When I open them, it’s too bright, and as I strain to make sense of my surroundings, the blue sky appears. The tugging on my arm grows stronger. My feet instinctually pick up the pace.
Kyle’s mouth is opening and closing. Words I can’t hear fall from his lips. There’s just the loud buzz and my moving feet. I blink. One time. Another. Recognition in the form of a memory causes me to trip over my feet.
“This is where Razor brought me.” My own voice sounds muted. Far away. As if I’m talking through a thick glass.
The hold on my arm tightens and it’s painful enough that a sharp “Ow” leaves my throat. That one declaration causes the fog in my head to sweep away in time for Kyle to step on the bridge looming before us.
My breath catches in my throat. Kyle.
Kyle has me and he’s yelling and he’s furious. His face red, his eyes wide, he’s spitting as he continues to scream at me and this isn’t Razor’s bridge. This is the other bridge. This is the one that the trains use. I snap my arm back and it slips in his clammy hand. “No!”
I spin on my toes and spot motorcycles. Four of them, then two more. They park in the grass next to the abandoned car. Racing off their bikes, yelling at us to stop. One of them has blond hair and he’s faster than the others, running as if he’s watching his life coming to an end.
“Razor!”
An arm around my waist and I’m being dragged. Onto the train tracks, onto the bridge, and below us the rapids swirl. The roar of the water replaces the buzzing in my head. White foam waves lash up, then get sucked into the undertow.
I have to get off this bridge. I need to get to safety. I prepare to kick, raise my elbow to strike a blow, then Kyle circles us and I can’t breathe.
We’re on the edge and he’s leaning me over. My feet scoot back and smack his and I recoil, but the more I struggle, the more he uses his body weight.
“Stay back,” Kyle shouts. “Stay the fuck back!”
Not quite a hundred feet—the drop is easily that huge. Into the rocky ravine. Into shallow rapids. At forty-eight feet, the chance of surviving a fall is fifty percent. At eighty-four feet, ten percent. I wish I had never read that article. Wish I could remain ignorant.
“Why did you do it? Why did you write that post? Why did you ruin my life? I’m going to lose everything. Everything.”
“You did this. You’re the one that took the photo.”
“But I never would have released it.” We shake as he yells and I press back, into him, away from the edge. “It was just a threat. To scare you. I never would have released it.”
“You released the one of Violet.”
“That was them. Not me!” He shoves us closer to the edge again. “That wasn’t me!”
“Calm down,” comes a voice, and it’s not Razor’s. I rip my focus away from the water and there’s a man with blond hair and a cut like Razor’s slowly approaching the bridge. His hands are up—a sign of submission. “Just calm down.”
“I said stay back!” Kyle’s voice vibrates against my back.
My pulse pounds in my ears. “Please, stay back!”
“Breanna,” Razor calls. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
A promise. Razor’s next to the other man and I don’t see the terror inside me reflected on him. Razor is calm, too calm, and he subtly nods at me. “I promise,” he repeats.
I swallow to ease my dry throat and nod back. Razor never makes a promise he doesn’t intend to keep. It’s then that I realize that my fingers have a death grip on Kyle’s arms. The one wrapped near my throat, the other snaked around my waist.
“Were you stalking her?” the guy next to Razor asks. Pigpen. I bet this is the Pigpen Razor has talked about.
“No!” Kyle shakes his head, bumping mine. “I drove by her house to see her and I saw her taking off. I followed her. That’s it.”
“Now you’re holding her over a bridge. How do you see this playing out, kid?”
“Get on your bikes and leave.” Kyle’s voice trembles and so does his body. “That’s what’s going to happen. I’ll let her go then and then I’ll leave. I’m not the bad guy in this. I didn’t take or put up the picture of Violet. I’m not the one!”
“Promise you won’t hurt him,” I say.
Razor tilts his head to show he’s consumed with the thought of hurting Kyle, but he remains silent as Pigpen says, “Hurting you was never an option on the table. We don’t operate like that. Hurting kids isn’t how we work.”
