Authors: Bryan Smith
Fiona picked up the gun and pointed it at him.
Kevin held his hand and put his back against the driver’s-side door. “Jesus. Fiona—”
“Shut up.”
Kevin’s mouth clamped shut. He was shaking. He didn’t think Fiona would shoot him, but it was far from a certainty and that bothered him nearly as much as the possibility of being shot. She was his friend. More than that. They were comrades. Allies against all the bastards in the world. It
should
have been a certainty and the fact that it wasn’t filled him with despair.
Fiona used her free hand to angle the rearview mirror toward him. “Look at yourself. Look what they fucking did to you.”
Kevin glanced at the mirror, winced at the now-familiar sight of his pulped bottom lip and swollen eye. He still hurt like hell all over. The painkillers Fiona had swiped from her mother’s vast supply of prescription drugs had dulled the pain only slightly.
Fiona’s harsh expression softened some. “This shit is what always happens to people like you and me sooner or later. We don’t fit in. We’re different. And the normal motherfuckers can’t stand it. So they have to put us in our place. Knock us down. Beat the shit out of us. Make sure we know we can’t go through life being different. That we’ve gotta conform or get knocked down in the dirt again and again.”
Kevin shook his head. “No. It’s just . . . you know, it’s shit that happens in a small town. Cliques fighting cliques. None of it will really matter when we’re older.”
“We’re not getting older.”
Kevin’s eyes went to the barrel of the gun. It was eerie how steady her hand was. He looked her in the eye again. “Please don’t kill me.”
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
Kevin’s eyes misted. “Please.”
“We can’t go on. You have to see that.”
A light went on in Kevin’s head. Of course. He should have seen it sooner. This wasn’t just about payback for the beating he’d taken. Hell, that was the smallest part of it. This was about that night in the basement. That was the thing she couldn’t face anymore. The real adversary. Those dark, twisted memories. It was why she’d been so quick to nudge him toward the murder-suicide scenario, knowing he’d be most susceptible to it while the beating was still fresh in his mind.
She smiled, seeing it in his eyes now. “It has to be this way. It’s okay, Kevin. It’s my fault, really. I should have known you weren’t strong enough for this.” She pushed the barrel of the gun against his stomach. “I’m sorry. I’ll see you on the other side.”
It all seemed so crazy now.
If things had gone according to the original plan, he would have killed her fist; then he would have gone inside to blow away Hickerson and his friends. And then himself, thus sealing the pact. He cursed his stupidity. How could he have gone along with it even for one second, even in the depths of his humiliation?
Fiona jumped at the sound of a fist loudly pounding the window on her side.
Kevin gasped as the gun barrel pressed harder against his stomach. He cringed, expecting her to squeeze off a shot in surprise. But her finger stayed off the trigger as she turned her head to glance over her shoulder at the intruder. Kevin craned his head and saw Mark Bell’s grinning mug peering through the glass. He looked sort of fucked up. Somebody else was standing near him. Somebody big. Had to be Jared.
Kevin waved.
He kept his eyes on Mark as he addressed Fiona. “Put the gun down, okay? You don’t wanna do this now, not with them here.”
Her head swiveled back toward him. “Okay.”
She let go of the gun. Kevin took it from her and dropped it in the little storage slot at the bottom of the door on his side. He was pretty sure the angle of Fiona’s body had shielded the gun from sight. Which was good. He didn’t want the others knowing how close Fiona had come to killing him.
He hit a power-window switch and the window on Fiona’s side rolled down.
Mark poked his head inside. His breath reeked of alcohol. He grinned. “I knew this was your fucking Eclipse, Cooper. Am I interrupting anything?”
Fiona smiled. “Well, I was about to go on a murder spree. You interrupted that.”
Mark laughed.
He lifted his head slightly and bumped it against the top of the door frame. “Ow. Damn.” The guy was really hammered. “What are you guys doing at fucking Ransom Lanes?”
Kevin shrugged. “I could ask you the same fucking question.”
