“She’s a pit bull, ain’t you never seen one before?” He ejected a wad of some foul substance from his mouth onto the dirt.
Not one that skinny. I’d never seen any dog, or any animal, that thin. “Nope. What a great dog! Does she eat much?” An obscenely stupid question. My lack of filter was going to get me killed one of these days. Maybe today.
“Whadda you care?”
Oh, well. Go big, or go home.
“She’s starving, and that chain around her neck is too heavy. She has bites on her ears and scars on her face. Is this really the best you can do for her?” I said, my voice growing shrill. “She doesn’t deserve this.” I was losing it.
His jaw clenched along with the muscles in his body. He walked right up to my face. I held my breath but didn’t move.
“Who the hell d’ya think you are?” he said, his voice a raspy hiss. “Get outta here. And if I see you ‘round here again, I ain’t gonna be this nice next time we meet.”
I inhaled without meaning to, and a noxious odor wafted in my direction. I looked down at the dog, cringing away from her owner. I didn’t want to leave her, but I couldn’t see how to get around the obstacles: the barbed wire, the padlocked collar and heavy chain. Her owner. So I tore my eyes away and began to leave.
Then I heard a scream.
When I whipped around, the dog cowered so low she hugged the ground. Her owner held the heavy chain. He must have jerked it.
The sick bastard smiled at me.
I swelled with loathing, brimmed with it. I’d never hated anyone as much as I hated him in that moment; my fingers itched with the violence they wanted to do but couldn’t. So I turned and ran, to give my trembling limbs some relief from the fury that boiled up from a dark place I didn’t know existed. My feet pounded the pavement, wishing they could trample the smile on that piece of filth’s face. And as the thought spiked through my brain, I saw it. The redneck’s skull caved in, leaving a gaping, pulpy hole in the side of his head. A thick cloud of flies clogging his mouth. Blood staining the sandy dirt by the lumber pile in a wide, darkening pool around his body.
He deserved to die.
12
SWEATY AND BREATHLESS, I ROUNDED THE parking lot by the school entrance and checked my watch. Seven minutes to spare before English. I grabbed my bag from the car, sprinted to class and made it a minute before the bell rang. Slick.
Ms. Leib closed the door behind me and I settled into the nearest available desk. Noah was there, looking as bored and careless and disheveled as ever. He sat at his desk without his book or notes, but that didn’t stop him from answering each of Ms. Leib’s questions correctly when she called on him. Show-off.
My mind wandered against the backdrop of the lecture. I had to do something about the dog. Help her, somehow. I’d just started to envision a dubious plan involving wire cutters, a ski mask, and mace when the bell rang. I made my way toward the door, anxious to get to my next class, but a throbbing mass of students had already assembled in front of it, crowding the exit.
When I finally escaped the confines of the classroom, I found myself staring directly into Anna’s face. Her nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Don’t you shower?”
I probably did smell ripe after this morning’s sprint, but I was in no mood for her garbage. Not today. I opened my mouth, ready to let the abuse fly.
“I vastly prefer the unshowered to the overperfumed, don’t you, Anna?”
That voice could only be Noah’s. I turned around. He stood behind me wearing an almost imperceptible smile.
Anna’s blue eyes went wide. Her face transformed from evil to innocent. Like magic, only more nefarious.
“I guess if those are your only two choices, Noah, then yes. But I’m partial to neither.”
“Could have fooled me,” Noah said.
That did not seem to be the response she’d been expecting from him. “Wh-whatever,” she stammered, refocusing her gaze in my direction and staring daggers before she walked away.
Fabulous. Now she and I were definitely going to have a Thing.
I turned to face Noah. He shot an insolent smile at me, and I bristled. “You didn’t have to do that,” I said. “I was handling it.”
“A simple thank-you would suffice.”
Rain began to spatter the roof of the walkway. “I really need to get to class,” I said, and picked up my pace. Noah matched it.
“What do you have next?” he asked lightly.
“Algebra II.” Go away. I’m smelly. And you bother me enormously.
“I’ll walk with you.”
Fail. I shifted my bag to my other shoulder, bracing myself for an uncomfortably silent walk. Out of nowhere, Noah tugged on my messenger bag, jerking me into a halt.
“Did you draw that?” he asked, indicating the graffiti on my messenger bag.
“Yep.”
“You’re talented,” he said. I looked at his face. No sarcasm. No amusement. Was it possible?
“Thanks,” I said, disarmed.
“Now it’s your turn.”
“For what?”
“To compliment me.”