“I’m not a kid!”
“A man wouldn’t be holding a girl on a bridge like he’s about to toss her over. I swear on my patch, killing you is not in the Terror’s plans.”
I blink as I hear the promise and Razor raises his head for me to not tip their hand. They don’t have plans to kill Kyle, but anything else, like maybe jail time, is up for negotiation.
“How can I believe you?”
“You can’t,” says Pigpen. “But I’m not seeing your other options.”
“I’m not bad,” Kyle whispers into my ear. “I’m sorry, Bre. I promise I’m not bad.”
The desperation in his voice, the way he’s hugging me instead of holding me, causes me to loosen my grip. For months, Kyle has been this shadow of a monster haunting my life and he’s been the epitome of evil, but listening to his brokenness—he doesn’t sound much different from Zac or Paul or Elsie. He doesn’t sound much different from a scared child.
The big, strong football player who everyone knows is frightened. Frightened enough to blackmail me, frightened enough to do something that causes him to feel guilty, frightened enough to take on the Terror, frightened enough to drag both of us onto a railway bridge.
“I’m scared,” I say to him.
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
“You and I, we’ve made bad choices. It doesn’t make us good, but I’m not sure it makes us bad.”
“What have you done?”
“I didn’t love my family enough to let them love me back.”
A disgusted sound slips from his lips and a new rush of fear overtakes me, but I press forward. “I hurt people. People that I said I loved. They hurt me, too, but I’m not sure I tried to give them another chance. It’s like tearing off my arm because I didn’t want to feel the pain of a paper cut on my finger.”
Kyle doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak, either, and a wave of dizziness disorients me when a strong gust sweeps over the bridge, causing us to ease a centimeter toward the edge.
“Easy now,” says Pigpen in a smooth tone.
“I said—” Kyle starts, but I shush him.
“Listen to me, not them. We’ve both made mistakes, and the point is, what makes us bad is when we don’t know when to stop. When we keep covering for the things we’ve done wrong and never stop. If you say you aren’t bad, then prove it. Walk us off this bridge, let me go home and I’ll tell my family that they’ve been wrong, but I’ve also been wrong.”
“But you don’t understand.” There’s a break in his voice. “What has happened...what you did...what I did...everything is ruined.”
If I lie, and he doesn’t believe me, he’s crazy enough to toss us both over. “You said you wanted me to write the papers because you need out of this town, and I never thought of it until now, but that must mean you feel like you’re dying here. Maybe this is our moment. Maybe everything is gone, but maybe this is what we both need. Maybe both of us need to stop playing the parts assigned to us by this awful town and find the courage to be somebody new. Somebody different.”
“The Terror are going to kill me. They think I put up the picture of Violet. Razor’s going to kill me for hurting you.”
“They won’t hurt you.”
“You don’t know—”
“Promise you won’t hurt him,” I cal
l out. “Swear to me as Razor’s girl that you won’t hurt him.”
“Doesn’t work like that,” Pigpen says real slowly, and my blood pressure plummets. It’s a boys’ club. Violet had said that. A boys’ club that’s going to get me killed—
“On my life,” Razor calls out. “He’ll walk out of here.”
Pigpen assesses Razor with a half-sarcastic grin. “Now, that’s how we work. Razor calls this clean, so I’ll drive Kyle home to Mom and Dad myself.”
Kyle’s arms give, and when I inch to slip out of them, he grabs on to my wrist. My heart shoots to my throat, but then he slides his hand into mine. Nausea knots my stomach. I don’t want to hold his hand, but I do want off this bridge.
With every step, I’m terrified he’ll change his mind. We’re farther onto the bridge than I thought. Too far for my liking, but at least we’re walking on the tracks in the middle.
Pigpen’s telling everyone to fall back and Razor’s staring at me as if his gaze is what is protecting me. Kyle pauses and anticipation builds. Not the good kind like the morning of your birthday. The bad kind. The type that suggests that death is taking note of exactly how your last moments should be.
“Let’s go,” I encourage him.
