Time Bomb(68)

But fate had intervened, and Cas was alive.

She saw Tad turn toward her. The haunted, hollow look she’d seen when he had first woken up from surgery was still there. Cas wondered if it would ever fade.

Rashid had given her a message from Diana. Cas hadn’t been sure she wanted to hear it, but it was hard to ignore someone’s final words, even if that someone had called you a coward. Cas thought about those words now as she watched Tad checking his phone and walked to meet him.

Rashid was right.

When Cas had admitted to everyone that she’d wanted to die, Rashid had said it took courage to live.

Yeah. It did.





Tad





— Chapter 47 —


“FRANKIE’S NOT COMING,” Tad called to Cas as she walked toward him. She looked different. Her dark hair was shorter and had some kind of blond highlights that, against the brown and with the black eyeliner she was wearing, made her look harder . . . but in a good way. Or maybe it was the way she studied the building behind him that made her seem so different. As if she was determined not to let it beat her.

Tad felt the same. It’s why he sat in the stands of every practice, even though he wasn’t cleared by the doctors to play. Some of the guys had transferred to other schools. Frankie had. Now one of the junior varsity quarterbacks was leading the team, and Frankie didn’t seem to mind. The two of them had talked a couple of times since it happened. Tad had insisted and hadn’t let Frankie dodge him. He was done with being pushed aside. Tad told Frankie he needed him to listen. And Frankie had. The conversations weren’t easy or comfortable . . . not like the ones they’d had in July, when things were different between them. It was hard to watch someone you cared about pretend to be someone he wasn’t. Or maybe he wasn’t pretending. Tad had realized it wasn’t up to him to decide that. Only Frankie could. All Tad could do was live his life the way he wanted to. He wasn’t sure what that meant yet, but he’d figure it out.

Tad put his hand on his abdomen where they’d removed the bullet. The ache would eventually fade, but he wondered if it would ever go away. The upside was that if he ever decided to go into acting, he’d be able to play a guy who got blown up and shot and look as if he knew what he was doing.

One day at a time, his father had said when Tad got out of the hospital. Tad was trying, but, really, it all still sucked.

“Did Frankie say why he’s not coming?” Cas asked Tad as she stopped next to him.

He held out his phone so Cas could read the text.



CELEBRATING YESTERDAY’S WIN WITH SOME OF THE NEW TEAM. TELL EVERYONE I SAY HELLO.





Frankie had bailed on them, but he’d sent a message. For Frankie, that was progress.

No one was surprised when Frankie and his sister enrolled in a different school or how now that Frankie was healed, he was leading a new team to victory. If he wanted to be noticed by scouts for a football scholarship, every game counted. So far, Frankie’s new school had won every game. Tad’s squad couldn’t say the same. Frankie’s new team had beaten them soundly last night.

“He played a good game,” Cas said. Tad shrugged. Cas had come to the game and sat with Tad as he watched Frankie connect with his new receiver. He hadn’t told Cas to come. She had just slid into the seat next to him and asked him to explain what she was watching while the crowd seated on both sides of the field cheered for Frankie’s return. Even when he was playing against them, people viewed Frankie as a hero.

“You should have hung out with your team after the game,” Cas said. “You need to be with your friends.”

“I might next week,” said Tad, not sure if he would. “Or maybe I’ll skip the game and watch a bad horror movie instead.”

Cas smiled. “Either way, you’ll see a slaughter.”

Tad smiled back. “Except one comes with a more comfortable chair.” At this point, that sounded pretty good to him. “So when are we going to do this thing?”

“Rashid’s waiting at the Park,” she said, looking at her phone.

“Then let’s go find him.” It was time to do what they came here to do.





Frankie





— Chapter 48 —


HE WATCHED THEM from the street. Cas and Tad looking up at the school. The two of them walking off to meet Rashid at the spot everyone called the Park. Browning grass and a couple of trees wasn’t exactly his idea of a park. But people liked labels to tell them what to think.

Hell, they had labeled him a hero. All the talk shows wanted him to speak about Diana and surviving the bombing. Someone even offered to represent him if he wanted to write a book. His father said he should think about it—after all, Frankie had saved Cas’s life and he’d dated Diana, so he had insight into what people on TV were calling her complicated mind. But all Frankie wanted to do was pretend none of it had ever happened. That nothing that occurred this summer had ever happened.

It was over. He was at a different school now, with different friends. No one knew about why Tad had been in the school when Diana had tried to blow them up. All people knew was that she’d done something crazy to help her father and that she was dead. Kaitlin was too.

Frankie could still see Kaitlin’s pale face and hear the way she told Z it was all going to be okay, even though her legs were crushed. She had to know she was going to die. Yet no one was calling her a hero. That just showed how stupid the world was. Everyone saw what they wanted to see. Kaitlin was a victim. She was dead, and heroes didn’t die. Heroes saved the girl when they saved the day.