Remember Me (15 page)

“How about because it's the closest I'll ever get to being a superhero?” he says. It's a joke and yet it comes across as serious . . . interested.

“Um, yeah, I'm good. Thanks.” I peel away, heading for the school, and this time, he doesn't follow. But just as I think I'm in the clear, he calls:

“Then how about because I can get you into Dr. Norcut's computer files?”

17

“Yeah, I thought that would get your attention.” Milo's tennis shoes scrape against the pavement as he approaches me. “That sniffer works brilliantly, if I do say so myself, which I do.”

“You were checking the sniffer I bought from you?”

“Well, technically, you didn't buy it. Why do you care?” Milo's trying for defiant, but there's an undercurrent of worry beneath his words. He's expecting me to pull a hissy and I'm pretty freaking close.

I take a breath, blow it between my teeth until there's nothing left in me. “In what
universe
did you think I would be happy about you screwing with my job?”

“The same universe that has cops outside your house and you digging into a judge's personal life. Who's this job for anyway?”

I stare at him, waiting for him to realize I'm never going to tell.

“I can help get you into her files,” Milo says, the words pickup-line smooth. “I did all her networking. It was a few years ago when I was still freelancing. I left back doors in case I should ever need them.”

Something cold coils in my stomach.
Keeps his fingers in everyone's business, doesn't he?
I grab my phone, check the time. “I have to go.”

Milo deflates a little. I'm not sure what he expected from me? Squealing? A kiss? I don't appreciate his interference.

Then again, if I play this right, Milo could be helpful. I try not to think about what that would make me though. Something similar to Carson, I suspect, and the thought leaves me a little sick.

“If you really want to help,” I say, “I want to know if anyone's been hired lately to do work against Barton and Moore. Can you ask some of your contacts?”

“Sure. Why?”

“I want to confirm a hunch. I'll keep your other offer in mind, Milo. Thanks.” I take off before he can respond, focusing on my project, on my homework, on
anything
except for how I can feel Milo's gaze—heavy, hot—between my shoulder blades.

I slide back inside the school, hit the stairs two at a time, and by the time I reach the second floor, I'm repeating how I've got this, I'm okay . . . and maybe that's why I don't hear the voices.

By the time I do, it's too late.

Matthew Bradford, Sutton Davis, and Eric Williams have pinned Ian to the floor outside the bathroom, Ian's polo shirt rucked up to expose a fish-white belly.

“Leave him alone.” I sound pissed and I am, but I have to stab both feet into the tile to keep from running.

All four boys stare at me. Matthew breaks first, nudging Sutton with his elbow. “Should we take out the trash?”

Both of them smile.

Sutton and Matthew move toward me in slow motion as, behind them, Eric wrenches Ian to his feet, the white showing all around Ian's eyes. Sutton and Matthew split, approaching me on either side.

“Don't touch me,” I say, and Matthew cocks his head, eyes narrowed.

“You know you want it. Everyone knows all about you and that foster dad of yours.” He takes two steps closer, and on the other side of me, Sutton lunges. Instinctively, I shy backward and crash into Matthew's chest. He wraps one arm around my torso, twists both of us around, and shoves me through the bathroom door.

I land on my hands and knees, palms skidding across the black-and-white tile. I sweep my legs under me, ready to jump to my feet, and something heavy knocks me down again.

Matthew. I can't breathe. Too heavy. Too—I jam my elbows backward and connect with his knees.

“Bitch,” he mutters, and flips me. My shoulders hit the floor and his hand circles my throat, tightening until I can't gasp.

I claw his face and Matthew jerks out of reach. His eyes dip lower and his other hand follows. It creeps along my skin with spider legs.

“No!” I stamp both feet into the floor, kicking myself up and unseating him. “Stop!”

“Say please.” His words are singsong, and when I don't respond, his fingers snag the bottom of my T-shirt, pulling it up and exposing skin that suddenly burns.

“Stop it!”

“I will if you say please.”

“No.”