“I’m sorry. I mean it.” He releases me and a sickening sensation twines its fingers around me like a January wind. “Make sure you tell my mom that I said it and that I meant it.”
No. I know that hopelessness. I’ve seen it before. On Clara. The day she held a knife at her wrist. No one should look that way. Not ever. Kyle steps toward the bridge and I’m the one clutching his hand. “Don’t do this. Not now. We’ll figure it out. I swear we’ll figure it out.”
The metal beneath my feet vibrates and mind-numbing fear freezes my heart. “Kyle, it’s the train.”
A whistle in the distance and there are multiple shouts. Men yelling my name. Telling me to get off the tracks. “Go, Bre.” His eyes are hard and his jaw determined. “Go now.”
Kyle attempts to shake off my hold, and when I won’t let go, he shoves me. I stumble and the words rip so loudly from my throat that it scratches the vocal cords. “He’s going to jump. He’s going to jump or stay on the track! I can’t let him!”
Another whistle and it’s so loud that the hair on my arms rises. He’s going to die, and if we don’t run, we’re both going to die. “Don’t do this! Please don’t do this!”
The entire bridge shakes and Kyle quakes as he studies the churning water. “Tell my mom I loved her. Just tell her that I loved her.”
“Move, move, move!” Pounding of footsteps and an arm around my waist. “Let’s move!”
Tears flood my eyes, but the roaring of an engine causes my feet to scramble, me to move in the same direction as I’m being dragged. Pulling me forward, running with me, it’s blond hair, a black cut.
The green of the trees blur as we race for our lives, as we race to beat a train.
My lungs hurt, my legs burn, I trip in the rush forward and the strong arm lifts me and then we’re rolling. The scent of fall grass, then the air’s knocked out of me as we land and we continue to roll. Dirt and rocks embed into my skin.
I reach out, clawing into the ground. We finally skid to a halt and there’s only the deafening grumble of the train flying past. I whip my head to confirm Razor’s safe and then I scurry back, my arms and legs colliding against each other. It’s blond hair and blue eyes, but that’s not Razor.
“Where’s Razor?” I shout, but the train drowns me out. Pigpen’s on his feet and a wave of nausea crashes into me. Dizzy with dread, I yell Razor’s name, but there’s no reply.
Lots of black cuts. Lots of men wide-eyed and scanning the area. I’m frantic, desperate for a sign of him, desperate to see everything at once.
“Where is he?” Pigpen demands, and my mind rejects someone’s answer of “He went over. He was dragging that kid and it was close. He shoved the kid and they both went over.”
There’s a pain in my heart. So massive, so intense that I bend over. “Razor!”
My shout is swallowed by steel grinding against steel and the rhythmic clank, yet I try again. “Thomas!”
I can’t lose him. I can’t. The last car passes, the rumbling fades and a crow caws in the distance. I’m stumbling through the field, next to the track, and the men march toward the ravine.
“Thomas, answer me!”
“I told you, it’s Razor, but I like that name off your lips, too.”
My heart pulses hard as I drop to the ground and peer over the edge. A few feet down, sitting on a rock ledge, Razor raises his beautiful face in my direction. Dirt stains his cheek and there’s a rip in his jeans with a small amount of blood, but he’s alive. The mix between a sob and a laugh escapes from my mouth. “So I can call you Thomas now?”
“Considering the past few minutes, you can call me anything as long as I can hug you again.”
“Deal.” Movement near Razor and it’s an odd sensation of relief when I spot Kyle propping his back against the rock wall.
Razor catches my eyes and rocks his head for me to stay silent. “Get us help.”
Razor saved Kyle’s life—from suicide, from a train. “He’s over here! Razor’s over here!”
“Why’d you do it?” I overhear Kyle ask. “Why’d you save me?”
“Because somebody loves you,” Razor answers, and my heart twists for all of us—me, him and Kyle. “Because somebody out there fucking loves you and doesn’t deserve the type of hurt you jumping would have caused. Killing yourself doesn’t solve your problems. It just hands them to somebody else.”
