talked to each other and smiled. They weren’t talking about the game. Who cared about games anymore? They all had their little plans for him that they’d kick off when the moment was right.

They didn’t think he had it in him anymore. He could still feel the fingernails of those Scraps tearing at him. They never would have stopped if David hadn’t called them off. David. As long as David and his gang were walking the halls, no one would forget that Sam had crumbled when it mattered.

“Who’s Alan’s girl?” Sam said.

“Roberta Fennessey,” Hilary said.

“Have her dump him.”

“What?”

“We’ll hook her up with one of my sophomores.”

“I can’t do that. She likes Alan. They like each other.”

“Do it.”

“No,” Hilary said. Her tone was firm. Sam looked at her.

She’d betrayed him. He didn’t know how, but she’d done something. He was slipping. He was asking for her betrayal.

He was asking for a coup. Nobody feared him like they used to, back in the early days, after he’d disposed of Danny Liner.

His tangle with Bobby in the market meant nothing to them.

They all saw it as a desperate move.

“Fine,” he said.

Sam stood up. He picked up an aluminum baseball bat. He never went without it in the gym. You could never be too careful. He stepped down the bleachers, reaching the gym floor in five long strides.

“Sam?” he heard Hilary say distantly.

Anthony had just run a touchdown for his team. Alan was acting as his quarterback.

“YES!” Alan shouted, and raised his fists to celebrate. His offensive line was a good ten feet in front of him after the play. Alan turned toward the bleachers, smiling toward where Sam had just sat. His smile bent down when he saw Sam charging him.

Sam smashed his aluminum bat across Alan’s face.

Alan dropped to the floor. He writhed at Sam’s feet. Alan groaned. He was disoriented, reaching for his head, trying to understand what had happened. Blood spouted from his ear.

He clawed at the air in front of him.

Sam heard the shouts behind him. He heard Hilary crying out for him to stop. Sam raised the bat over his head and brought it down again. He felt Alan’s face give way. Blood and teeth flew. Alan barely looked like Alan by the third swing.

He was dead by the sixth. But Sam didn’t stop until the tenth.

It was an awful mess. He dropped the bat, and it clanged onto the hardwood floor beside Alan’s collapsed face.

Sam turned to the gathered crowd. The Pretty Ones buried their faces in the sleeves of their Varsity boyfriends. None of them dared to meet his gaze. He saw the fear in their faces now.

It had to be done.

DAVID SNUCK INTO THE MARKET. EVERY
light was off. Every trading post door was closed and locked. There was no bustle, no hocking of goods, no fighting. Everyone was gone.

The sounds of his own shoes scuffing the floor made him tense up. If anybody happened upon him, even just a few Skaters, they could overpower him and hold him for ransom.

Stupid. The Loners would either have to bend to them, maybe give up all their food as a payoff, or they’d have to fight to get him back. Either way he’d be dragging everybody down, just because he couldn’t control himself.

Hilary wanted him back. That was all he could think about.

He still fantasized about her, maybe not as much as he used to, but every time he saw her he couldn’t help but remember the feel of her hands on his chest, the sweet smell of her neck just below her ear. And now, after all this time, she wanted to meet. Alone. At night. He’d been wishing for something like this for so long.

She’s psychotic.

Those were Lucy’s words. He’d never forgotten them. Lucy described such a vindictive, nasty Hilary, one that he had no memory of.
Psychotic
sort of matched the Hilary he’d seen shaving Belinda’s head, and enjoying it. It definitely fit the girl he saw savagely attack Lucy on the quad.

Lucy.

How could anyone attack Lucy? She was so good. So kind.

David understood now why Will thought she was so amazing.

She had such an easy way about her, so disarming, so beautiful. He always felt relaxed around her. As time had passed, David had become more at ease about what happened at the graduation booth with Brad. Brad’s death was a horrible thing, but David shuddered to think what could have happened if he hadn’t intervened. He felt violent at the thought of someone trying to hurt Lucy and damaging such a pure spirit. If he had to live it over, he wouldn’t do any different.

He’d kill Brad all over again if that’s what it took to keep her safe.

David reached the door to the Pretty Ones’ trading post. He reached out to knock on the door but paused.

Was this really what he wanted? He’d built a gang. He’d come back from being entirely forgotten and had become a real force in the school. And now he was thinking about hopping into bed with the girl who’d treated some of his gang like dirt? If Lucy ever found out . . .

It didn’t matter what Lucy thought. He’d wanted this for almost a year and a half.

David gave the door a soft knock and stepped back. She might not have shown. Maybe she’d chickened out. That would settle it. David’s eyes wandered up to a sprinkler pipe above him. It was the same pipe Sam had hung him from.

The door clicked open. Hilary peeked out from the crack between the door and the door frame.

“Hey,” David said.

Hilary threw the door open and grabbed David by his belt buckle. She yanked him into the candlelit classroom. He closed the door behind him and barely had a chance to lock it before she swung him over to a teacher’s desk.

