“Fuck you, too, Nathan. Chewing on her fingers. Her gorgeous damn fingers. And fuck you, she could call me honey if she wanted. She can call me what she wants. You don’t get to ...” He laughed again, at a pitch higher than I was used to hearing from him, nearly barking. “Fuck kissing her fingers. It’s close enough. It counts. Oh yeah. No. I’m not sharing. I don’t want to share her. Put her on a boat back to France with me. Fuck her parents. I’ll kill them if they touch her again.” He laughed again. “God, she thought I wanted that damn bitch back there. Taking a bitch over Sang. Fucking cunt almost fucked me over. Fuck her. No. Sang. That’s what I mean. That’s what I want. Those thighs. Rip those apart and ...”
Silas leaned over, shoving his palms against my ears. “I don’t think I can take this the whole way back,” he said.
“We need to listen,” Nathan gripped the steering wheel. “We need to hear in case he starts complaining about being too hot or something internally wrong. If he passes out, we need to call Doc.”
We raced through the night. North sputtered nonsense. Silas tried sitting forward and cupping my ears for me, but he occasionally had to wrestle with North as he took turns lunging at each of us.
The road was mostly empty. We zoomed past trailer parks and the occasional house set up on an acre of land and neighbors a mile apart. Nathan tried blaring music to drown out North’s talking. It didn’t help. North would try singing along and when he missed the words, he’d curse at us all.
“Let’s tie him up,” Silas said.
“I don’t want to do that now,” Nathan said. “We’re almost back, I think.”
A flashing light flared and a siren sounded.
“God damn mother fucker,” Nathan bellowed, hitting the steering wheel.
I cowered into myself, eyes wide. The police. The last thing we needed. North was high. Nathan really had been speeding.
I was without parents. If they tried to call them, I’d get into so much trouble.
Nathan slowed, pulling off to the side of the road. As soon as he did, he and Silas moved at the exact same time. Silas lunged himself into the front seat, dropping down like he’d done this a hundred times.
My eyes widened. What were they doing? I gaped after them, wanting to ask but scared to death already and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.
Nathan settled into the back seat with North.
“Fuck you. I don’t want you,” North said. “Send Sang back here.”
“Keep your hands off of her,” Nathan said. “And shut up or we’ll all get hauled off.”
“Send Sang back here and I’ll keep us both quiet.”
There was a thud, and North yelped, sinking back into the seat, his hand clutching at his abdomen.
A knock at the driver’s side window spooked me. I jumped in my seat.
Silas rolled down the window. A beam from a flashlight blared into my face and then at Silas.
“You kids out late tonight?” the officer said. I couldn’t see his face. His flashlight had my eyes spotting with colors.
“Yeah. Trying to get home. Football game was tonight. We won,” Silas said.
“You weren’t drinking, were you?”
“No, sir.”
“Want to step out of the car for a minute? Bring your license and your registration?”
Silas nodded. He leaned over the center console, fishing out his registration. As he did, he spoke in a soft tone. “Aggele mou, don’t worry. We’ll get you home soon.”
My mouth was clamped shut. I tried not to shake and stress out that this could be the end of everything.
Silas stepped out of the car. He left the door hanging open and the officer had him walk with him to the back of the car.
I held my breath, straining to listen.
North started giggling.
“Shush,” Nathan said. “Don’t.”
“Sang,” North stage whispered to me. “Baby, come back here.”
I closed my eyes, curling into myself, forcing my head to my knees.
There was a touch on my shoulder, a slapping sound and the hand let go quickly again.
Another knock rattled me, and I popped my head up. The officer was standing outside my door now. “Want to step out here with me?”
“Fuck no, she doesn’t,” North said.
Nathan punched him again.
I reached for the car handle, lunging myself out of the car quickly. I wasn’t going to let North backtalk a cop and get thrown in jail. I’d go and get arrested before I let that happen.
Silas stood by the trunk of his car, his arms folded over his chest. His eyes landed on me and followed as the officer led the way to the passenger side door of his police car. The cop opened it. “Have a seat.”
This got me rattling again, but there was nothing I could do. I didn’t know why I was being put into a police car. Was he going to take me to the station? Was I being arrested? What could I do to stop it? I thought about punching a button to call Kota or even Mr. Blackbourne, but I wasn’t sure how I could explain this. Maybe Nathan would do it.
The cop half jogged around the car, getting into the driver’s side. He shut the door. He took out a docket book and opened it, starting to write something on what looked like a ticket. “What’s your name, sweetie?” he asked, his tone curious.
My eyes widened. Here it comes. “Sang Sorenson,” I said quietly. I couldn’t lie so what else could I do?
“Where were you all at tonight?” he asked, not glancing up from his ticket writing.
“There was a party after the football game,” I said.
“Do you know those boys in the car with you?”
“Yes.”
“What are their names?”
I blinked after him. He might know Silas now, but would he know the others? Why was he asking me? “That’s Silas standing. The other two
are North and Nathan.”
“They’re your friends?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to my house,” I said. “Or Nathan’s. We live on the same street.”
“Are your parents home?”
Yikes. “Yes,” I tried.
He flinched, looking up at me. “Are they asleep?”
“Most likely.” It wasn’t technically lying.
It was still dark inside his car. I could barely make out the closely cropped head of hair and the broad nose. “Did you drink tonight?”
“No.”
His eyebrow lifted. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I had water.”
“Good girl. What about your friends?”
“I think they just had water, too. Before we went inside the party, they were telling me not to drink anything else.”
The officer’s eyes flashed in surprise. “That sounds very responsible. So why are they speeding down this road like a bat out of hell?”
I swallowed. Maybe a partial truth would work. “We’re all really tired. It was a bad party. We really just wanted to get home.”
He glanced up and out the window, squinting toward the blue sedan. “Do you want to tell me why your friend is beating up your other friend in the back? Or do I have to go ask?”
My head snapped around. Silas was standing where he was supposed to, but focusing on the car, yelling. The rear side door was open. It looked like Nathan was trying to yank North back from stepping out of the car.
I gulped.
“Do you want to tell me again that they weren’t drinking?” the officer asked.
I cowered. All I had to go on was Mr. Blackbourne’s words to keep my nose clean. Was being honest what he would want from me now? “They weren't drinking, but someone put something in my drink,” I said, worried this confession might do more harm than good, but I didn’t want him to go over and talk to North and North badmouthing the cop enough to get arrested. “North stopped me from drinking it, but drunk it himself. We didn’t know something was in it until he tasted something funny in the water.”
“What was in the drink?”
“We don’t know. They went back to find out. Nathan said he thinks it’s ... Ecstasy?”