“Saturday. The barbecue. You’re coming, right? Tiny sloppy joes. So delicious. Lots of fun.” Paige bites her lip, hands clasped in supplication. “Pleasepleaseplease?”
She looks so desperate for a yes that I’m hit with a feeling that is the opposite of good and rhymes with “rad.” Which is dumb. Like Bianca says, it’s Paige’s own fault she doesn’t take a hint. But maybe it’s my fault too, I decide. If I were just more direct, if I told her how I felt, Bianca-style, without pulling any punches, I’m sure Paige wouldn’t be offering up her mom’s sloppy joes. It makes total sense. So why can’t I do it?
“Fine, I’ll come.”
Paige blinks at me a bunch before growing a smile so wide I worry kids might try to kick a field goal in there. “You will?”
I shrug. “Yeah, sure, whatev—”
Before I can finish, a large, dark shape whizzes past the windshield and splats onto the pavement with a sickening thud. I slam on the brakes so hard we rocket against our seat belts.
Traffic around us sputters to a halt. Drivers emerge from their cars, and screams pierce the cacophony of the streets. Paige and I exchange wide-eyed glances, then unclick our seat belts and exit the car. As I cautiously edge around the nose of the Sunfire, the dark shape comes into view. My heart hammers in my chest.
It can’t be what I think it is.
I slide my sunglasses up, and all the blood drains from my head.
“Oh my God!” Paige’s fingernails dig into the skin on my arm. “Is that … ?”
I’m frozen in place, my breath lodged in my throat. I watch in mute horror as Paige takes careful steps up to the body that lies facedown on the sidewalk, limbs splayed at impossible angles.
2
Pedestrians flock around the body. I’m jostled left and right, but I can’t stop staring at the pool of blood expanding beneath the man’s worn leather coat. And I don’t know why, but all I can think is that it’s a hot day to be wearing leather.
A redheaded woman in a jogging suit crouches low and presses her fingers to the man’s neck—a neck covered in tattoos. She nods, and two construction workers rush to help. As the man is flipped onto his back, a crumpled piece of paper tumbles out of his blood-soaked hand.
Only he’s not a man.
There’s so much blood—it drips from a wound under his hair, soaking his tangled black waves; it flows freely from his left ear, from his broken nose, from a gravelly laceration on his cheek; it coats the Ramones T-shirt that clings to his thin frame—but beneath the injuries is very clearly a seventeen-year-old—maybe eighteen-year-old—boy.
Someone screams, a high-pitched, strangled sound that rises above the other voices, the orders being called out, the wail of a siren.
I realize it’s me.
“Out of the way, Indie.” Paige pulls my arm to make way for the paramedics, who rush up with a stretcher. I stumble back but continue to stare at the boy’s dark, vacant eyes.
One of the paramedics pounds on the boy’s chest, landing his full weight onto him as he delivers CPR. But it doesn’t matter. He’s dead. They’re not going to save him.
“Did anyone see what happened?” another paramedic asks. His words float around in my head, but I can’t seem to grasp their meaning. It’s like I’m watching a scene in a movie. This can’t really be happening, not in real life.
“Did you see what happened?” Paige shakes my arm.
“Well?” the paramedic asks, suddenly staring at me.
I swallow hard and give a minute shake of my head.
“No, we didn’t see anything, just … just him landing,” Paige says. She tugs my arm again. “Come on. Let’s give them some space.”
That’s when I see it again—the paper the guy held in his hand, lying crumpled next to the redheaded woman’s feet. I snatch it up, stuffing it in the pocket of my skirt. Paige gives me a quizzical look but doesn’t question me, just leads me back to the car. My legs are so unstable that I have to concentrate hard—one foot in front of the other—to make sure I don’t collapse.
“I can’t believe it,” Paige says once I’ve managed to find a way out of the chaos of cars. The bloody scene fades into the distance, and the canvas awning of the Black Cat comes into view. “You okay, Ind? You don’t look so good.”
I shake my head to clear my thoughts. When I speak again, my throat feels scratchy and my voice comes out a rasp. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“You sure? Because you look really pale.”
I keep thinking about the boy and the leather coat he wore even though it’s over eighty degrees outside. Which is dumb, because he’s obviously got bigger problems than overdressing for the weather. I use my forearm to wipe sweat from my brow.
“Are you okay to drive?” Paige asks.
I give her what I hope is a confident nod.
The hum of the engine takes over the silence.