Panic(15)

“It’s totally fine.” Dodge’s voice came out more harshly than he’d intended. Shit. He was screwing this up already. He coughed and crossed his arms, trying to look casual. Really it was because his hands suddenly felt like meat hooks at the end of his arms, and he had forgotten what to do with them. “How’s your ankle?” An Ace bandage was wrapped thickly around her ankle and foot; it made a funny contrast to her legs, which were bare.

“Sprained.” Nat made a face. “I’ll live, but . . .” For a brief second, her face spasmed, like she was in pain. “Look, Dodge, is there someplace we can go? Like, to talk?”

There was no way he was taking her inside. Not an icicle’s chance in hell. He didn’t want Nat gaping at Dayna or, worse, trying too hard to be nice. “How did you get here?” he asked, thinking she might have a car.

Again, she blushed. “I had my dad drop me,” she said.

He didn’t ask how she’d figured out where he lived. Like all things in Carp, it was usually just a question of asking around. The problem was where to take her. He couldn’t go into the diner. His mom was working. That left Meth Row.

Nat walked slowly, still limping, although she seemed to be in less pain than she had been last night. But she took the first opportunity to sit down: on the rusted fender of an abandoned, wheel-less Buick. All its windows were shattered, and the seats were speckled with bird shit, the leather torn up by tiny animals.

“I wanted to thank you again,” Nat said. “You were so . . . You were great. For helping me last night.”

Dodge felt vaguely disappointed, as he often felt when interacting with other people, when the reality failed to meet his expectations. Or in this case, his fantasies. Some part of him had been hoping she’d come over to confess that she’d fallen madly in love with him. Or maybe she’d skip the words altogether, and strain onto her tiptoes and open her mouth and let him kiss her. Except she probably couldn’t stand on her toes with her ankle the way it was, which is one of the 2,037 ways his fantasy was unrealistic.

He said, “It’s not a problem.”

She twisted her mouth, like she’d swallowed something sour. For a second she didn’t say anything. Then she blurted, “Did you hear Cory Walsh and Felix Harte were arrested?”

He shook his head, and she clarified, “Drunk and disorderly conduct. And trespassing.” She shifted her weight. “You think Panic is over?”

“No way,” he said. “The cops are too stupid to stop it, anyway.”

She nodded but didn’t look convinced. “So what do you think will happen next?”

“No idea,” he said. He knew that Nat was asking him for a hint. He swallowed back a bad taste in his mouth. She knew he liked her, and she was trying to use him.

“I think we can use each other,” she said abruptly, and it was this fact—the fact of her acknowledgment, her honesty—that made him want to keep listening.

“Use each other how?” he asked.

She picked at the hem of her skirt. It looked like it was made of terry cloth, which made him think of towels, which made him think of Nat in a towel. The sun was so bright, he was dizzy.

“We make a deal,” she said, looking up at him. Her eyes were dark, eager, and sweet, like the eyes of a puppy. “If either of us wins, we split the cash fifty-fifty.”

Dodge was so startled, he couldn’t say anything for a minute. “Why?” he asked finally. “Why me? You don’t even—I mean, we hardly even know each other.” What about Heather? he almost said.

“It’s just a feeling I have,” she said, and once again he found her honesty appealing. “You’re good at this game. You know things.” It seemed somehow surprising that Nat Velez, with her thick, perfect hair and slicked lip-gloss lips, would speak so frankly about a subject most people avoided. It was like hearing a supermodel fart: surprising and kind of thrilling. She plowed on: “We can help each other. Share information. Team up against the others. We have more of a chance of getting to Joust that way. And then . . .” She gestured with her hands.

“Then we’ll have to face off,” Dodge said.

“But if one wins, we both win,” Nat said, smiling up at him.

He had no intention of letting anyone else win. Then again, he didn’t care about the money, either. He had a different goal in mind. Maybe she knew that, or sensed it somehow.

So he said, “Yeah, okay. Partners.”

“Allies,” Nat said, and stuck out her hand, formally. It felt soft, and also slightly sweaty.

She stood up, laughing. “It’s settled, then.” She couldn’t crane onto her tiptoes to kiss him, so she just grabbed his shoulders and planted a kiss on the side of his neck. She giggled. “Now I have to do the other side, so you’re even.”

And he knew then that he was going to fall totally head over heels for her this summer.



Afterward, no one knew who had posted the video online; it appeared on so many pages simultaneously, and spread to everybody else so quickly, it was impossible to determine its point of origin, although many people suspected it was Joey Addison or Charlie Wong, just because they were both dicks and two years ago had secretly filmed, and posted, videos of the girls’ locker rooms.

It wasn’t even that interesting—just a couple of jerky shots of Ray and Zev swinging at each other, shoulders butting up into the frame as a crowd formed; and then flashing lights, people screaming, a moment when the feed went dead. Then more images: sweeping lights and cops’ distorted voices, tinny and harmless-sounding in the recording, and one close-up of Nat, mouth wide, with one arm around Heather and the other around Dodge. Then darkness.