Mark laughed again. Bumped his head again. “Touché. We were just driving around, man. This may come as a big fucking surprise, but there ain’t a lot to do in Ransom, even during the day, so we decided to cruise by . . .” Some of the drunken high spirits drained from his features as he took a longer look at Kevin’s face. “Man . . . what the fuck happened to you?”
Before Kevin could say anything, Fiona launched into a fast-paced and luridly detailed account of the beating he’d taken at the hands of Hickerson’s jock pals. Her delivery was hyper verging on manic, with a lot of hand gestures and twisting around in her seat. By the time she was done recounting the tale, Mark no longer looked sloppy drunk. His eyes were clear, his features strained with fury. Jared had bent at the waist to peer in at her as she talked, and his expression was the same. Kevin became nervous as he observed the transformation in Mark’s demeanor. The air was again thick with the palpable threat of violence.
Mark jerked a thumb at the building. “And that Hickerson motherfucker is in there now?”
Fiona nodded. “They’re
all
in there. Every last one of those assholes.”
Mark stared at Kevin’s face a beat longer.
Then he and Jared exchanged a glance.
Jared said, “Wanna fuck some people up?”
Mark’s only reply was a nod.
He and Jared moved away from the Eclipse and began to walk rapidly toward the bowling alley. Kevin twisted in his seat to watch them. They were already halfway across the lot. There was no hesitation at all in their gait. This was not going to be pretty. “Oh, shit. What should we do?”
Fiona reached for the door handle. “Our part, that’s what.”
She opened the door and climbed out, hurrying after them.
“Fuck!”
Kevin banged a fist against the steering wheel. This was happening too fast. He knew he couldn’t just sit here in the car like a bitch while his friends went after the people who’d attacked him. He got out of the car and jogged fast across the parking lot, drawing near his friends just as they were stepping through the front door and entering the lobby.
Bang through the doors and then the oppressive thump and blare of the latest from Lady Gaga. The thunderous music was just one part of an overall assault on the senses. The bowling alley’s interior was darker than Kevin had anticipated. There were flashing disco lights and the lanes were lit up in neon colors. A fog machine was pumping out a low-lying mist. The sign out front had referred to something called C
OSMIC
B
OWLING
. The floor area was choked with limber young bodies flailing to the dance beats. The faint crash of bowling pins was barely audible through the din. Hard to believe this was what passed for fun for so many people. On the plus side, there was a chance a fight in so chaotic a setting might go unnoticed by the building’s security staff, at least long enough to have at the bad guys and make a quick getaway.
There was one problem with that.
Mark Bell.
The guy wasn’t the hit-and-run type. He was more the go-completely-ballistic-fucking-psycho type. That was his default setting for dealing with people he perceived as enemies. Add in the fact that he’d been drinking heavily, and this situation had the potential to turn really ugly really fast. Mark and Jared bullied their way through the throng of dancers. Kevin’s stomach did a slow, queasy roll as he and Fiona followed in their wake.
Mark and Jared came to an abrupt stop at the partition that separated the floor area from the recessed area where the bowlers sat waiting their turns. Their heads swiveled on their necks as they searched the area. There were a lot of lanes and the flicker of the strobes made it hard to pick out individual faces. Kevin reached the partition and took a look around. Only the faces of the people sitting in the area directly below where he was standing were occasionally visible. One or two of them looked vaguely familiar, but none of them were Hickerson or his friends. Good. Maybe they had slipped out unnoticed at some point while he’d been arguing with Fiona.
But Mark abruptly leaned over the partition and pointed to the left.
Jared leaned over the partition, peering in the same direction.
Then they took off running.
Kevin grimaced.
Shit
.
He and Fiona trailed after them again, the knot in Kevin’s stomach tightening as he saw Mark and Jared disappear through one of the openings in the partition down to the pit below. By the time he and Fiona joined them down in the pit, Mark was shrugging off his leather jacket and bearing down on a very surprised-looking Moose Hendrickson. The football player was a bit bigger than Mark, but this did not make him more imposing. The endless hours Mark spent pumping iron in his garage was obvious even in the bad lighting. Thick, corded slabs of muscle strained the fabric of his T-shirt. Kevin couldn’t see his friend’s face, but he had no doubt there was pure murder in his eyes. The football player saw this immediately and started backing off. No hint of bravado there at all. Just fear. Despite the sick feeling in his gut, it made Kevin happy to see that.