“Razor—” Kyle starts.
“Shut up,” Razor cuts him off. “Just shut the fuck up.”
Pigpen rushes to my side. “Is he okay?”
Oddly enough? “Yes. In fact, he’s amazing.”
RAZOR
ELI’S EDGY AND that causes my skin to crawl along my muscles. We’re in Louisville and in Riot territory. It’s not the first time he’s been here since the Riot tried to hollow out his chest with a few bullets, but it’s the first time we’ve been here specifically to meet with someone from the Riot. The peace between our clubs continues to be unsteady. Today is an information-gathering session, and according to my father, judgment day.
Not sure what that means, but I was asked to ride along.
We’re at a public park. A few women jog on a concrete path in pairs or in threes. Kids squeal and laugh from the towering playground that’s on the far side from where we left our bikes. I’m sitting on top of a picnic table staring at my cell.
Me: You there?
Breanna doesn’t respond.
Because I’m a glutton for punishment: I miss you.
And love her. It’s been a month since I’ve seen her, since I’ve held her, since I’ve had any contact with her. This text, it’s in vain, and watching my cell like she’s going to respond hurts as bad as having a bullet rip through my arm and my skin scraped off by the road.
Naw, that’s wrong. It hurts worse.
A month ago, when everything went down with Kyle, her parents deactivated this number, but it doesn’t stop me from calling. Doesn’t stop me from searching for a connection with her. Doesn’t stop me from hoping.
I run a frustrated hand through my hair. Hope. Never had it before, but Breanna taught me anything’s possible. That a gorgeous, intelligent girl like her could love a guy like me.
The picnic table shakes as Pigpen climbs it from behind, then plants himself next to me. “We should change your road name to F-U-F. Fucked-Up and Forlorn.”
I flip him off and pocket my phone.
“It’s going to get better,” he says. My father chooses a seat on a bench about fifty yards away. “You’ve done good trusting us and I promise it’s going to get bet
ter.”
I haven’t seen Breanna since the night of the bridge. Dad, Eli and I brought Breanna home bruised, scratched up and dirt-stained and we were met on her front lawn by her pissed-off father. When the instinct was to toss Breanna on the back of my bike and take off for good, Dad and Eli asked me to trust them. To trust the club. To leave and trust them to fix everything with Breanna’s parents.
Killed me to do it, but I left. One month later, she’s gone and I still think about her. I still love her. I’m still trusting the club.
“Rebecca had lunch with her mom again,” Pigpen says, and I pop my neck to the side. Rebecca’s a nurse. Breanna’s mom works in accounting at the hospital. They’re bound to share a lunch hour. But there’s more to it than that. Rebecca and Breanna’s mom never talked before the day of the train bridge, but Rebecca has been trying to bridge the gap between the club and the Millers by using lunch.
My cell vibrates once, then again. I don’t bother checking the messages. They’re nondelivery notices from Breanna’s disconnected cell. Each one tears off pieces of my heart. “Found the fifth guy yet?”
Pigpen frowns. “He’s been slippery, but I’ve got him. I’ll be fucking up his world real soon.”
Pigpen produced hard evidence against Kyle and his three other buddies who had been using that Bragger site to blackmail girls from school. All of them were suspended. All of them blackballed from whatever team or after-school activity they were on. Because the justice system is messed up, no one’s sure on criminal charges yet, but Kyle told the truth—Breanna had been his sole target.
Because of that, she’s refusing to press charges against Kyle as long as he meets with a counselor every week until he does graduate. The asshole’s doing it, too, and I know for sure because I follow him there and then make sure he leaves an hour later. Breanna will get her last Snowflake wish.
Pigpen pats my shoulder. “Heads up because we’re live. Your dad gave the sign.”
Dad’s flashing two fingers. Download before we left was that someone involved with the Riot was defecting and is willing to pass us info that could protect our club. Dad, being the sergeant at arms, volunteered to be in the line of fire to meet with this person to see if he’s legit.