Matthew's smile promises mayhem. “
Say
it,” he hisses, taking a fistful of my jeans now, touching me like he owns me and I'm here with him instead of floating above us. I'm here and not here as, somewhere very far away, Ian whimpers and I swallow and Matthew's horrible smile blurs as I watch some other Wick say, “Please.”

“Look at you.” He pushes to his feet, leaving me curled on the floor. “You sound almost like a real girl.”

Laughter. I roll onto my side, putting my back to them. No good though. Their gazes crawl across me like fire ants.

Do not cry. Do
not
cry
.

I open my eyes. Ian's a few feet away. His shirt is gone and he's staring at me, face puffy from crying and Kyle's beating. The skin by his hip stands up in ridges, the imprint of a sneaker.

A toilet flushes and Matthew steps around us still laughing. They're all still laughing. I can hear it long after the bathroom door slams shut.

“Are you okay?” I whisper.

“Yeah.” Ian swipes a forearm across his eyes, the skin along his cheekbone a stinging purple. “My brother used to beat the shit out of me all the time. That was nothing.” He glances toward the stalls. “I think . . . I think they stuffed my shirt down the toilet.”

I crane my head and, sure enough, water's spilling onto the tile from the third stall. The whole bathroom will flood. I tuck my arms around me. It's hardly cold, but my skin is sprayed with chills.

“We should go,” Ian says, struggling to stand. He sways once and steadies himself. “I don't think they'll come back, but, you know, if they do . . .”

If they do, it'll go far worse for us. I don't think either of us can say the words, but we understand. That's weird to me. It's weird that he gets it. I thought money protected you from this stuff. I thought it could make you belong.

Ian offers me his hand, not meeting my gaze. I recognize that feeling too. Shame. Right now, I'm lit with it. I'm plastic in acid, dissolving in it.

Ian tugs me to my feet, turns away, but not before I see how his ribs are spotted with circular scars.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Lit cigar and my brother's game of cry uncle . . . I never did.”

He gives me a shy smile and I smile back. I think we're both fighting tears. “Want to make a run for it?” I ask.

“God, yes.”

I stick my head into the hallway, listening. “Okay, I think it's clear.”

We hustle toward the parking lot, swiping our stuff from the floor. Thank God, Matthew didn't pitch my keys in the trash or something. I pocket them, waiting for Ian to scrape together his spilled homework.

“Ready?” I ask.

Ian nods, opening his book bag and pulling out a fleece jacket. “I'm sorry I was late for our project stuff,” he says.

I snort. “You want to talk about that
now
?”

“We could finish it at my house,” Ian continues. We're through the double doors now, almost around the bend to the parking lot, and he's so close I can smell his Trident gum. “I've already done the first two sections. It shouldn't take too long to finish everything, right?”

“Ian, that asshole rolled me around on a
public
bathroom floor. I'm not doing
squat
with our project. I'm going home to scrub myself with a Brillo pad and—oh, shit!”

The parking lot is so empty it's easy to spot the Mini. It's even easier to see what they did to it. “Bitch” is scraped across the driver door in huge, looping letters and “trash” is carved underneath, spilling across the quarter panel in one long arc.

“Nonononononono!” I sprint into the parking lot, Ian chasing after me.

“Wick! Wait!”

I don't. I skid to a stop next to the Mini, kneeling to run my hands along its sides. The gouges are deep. There's no buffing them away. “My car,” I whisper, feeling wobbly. It was the nicest thing I ever had and they destroyed it.

The computer!

I check the backseat and, thankfully, nothing looks disturbed.

“Why do they hate you so much?” Ian walks around the car in a slow circle, taking in the damage. He lets out a long sigh when he sees the other side and I know I don't want to look.

“No idea.” I'm lying and Ian probably knows it. They hate me because of Todd and Tessa and how everyone thinks the trashy girl probably wanted Todd's attention. Bren may have changed my life, but she will never change who I am to these people. “They're not too fond of you either.”

“Yeah. True.” Ian looks toward the road, thinking. “They might not hate you as much, you know, if you stayed down more. If you didn't fight back so much.”

