chapter TWO
26 Days, 3 hours, 59 minutes
A burst of rap music jolted Aaron awake. He glanced around, disoriented, until he located the music’s source—Amber’s cell phone.
He silenced the call, which he noticed was from Clive Selavio, and swiveled his feet to the ground. Since Amber’s phone was locked and he didn’t have the passcode, he couldn’t access any of her contacts. He would have to return the phone to her in person. Great. More opportunities to royally piss off her psychotic boyfriend—or half, or whatever Clive was.
Aaron sighed, running his fingers through his hair. He tossed her phone in the trash. Cute as this girl was, she wasn’t worth the trouble.
As he stuffed his backpack for school, though, he realized that was a total lie. For some reason he couldn’t get Amber out of his head; she was just—different.
In the dim hallway outside his bedroom, Aaron felt the crunch of paper under his foot. He picked up an envelope, clearly marked with the silver seal of the Chamber of Halves, and slid out an official-looking letter.
Dear Aaron Harper,
In preparation for your upcoming eighteenth birthday, the Chamber of Halves would like to arrange a meeting with you on Saturday, March 30th at 11:00 A.M. We strive for a successful union between you and your half. Unfortunately, your case involves some complications, which your correspondent from the Chamber will discuss with you in confidence.
Regards,
Walter Wu
CHAMBER OF HALVES
TULAROSA BRANCH
Est. 1939
Aaron blinked and read it again. Complications? He had never heard of complications. On your eighteenth birthday, you went to the Chamber of Halves, you met your half. It wasn’t complicated.
Unless, of course, they knew about the scar tissue. Aaron stuffed the letter in his backpack and tried to ignore the flash of queasiness. On his way to the front door, he passed the breakfast table, where his mom was scanning the news headlines on her laptop.
“A student from Corona Blanca High School was reported missing on Friday,” she said, without looking up.
“Who?” said Aaron.
“Justin Gorski, he’s a rugby player.”
“Never heard of him,” said Aaron.
“Says here he was last seen right after school with a classmate, Amber Lilian,” she said.
Aaron halted, his hand on the doorknob. “Amber Lilian?” he repeated like an idiot.
“Why, do you know her?”
“No,” he said quickly, but when his mom wasn’t looking, he slipped back to his room and fished Amber’s phone out of his trash can. Aaron could already tell this girl was nothing but trouble.
Unfortunately, he had a chronic inability to stay away from trouble.
***
“So how was the water, Buddy?” said Aaron’s best friend, Buff Normandy, as the six-foot-four, two hundred and forty pound, curly-haired and baby-faced rugby player squeezed into the adjacent desk before first period. “Heard you took a dip on Friday.”
“You should have been there,” said Aaron. “Dominic Brees was working the crowd.”
“No bullshit, Breezie was there?” said Buff. “Tell me you punched him in the face for me?”
“I kind of had my hands full,” said Aaron.
“You heard about that missing kid, right?” said Buff. “He’s the one who dropped that pass during the finals last year, Justin Gorski. Cost Corona the game. I bet Breezie snuffed him out because the season’s about to start.”
“Couldn’t have been a rugby player,” said Aaron, “Gorski was last seen with a girl.”
“No bullshit, Breezie put her up to it,” said Buff. “Hey, are you still trying out for rugby this year?”
“Yeah, now that the volleyball team’s whole starting lineup is eighteen,” said Aaron, “I guess I don’t have a choice.”
“Not sure why you’re even bothering . . . ” Buff grinned and glanced at his phone “You’re up in twenty-six days.”
Just then a girl came through the doorway, her dark hair sailing in slow motion behind her. Emma Mist. She glanced at Aaron briefly, then let her hair fall over her shoulder to block him from view.
“Yep, she hates you,” said Buff.
“It’s that obvious?” said Aaron. He had recently broken up with Emma because his birthday was coming up. It was the right thing to do—but standing her up the night of winter formal after she’d already done her hair and makeup was the wrong way to do it.
