“Holy shit,” Orlando said from the doorway. “What happened to you?”
Auggie shut the water off, grabbed his towel, and pushed past Orlando, drying his face as he went.
“Hey,” Orlando said, his thick brows drawn together as he caught Auggie’s shoulder. “Who the fuck did this?”
“I gotta go,” Auggie said, trying to twist away.
“Like hell. Tell me who did this. I’m going to murder the son of a bitch.”
“Get the fuck off me,” Auggie shouted, slapping Orlando’s hand away.
He plunged out into the hallway. Brad, from two doors down, was standing in his doorway staring. Auggie ignored him and rushed for the stairs, but he could hear Orlando coming after him, the murmur of low voices. Great, Auggie thought. Perfect. They’d all heard him shouting at Orlando, but nobody had heard a fucking peep when Glasses had been threatening to kneecap him.
When Auggie got outside, he was so wrapped up in himself that he didn’t hear the voices until he’d covered almost twenty yards of the quad.
“Hey, kid, I said hold the fuck up.”
Auggie glanced over his shoulder. A man and woman were coming after him. The man was huge, his head shaved, a Celtic cross tattoo taking up most of one forearm. The woman was tall and thin, bleached hair in a ponytail, a swastika tattoo on her cheek.
“Yeah, you,” the woman shouted. “We want to talk to you.”
Auggie turned and ran.
8
The bus getting to Downing had been late. Then the bus coming back had been late too. Then Theo had gotten distracted by Astrophil and Stella and missed his stop, and he’d gotten off half a mile north of campus. He’d had to walk the half mile because there wasn’t a bus that would take him back—not for another half hour, anyway. The September day was hot; his clothes were soaked with sweat by the time he reached Liversedge Hall, and he could already feel the beginning of a sunburn. Worse, the bus had smelled like BO and fire-lime Takis, and now the smell clung to Theo as he limped onto the elevator and wiped sweat from his face. A moment later, one of the Philosophy Department secretaries got into the car—prissy, gangly Solomon, who looked around the car and wrinkled his nose. When they got to the third floor, Theo limped off the elevator; he heard Solomon say, “Absolutely disgusting” as the doors closed.
Theo considered calling the elevator back. He could ride up to the Philosophy offices. He could find Solomon, who kept a row of faux Art Deco figurines on his desk, all of them vaguely resembling Cher. He could smash those little ceramic Chers one by one. And if Solomon made a fucking peep, Theo could shove the Chers down his fucking throat.
Instead, he decided on his second-best option for dealing with a shitty day: reading poetry.
After the half-mile walk, Theo needed the cane more than usual as he made his way down the hall to his office. Light shone behind the pebbled glass, and he braced himself for Grace, for the questions, for the concern, for the long, lingering looks of sympathy. When he opened the door, the fragrance of microwaved masala met him, and a plastic TV tray steamed in front of Grace’s computer, but Grace was miraculously absent. Dawson’s desk and computer still looked like they hadn’t been touched this year; Theo figured that Dawson was on track to finish the PhD sometime in 2030 at this rate.
Settling himself at the desk, Theo had just propped his cane against the wall and stretched out his aching leg when someone hammered on the door.
“Go away,” Theo shouted. “This is not office hours.”
The door flew open, and Auggie Lopez tumbled into the room. He looked around, his dark eyes wide, and then he shut the door and leaned against it.
“Please,” Auggie said. “Please tell them I’m not here.”
“What? Who?” Theo struggled to get to his feet, but his leg was starting to stiffen. He grabbed the cane. “What’s going on?”
“Please,” Auggie whispered.
The door thumped as someone tried to force it open.
“Hey,” Theo said. “What the hell is going on out there?” He limped toward Auggie, pushed him into the corner behind the door, and threw open the door.
A big guy with a buzzed head stumbled, off balance without the resistance of the door. Next to him, a blond woman with a swastika on her cheek had one hand behind her back. Theo had been married to a cop. He’d grown up in a rough part of a rough county. He’d worked the first five years after high school logging, and loggers—the guys he’d worked with, anyway—were some of the biggest assholes in the world. He knew when a fight was a fight, and he knew when a fight was something else. This was something else.
“I’ve had a really bad morning,” Theo said. “So get out of here, right now, before I take it out on you.”
The big guy recovered his balance. “Out of the way, teacher.” He put a big paw on Theo’s shoulder, already shoving forward. “We’ve got business with that little bitch.”
“Get out of my office,” Theo said, fetching up against Grace’s desk. Masala slopped out of the TV tray, spattering his hands, the superheated sauce burning him. Theo felt it at a remove; his blood was up. He kept his eyes straight ahead, so as not to draw attention to Auggie, hidden behind the door now.
“Where is that little pussy?” the man asked. “Auggie, where the fuck is Robert?”
“How many lines does a sonnet have?” Theo asked, pushing up from the desk.
“What the fuck are you—”
Theo headbutted him. The key to a good headbutt was to use the solid bone of the forehead as the point of impact. Theo had been in a lot of bar fights. Theo had an asshole younger brother who had dragged him into a few more serious scrapes. And Theo had lived and worked with guys who carried knives and didn’t think twice about using them. For Theo, the only good fight was the one that ended absolutely as quickly as possible. A headbutt was a really good way of doing that.
The big guy was still turning, drawn by the strangeness of the question, when Theo connected. Theo felt the bridge of the man’s nose crumple. The man screamed and went down; he had his hands over his nose, and he was kicking, his legs catching in Grace’s chair as he pinwheeled on the ground.
“You’re dead,” the blond woman screamed. Her hand came out from behind her back, and she charged into the office with a gun.
“Now,” Theo shouted.
Auggie barreled into the door, and it caught the woman completely by surprise. She crashed up against the doorframe, pinned between the jamb and the door. Theo swung the cane as hard as he could. It connected with her hand, and the woman shrieked. She dropped the gun. Auggie was still bearing down on the door, which was real wood, heavy and solid, and Theo swung the cane again and caught the woman across the face. She screamed again. Somehow, she slipped free of the door and back into the hallway. Auggie stumbled over the big guy and grabbed the gun. The dark-haired kid was panting, his hands shaking as he dragged the door open and pointed the weapon at the woman.
“Ok,” Theo said, his voice sounding distant over the rush of blood in his ears, and he touched Auggie’s shoulder. The kid flinched. “Don’t do anything stupid.”