“Michael send you to get me?” I pretended my reaction had been normal. “Where to?”
“It’s—uh—different from yesterday.” She hugged her books to her chest. Her eyes flicked to the coaches: Protectors of the Cafeteria.
“Sorry,” I said, trying to relax my gritted teeth. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s not that.” She shook her head, swift and tight. “I was jumpy already.”
She was jumpy?
“We have to ditch. Come on.” She didn’t wait for me to ask what was happening and didn’t offer an explanation.
Leaving my tray on the table, I followed her.
“Hey!” called one of the coaches, a former juice-head now running to fat. He pointed at my tray.
I met his eyes. Felt my blood pressure drop as my breathing and heart rate slowed.
He broke the gaze first. Slid his eyes to the tray behind me. “You!” He shouted to someone else. “Pick that tray up.”
“But it’s not mine!”
“Shut up and do it.” The coach put his hands on his wide hips and watched the other guy take it. Acted like he’d never even been talking to me.
Cyndra huffed a soft laugh, puffing a lock of red-gold hair with her breath. I didn’t mind everyone watching as she led me out.
We walked out to her silver Mercedes and got in. She threw the car into gear and sped out of the lot.
“Where are we going?”
“Michael’s waiting for us just a few minutes from here.” She drove away from the school, weaving through modest residential streets.
Eventually, we pulled into a pharmacy parking lot. Michael’s Mustang was parked by the door.
“He called me,” Cyndra said. “Told me to get you and bring you here. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“Don’t have it. We’re not supposed to have them at school, remember? Michael called me?”
“Yeah.” She parked next to his car. “No one pays attention to that rule.” Cyndra opened her door. “Just make sure the ringer’s off.”
I got out and followed her around to the passenger side of the Mustang. I couldn’t see Michael through the tinted glass.
Cyndra tapped on the window before cracking the door open. “We’re here. I’ll go inside and get the stuff.” She turned to me and gestured to the car seat. “I’ll be right back.”
I climbed into the car as Cyndra walked into the pharmacy.
“Should’ve answered your damn phone.” Michael’s voice was muffled. He was pressing a gym shirt to his mouth.
His bruised eye was swollen almost shut. Ugly purple streaks spread over his cheekbone and up to his eye socket. Closest to his eye, the bruising turned a vivid red. Just above his cheekbone, near the temple, was a cut that had already clotted.
“Nice look, Face,” I said.
Michael coughed a laugh, groaned, and clutched his stomach. He eased forward and spat a glob of blood into a McDonald’s cup.
“What happened?”
“You were right. Yesterday.” He gasped as he fell back in the seat. “I’ll tell you. I don’t know what else to do.”
“Who did this?”
His good eye went wide. Even in the safety of his car, he glanced around before answering.
“Lonzo Cesare,” he breathed in fear, like he was naming Satan.
I watched him, waiting for more.
“Wait. You don’t know him?” He rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head slowly, like he couldn’t decide if he should laugh or sob.
“He’s a drug dealer. And a bookie. More than that, I don’t want to know.” His fingers continued to knead the muscles in his neck. “I lost some bets.”
Like they were inconsequential things.
“So pay him. Instead of me.”
“It’s more than I have right now. Way more. I need time.” He let go of his neck to wave the hand at his face. “This is what he did when I told him that.”
“How much time did it buy you?” I asked.
“A week.” Michael closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “I’ll fix it. I can get ahead of this.”
Something about the tone of his voice and what he said. The bets laid before school and the power-lust glint in his eyes clicked with images of my mom before she overdosed. The way she would come into our room, shake us awake, and promise that she was going to change. Just so she could hear the lie spoken aloud.
Everything was going to get better.
“I’ll take care of it. But I need you to help show him I’m not helpless. And to come when I call, damnit. So I won’t be helpless. He’s got kids that deal for him at Mercer. Don’t think for one second he doesn’t. With you hanging around, he’ll think twice about coming after me again.”
“I’m not that scary.”
“Your dad is.” His eyes shone on my face like a policeman’s light. “Everyone knows your dad’s a badass.” Then he muttered, “I bet he knows who Lonzo Cesare is.”
So that’s what this was about? I was a stand-in for my dad? Like my dad is some underworld kingpin. Instead of a low-level thug.
“Whatever,” I said. Maybe badass and kingpin are relative propositions, especially to the ignorant.
Cyndra walked out, a bag in her hand. Michael put his window down and took the bag. “Go ahead to school. I’ll be fine now.”
Cyndra frowned, chewed on her lower lip, and shifted her weight. She stared at her boyfriend’s bruised face.
“Go, I said.”
He put the window back up.
She went to her car and got in. Slammed the door and laid tire marks as she pulled out of the parking lot.
“She doesn’t know all this,” Michael explained. “She knows I’m in trouble, not how much.”
“She knows now.”
Michael laughed, then groaned. He fumbled through the bag, fished out some painkillers, and took two.
“How’d you meet this guy?” I asked.