“Please turn in your essays on quantum mechanics and the discovery of halves,” said Mr. Sanders, walking in just as the bell rang.
As the sounds of shuffling papers and sliding desks filled the room, Buff produced a crumpled sheet of notebook paper covered with barely legible scribbles. He glanced at Aaron, whose hands were still jammed in his pockets, and gave a disappointed headshake before he ambled to the front.
Aaron tried to catch Emma’s eye, but she was decidedly oblivious, twirling her hair around her finger and gazing firmly out the window. If she would just let him apologize . . .
Ten minutes into lecture someone knocked on the classroom door, and Mr. Sanders paused to let in another girl who hated Aaron. Tina Marcello. Today she wore big sunglasses and chewed bubblegum.
“Ms. Marcello, I’m glad you’re here,” said their teacher with a smile. “I didn’t think it was fair for us to talk about you behind your back.”
She stopped chewing and brushed her straight, highlighted hair out of her eyes. “Huh?”
“Take a seat, Tina.” Mr. Sanders went back to his lecture. “ . . . so although quantum entanglement was well documented by 1935, we credit Schrödinger with the discovery of halves. Mr. Harper, why does he get all the credit?”
Tina sat right in front of Aaron. As usual, she glowered at him as she walked toward her seat, chewing her gum like it didn’t taste good.
Aaron mouthed, “Bite me.”
“Aaron, how did he prove it to the world?” said Mr. Sanders.
Buff kicked the side of Aaron’s calf, making him wince.
“Prove what?” he said.
“That every human is born with a half.”
“Uh—he used an aitherscope?” said Aaron.
“Wrong. Aitherscope technology wouldn’t exist for another decade.” Mr. Sanders swept to the chalkboard. “Schrödinger said if humans formed in quantum entangled pairs, then in every case we would find that the halves were born simultaneously . . . therefore all we have to do is look at birth times.” The chalk made a nasty scrape on the board.
“Nice one, Aaron,” Tina said under her breath. She was putting on makeup.
Aaron kicked her desk, causing her to smear her lipstick.
“Jerk,” she said, wiping the smudge with her tank top.
Their teacher scanned the classroom for the source of the commotion, and his eyes settled on Aaron. At the same moment, Amber’s cell phone went off in his pocket, turning all the heads in the classroom with a shrill, hip-hop beat and a chain of rapid-fire cusswords.
Lovely.
***
Over the next six hours, Clive called Amber’s cell phone so many times that Aaron found himself humming the ring tone between periods. When it rang for the twentieth time on his way to volleyball practice, he picked up.
“Clive, this is Aaron—”
But the caller hung up before he finished. Aaron lowered the phone from his ear, and his heartbeat felt heavier than usual. He had just made a huge mistake. Now Clive Selavio, Amber’s abusive boyfriend, thought she and Aaron were hanging out.
He had to get the phone back to her. Soon, before the guy did something to her. Maybe if he ditched practice and drove straight to Corona Blanca High School, he could catch her before she went home.
Don’t go near her again, Clive had said.
Too bad.
There were still cars in Corona Blanca’s parking lot when Aaron rolled in around four. But how to find her . . .
From what he remembered, Amber looked athletic, probably played a sport and stayed after school for practice. If she had a car, it would be here.
Outside, he slid on his sunglasses and leaned against his Mazda, feeling oddly nervous about talking to her again. At the campus entrance, a bronze statue of the Austrian physicist, Erwin Schrödinger, glinted in the sun. Its shadow crept closer.
The man who changed everything.
Just then Aaron saw her coming out. A smile pulled at the corners of his lips when he saw Amber approach a bright, Crayola-style powder blue Volkswagen Beetle. Same color as her cell phone.
