“You want to pick your way back through that mob and get crushed?” Kellan says. “Make room, incoming!”
Liv lands in my lap. Kellan jumps into the driver’s seat and peels out. Liv springs upright and yells, “Let me out!”
“You hear that siren? Ligand called the cops. If I stop now, I’ll need to explain why I slugged Ligand’s nephew. I’m thinking for now I’d like to remain Anonymous Hooded Student, even if that nephew is the biggest drug dealer at Shiverton. Then there’s what my father’s going to think about this.”
Liv digs in her backpack and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Her fingertips are blue and shaky. She tries to light one skinny stick.
My eyes pop. “You smoke now?” I ask her.
Kellan eyes her in the rearview mirror, and calls back, “Not in my truck!”
Liv jams the cigarette into the pack until it snaps. Swearing, she fights to roll down the sticky window and tosses the broken butt into the wind.
“Couldn’t spring for electric windows?” Liv asks.
“Wow, you’re welcome,” Kellan says.
“Thank you for saving us,” I say, embarrassed for Liv. Apparently her one-time hook-up with Kellan left things awkward. Kellan is hot, beyond hot, and beyond me. He’s also smart, and nice to everyone. Thus everyone loves him. I love him. Whereas I’d been over the moon after Liv’s conquest, the day after, she barely said “meh.” Liv could get anyone, but she never truly crushes on any one guy. When she does hook up, she does it grudgingly, as a response to the attention the guy is giving her, the equivalent of petting a puppy. I always figure she’s picky, but in the back of my mind I wonder if Deborah screwed her up in some related way, that all her crazy axioms—“The worst lies are the lies women tell to themselves. That a man will love them if they let themselves slip, even the tiniest bit” or, “You stole my figure. Now you’d better take care of it” And the worst, “You can be very difficult to love”—left something dead inside Liv. Accepted truths that made her unable to care about anybody. Guys were too much work, especially if the odds of being loved were so slim.
I feel for nonexistent seat belts.
“So where are we going?” Liv says, her temple pressed against the glass, her hand limp on the seat between us. Her sleeve is hiked up, exposing an odd new thatch of golden down on her forearm.
“I hadn’t thought past smacking down a stoner and taking a hit in the gut,” Kellan says, flexing his knuckles on the steering wheel, examining his cuts.
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
“I usually wear hockey gloves when I throw punches,” he says, smiling back at me.
Liv pulls out a white plastic bottle. The label screams, Now with caffeine! She shakes out two horse-sized pills that smell like licorice and tosses them to the back of her throat.
“What are those?” I ask.
“Herbal energy supplement. Yo, up front!” Liv yells. “Can you drive a little more smoothly?”
“Sorry, my truck doesn’t have shocks,” Kellan explains.
Liv presses the heel of her hand to her skull. “Well, you’re hurting my head immeasurably, MacDickwad.”
Kellan does a double take past his headrest. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Liv says.
“Did you just call me a dickwad?” he says.
“MacDickwad,” she replies.
I rush to speak. “Liv gets mean when she’s nervous.”
Liv narrows her eyes at me.
“But it’s true. You get snappish when you’re frightened,” I say.
“Who said I was frightened?”
“Listen. I get that you two went through something,” Kellan says. “I’m sure it was terrible. But that’s no excuse to be so rude.”
“You didn’t have to rescue me, MacDickwad,” Liv says.
“I’m sorry. You would have preferred getting trampled and/or totally exploited by some slimy reporter?” Kellan says.
“You’re just pissed at Paula Papademetriou because she’s exposing the police for the lame job they did keeping a paroled predator off the streets. Your daddy doesn’t look so good anymore, does he?” Liv taunts.
My hand reaches for the notebook inside my bag. I need to make notes while they’re fresh, stare at the page until it means something.
veterinary, computer, smartphone, killer
cantaloupe rinds, silver wrappers, water bottles, sneakers
I feel kidnapped and anxious. The connections between what I heard Paula say at the schoolyard and what I saw in the pit want to be made now, and all this driving and arguing is a waste of precious time.
Kellan takes the winding border road that leads to the highway and merges into the rotary, looping and exiting again in the same spot. “You ladies have any particular destination in mind? Because I’m feeling really good about chauffeuring you two right about now.”
“No one asked you to,” Liv says.
It becomes clear. I must see exactly where Ana was found.
Kellan grips the wheel and sits back. “I’m starting to get why you hang around with a lowlife like Shane Cuthbert. Two peas,” he tells Liv.