“So let them stomp all over me?”

Ian shrugs, bends down. “This yours?” he asks, handing me a Droid cell phone. Definitely not mine. One of the boys must have dropped it. I should repay the favor by breaking it into a million little pieces and returning it.

Except that's nowhere near equal to what they just did to my car, to me, to Ian. People like Matthew Bradford and his friends don't just wreck our stuff. They wreck
everything
for people like us.

Stay down? My hand circles the Droid, tightens.

Ian scuffs his shoe against the pavement, watching me. “What're you going to do, Wick?”

I smile at him. “Call my mom's insurance company.”

And then I'm going to make Matthew Bradford, Sutton Davis, and Eric Williams pay.

18

If finding “bitch” keyed on the side of your car is bad, driving it home is worse. Everyone points, looks at me. I stare straight ahead and pretend I don't notice, but my face is seventeen shades of red and my neck . . . well, I glanced once in the rearview mirror to check and once was enough. The skin hurts, but it'll heal. It's not even
that
bad.

And yet I'm still shaking.

I want my mom. It's weird actually. She's been gone for over four years, but the need is so sharp-edged, it feels like I lost her yesterday. I swing around the officer parked by our house. I don't stop to say hi, but I know he gets a good look at the Mini. By the time I'm turning in the driveway, he has his radio ready. Great. It's one more thing I can explain to Carson.

I park my car alongside Bren's, killing the engine as my adoptive mom walks into the garage. She stops dead, gaze pinned to the Mini.

Then to me.

“What happened?” Bren demands.

I hesitate. There's no getting around the truth even though I brainstormed lies the whole way home. It's not that I want Matthew and his cretins to get out of this. I just want to deal with them on my own and yet now, looking at Bren, feeling Matthew's hands branded on my skin, feeling sudden tears prickling my eyes . . . I want to tell her everything and I want
her
to fix it. I want someone to save me because I'm too damn tired to save myself anymore.

Griff once said Bren would help me, that she'd never want me to handle Carson alone. If that's true, I'd have to tell her.

I edge a little closer. “It was keyed by some kids at school.”

“Which kids?”

“Matthew Bradford, Eric Williams, and Sutton Davis.” I pause, waiting to see Bren's face flush red in anticipation of the ass kicking she's about to deliver, but it never happens. When I say the boys' names, she flinches.

“
Alan
Bradford's son?” Bren asks.

“I guess.”

Bren swallows, swallows again. “I have a breakfast meeting with Alan day after tomorrow. He's the only person who's returned my calls in weeks and—and—are those
bruises
? What happened to your
neck
?”

“Matthew Bradford,” I whisper.

Bren makes a strangled noise deep in her throat. “I don't understand. Did he . . . touch you?”

Are you stupid? Of course, he freaking touched me!
I try to work my mouth around something to say and, suddenly, understand what she means. “No, he didn't touch me like that.”

He just humiliated me. He made me feel like trash. He made me
—I inhale hard against the tears. If I start crying now, I won't be able to stop.

Bren's shoulders go slack and she rubs her forehead, eyes still locked on my neck. “Do you want to make a statement? Do you want to go to the police?”

Yes . . . no. I'm tripping over her tone. This is Bren.
Bren
. Shouldn't she be making me? I don't understand. Her tone is worried about me . . . not angry with them.

“I'm not sure,” I say at last.

“Wick, if he hurt you, we have to go to the police.”

She sounds stronger this time, but still not herself, and as I stare at her hand (shaking) and how it plays with her nonexistent pearls (when was the last time she wore them?), I start to see everything else: how her cardigan hangs looser . . . how there are smudges under her eyes . . . how I wasn't the only person Todd took things from.

Oh. I blink. Her tone is worried because Bren needs Alan Bradford.
We
need Alan Bradford.

“I'm sorry,” I say. The apology is so fast it feels greased. It's only afterward that I catch myself because why should I be sorry? What's more, why do I
feel
sorry? I feel like this is somehow my fault, like I've let her down.