She wore a white tennis skirt and a green tank top with ‘Corona Blanca Varsity Tennis’ written in white cursive along the front. Her skin was damp with sweat, and a few wisps of hair had escaped her ponytail and stuck to her forehead. She walked slowly, her eyes downcast.
He waited until she reached her car before he called out her name.
***
Amber glanced up, saw him, and froze. “Aaron?” She combed her damp hair off her forehead.
“What’s up?” he asked. “Lousy practice?”
“Why are you here?” she said, and when Aaron pushed off his car and came closer, she narrowed her eyes, tracking him.
In the daylight she was even more stunning. Once again Aaron found himself lost in her green eyes, not sure what he had been about to say.
Luckily, a distraction behind her snapped him out of his daze. The rest of the girls’ tennis team came into the parking lot, chatting and giggling. They paused, and after a few wary glances in Amber’s direction, continued on their way.
Aaron dug through his pocket. “You left this.” He tossed the phone to her, which she caught. “Does Clive always call you that much?”
Without even a thank you, Amber keyed in her passcode and thumbed through the list of missed calls. “It’s because he’s worried,” she said.
“Worried about what?”
“You. He’s worried you might have a crush on me,” she said, slipping the phone into her backpack with a hint of a smile, “and that you’re going to wait by my car after school with some lame excuse about having to return my cell phone just so you can talk to me again.”
“Oh?” Aaron raised his eyebrows. “So he’s not worried about the fact that you left the phone in my shoes on purpose then?”
She didn’t take her eyes off him. “Did that make your day, Aaron?”
“Actually, I was kind of dreading this,” he said, “since our first conversation resulted in me freezing my ass off with some sea lions while your boyfriend threatened to kill me if I ever went near you again.”
“Then you probably shouldn’t be near me. Why did you race him, anyway? It’s not like anyone was impressed.”
“It’s a guy thing.”
“Uh-huh,” she said doubtfully. “You know, he’s done things to guys like you before.”
“Like me?”
“Egotistical and stupid.”
“Why, is that your type, or something?” said Aaron, returning her glare. When it got ridiculous, though, he gave up trying to outstare her and squinted into the horizon. “So you really think Clive is your half?”
“You sound jealous,” she said.
“Just confused,” said Aaron, pushing his sunglasses halfway up the bridge of his nose. “Halves don’t treat each other like that . . . and I could tell he was nervous when I told him we had the same birthday.”
“Oh, right,” she said. “I forgot.”
Aaron peered sideways at her, but this time she broke eye contact first.
“No, you didn’t,” he said.
“I think I would know,” she said, rolling her eyes. Though now she was blushing.
“Well, have you thought about—”
“Just drop it,” she said.
“You don’t buy it, do you?”
“Buy what?”
“Halves. The whole bit.”
She set her gaze on him and the sudden force of her green eyes jolted him. “We’ve known about halves for barely eighty years. We don’t even know what causes it . . . I mean, nowhere does it say we’re meant to be soul mates. We just assumed.”
“Yeah, because that part was obvious.”
“There’s another explanation.”
Aaron nodded to the bronze statue. “One your man over there didn’t think of?”
“You know . . . ” she said, without looking back, “Schrödinger kept a mistress.”
“Ouch,” he said. “Alright, let’s hear your theory.”
“Halves are more like siblings. Like cosmic twins . . . which would make this all incest.”
“You are aware most people say its love at first sight when they meet their half.”
“Easy.” She held his gaze. “Power of suggestion.”
“You’re saying it could be anybody?”
“I think that depends.”
“On what?”
“The person,” she said, watching him with a tinge of daring, “and what they believe.”
“Most people believe halves are perfect biological matches,” he said.
“That’s what scares me,” she said. “What happens to the human race if we no longer evolve through natural selection, but instead allow ourselves to be artificially bred by a force we haven’t even begun to understand?”
“You think it’s breeding us?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t be the first.”
