A flash of muddy pink flannel in my peripheral as Jada passes me.
No. I cannot do this again. I’ve got to move.
I haul myself up so my hips are level with the windowsill and bring one foot up on the ledge, then reach up and grope above my head as I push myself upward, until I can grip the top of the window frame and pull myself up. So now I’m standing on tiptoe, on a thin wood windowsill, two stories off the ground.
I just need to get over to the drainpipe. It’s on the other side of the window next to the one I’m clinging to. I just have to take one big step from my window ledge to the next one. So easy. Don’t think about how far it is down. Two stories, but don’t think about it.
I turn my head slightly and glance down at the next windowsill. The muddy ground between swims up like a rising tide of dark water and my pulse throbs in my ears and I cannot move.
“SIGNAL!!!!” Dave screams from far below, “I COUNT TO THREE AND YOU ARE DOING THIS AGAIN, LAST OR NOT, I SWEAR—”
It feels like I’m moving in slow motion, as I swing my leg out over the churning ground, and rest my foot on the far ledge. I take a breath, shift my weight, and my muddy sneaker instantly slips.
The world leaps to the side, the ground racing to claim me.
And then it goes still again.
Someone has caught the back of my shirt. An iron arm winds around my waist, and as I’m pulled back to safety two dark eyes meet mine with a small cartoon tear beside them.
“I got you.” Javier’s voice is calm and unhurried as I wrap my shaking arms around his neck. “It’s okay, I got you.”
“LET’S MOVE IT, LADIES!” Dave bellows idiotically below us.
I cling to Javier as he expertly crosses the gap between the two windows, so we’re beside the drainpipe.
“NO HELPING!!!” Dave shrieks.
“It’s easy from here,” Javier says. “I’m right behind you. Okay? I’m not going to let you fall.”
“Okay.” But it takes a few moments before I can let go of him and reach for the drainpipe. From there it’s a short distance to the small platform of the fake roof. I climb out onto the roof the way a kid gets out of a pool, flopping onto my stomach, kicking my legs and rolling onto my back. Dave’s whistle blows distantly, but I’m too relieved to care.
There’s three tiers of fire escapes down the back of the fake apartment building. My legs wobble under me as I trot down them, ready to collapse. But just as I’m back on solid ground and turning away from the whole hateful course, I see Erik. Crouching down low. Ready to chase me.
Jada and Kurt passed him? Did he let them?!
So he could chase me?
The teen idol dimples deepen as he grins. I feint left, then jog right, but it doesn’t fool him. He leaps, long arms going wide, and then he’s on top of me, the hinge of his jaw digging into the top of my head, my face so tight against his neck I can feel his pulse drumming fast against my cheek.
We hit the ground together, hard, his sharp hip bones digging into me, his arms bound around my shoulders, my face against his throat. His muscular weight crushes down on me one moment, then pulls me under the next, again and again, as we roll over and over the crisp cold grass until we sprawl to a stop, me on top of him, his cat eye locked on mine with some expression I don’t understand. For a moment I can’t move. Then he smiles and whispers,
“Weakling.”
Dave’s whistling is hysterical as we untangle from each other. I’ve never been so dizzy. The ground bobs up and down, up and down, like I’m on a swing. Black magnetic filings eat through reality and knit into darkness, and all I know is I’m on the ground again.
* * *
“Here she comes.” Dave’s voice, annoyed. A few blinks bring full consciousness back, along with the mortifying realization that all the campers are crowded around watching me come to. Nobody kneels at my side, holding my hand awkwardly.
“You blacked out,” she explains. “For like, five minutes.”
“Someone needs to work on her stamina, huh?” Dave laughs to the group.
“No kidding, Dave,” I mutter.
“Javier and Kurt, you two run the course one last time. Then we’ll break for lunch. Signal, since I don’t especially feel like slapping a cast together today, how about you jog the field three times and join us once you’ve finished. Who wants to count her off?”
“I will,” Nobody volunteers.
“How about someone who isn’t dating her?” Dave snaps, eliciting a delighted “Daaaamn, Dave!” from Troy. Jada volunteers.
“Okay! Jada, you count her off. Javier, Kurt, let’s hustle …”
My head is still swimming as I get to my feet, I’m more hobbling than jogging my first lap. I watch the final run on the obstacle course: Javier moves through it so quickly. How was he behind me when I fell?
Did he purposefully lag behind to help me?
Jada, sitting on an ancient hay bale with a faded archery target clinging to it, holds up two fingers as I pass by.
“I’m starting my third lap,” I gasp.
“I’m the one counting.”
“Yeah, well, it’s my third lap,” I insist, and stagger on, quietly furious, as Dave leads the others off the field. My head is getting light again and it’s an effort just to stay upright. Maybe Jada will let me just call it a day so we can go eat.
I turn back to the hay bale, and she’s standing. Something about the way she stands, shoulders back, arms at her sides, makes me stop. And that’s when she runs toward me.
I try to run but my side seizes, and she overtakes me, yanking my hair, pulling my head back and pressing something hard and sharp to my cheek.
An arrowhead. From the hay bale.
“I told you,” Jada snarls in my ear. “Be a slut, get cut.”
Chapter Six
Crown of Weeds
The sharpened arrowhead presses into the thin skin over my cheekbone, the white clouds above us the only witnesses to whatever comes next.
“This is pathetic,” I sputter, bluffing wildly. “You know I’ve got a girlfriend. Who’ll be pissed if you hurt me.”
“You didn’t look like you had a girlfriend when you were rolling around with Erik.”
“He grabbed me.”
Wrong answer.
The arrowhead cuts a stripe below my eye as I step hard on her foot. I twist away but she pounces and I’m sprawled out in the grass with her crouching over me, forearm pinning down my neck, the arrowhead jerking the corner of my mouth into a perverse half-smile. A single hot tear of blood winds down the side of my face.
And then a voice rings out across the field:
“Jada?” Erik’s voice is infuriatingly calm, almost laughing. “Why is Signal on the ground?”
She just stares through me, hand tensed, until footsteps land in the grass just above my head.
“Girl stuff,” Jada says darkly. “We’ll just be a minute.”
“Yeah, well, Dave wants to see her.” Erik yawns. “And he’s going to notice if parts are missing.”
“Wow.” Jada glares up at him. “You’re as bad as Javier. Maybe let Signal fight her own battles?”