Plus, he could kiss her—as he did now—with a softness that made her toes wriggle.
“Don’t you feel like there’s two reasons to keep a secret?” she said. “Because on the one hand, it would get you into trouble. But on the other, if it’s secret, it’s valuable. It belongs to you and not anyone else.”
“So you want to keep this a secret still?”
“Want? I want a world where my mother is alive and where we’re not going to lose our farm and where nuclear war isn’t a daily threat and where no one will hold us down because of the color of our skin or because we’re so poor we had to hire a dragon. That’s what I want.”
He sniffed. “Point taken.”
She moved out from under his arm, missed it, but started buttoning up her coat anyway. “Plus, dating is one thing, but neither of our fathers would have anything positive to say about us meeting like this.”
“My father would kill me.”
“Oh, you,” she said, a bitterness in her voice that surprised her. “I’d be ruined. The town harlot. You’d just be—”
“Regularly beaten up by local police officers?”
She looked at him. At his short hair, cut brutally up the sides, at the lanky arms, at the few hairs that sprouted where a moustache might theoretically be. He was right. She was right. And there was nothing either of them could do about it.
“Secret because it’s valuable,” he said.
She let her silence be a yes, then she said, “We should get going.”
She opened the back door of the office, the one that led into the small alley behind Al’s where the dumpsters were, where there was only a distant streetlight to cast any illumination.
It was still enough to see Deputy Kelby waiting there for her, his police baton out, and a smile on his face that would haunt Sarah Dewhurst for the rest of her life.
“Slut,” he said. His first word. A word that told her everything she needed to know about how this was going to go.
“Sarah—” Jason said, following her out, stopping when he saw Kelby.
“Everyone knows your kind are whores,” Kelby said, with a calm delight that was more unnerving than his stupid rage could ever have been. He glanced over to Jason. “But doing it with the Yellow Peril? That’s gotta be the lowest of the low.”
“And you’d know, would you?” Jason said.
This time, Sarah didn’t even try to warn him. Nothing was going to happen now that could possibly be made worse.
“Slut,” Kelby said again, still with the smile. “Your daddy is gonna love this.”
“Stop talking to her like that,” Jason said.
“And who’s going to make me?” Kelby stepped forward, tossing the police baton up in the air with a spin, catching it like he was playing a game.
“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” Sarah said, her voice shaky.
“Then why were you hiding it?” Kelby sneered.
“Why do you do this?” she whispered as he approached, backing her up. “Why are you like this?”
“I don’t have to have a reason,” he said, “not for a filthy whore like you.”
“Don’t call her that,” Jason said, stepping between them. Kelby’s baton lashed out so fast Jason didn’t even have a chance to duck. It hit him on the throat, and he fell to his knees, coughing as if to choke.
“Stop it!” Sarah yelled.
Kelby turned back to her. “Or you’ll what?” He advanced on her again, until she felt the dumpster at her back. He came uncomfortably close. “Hey,” he said, whispering now, “maybe we can come to some understanding. Maybe you could give me a little of what you give him.”
He moved even closer. She could smell his rank body odor, see the way his hungry, weasly eyes darted in the streetlight. He moved the baton down to the hem of her skirt and started to raise it.
“No,” she said.
He didn’t listen.
“No.” But he kept pushing up the fabric. In her terror, she said something, too quiet for him to hear.
“What did you say?” he whispered.
“I said, everyone hates you.”
He stopped. She was trembling now, her voice, too, but somehow her eyes were steady when they met his. “Everyone in this town hates you. Don’t you see their eyes roll when they say your name? How stupid they think you are? Even the most hateful people here think you’re an idiot.”
The word was too much. The sentence was too much. The entire paragraph was too much. Sarah knew it, could see it on Kelby’s face. She had stepped off a cliff and had only to wonder how far it was until she broke all her bones on the ground below.
“Sarah,” Jason coughed, getting to his feet, but too late.
Deputy Kelby stepped back, unbuckled his gun, and took it out. “You’re under arrest, girl.”
“For what?” Sarah said, but she knew. No one who looked like her could ever talk like that to someone who looked like him.
“Assaulting a police officer,” Kelby said.
“She didn’t assault you,” Jason rasped.
“Really?” Kelby said. “Then how come I had to fight back?”
Without warning, he swung the gun, hitting her jaw, knocking her to the dirt of the alley. The shock was more overwhelming than the pain, which was distant and not immediate. It was as if her head had fallen off somehow, her blood jumping right out of her skin, her whole body reacting against this this this—
Above her, she could hear grunts and thuds, flesh against flesh, fist against bone. Jason had gone for Deputy Kelby. She’d been wrong. There were lots of ways this situation could get worse. She had no idea who was getting the best or worst of the fight, but there was no outcome that would be good for Jason or for her.
She tried rolling over, a hand to her jaw, wondering if it was broken, still trying to speak. “Jason—”
They still grappled.
“Jason, just let him go—”
The gun went off.
She froze. Jason and Deputy Kelby seemed to hold each other in a kind of shock.
“Jason?” she said. “Jason!”
Jason lurched back a step from Kelby. Even in the dim light, she could see the shine of blood across the white shirt Jason wore for the diner. White no longer.
“No,” she said, still struggling to rise, still struggling to talk, a loosened tooth falling to her tongue so she had to spit it out. “Jason—”
Deputy Kelby fell to one knee. He dropped the gun, as the hand that was holding it didn’t seem to work any longer. Jason took another step back, eyes wide, as Sarah saw the small wet circle on the front of Kelby’s uniform. It seemed so minor a wound, so modest against his stomach.
“Oh, no,” she heard Jason whisper.
Kelby looked up at him, his face stunned. He opened his mouth to speak but spat out only blood. He turned slightly, and Sarah saw the exit wound. A crater had opened on his upper back.
She expected him to fall forward, every bit of logic said he would, but incredibly, he started to stand again. He was struggling to his feet. Jason looked as terrified as Sarah felt. They watched as Kelby, still trying to speak, hoisted himself upright, spat out more blood, but still didn’t fall.