Payback, page 13
It is Raf.
His jaw is hanging slack. His eyes are open and unseeing.
“Did you…” I clap my hands to my mouth, staring at Moore. I’m not sure if I’m going to scream or throw up.
He shakes his head.
My vision blurs, hot tears filling my eyes. Moore is talking, and maybe Caleb is too. I don’t hear them. I blink, and it looks like Raf is surrounded by stars. Tiny white stars. But that’s not right. I lean closer, and see there are pills on the ground beside his open hand. A fistful of them, spilled across the warped linoleum. One of them is close enough to pick up, and maybe it’s gravity pushing me down, or just fear, but as soon as it’s between my fingers, my stomach gives a hard twist.
A small W is pressed into the white, chalky circle of the pill.
“Look at me.”
Moore’s crouched in front of me, his hand cupped firmly beneath my chin. I look at him but my gaze can’t stick.
Raf is dead.
Raf overdosed on Wednesday pills. On Dr. O’s pills.
Why would he do that? I just saw him last week. He was going to help us. He was going to take Dr. O down.
“Brynn, look at me.” Moore is calm now. “You’re going to stand up, turn around, and walk to the car.”
“I don’t…”
“Stand up,” he says.
I do. Caleb is beside me, his face pale. He’s still staring at Raf, lying on the floor.
“We need to leave,” Moore tells us. “The police are going to come and take care of this.”
“This?” Caleb looks at him, horrified. “What happened? How did you know he—”
Moore turns us so that we’re facing the door and he’s the one looking at the body. “I paid the landlord to contact me if anything suspicious started going on.”
“Why would you do that? How did you even know he was here?”
“Because it is my job to look out for the students of Vale Hall,” he says.
I promised to protect them.
He’s keeping track of where the students go when they’re expelled, that must have been how he knew where Caleb lived.
“Raf wouldn’t have done this,” Caleb says. “I just talked to him yesterday. He sounded fine. He and Renee—”
Moore’s chin snaps to Caleb. “Renee Gibson?”
Caleb nods.
“Do you know where she is?” Moore asks, the urgency in his tone scraping across my nerves.
Caleb shakes his head. “She was staying here with him.”
The apartment is only one room. Moore does a quick once-over, but no one’s here.
“He did this, didn’t he?” I ask, tears finally breaking free from my eyes. “Dr. O killed Raf. He’s tying up loose ends, just like Charlie said.” I picture Geri’s father, standing in the threshold of Dr. O’s office. I picture him here, catching Raf by surprise. Hitting him, or choking him, or covering his face with a pillow, then spreading pills on the ground to make it look like an overdose.
If it had come to a fair fight, Raf would have stood a chance. He was a prizewinning fighter. He should have gone to the Olympics.
“Charlie who?” asks Moore.
I close my eyes, but I still see Raf on the floor. “Dylan Prescott. He goes by Charlie now.”
Moore doesn’t deny that Dr. O’s behind it, which frightens me even more.
“If the landlord saw someone here, we need to tell the police. He could ID who did this.” Caleb’s voice is shaking.
“No,” says Moore. “We need to get out of here.”
“We’re just going to leave him like this?” Caleb asks. “He’s one of us. He was one of us.”
My stomach churns. Bile climbs up the back of my throat, hot and poisonous.
“We were never here,” Moore says, and it’s clear in his tone that this is the final word.
I glance down to the table, turned on its side. He sets it upright carefully, then looks one more time at Raf.
“I’m sorry, kid,” he mutters. Then he ushers us to the car.
CHAPTER 13
We drive for five minutes in silence before Moore pulls over in the parking lot of an ice-cream parlor. I’ve managed not to throw up yet, but the giant pictures of fudge sundaes in the windows threaten to push me over the edge.
Once, in Devon Park, there was a fight outside Jay’s Mini Mart. One guy stabbed the other, and by the time the cops had come he’d bled out on the sidewalk. I was heading home from school when I saw the body. It was surrounded by people, some crying, some pushing and shoving, some trying to help. A whole group to witness what had happened.
This is different.
Raf was alone. He’d been alone since Dr. O expelled him, and he’d died alone, a lie covering up what had really happened. Would the police even investigate? Or would they write him off as another junkie who died holding the pills he loved too much?
“He has a brother,” I say, remembering what he told us that night at the train yard. Dr. O had threatened to drown his brother in the lake if Raf ever talked.
“His brother thinks he’s dead,” Moore answers flatly. “Rafael hasn’t seen him in seven years.”
Because of Dr. O.
All of this is because of Dr. O.
Caleb is staring out the window. “Am I next?”
His voice is too calm. Inside, I am raging, barely able to stay in this car, in this skin, but Caleb is somewhere far away.
I grip his hand, but it is loose in my hot, shaking fist.
“No. That’s not going to happen.” But I don’t know why I say this after what we just saw. Raf is dead. Charlie mentioned others too. Margot knows Jimmy was killed by Geri’s dad, because she almost died too.
Caleb needs to run.
Moore turns in his seat. “Do you have anything I need to know about at your apartment?”
My stomach twists painfully.
Caleb is still staring out the window. “No.”
