Page 76 of Reformation

I can tell from the look on his face that he’s not too happy with this plan. “We’ll wait for you.”

I shake my head. “It’s fine. I’ll be out in two minutes. Go ahead and check the bathroom first to make sure it’s OK.” No sense making his mom wait because of me.

Ben checks the hallways again before moving into the bathroom. “It’s clear. Come right out when you are done.”

I give him a mock salute. “I’ll make sure to report to the door that’s ten feet away as soon as my mission is complete.”

He and Anthony head outside and I quickly go into the teacher’s restroom to take care of business. Just as promised, I’m quick, exit the bathroom, and turn toward the exit. I don’t even make it two steps when I feel something pressed against my back.

“It’s about time that guard left you alone.”

I don’t recognize the male voice that is whispering in my ear. He reeks of cigarettes and body odor, and I nearly gag when I get a whiff of him.

“What do you want?” my words coming out more afraid than I’d like.

“Your mama needs to talk to you.”

“Please don’t hurt Anthony. I’ll go. Leave him alone.”

The man turns me away from the exit that Ben and Anthony used and pushes me toward another one down the hall, an object still pressed against my back.

“I’m not going to hurt him. As long as you do everything we say.”

We make it to the other exit, and the car I saw my mom get into at the clinic is parked across the street, far away from any security cameras. She gets out of the driver’s seat and opens the back door, allowing the man, whose face I still haven’t seen, to push me in. He follows, taking the gun that had just been against my back and presses it to my side.

“Did you forget about me?” Mama asks as she gets back into the car. “I thought you would have called by now.”

“Must have missed that part of the conversation.”

“I see that smart mouth of yours hasn’t changed,” the man says from next to me. He seems so familiar, but I can’t place him. He obviously knows me. “You have grown up, haven’t you?”

Bile rises to my throat and it takes all I have not to vomit from his smell, and his words. “What do you want?”

“I told you,” my mom begins, handing the man a needle before driving away from the school. “Money, which you have plenty of. Living in that nice house and shacking up with that doctor. I think it’s long past time that you pay me back.”

“Pay you back? For what? I don’t owe you anything. You have to be crazy if you think—”

I feel the needle go into my leg, but it’s not like I could do anything about it. And though I try to fight it, I can’t. And soon, all I see is black.

* * *

Garrett

“Where the fuck is she?”

“You need to calm down, Garrett. We are working on it.”

“Well, work fucking harder!”

I know I shouldn’t be yelling at my brother, but I don’t know what else to do. Since Ben realized that Paige was gone, they have dropped everything to try to locate her. They were able to track her for a while; they were guessing she was in a car driving toward the outskirts of town, then the tracker on her phone that Mark installed went dead.

That was yesterday afternoon. She’s now been missing for eighteen hours.

“Do we know this is the mom?” Mark asks, trying to make sense of the little we know. “We can’t make out the person leading Paige out of the school.”

“I don’t know who else it would be,” I say, wracking my brain, trying to remember any detail she told me. I’ve already told them everything I could. “She said her mom was at the physicals a few weeks ago. If she’s made contact with her again, she hasn’t told me.”

“No way a drugged-out mom could kidnap her and keep her hostage this long all by herself,” Ben adds. “Plus, she wouldn’t have had time to tie Paige up or drug her before driving away. It was barely five minutes when I realized she was gone and there was no sight of them. There had to be a partner. I’d bet my life on it.”

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