I get up, my bones feeling a thousand years old. Make it to the car. Drive the empty streets home. Check in on my mom.
I collapse into bed, no different than I was when I started this awful day.
* * *
He comes the next day. I’m back at Landry’s Diner. It’s late, a half hour until closing, when I notice him. He’s in the booth farthest from the door, the four-seater by the jukebox where I’d wept like a little kid the night before. He’s wearing a black cowboy hat, which is what I spot first, and a dark denim jacket. He’s got boots on, not unusual around these parts, and they’re propped up on the opposite seat. They’re black, too, and the leather catches the light and makes them gleam.
The brim of his hat is pulled down to cover his face, so all I catch is a sliver of pale skin and a slice of easy grin as I approach him.
“Kitchen closes in thirty,” I say when I’m standing in front of him. I’m on server duty because it’s Neveah’s night off. I hold up my order pad, pen poised.
“Nothing I want is on the menu,” he says, his voice a soft drawl. He tips up his hat, shows his face, and I suck in a startled breath. If you asked me to describe him, I couldn’t do it. But the curve of his lips, the narrow slide of his nose, the sharp cut of his cheeks. It was a kind of perfection—that much I know.
“Are you on TV?” I blurt. Because no one who looks like this boy has ever come to Blood River before.
He laughs, and even that’s beautiful, like the rush of a cold wind on the first day of autumn or the roll of thunder on a hot summer night.
“Naw,” he says. “I’m not on TV.”
I look over my shoulder, for what I don’t know. A witness, a hidden camera. Jason and the twins playing a trick on me.
“You called to me, Lukas,” he drawls, “don’t you remember? You called me with my song and that dusty heart of yours.” He throws out his arm expansively. “You called all of us.”
I look behind me, again, and sure enough, walking down the aisle are three more boys, all a little older than me. They’re all wearing cowboy gear, hats and boots and broken-in denim, except for one kid who’s got on a backward baseball cap and oversized jeans.
“Allow me to introduce my brothers,” he says. “This is Jasper, and next to him is Willis. And that there is Dru. And I,” he says, with a tip of his hat, “am Silas.”
“Are you the…?” But I can’t bring myself to ask. I’m afraid if I say it aloud, they’ll laugh at me. Or disappear.
“What’s good in this joint?” Jasper asks, rattling a menu. He’s got a deep voice and some kind of accent I can’t quite place. His skin is the same shade as mine, and he’s got a head of dark hair under his hat.
“Menu’s about the same everywhere we go,” Willis says, laughing. His skin’s a shade darker that Jasper’s, and tight black curls peak from underneath his hat. His voice is high, nervous, and his black eyes flicker around the room.
“That it is, brother,” Silas says with a grin. He slaps a hand on the table. “Let’s go somewhere else.” He tilts his head. “Won’t you come with us, Lukas? Come share a meal.”
“Me?” I ask.
The boys laugh—well, Jasper and Willis do. The third boy, a redhead, says nothing. He seems agitated, knee shaking under the booth table.
“I-I’ve got to lock up,” I stutter.
“Then do that,” he says. “We’ll wait to eat with you.”
This makes Willis laugh and the redhead shake his head, but I don’t get the joke.
Then they’re all moving toward the entrance, languid and graceful as cats. I watch them go, convinced I’m hallucinating and will never see them again once they’re out the door. The tiny bell over the entrance rings as they slide out, one by one. Silas is last and he tips his hat to me as he crosses the threshold.
My heart is hammering in my chest and I’m not sure what to do, but I know I’ve got to go with them. I know it’s risky. I don’t know them, and they could have bad intentions, but something tells me … no, something inside me knows that they don’t. That they’re exactly who I think they are and they came because I called them and I’m meant to go with them if I ever want to be truly safe again.
“Cook,” I yell, rushing around the corner of the counter and pulling off my apron. “My ride’s here,” I shout, hoping he won’t remember I drive myself. “I gotta go.”
“What about cleanup?” he asks, sounding outraged.
“Not tonight,” I say, grinning. “I’ll owe you one.”
“You owe me about five,” he mutters, but I know he’ll do it. Despite his protests, I never ask him for favors.
“Thanks!”
I take a minute to rush to the bathroom, check my face in the mirror, wish desperately for another face, less brown, less skinny, less acne-prone, but then I remember what Silas said, that he came because my heart asked him to. I turn on the faucet, douse my face, and run a wet hand through my hair, trying to make it behave, and then I’m out the door …
… where I run smack into Jason Winters.
“Whoa,” he says with his fake laugh, grabbing me by the shoulders. “What’s the rush, Lukas?”
I freeze. I can feel his hands, too warm, the pressure of his fingers. I look around the parking lot, frantic. Where are Silas and the others? Where did they go?
“Did you see…,” I start to ask, and then remember who I’m talking to and snap my mouth shut.
Jason looks over his shoulder, and now I see he’s not alone. The Toad Twins are getting out of the back seat of his blue Chevy truck, laughing and heading our direction. Something catches in my throat. No, no, no. Not now.
“Look,” I say, the memory of Silas waiting for me somewhere out there, making me bold. “You can pound on my face another time. Right now, I’ve got to go.”
Jason points over my shoulder, back at the diner. “Says Landry’s is open another twenty minutes. Me and my boys just want to grab a quick bite. Surely you can help us with that. I mean, isn’t that your job?”
The twins have joined us, Tyler and Trey, and they laugh, that same automatic guffaw they always laugh for Jason. Like having a job is a joke.
“Cook’s still there. He can help you.”
His hands tighten on my shoulders. “I want you to help me.”
The way he says it stops me in my tracks even more than the heavy dig of his fingers into my flesh. His eyes meet mine, clear blue like the summer sky, and he smiles.
“I…”
“Oh my God,” one of the twins says, Tyler or Trey, “he’s gonna try to kiss you.”
I’m not. Of course I’m not, but my face still burns like it’s on fire. I open my mouth to protest, but I don’t get the chance.
The punch to my stomach is so swift I don’t realize he’s hit me until I’m bent over double, gasping for air. The second one comes a moment after, a fist to the side of my face just below where my eye’s still healing that leaves my ears ringing. I hit the gravel with a thud, the tiny gray pebbles digging into my cheek.