Page 64 of Reckless At Raleigh High
Man, Ireallydon’t wanna fucking die.
The black truck swerves, struggling to get back on its side of the road in time. It makes it, but only just. The murdered-out vehicle clips the Camaro’s wing mirror, ripping it off the car, sending it bouncing down the road behind us in a shower of twisted metal and shattered glass.
“God…DAMN!” Zander yells at the top of his lungs. “What theFUCK!”
My hands are shaking, and it feels like my heart’s about to burst, but I manage to keep on driving. “D’you see ’em?” I say through my clenched teeth.
Zander doesn’t need to ask what I’m talking about. He nods, bracing himself against the dashboard as he leans forward, taking in an uneven breath. “The bullet holes? Two of ‘em, right in the middle of the door. Kinda hard to miss.”
Back in two thousand and fourteen, Raleigh was voted number one safest town to live in in all of Washington State. Harry has the newspaper clipping framed on the wall at the diner to prove it. Monty might have been cultivating his little criminal empire here for a while now, but he’s low key about it. Most of Raleigh’s residents have never even seen Montgomery Cohen the third’s face. This isn’t the kind of town where trucks speed around corners on the wrong side of the road, shot up with bullet holes.
No, this, somehow, some way, is related tome.
It’s then that I notice the missed calls from Silver.
32
SILVER
Ibarely have any nails left by the time Alex finally shows up at the house. Zander’s not with him anymore, probably dropped off at Salton Ash Trailer Park. The Camaro’s tires kick up gravel and old snow as Alex burns up the driveway. He parks next to the Nova, not even bothering to kill the engine before he jumps out of the driver’s seat and races to the porch steps to the house, where I’ve been sitting out in the cold, waiting for him.
“You okay? You hurt?” His hands are frantic, patting me down, searching out hidden injuries. I’ve already told him via text that I’m okay, but obviously he needs to check for himself.
“I’m fine. I’m okay, I promise. Nothing actually happened. I was just scared, that’s all. Dad…god, if Dad hadn’t come and met me…”
Alex’s expression hardens, his nostrils flaring. “Where is he?”
“In the kitchen.”
Alex nods, getting up and heading inside. I follow him in, already prepping my speech about how neither Alex nor my father are allowed to go off half-cocked on some stupidbring-down-Jacob-Weaving-planagain. It was sheer luck that neither of them ended up shot by one of Caleb Weaving’s security guards last time. Alex doesn’t even make the suggestion, though. Dad keeps his hard liquor in the cupboard above the oven. When he sees us coming down the hallway, he takes an extra two low ball glasses out and sets them down next to the one he’s already taken out for himself. Alex prowls up and down the length of the kitchen, brushing his hands through his hair over and over again as Dad decants a double shot of whiskey into each glass. When Dad gives Alex a glass, he grunts out a thanks and knocks the amber liquid back in one go.
Dad takes Alex’s glass away and hands him the half full bottle instead. “It’s official. I’m the worst parent in the world,” he says. “I must be the only father in the state of Washington who lets his underage daughter drink fucking Bruichladdich.” I take the glass he offers me, wincing down a sip of the whiskey, feeling a little better as the alcohol blazes a path down my throat. “I’m putting the house on the market. We’re moving to Chicago,” Dad mutters. “It’s safer in fucking Illinois than it is here.”
Alex laughs, the sound brittle and harsh. “They’re not kicking us out of Raleigh, Cam. None of us. This has always been your home. It’s my home now, too.” He laces his fingers together behind the back of his head, interlocking them at the base of his skull. “This can’t go on forever. The cops are gonna find something else on Jake, and he’s gonna get sent down again. My father’s gonna disappear. Monty’s gonna scrub me from his memory. Everything’s gonna go back to normal. The end.”
I think it hits him at the same time it hits me; all of this madness and chaosisthe norm. Things have been this way, fraught with danger and heartbreak, for a long time now. It’d be unusual if life settled down and things actuallystoppedfalling apart. He rubs his face with both hands, sighing out a long, unhappy breath. “You were a badass, shooting after that truck, man,” he says through his fingers. “Good thing you gave Zeth that gun, though. He’s unpredictable. I’ve heard too much about him to think he’s not tapped in the head.”
My dad picks up a butter knife from the kitchen counter and distractedly digs the blunt blade into the pad of his thumb. He’d been making a sandwich earlier when I called him in a panic, and now there’s a pool of melted butter on the chopping board. “This is gonna sound pretty rude,” he says, staring, sightless, out of the window that overlooks the Walker Forest. “But I am honest to god looking forward to the day you both leave for college. At least then I’ll only have to worry about you getting wasted and flunking your exams like everyone else.”
33
SILVER
“So. You two are a regular Bonnie and Clyde power couple, huh?”
Zeth eyes the whipped cream-topped strawberry milkshake sitting on the table in front of him with a level of malevolence that should have shattered the glass by now. He’s wearing a plain black sweater with a tiny hole in the neck. Worn jeans. A pair of black boots. Nothing about the way he’s dressed sets him apart from the weekend lunch crowd at Harry’s, but the energy radiating off him is powerful enough to make the people in the booths surrounding us subconsciously all lean away from him without realizing it. Like Alex, there’s a sharp-edged, wicked kind of electricity to me him that makes people nervous.
Beside me, Alex dumps yet another sugar into his coffee, viciously clanging the spoon around inside his mug as he stirs. I already know he isn’t going to drink the piping hot black liquid. He takes his coffee black. The empty sugar packets, discarded on the table next to the laminated Harry’s menu, are a sign of his agitation.
“For the record, I think this is a terrible idea,” Alex growls unhappily.
Zeth sighs down his nose, slouching back into the bench seat on his side of the booth. “Agreed. I had a date with an eighteen-month-old.”
I vaguely remember Dr. Romera mentioning that she had a kid. Can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that this guy might be someone’s father, though. He seems too hard. Too distant. I’d say I can’t imagine him changing a baby’s diaper, but I totally can. He’d have the job done quickly, with frightening efficiency, in under five seconds flat.
“I can handle this Weaving situation myself,” Alex says. “I don’t have a problem putting the motherfucker down.”
Zeth’s mouth twitches. I think it’s a sign that he’s amused. “You already shot the kid once. You have a list of motives to bury the bastard longer than your arm. The cops would have you in cuffs before you could blink. And your girl doesn’t want you locked up for the rest of your life. Am I right?”
