Quaranteen: The Loners

  “I didn’t know you were a Slut,” Lucy said, in an attempt to make the moment less awkward. But it didn’t sound so friendly. No matter how she tried to say it, it always sounded bad out of Lucy’s mouth. The big Slut. The Asian Slut. The Slut without a nose.

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” Julie said.

  “Okay,” Lucy said, staying put.

  “Like, in private?”

  Lucy looked to her gang mates. It didn’t seem like the right thing to do, and even if their dads were friends, Lucy didn’t have a good reason to trust this girl. Who knows what they

  had in mind for her? Most of what Lucy heard about the Sluts came from rumors among the Pretty Ones. All the Sluts were lesbians, and they beat each other up all the time just to get more scars on their faces. Lucy didn’t believe any of it, but she couldn’t help but doubt herself as she stared at Julie’s nose.

  Julie sighed, fed up with waiting, “Fine. Anyway, we’re all new recruits and we’re each supposed to bring in one prospect. I picked you.”

  “Oh, well, that was nice,” Lucy said.

  Julie sneered at Lucy’s gang mates, then dropped her eyes back to Lucy. “Well? You want in?”

  “Want in? I don’t get it. I have a gang.”

  “Yeah, but wouldn’t you rather have somebody who can back you up?” Julie said, and she looked Belinda up and down.

  Lucy didn’t know how to respond. She’d never had a chance to consider the Sluts as an option. She’d left the Pretty Ones and gone straight to the graduation booth, where David had swooped in. Could she leave David? Should she? Eventually, he’d be leaving anyway, and then what would happen to the Loners? Most of them seemed to only put up with her because Will had made such a scene. Lucy turned to Belinda. Belinda met her eyes, just as interested in Lucy’s response as Julie Tanaka was.

  “No,” Lucy said. “No, thanks.”

  “Um, yeah, get lost,” Belinda said, quick on Lucy’s heels.

  “Yeah, ’fore I kick you upside your funky nose,” Sasha added.

  “Be that way,” Julie said. She waved her Sluts off, and they left.

  Lucy let out a long breath she didn’t even know she was holding. “Um, that was awkward.”

  “Does this mean we can’t hide out in the cafeteria if we get attacked?” Dorothy said.

  “Who cares?” Belinda said with a frown at Dorothy. “They started it. They’re asking for trouble, trying to poach Lucy.”

  “Yeah,” Lucy said with a pump of her head like she was outraged. She wasn’t. She was ecstatic. It was the first time Belinda had ever said anything positive about her.

  “I’m gonna tell you something,” Sasha said, and wagged her finger. “I don’t like those girls. I think they got bad attitudes, all of them. And that red hair has got to go. They look like used tampons.”

  “Ugh, Sasha,” Belinda said.

  “I think Violent’s freaking out,” Dorothy said. She was thumbing through the beach book that Lucy had put back.

  “She’s got way too many seniors, and I heard she lost, like, eight people to graduation this month.”

  “Yeah, but no, you don’t steal from other gangs to get your numbers up,” Belinda said, and shook her head.

  “I guess I’m just not enough of a Slut,” Lucy said. Belinda giggled. Lucy wanted to ease the tension, but it didn’t work on Sasha. She was still riled up.

  “You know why Violent named her gang that, right?” she said, then she lowered her voice. “I heard she got . . . raped.” Lucy felt light-headed at the thought. It was the worst nightmare for all of them, definitely Lucy’s, and if it happened to the strongest girl in school, it could happen to any of them.

  Lucy knew that well enough.

  “I heard it was bad,” Sasha continued. “It was before the gangs formed. Some senior guy did it, he beat her up bad. A few weeks later, she got a bunch of girls to come with her and find him. They were gonna kill him. But he was already dead.

  The virus got to him before she could.”

  They all stayed quiet. What was there to say? It was ugly, just one more nasty story they’d have to carry around in their brain. It made Lucy want to take back her smart little crack about not being a big enough Slut. She hunted for any comment to change the subject. A hardback book caught her eye.

  She picked it up.

  “Oh! I’m gonna buy this.”

  Belinda eyed the book. “Alexander the Great?”

  “Planning on taking over the school?” Dorothy said.

  “I think Will would like it,” Lucy said.

  “Will? I thought you were wet for David.” Sasha clucked.

  “Sasha! Ew!” Lucy said.

  “Oh, please, girl, I’ve seen you following David around like stink on the twins. You got it bad.”

  “I do not!”

  “So, you like Will then?” Belinda asked.

  “Will’s my friend,” Lucy said.

  “So then, who do you like?” Belinda said.

  David. The answer was David. Or maybe Will. She didn’t know what to tell them.

  “Guess it’s gonna have to be Will, ’cause looks like big brother’s taken,” Sasha said with a wide smile. She was looking at someone across the room. Lucy spun around.

  David was at another Nerd table shuffling through a stack of books. Beside him was a weird white-haired girl in a puffy jacket. She wasn’t a Loner, that was for sure. She looked more like a bag lady. Belinda giggled again. Even Dorothy laughed at the weird pairing.

  “Is that Weird Peggy?” Dorothy said.

  “No, she graduated last week,” Belinda said.

  “Good thing you took yourself out of the running, Lucy.

  That is some stiff competition,” Sasha said with a playful push. Lucy relaxed. “Oh, my God, you shoulda seen your face.

  You got it bad!”

  A warmth filled Lucy as she watched David pick through the pile of books. What was he deciding on? What did he like to read? She wanted to know everything about him. She decided that was what she’d bring up in their next chance encounter.

  Maybe they could read a book together, discuss it, they could have the salons she imagined were in the library. What was stopping her from doing that kind of stuff with the Loners in

  the Stairs? And with David.

  Lucy’s fantasies blew away like dust. David was holding the weird girl’s hand.

  David’s lips were moving. He was talking to her. She looked back to the hand. She knew that hand. She knew those long fingers and those manicured nails. The ugliest girl in the room was actually the prettiest one. What was Hilary up to?

  Why was David touching her? Hilary pulled away from David and scurried out of the room. Lucy looked back to David, who stared after Hilary long after she’d walked out the door.

  “You want to buy that?”

  A Nerd was pointing at the hardback Alexander the Great book in Lucy’s hands.

  “Yeah, I think I do,” she said.

  20

  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 o
ther 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.

  21

  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