A few students walked past them, and Aaron chewed his lip, waiting for them to pass out of earshot. Like the tennis players, their eyes darted between the two of them but lingered on Amber, and then Aaron remembered—
“What happened to Justin Gorski?” he said, changing the subject.
Amber glared at him as if he had just asked the stupidest question on Earth, and Aaron regretted asking her; the poor girl had probably gotten nonstop stares at school, and it was still only her first week.
Yet part of him doubted her innocence. “Weren’t you the last one with him?” he said.
“He offered me a ride home, which I didn’t take,” she said, “and I wasn’t the last one with him.”
“Then who was?” he said, ignoring her look. “Was it your boyfriend, Selavio, jealous maybe? Am I next on his hit list?”
“It was Dominic Brees,” she said, “and that’s because they’re both on the rugby team and they carpool home after practice.”
Aaron turned away from her and closed his fist. “Just like Buff said,” he muttered.
“Why do you even care? You don’t go here.”
“One more thing,” said Aaron, as he recalled Friday night, still believing Clive was somehow involved. “What was in that vial your boyfriend brought to the beach?”
“What are you, Aaron, some kind of private detective?”
“He said it was liquid clairvoyance.”
Amber pulled her keys out of her backpack and reached for her car door. “I’m kind of done talking to you,” she said, “and for your information, it was just a glow stick.”
She slammed the door in his face.
Well, that went well, Aaron thought, as her tires squealed on the asphalt and left him in a puff of burnt rubber.
***
“It’s too suggestive,” said Amber’s mother.
Amber stood on a pedestal wearing the dress, still fuming inside from her conversation with Aaron. Just who did he think he was? At the moment, a dozen people were looking her up and down.
She felt André’s hands on her waist. “We want to display her athletic figure,” he said. “The fabric accentuates movement, lightness. Step down, Amber, try walking around a bit.”
She stepped off the stool and walked a few feet then turned around. The group murmured its approval.
“And what are those ruffles, André?”
André smiled. “It’s a fabric, Mrs. Lilian. It has to move.”
“Can you tighten that up along the side?”
“Quit nitpicking,” said her father. “He’s done a fine job.”
“You have no idea how camera flashes can amplify these imperfections,” said her mother.
“Imperfections?” scoffed Dravin, one of her parents’ friends, as his vulture-like eyes inspected Amber favorably from behind his glasses. “All I see is perfection.”
“Quiet,” said her mother. “André, do you have any brighter lights? I can’t see anything properly in your cave of a studio.”
André brought out two halogen lights on stands and they, like the eyes of her dozen admirers, were trained on Amber’s body.
“Congratulations,” said her mother. “You’ve wrapped her in vinyl.”
“There needs to be luster,” said André.
“Can it be charmeuse?” she said.
“Mrs. Lilian, the dress is done,” he said. “We’re just making the final adjustments.”
“Then do it again,” she said.
“But there isn’t enough time,” he muttered.
“Can we put padding in the cups?” said her mother.
André scowled.
“Ignore her,” said her father. “The dress is flawless.”
“It is not flawless,” said her mother.
While they bickered, Amber wandered into the corner and stared at herself in a mirror. Her hair was pinned up so every part of the dress could be seen, admired, and scrutinized for flaws. Just like her.
The silk was whisper-light on her skin, barely touching her, but not so loose they couldn’t see what she was shaped like underneath. It was André’s most appealing design so far—and probably the one she’d wear on her eighteenth birthday, although the thought made her stomach squirm.
She couldn’t stand the idea that once she met her half—once she belonged to him—she would never again be considered her own person. Irresistible as she was in André’s dress, she felt the urge to rip it off and don baggy sweatpants. The worst part, though, was she doubted there was even a single seventeen-year-old in the world who could empathize with her.
Well, maybe one seventeen-year-old.
Amber realized she was about to start thinking about Aaron all over again and sighed in frustration. She had thought about him way too much ever since he came to her school last week. But that wasn’t because she liked him. He was a jerk.
