Exaltation (Insight #11)(90)

It was built so long ago the gravel was almost pavement, but the boys were changing Kade’s tires anyway to give him more traction. Raven had no idea why Kade would gamble his car; it was sweet now.

Raven was more excited about the party in the field. People from every school should be there, along with music, dancing, and just a good time. The race would last less than a few minutes but the party was sure to go on for hours.

Raven jumped when the phone in her back pocket vibrated. It was a text. Get here now. From River.

Raven hopped down and went outside to call her. She wasn’t going anywhere near Berries, and she didn’t feel the urge to type out that argument.

River answered on the first ring. “Now, Raven.”

“No way. I don’t want Rydell wrapped up in this and he’s my ride.”

“Take his car and get here now. It’s important.” Raven heard an odd noise in the background and Ash grunt. The line went dead then.

Oh. Crap.

Raven went panicky all at once. She glanced back at the garage. Rydell had leaned out from the hood he was under as if she’d called his name. He grabbed a rag and started to clean his hands as he made his way to her.

A million scenarios were rushing through Raven’s head and every one of them told her she did not want Rydell anywhere near this. He was on a thin line with her dad as it was and had family issues of his own.

He ducked his head to look in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Can I borrow your car?” At that he raised his brow. “I just need to take something to the twins.”

“I’ll take you.”

She put her hand on his chest as he tried to walk by her. “It’s a girl thing.” Raven made it sound like it was one of those girl things you didn’t talk to boys about, so he backed off a little. “I mean if you don’t want me to drive it maybe you can ask Kade’s friend if I can borrow his car.”

He pulled his keys out. “You sure you’re okay? You’re really pale.”

“Girl thing,” Raven said, putting her hand on his stomach. He didn’t believe her. Raven could tell. But he pulled her chin up and kissed her lips softly anyway.

Raven couldn’t look in his eyes as she drove away. She hated this feeling. She really did. She tried to call River at every stoplight.

No answer.

Raven cursed as she weaved through the back streets. She wasn’t entirely sure exactly where Berries’ house was so she looked for the Jeep. When she found it she followed the fence it was against and came up on the back porch of a home.

“Hello?” she said into the screen. She heard another moan and Ash cuss. Oh crap! Raven had her cell phone clutched in her hand and one number already dialed in so she would only have to press send.

Was it 911? No. Rydell? No. It was Jamison’s. But she would only hit send as a last resort. He’d kill her if he figured out she was there.

Raven pulled the screen door open, and when it slammed behind her she jumped forward. The house was dark but she could see it was a mess. Books and magazines were stacked across the floor, and it smelled stale, like a bad stale, the way the Quarter smelled in the morning before they hosed the party streets down. Beer and ashtrays.

“River? Ash?” Raven whispered, moving through the books and knocking down a few. When she made it to the front room she clasped her hand over her mouth.

Berries was tied to a chair and had a gag on. River was holding a stick to his chest as Ash fumbled with tapes and an old TV that had snow on its screen.

“What? What’s going on here?”

“He caught us,” Ash said. “He was hiding. Like he knew we were coming. We have to figure out how to spin this, how to get your dad to help us out of this. Soren is on his way. He was at the university with his grandmother so it’s going to take him a hot second to get here.”

Were they insane! “So you tied him up!”

“He tied us up first! But he ran his mouth when he had us locked away, so now we’re tying to see if there’s any truth to what he said.”

“What are you talking about?” Raven said as she jolted back. Berries had lashed forward, his eyes crazed and sweat beaded across his brow.

“He said they’re going to take your dad. Said he had proof. That we were next anyway. Experiments and shit,” Ash said as she dumped out small tapes and old pages.

Right then she managed to get the tapes to play on the ancient TV. As she skipped through them they all saw how much of a creep Berries was.

He only used the camera to film the class Raven was in, and he had some kind of odd lenses on it which easily showed the vim she used to protect herself, the vim Rydell had used to protect her. In fact, you could even see where Rydell had lashed out at the camera and it lost its feed.

Then the scene changed—it was what happened the day of the storm. Jamison at war with those dark beings. Soren, and Dagen fighting Benjamin—all scenes from security cameras in the school.

“Okay,” Raven said as she took a shuddering breath. The girl who always got them out of trouble started to surface. “No one will believe this. It looks like a bad movie. They will see it as fake.”

Ash had been moving back through the tapes and stopped when she saw Berries, Dagen, and Rydell in his classroom. When she played the tape Raven felt sick.

They were plotting.