“Talent.” He answered. I followed him out of the library, admiring his height. He was like a giant striding among walls of books. Even the librarian gaped a little, then waved nervously goodbye to me.
Burn led me across campus, over the short grasses and around the statues of important old dead guys, until we reached the parking lot. He opened the door of his convertible, and I hesitated.
“Wait. The surprise is off-campus?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to sell me on the black market for my liver?” I asked as I settled in the passenger seat.
“No.”
“Fair enough.” I clipped my seatbelt on as he got in. “Take me away. Just. Not very fast, please. But also make it quick – I should probably get home in an hour or so.”
“Demanding,” He sighed. I smiled.
“They don’t call me ‘Annoying Annie’ in this school for nothing.”
He drove past the fancy sign that read LAKECREST PREPARATORY HIGH SCHOOL. I flipped it off.
“They don’t call you that.” He said.
“Well, they should. I’d prefer a mean nickname to all the weird looks and half-baked rumors.”
“You’re lucky.”
I’d spent enough time around him at this point to translate the Burnese; I was lucky that’s all it was. And he was right. It could be a lot worse. But that didn’t mean I had to be grateful for it.
“Just because it isn’t super bad doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck,” I said sagely. Burn grunted and took a left turn onto the highway, and I forgot how to breathe. Or, more accurately, the wind stole the breath from my lungs in that way that happens when you’re in a fast-moving thing and your windpipe is left open to invaders. I figured out how to breathe again, and let the wind whip my hair around. I watched the world flash by in autumn colors, the trees giving one last dying gasp of saffron yellow and burnt orange sugar.
We entered a richy-rich suburb; you could tell from the way all the houses had roman columns on their porch and random, sleekly modern glass walls. Only rich people had glass for walls.
Burn pulled over, and told me to wait. I did, twiddling my thumbs, only to groan when I saw who he was bringing back with him in the side mirror; Fitz, and Wolf. Together. One at a time they weren’t so bad, but together? Fitz thought I liked Wolf. I’d told Wolf we were squarely enemies. How the ever-loving hell was I going to pull this acting stint off?
“If it isn’t our lovely mascot,” Fitz jumped into the convertible without opening the door.
“Hi,” I managed. I didn’t look at Wolf, and he didn’t look at me either, though out of the corner of my eye I did see him hesitate with his fingers on the door handle.
“Why is she here?” He growled at Burn. Burn doubled around and slid into the driver’s seat.
“Because. She’s my friend.”
There was a silence. Friend? Yeah, I could say Burn and I were definitely friends. He was easy to get along with, and helped me feel better about stuff. I think that qualified us as friends.
Or, it didn’t. It couldn’t. A friendship wasn’t based on one person trying to get information out of the other. I’d started talking to Burn because of the agreement with Mr. Blackthorn. None of what we shared was built on a neutral standpoint. It was all me, trying to get what I wanted, through him. I knitted my hands around each other in my lap.
Fitz laughed like something was funny. Wolf gave up and got in the backseat.
“You don’t have friends, Burn,” Fitz corrected.
“I do.” He said. “You should try it sometime.”
“I have plenty of friends!” Fitz argued.
“Ones that aren’t friends with you for your drugs,” Wolf grunted. Fitz laughed again.
“Oh, you’re one to talk, Wolf. Your last friendship didn’t exactly go down so well now, did it?”
He was talking about Mark. It was a low blow. Wolf flinched.
“That’s enough,” I snapped. “Stop being nasty to each other. Burn has a surprise for us, so all of us need to grow up and try to act like we deserve it.”
Fitz huffed. Wolf went silent. Burn started the convertible again, and we drove. I couldn’t help but sneak looks back at Wolf in the side mirror – the wind whipped his dark hair around. He closed his eyes once or twice, looking serene and almost peaceful, like the wind was sweeping him away to a better place. My stomach churned. Who gave him the right to be so damn handsome? I thought I’d locked all my positive thoughts of him in the bulletproof safe in the very back of my mind, but now they were threatening to break out all on their own, just by seeing him. It was garbage.
“We’re not going to Seamus again, are we?” I asked Burn, desperate to tear my attention away from Wolf’s profile. “I don’t have his money for the dress, so he’ll probably break my kneecaps. With a teacup.”
Burn rolled his sleepy eyes. “Not Seamus. Somewhere more interesting.”
I slumped in my seat. His version of interesting was probably another trail, even harder and wheezier than the one we ran every morning. But to my surprise, he took an exit that led to Baskerville – a small suburb east of Seattle known for its empty plains of…well, nothing. It used to be a farming community, but that got shut down quick with the advent of the dot com industry and all the kids moving into the city for work. So now we drove past fields and fields of fallow grass, little barns and houses dotting the landscape. The Cascade Mountains threw shadows on the horizon, tall and majestic and lonely.
“Why are we in the boonies, Burn? You know me and Mother Nature broke up years ago.” Fitz complained. Wolf couldn’t take his eyes off the mountains.
“Are we coming out here to hunt ghosts or something?” I asked. Burn rolled his eyes. It might’ve been exasperation, but at least there was more way motion on his face than usual. I took it as a good sign.
Finally, Burn turned the convertible onto a little dirt road carving through a huge empty field. I squinted – in the distance I could see what looked like an old army barn – the kind they keep planes and stuff in.
“Oh no,” Fitz suddenly moaned. “No, no, no –“
“We’re going to do it,” Burn said. “Finally. Together.”