She just couldn’t figure him out, and though she didn’t trust him at all, she wished she had told him what she knew about the missing boy from her high school—at least to get it off her chest. Now he probably thought she was hiding something. Which she was.
And why did she care what Aaron thought? For all she cared, he could curse her name in his sleep.
Dravin appeared behind her, his half at his side. “He’ll be lovesick when he sees you, sweetheart.”
“Fine. As long as he doesn’t puke on me,” said Amber.
He ignored her tone. “With you at his side, he’ll be chosen as the heir.”
“Dravin, please do your scheming with my father,” she said.
Amber caught his half’s eye in the mirror and regretted it immediately. There was a reason Dravin usually left his half home when he visited. The woman’s unfocused eyes lolled between them, only loosely timed with their speech.
Amber averted her gaze, but not before her lips curled with disgust. Dravin must have read her expression.
“That’s not polite, sweetheart.”
“She’s gross.”
If the comment stung, Dravin didn’t let it show. “I was born in the early days, sweetheart. Before they understood premature contact. We first touched when we were only three days old; her body wasn’t ready . . . her channel tore open and she lost most of her clairvoyance.”
The detachment in his voice chilled Amber. “Aren’t you even upset about it?”
“You were almost like her, you know. Only your parents were more . . . skittish.” He said it like an insult.
“Yeah, well not everyone’s perfect,” said Amber. Despite her biting tone, her face flushed.
He was right.
Dravin and his half were victims of juvengamy. They had been forced together as infants.
So had Amber’s parents.
And as a pureblood, descended from an unbroken lineage of juvengamy halves, so had Amber.
At least that’s what they told her. She and her half were separated before she could remember. Before any permanent damage could happen to her channel . . . she hoped.
Amber heard shouting behind her and turned around. Her parents were yelling at each other now.
André sat in the corner while his half, the studio’s other designer, massaged his shoulders, throwing mutinous glances toward Amber’s mother. André and his half were both men. Homosexual halves did occur, though not as often as heterosexual halves.
Suddenly, Amber’s mother slapped her father and marched toward the exit, toppling one of the halogen light stands. The tripod crashed to the floor and the bulb popped. On her way out, she shouted over her shoulder, “I don’t care if you don’t sleep, André. I want another dress next week.”
When she got back to her purse, Amber had a missed call from Tina Marcello, Dominic Brees’s girlfriend, and a message asking if she wanted to hang out, maybe watch Pueblo High School’s rugby tryouts.
Definitely. She could use some time with someone normal.
***
“Well?” said Buff furiously as he and Aaron hobbled to the stands after rugby tryouts, both of them drenched in mud. Behind them, the goal posts sank into the mist.
“You saw. I scored three times,” said Aaron. “You tell me why your coach is an idiot.”
“Buddy, what was that bullshit? You’re a ball hog; you didn’t pass once. Have you ever even played rugby?”
“Just drop it,” said Aaron.
“No bullshit,” Buff grabbed his shoulders and faced him, “the closer it gets to your birthday, the more you creep me out. Look, Buddy, I know you’re freaked about that stuff in your head, but it’s not the end of the world, okay?”
Aaron shrugged off his best friend’s hands and continued walking.
“Okay, be a prick. Fine.” Buff walked in stiff silence next to him.
For a week, Aaron hadn’t stopped thinking about Amber. Clearly, she didn’t belong with Clive, yet she acted like they were unofficial halves or something . . . and he was beginning to hate it.
But his birthday was way too close to risk getting hung up on her—only nineteen days now. Besides, whether Clive Selavio, Aaron, or someone else entirely was Amber’s half would be revealed on March thirtieth, and no one could do a damn thing about it.
So why was it so hard to let her go?
“Hey—” Buff nodded toward the stands, “look who came to watch.”
Aaron glanced up. It was Tina Marcello, but when he saw whom she was with, his skin tingled.