The other kids sitting in the same area came out of their seats fast and scrambled out of the way. Kevin recognized Kent Hickerson and his friend Brett. That other football player, Zack or Jack, who’d participated in his beating, was there, too. Some of them had girlfriends with them. The girls screamed in unison as Mark launched a fist at Hendrickson. The blow connected. Hendrickson flew backward, crashing into empty chairs as a spray of blood flew from his broken nose. Before he could recover, Mark seized the football player by the throat and started punching him repeatedly in the face. Zack or Jack made a halfhearted, hesitant move to intercede, but Jared intercepted him, slamming him to the floor with a ferocious body blow. He fell atop Zack or Jack and started pummeling him with his meaty fists. More blood flowed. There were more screams.
Kevin drew in a big breath.
Released it.
And took a step forward, poking Kent Hickerson in the center of his back. The boy flinched and whirled around. His face blanched when he saw Kevin standing there, grinning at him. Kevin launched a blow of his own, giving it everything he had. The feeling when his fist connected with Kent’s soft lower lip and split it open was the most gratifying thing he’d ever felt. Pain shot up his arm and turned his hand almost instantly numb.
But he didn’t care.
He had tasted of blood and vengeance and it felt good.
He kicked Kent in the face when the boy tried to stand, snapping his nose and sending him howling in pain back to the floor. The adrenaline was sizzling through his system now and he pressed the attack. In the midst of the melee, he failed to notice Fiona melting backward into the crowd of onlookers and slipping away. The frenzy continued for just a few minutes more. At some point the music stopped and the strobe lights stopped flickering as the regular overhead lighting came on.
Then he felt other hands on him, pulling him roughly away from the bloodied face of the boy beneath him. Kevin laughed even as his arms were twisted painfully behind his back, the wild exhilaration of the moment still gripping him like a kind of madness. He savored the looks of shock on the faces of everyone around him, especially those familiar faces. He knew he was in some serious trouble here, but he knew one other thing just as clearly—no one at Ransom High would ever fuck with him again.
The cops arrived and slapped on handcuffs.
They were hauled out of the bowling alley and shoved into the backs of police cars.
Yeah, they were definitely in some trouble. Big trouble.
But it was hard to care at the moment. Later, sure, he’d care. But not now.
Because Kevin Cooper felt better than he had in a long time.
Maybe ever.
T
HIRTY
Mark Bell felt like shit when he was let out of jail the next morning, his joints all stiff from a night of trying with little success to sleep on a tiny, uncomfortable cot. His shoulders hurt and his hands were still throbbing, aftereffects of the beating he’d given Moose Hendrickson. His father had come down to pay bail. Finally. He hadn’t been able to reach either of his parents the previous night and had been forced to leave halting, awkward messages about his situation.
He signed the things he needed to sign and was processed out at just after nine a.m. They returned his belongings, including his phone, wallet, and keys. He checked the phone on the way out of the building for messages. He’d missed a call from an unknown number during the wee morning hours. That had to be Clayton Campbell, wondering why no one had showed for the meeting. There were texts from Jared and Cooper, who were both already out. There was nothing from Natasha, which saddened but didn’t surprise him. By now she knew all about what had gone down at Ransom Lanes and had probably reverted to her hard-line stance against him. He suspected the problem had grown beyond his ability to solve. He had come close to swaying her with his impassioned words and promises before, but more than likely they were done forever now.
His father was waiting for him by his late-model blue Lexus in the parking lot. He was dressed for work, but he had his suit jacket off and was holding it slung over a shoulder by a thumb. Tom Bell’s expression was predictably stony as he watched his son cross the parking lot. His parents had never been strict disciplinarians, but they would probably take a stab at it now. It was bullshit and more than a little late in the goddamn game. Fuck that. He wasn’t many months removed from being a legal adult. What were they gonna do? Ground him?
Yeah, right.
Mark went right to the passenger-side door and waited.