Page 81 of Reckless At Raleigh High
Jacob crows, bringing his foot down on my shoulder, and an explosion of pain detonates down my arm and across my back. I try to hold the pain at bay, but it’s impossible, and I roar through my teeth.
“All right! ENOUGH!” Monty bellows. “Any more of this and someone’s gonna come out and find us. You’ve had your fun, kid. Pull the trigger and let’s get the fuck out of here, or you’re on your fucking own. You hear me?”
I pull and pull and pull, trying to suck some oxygen down into my lungs, but my diaphragm is frozen, spasming with pain.
The edges of my vision fade to black, and everything narrows to a point.
This…this is really fucking bad.
I always knew I was going to die a violent death. I’m not surprised. I just wish I’d had a little more time to turn shit around is all. With a little more time, I might have been able to distance myself from this kind of world. I could have moved out of Raleigh and taken Silver with me. We could have made a life for ourselves. Most importantly, even if she’d cast me aside and left me ruined in the dirt, I could have at least gotten her somewheresafe…
I look back to the spot on the snow where my brother was a moment ago…and he’s still lying there, his eyes closed, his lips tinged blue…
God, I failed him. And now I’m about to fail Silver.
What a stupid, pointless, unforgiveable sin.
“Ready, Moretti?”
Somehow, I muster enough energy to look up at Jacob. The gun in his hand, the one Monty must have just given him, gleams black and menacing in the moonlight. It looks every inch an instrument of death. It’s with some sense of irony that I realize it’s the same gun Monty used to give tometo take out on my midnight runs.
“You really should have minded your own business, Moretti,” Jacob says blankly. “I really did think we were going to be friends.”
He places his finger on the trigger.
He pulls.
41
SILVER
Ithink my toes are broken.
“Checkmate in five moves. Such a fucking amateur.” Gareth shakes his head, wrinkling his nose in an attempt to wriggle his glasses back up the bridge of his nose without using his hands. “I mean, what kind of competition is that? Michael Kilroy was Bellingham’s best player. He was theirteam captain,and I beat him in less than three minutes. I’m not one to brag, but seriously, I really showed him who was boss.”
He steps on my foot again as he clumsily maneuvers me into a spin, and I nearly eat shit right in front of everyone. I would never have danced with Gareth in a million years, but the prom king and queen dance is a Raleigh tradition, and pretty much mandatory. Plus, Gareth looked so damn excited that I felt a little bad trying to worm my way out of it.
“Oh, and how about this!” he exclaims. “I heard you got into Dartmouth! Guess where I’m going next year?”
From his gaping, wide-eyed grin, it’s fairly obvious where he’s going. “Dartmouth?” I pretend to be remotely interested.
Nodding, he kicks my shin as he stumbles over his feet, nearly ending up in a heap on the floor. “We can tell everyone, Silver,wewere king and queen. No one’ll believe us. I mean, what are the chances?”
“I know. Pretty surreal,” I agree, vacantly skipping from person to person in the crowd, still looking for Alex. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since I got up on the damn stage and, more worryingly, I haven’t seen Jacob either. I should never have come up to claim the crown. For starters, I didn’t even want it. And now I’m beginning to feel like this entire thing is some sort of distraction…
For three long, tortuous minutes, I dance with Gareth, biting my tongue every time he steps on me. As soon as the music ends, I give him a quick high five instead of the kiss he was leaning in for, and I make my way back out into press of bodies that are packed into the gym.
I find Halliday pinned up against a wall with Zander’s hand up her skirt and his tongue down her throat. She blushes like crazy when I tap her on the shoulder, coughing to get their attention.
Zander’s hair is a messy halo around his head. His eyes are glazed over, pupils blown wide open as he smiles suggestively down at me from his six-foot-one vantage point. “Look who it is. Raleigh High’s very own Prom Queen. If you’re wondering how to get in on this action, it’s really simple actually. All you gotta do is ask.”
“Really?” I cross my arms over my chest, arching an eyebrow at him. “You’re hitting on me?”
“I don’t see the problem,” he quips. “We shared everything in juvie.”
“I’m Alex’sfiancé.”
At that, Zander goes extremely pale. “Actually yeah, now that you mention it, on second thoughts he’d probably be pretty pissed. Maybe you shouldn’t mention that I said that. What’s up? How can we be of totally non-sexual, completely unromantic service to you?”