“And who might that be?” said Buff, suddenly very interested.
The two girls were sitting right where they had left their backpacks.
***
Amber wore a baby-blue sweater, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, damp with mist. Her hair glistened. Aaron stopped right in front of her.
“You again?” she said, making no attempt to sound excited. Aaron wondered whether she’d consulted Tina about him or whether they’d concluded separately that he was a jerk. Maybe they could form a club with Emma Mist.
Aaron wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and his sweat ran red down his fingers. A cleat must have nicked his forehead. He lifted the bottom of his shirt and wiped away the blood.
Amber blinked. “Do you really have to do that right in front of me?” she said.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
“Oh, so it's okay for you to lurk by my car and ambush me after practice, and it's not okay for me to watch the tryouts?”
“Fine. Next time I’ll leave your phone in the trash,” he said, “and just so you know—” he nodded over his shoulder at the rugby field, “I got distracted back there.”
“It’s not like I came to watch you.”
“Oh yeah?” he said. “Who’d you come to watch?”
Buff pushed him out of the way and held his hand out to Amber. He put on his most dignified expression, which wasn’t much. “Buff Normandy.”
Amber took his hand and smiled. “Amber.”
“So you like rugby, Amber?”
She shrugged, and her eyes darted to Aaron. “It’s okay,” she said.
“I didn’t really need to try out—” said Buff. “I’m actually already on the team.” He chuckled, and his cheeks reddened. “Actually, I was last year’s MVP.”
“Knock it off,” said Aaron. “She’s a friend.”
Buff stepped in front of Aaron, blocking him. “You got any plans for later?”
Aaron smirked and rolled his eyes, and Amber glanced at him again. She smiled too.
“Could you please leave us alone now?” said Tina, wrinkling her nose. “You guys stink.”
A lined notebook lay open on her lap, which Buff snatched and proceeded to dangle above her head.
“Buff—” Tina lunged for the notebook and missed. “Give it back!”
While they squabbled, Aaron scanned the bleachers for his backpack. He had left it right here. He inhaled, and his chest stung. More sweat drizzled into his mouth.
Then he saw it stashed under the bench, shoved out of the way right behind Amber. He leaned over her, and her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Excuse me—you’re in the way.” He reached past her.
But she refused to budge, and his shoulder brushed her cool skin. He felt her tense up. Aaron flexed and dragged his backpack onto the bench next to her. She stared at the spot of mud he left on her arm, then at him.
“What makes you think I’m your friend?” she said.
“I didn’t say you were,” said Aaron.
“You did two minutes ago.” She glanced at his forehead. “I think you need a Band-Aid.”
Blood dripped from Aaron’s chin. He wiped his forehead with his shirt again—it came back bright red.
“I’m fine.” He unzipped his backpack. Then he grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled it over his head. Caked mud and sweat stuck to his skin. He crumpled the shirt into a ball and wiped his face another time. That was when he noticed the bruises along his rib cage.
While his shirt was off, Amber stole a glance at his torso, then quickly averted her gaze and fixed her eyes firmly on the horizon—until a grunt from Buff made them both look in his direction.
“Buddy, she’s scouting for Breezie!” he shouted, staring wide-eyed at the players’ names written neatly in pink ink in Tina’s notebook. “And why isn’t my name here?”
“Buff, forget about it,” said Aaron. “She doesn’t know jack—”
“Huh Tina? Why isn’t it on here?” Buff repeated.
There was a dark glint in Tina’s eyes. “Because your GPA is below the league minimum. You won’t be allowed to play.”
“That’s not true.”
“Is too.”
Buff tore out the page, ripped it into little pieces and dropped them on Tina’s lap. “No more of this bullshit,” he said, grabbing his backpack.
“You freak!” said Tina, staring at the scraps.
“When we play rugby, Breezie’s going to need more than just a cheat sheet,” said Buff, kicking the riser on the bench.