“Whoa, easy,” David said.

Hilary didn’t say anything. She was all over him. She kissed him. She tore at his shirt. It was his good flannel shirt, and he tried to stop her. She pushed his hands away. She wrapped her legs around him, and her hands locked around the back of his neck. The candles were dim, so he could barely see her face.

“Slow down,” he whispered in her ear. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He wanted to savor every moment, he had been craving this for so long. He wanted it to be like it used to be, back in his room, before everything went to hell.

“I need you right now,” Hilary said. She tugged at his belt, trying to unfasten it.
Just go with it,
David told himself. Here she is, in your arms again. What the hell are you complaining about?

He slipped her dress up and held her firm thighs, pulling them closer to him.

“Mmmmmm,” she moaned, and closed her eyes. “I missed you so much,” she whispered. She managed to get his belt loose and was working on the top button of his jeans. He was kissing her neck, searching for that sweet spot. She didn’t smell the same as he remembered. Maybe he had it confused with something else . . . with Lucy, when they were in the elevator, her arm over him, so close, so warm. She would never forgive him if she found out about Hilary.

Shut up.

“Don’t stop,” Hilary said. He didn’t realize he had. She managed to get his pants unbuttoned. She slid her fingers down inside. Her hand was cold, but it felt amazing. David hadn’t been with anyone since Hilary. But Hilary had. She’d been with Sam. It turned his stomach.

David pushed Hilary away, which forced her to plant her feet on the ground.

“What are you doing?” she said.

David buttoned his pants and stepped away from the desk.

He didn’t know what to say.

“David?”

“I need a second,” he said. “What are we doing here?”

“This,” she said. She pressed herself into him, and went in for an openmouthed kiss. He pulled his head away.

They stared at each other for a moment. Tears gathered on her eyelashes and twinkled in the light of the candles.

“Don’t cry,” David said.

“Sam killed Alan today.”

“What?”

“He killed him. For no reason. He just beat his face with a . . .” She couldn’t go on, she was sobbing too hard. She pushed away from David. A shiver came over David. Alan. Out of all of Varsity, why Alan? He was one of the most cheerful kids David had ever met.

“Alan’s dead?” he said again. It didn’t feel possible.

Hilary collapsed into a chair, lifting her feet up onto the seat and tucking her knees underneath her chin. David pulled a chair around to face her and sat down. He leaned forward, placing his hands on her legs.

“Sam’s lost it. Ever since you beat him on the quad, he’s been worse. He thinks everybody’s out to get him. I’m trying to act like everything’s okay for the Pretty Ones, but I’m scared.

When’s he gonna swing that baseball bat at me?” Hilary sobbed again. This wasn’t what he wanted. He thought they’d talk about their feelings. She’d tell him everything she’d felt about him for the past year and a half, and he’d do the same. He never thought it would be this.

“He’s made me do so many awful things. Things I never would have done.”

“Why did you do them?” David said. It sounded cold, but he needed to know. She looked at him like she was offended.

“You don’t know what it’s been like.”

“I think I do,” David said. “He tried to hang me.”

“Well, we all can’t be as noble as you, David.”

“That’s a cop-out.”

“I had to survive, David!” Hilary said. David realized that she had probably never said any of this to anyone. “And he was my boyfriend.”

“He’s not anymore?”

“It’s complicated.”

“He kills people. And lets others starve. Why would you stay with him?” David said.

“You kill people too.”

That got David’s anger up.

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” David said.

Hilary stared at the door.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said finally.

The excitement he had felt walking into this room had died.

This wasn’t the girl he lost back at Sam’s party. Or maybe it was, but the feeling was gone. They didn’t belong together.

But he still cared for her. He didn’t want her to live in fear.

“Do you want to join the Loners?” David asked.

“You could kill him,” she said. “I could sneak you in. You could take over Varsity. I’d support you. I have the girls.

Everything would be okay. We could be like we were.” David stared at her. He couldn’t believe she’d just said all that. Who was this girl? She dumps him, acts like he’s invisible all this time, and then asks him to kill her boyfriend?

“I’m not going murder anybody, Hilary.”

“Why not? After everything he’s done to you? After everything he’s done to everybody,” Hilary got angry. “He’ll do it to you. He’s going to kill you!”

“Well, it sounds like he’s really going someplace.” Hilary stood up. She jabbed her finger at him like a knife.

“You’re an idiot. I’m giving you a chance to change things, David. Everybody could start over!”

“I already have started over.”

Hilary shook her head and pushed open the door.

“I’m sorry,” David said. And he was.

She slipped out into the hall and was gone. David let out a long breath.

“Oh, man . . . ,” he said to himself. “That went well.” David leaned back and ran his fingers through his hair.

He stared at the ceiling. If there was anything to be said for McKinley High, it was that, with enough time, it revealed the truth about everybody.