“No phones. No records. No old ID’s,” Moore rattles off.
“A few books from school. I moved my pictures—”
“Don’t tell me,” Moore interrupts.
Caleb’s chin drops to his chest. “My dad woke up.”
“I know.” Moore’s turned toward the front of the car again, staring ahead at the restaurant as if hoping it has the answers we need. “The security guard at the hospital and I have an arrangement. Your dad will be fine there for now. No one who isn’t authorized will have visitation.”
It is my job to look out for the students of Vale Hall.
“You paid for Caleb’s apartment,” I realize. Caleb thought the owner was just cutting him a break until spring, but no one’s that nice.
Caleb’s chin jerks up, as he looks to Moore for confirmation.
Moore doesn’t respond.
“What about my mom and brothers?” Caleb hand has begun squeezing mine, a gradual pressure that’s now threatening to crack my knuckles.
“Where can they go?” Moore asks.
Caleb gives a weak laugh, and I know what he must be thinking. He doesn’t have any other family here. His dad’s parents live in Japan. His mom’s mother and sisters live in California.
She’s not leaving for the West Coast with his dad just waking up.
“My mom thinks I’m still in school,” Caleb says.
Moore scratches a hand down his jaw.
It seemed less dangerous for her to know the truth about Caleb’s situation before, but how will he move his family without telling them what’s really happened? His mom will wonder why he didn’t say anything. She’ll want to know why he hasn’t reenrolled in public school, and what this means for his father’s health care, which Dr. O was covering as long as Caleb went to Vale Hall.
The more they know, the more danger they’re in.
Panic is swelling inside my chest—for Caleb, for his mom, Maiko, and Christopher and Jonathan. I have to do something, but what? My mom has an apartment, and if I asked, I’m sure she would let them crash there for a little while, but Dr. O would find out. I’m sure he’s watching her. She works for Wednesday Pharmaceuticals, the company that made the drugs now on the floor beside Raf’s still body, because Dr. O wants her to work there. Because he knows that’s how he can control me.
Rage charges like lightning through my veins, giving way to more fear.
I cannot let Dr. O hurt my mom, or Caleb, or his family.
But my delay has cost Raf his life.
Margot was right. We waited too long. We should have found a way to get rid of Dr. O without gathering the old students. I thought we could all help each other, but Dr. O made another move while we hesitated, and another one of us is dead.
“I have a house,” Moore says finally. “Your family can stay there until we figure out something else.”
“Dr. O doesn’t know about it?” I ask. That seems unlikely.
Moore shakes his head. “It was my aunt’s. We’d lost touch. She willed it to me when she died.”
I remember him mentioning an aunt before—she taught him how to run scams outside the bingo hall.
“It’s in Devon Park,” I say.
Moore grunts, which I take as a yes.
“How do I convince my mom to move there?” Caleb asks. “If she senses I’m lying, or something’s off, she could call the school. She could show up, if she wanted. She knows where it is.”
The car falls silent as we each try to piece together how to make this work, fast, while giving Caleb’s family as little information as possible.
“We need to evict her,” I say.
Caleb presses his thumbs to his temples.
“It doesn’t have to be real,” I say. “Or permanent. Just for a little while. Until we can figure out something else.”
I close my eyes, willing the pieces of this plan to come into place. “If someone she thinks works for the city comes to the house and kicks her out, she’ll listen to them, right?”
“She pays rent on time,” Caleb says. “If we post an eviction notice, she’ll know it’s a scam and call the cops.”
There has to be another way to get her out of the house. There are empty houses in Devon Park all the time. People get arrested and don’t come back, or move because they can’t make rent. Of course, most of those places are infested with rats and who knows what else …
“Termites,” I say, releasing Caleb’s hand to scoot forward in my seat. “We tell her she has termites. They have to spray termite poison in the house and she can’t be there for a couple weeks. By then we can think of something else.”
Caleb’s gaze finds mine for the first time since we left Raf’s apartment. Drive flickers in his eyes and gives me a small burst of hope.
“Who can we convince to tell her? Not you or me. She’d recognize Moore.”
He’s right. We don’t want to pay some random person off the street; who knows who they will tell? “What about Henry? He can pull it off.”
“Mom would recognize him from Family Day,” Caleb says. Neither of us wants to pull Charlotte into this, which reminds me that she’s probably done with her appointment by now.
She knows if she’s having a boy or a girl. Somehow, that makes her situation feel a hundred times more real, and I’m more afraid for her than ever.
“Sam,” Moore says in the front seat.
Yes. Maiko wouldn’t recognize Sam, because he’s always at Bennington Max Penitentiary visiting his mom on Family Days.
Caleb’s already yanking his phone out of his pocket. He texts Sam a series of numbers—a code to call him back from an unmonitored phone—and less than a minute later, his cell rings.
Moore fixes a pointed stare at Caleb, pausing him from answering.
“You trust him?”
Caleb nods. The phone rings again.
“You’re absolutely sure?”
I glance at Caleb, finding a furrowed line between his brows, and know why Moore’s asking this question.