“Well that was lame.” Tina brushed the scraps of paper into a puddle and grabbed her purse. “Amber, let’s get out of here.”
“Hang on,” said Buff, “let me get Amber’s number.” He rummaged in his pockets for his cell phone, came out empty-handed, then unzipped his backpack and started digging out crumpled wads of schoolwork.
Amber gave him a coy smile. “Buff, you hardly know me,” she said.
Buff’s face reddened. He stood and scratched his head. “Maybe I should give you my number instead,” he said.
“She doesn’t want your number,” Aaron scoffed.
Amber shot him a glance. “Maybe I do.”
Meanwhile, Tina made a point of sighing loudly.
“I got it an idea!” said Buff. “Buddy, give me your phone. I’ll get her number that way.”
“Too bad,” said Aaron, “didn’t bring it.”
Amber glanced at the side of Aaron’s backpack, at the mesh pocket—where the bulge of his cell phone was clearly visible.
“Didn’t bring it, huh?” She slid Aaron’s phone out and flipped it open, keyed in her number, and called her own phone with it. Then Amber and Tina squeezed between him and Buff on their way out.
As Amber brushed past Aaron, she slipped the phone into the pocket of his shorts. “That’s for Buff,” she whispered, her breath right in his ear. Her green eyes lingered on him for another second before she turned away.
***
“Buddy, who was that?” said Buff, gaping at him.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Aaron. “She’s out of her mind.”
“Who cares?” said Buff. “Give me the phone number, it’s obvious she likes me.”
“She goes to Corona Blanca,” said Aaron.
Buff lunged for the phone in Aaron’s pocket, and Aaron had to beat him off with his backpack.
“Fine, I’ll just wait until she calls me,” said Buff, leaving Aaron to go talk to his coach, “which she will!”
“Say hello for me when she does.” Aaron slung his clean shirt over his shoulder and headed to his car alone. So much for forgetting about her. After that last sizzling look she gave him, that was going to be impossible.
Aaron sighed, imagining how much simpler his last month as a seventeen-year-old would have been if he’d never met her—and wondering if he’d ever have the courage to delete her number. Or call her.
His Mazda waited, black and sleek. Aaron was almost at the door when he noticed the damage, and his heart jolted.
He scanned the lot, hardly breathing. Nobody lingered. Nobody had left a note.
Aaron stared at his car. A dent stretched across the door, broken glass and crumpled metal, bashed inward. Bare steel glinted underneath, deformed and scraped white. Black flecks of paint streamed in rivulets along the asphalt under his feet.
“No—” he whispered, and he laid his palm on his car’s frame.
It wasn’t a fender bender. The dent was too deep, as if someone had deliberately driven into it, their toe to the floor—or beaten it with a crow bar.
Aaron pulled the handle, and the door collapsed an inch and screeched open. He stared at the ruined door, and pressure tingled in his sinuses, like two thumbs pressing under his eyes.
The driver’s seat was soaked, and the door didn’t close. It just banged against the side and swung back open. Aaron squeezed his shirt into a ball and flung it across the parking lot.
Then his cell phone rang.
“Hello,” said Aaron.
“Aaron Harper, how are you?” said an icy drawl.
A chill slithered up Aaron’s spine—Clive Selavio.
He scanned the deserted school, the houses across the street. “Who gave you my number?” he said, his heart pounding. All he heard was Clive’s heavy breathing infused with static.
“I told you to stay away from her,” said Clive.
“How’d you get my number?”
“But you didn’t listen,” said Clive.
The air stirred in Aaron’s ear, like someone breathing behind him. He spun.
Nobody.
“It was you—” Aaron’s eyes darted across the street. Down in the shadows between two bushes, hunched over. Nobody.
“It was you—that was my car, a*shole!”
Clive chuckled. “Next Friday,” he said. “Expect me. I have a little surprise for you, Aaron Harper.” Then he hung up.