Put Me Back Together(6)
“I know I am,” said a familiar voice from out in the hall.
My stomach dropped as I heard Em let out high-pitched squeak and I turned slowly to face the doorway.
Hottie Lucas Matthews was standing at my front door.
“You didn’t tell me there were two of you,” Lucas said as we walked up the street toward campus. I was pushing the pace while he was, once again, casually sauntering. Because he was at least a head taller than my measly five-foot-five frame, he was keeping up with me pretty easily. The bastard.
“Twin sister,” I answered curtly. “Gotta get to class.”
I’d been flinging these throwaway answers at him ever since we’d left my building, yet somehow he was still walking beside me like we were buddies. For a few minutes I considered turning a corner unexpectedly just to lose him, as if this were a car chase, but then I dismissed it as ridiculous. Besides, a move like that might draw attention, and we were approaching campus. I needed to detach myself from Lucas to avoid attention, not attract more. But he wasn’t budging.
“So how’s our friend doing?” he asked as we walked up an incredibly long road that passed between the playing fields. “That’s why I stopped by. You seemed a little hesitant about taking him in last night.”
“Under the couch,” I panted as we stepped onto one of the campus paths. I was wheezing like a bloodhound on its last legs as I continued to try to get ahead of him. He’d hardly broken a sweat, of course.
He nodded. “That’s what they do when they’re in an unfamiliar place. They run for cover,” he said.
I know the feeling, I thought to myself.
“I was thinking we should probably make up some flyers. He didn’t have a collar, but he might still belong to someone.”
“Already done,” I replied. “I have it on a flash drive. I’m going to print them out after class.”
He gave me an appreciative look, his eyes lingering on my face. His gaze made me feel hot inside my clothes even though it was ten below outside. I averted my eyes, irritated.
“Well done, Hero,” he said. “I’ll help you put them up around town.”
My eyes snapped back to his face. I said, “Don’t call me—”
“Hey, man! Where’ve you been?” I had been interrupted by a guy with longish blond hair sticking out from under a blue-striped tuque. He was riding a bicycle and had stopped beside us to chat with Lucas. I wanted to ask him what the hell he was doing riding a bike on the icy roads—did he have a death wish?—but realized a better idea would be to take my chance to escape while Lucas was distracted.
I edged away from them both and made it about ten feet up the path before I heard Lucas calling to me.
“Katie, hold up a sec,” he said. I stopped in my tracks as he finished up his conversation with Death Wish Guy. I don’t know why I did. I could have just ignored him and walked on. There was something about the way he said my name…
I took a few steps back toward them as I waited. Looking around, I became aware of the fact that people were looking at me, or more specifically at us, or even more specifically at Lucas. A couple of girls who were walking by grinned widely as they passed him, then began whispering furiously to each other. I saw a guy at the door to the building point in our direction. Another guy ran over and started talking to Lucas animatedly as Death Wish Guy rode off. Then I saw a gaggle of girls looking me over—with little interest, I was glad to see—before honing in on Lucas. It made me nervous, but more than that it was a little bewildering. It was as though Lucas were some kind of campus celebrity. Was that even a thing? How could this many people possibly know him, enough to stare and point and whisper, enough to gather around him waiting for their turn to bask in his glow? It was kind of creepy. Who the hell was this guy?
I didn’t want to hang around to find out.
I turned back toward the building, but this time I didn’t even make it one step. Lucas and his friend were suddenly right beside me, walking with me up the path.
“Our next game is tomorrow night. You should really come,” the guy said. He seemed to be waiting for an answer.
I glanced up at Lucas, and for the first time I saw him look uneasy. He didn’t seem angry, but there was something closed off about his face. I realized he wasn’t smiling.
“I’ll try,” Lucas said, but I recognized the tone. It was one I used all the time with Emily when she was trying to convince me to attend some social event. The lying tone.
“You said that last time, man,” the guy went on, but suddenly I wasn’t listening because another sound had met my ears. It was coming out of the ear buds hanging around the guy’s neck. He had been listening to the radio and must have had the volume up loud because I could clearly hear the news anchor’s voice.
“…six years ago, shocking a nation by the sheer brutality of the crime. But his time’s up and in just a month—that’s four weeks away—he’ll be out in the community, serving out the rest of his sentence under supervision. Not surprisingly, parents’ groups are up in arms and have been petitioning the court…”
I felt my whole body tense and heard the rushing of blood in my ears, which luckily blocked out the sound of the news report. My breath caught in my throat and I found myself backing away from Lucas and his friend quickly, my feet tripping over themselves. When I turned to run—because I really was planning to run away, at top speed, preferably—I smacked right into a girl carrying an enormous cello case and fell hard on my back, knocking that caught breath right out of my lungs.