Raf was fine before he reconnected with us. He was living on earnings of illegal fights and didn’t have any connection to his family, but he was alive. Dr. O may be tying up loose ends, but he had help finding Raf, and there are only a few people who knew how to reach him.
Renee, and who knows where she is now? Margot. Charlotte. Sam. Henry.
Caleb, and me.
Did one of us let something slip about Raf in front of the wrong person? Did Belk or Geri’s dad follow Henry or me when we were scouting out that fight, or following the guy placing Raf’s bets?
Could his death be our fault?
People are starting to notice, Grayson told me. Warned me. And then steered Geri off my path so I could meet Caleb.
The phone is still ringing. Caleb’s gaze meets mine, and with a quick shake of his head, he’s made his decision.
If you can’t trust your friends, you can’t trust anyone.
“Hey,” he says. “I need a favor. How quickly can you get to White Bank?”
* * *
VALE HALL IS quiet by the time we get back. Dinner is long since over, and most everyone has retreated to the pit to study for finals or play Road Rules, or gone upstairs to bed. I paint a smile on my face just like Moore told me to and show off my new driver’s license, but all I can think about is Raf, and Caleb, and the look on Maiko’s face from our hidden spot across the street when Sam knocked on her door and told her she and the boys needed to leave that night.
He’d made an official letter from the library before he’d met us. The city had found evidence of termites, and were going to tent the house with the overnight crew to begin spraying poison in the morning. He played the part perfectly, adding enough details to banish her doubts.
For tonight, at least, they’re hidden.
But as I show Paz and Bea my new driver’s license, they’re unimpressed. Paz has some new phone she traded her Vale Hall model in for—something I’m pretty sure is against the rules—and everyone is flocking around her to see the fancy camera functions and pose for pictures. I can’t help but think back on Grayson’s warning and wonder what’s being said behind my back.
And who might be talking to Dr. O.
The weight of it all presses down on me as I climb the stairs. I wish there was a way to shrug off this blanket of suspicion. To crawl into bed and forget what we saw sprawled across that dirty kitchen floor. But the image is still there, clinging to the edges of every thought with its sharp, pale claws.
Raf is dead.
Raf is dead after I recruited him to fight against Dr. O.
What if I’m the reason he’s gone now?
Panic swells in my chest with every breath. What if I’m being watched right now? What if Dr. O knows that I was with Caleb today, and he’s the next spread across the floor of Moore’s house in Devon Park, a bottle of Wednesday pills spilled out around his lifeless hand?
People are starting to notice.
I shouldn’t have come back to Vale Hall. I should have gone to get Mom. Called Charlotte and told her to round up Henry and Sam, and as many of the others as will come with us. We all need to run.
But for how long? If we run, Dr. O will find us eventually.
Act normal, Moore told me before we came inside. If you act normal, Odin won’t have reason to threaten you.
But he already has. Maybe we weren’t supposed to find Raf, but his cold body on the floor was a warning all the same.
I feel like I’m balancing on the edge of a knife.
As I pass June’s cracked door, I hear a muttered curse and pause. I’m revved too high, my heart pounding, and when she lets loose a stream of profanities, I shove inside her room without a second thought.
“June? Are you … oh.”
I’m greeted by a familiar sight, a gut punch of memories I’d rather not have. Her room mirrors mine in its L shape, and the desk, bookshelf, and bed are all in the same places. But the comforter is pulled back to reveal soaking wet sheets, and her clothes—the black ones she favors anyway—are all cut into fringe across the floor. The standing mirror beside the bathroom door is decorated with the word FREAK in lipstick graffiti. The wall on my left boasts a sprawling Vincit Omnia Veritas in bubblegum pink.
Truth conquers all.
Pretty sure Geri was wearing the same color this morning.
“Great, right?” June says, her voice more flustered than I’ve ever heard it. “Guess someone didn’t like my decorations and thought they could do better.”
I glance to her nightstand, where small, plastic bones hang from a miniature charred Christmas tree. It’s festive. Kind of.
“They did the same to my room after I moved in.” I think of Geri, of how much I hated her before I learned she was working for Dr. O. We’ve never been best friends, but I thought we’d evolved, at least a little.
I was wrong. Geri will always be Geri.
June’s eyes flick to me, just long enough for me to see the gloss of tears.
“It’s ridiculous.” She snags a shredded pair of black jeans off the floor and chucks it in the trash can beside her desk. “And frankly, unoriginal. Do they think this is going to hurt my feelings? Like no one’s ever called me a freak before?”
Her back is to me, but I can see her swipe at her eyes with the back of her hand.
Anger heats my blood, and I’m grateful for it. I need to feel something, anything, other than the crushing despair right outside this room.
“You’re not a freak,” I say.
“Of course I am,” she snaps back. “I don’t belong out there. I clearly don’t belong in here. I don’t even know what those stupid words mean.” She motions to the school motto on the wall behind me.
“Truth conquers all,” I tell her.
She snorts, and then looks at the word freak again, and I wish the anger had stayed longer because now there’s only regret, punctuating the cool air.
“It’s just stupid hazing,” I say, but I remember when it happened to me, and it didn’t feel stupid. It felt personal. Another sign that I wasn’t good enough to be here.
