Lamar grabbed her around the waist. Jade screamed and kicked her heel against the rear window. She lunged for the gear shift stick, but Neal gave her wrist a karate chop and her hand went numb. Jade saw Donna Dee momentarily spotlighted in the headlights. She was standing in the road, her eyes blinking rapidly.
“Donna Dee, help me!”
Hutch grabbed and held Jade’s wrists. Lamar’s arms locked around her waist. The car shot forward into the darkness.
“Let me out of here!”
“What are we doing, Neal?” Hutch asked.
“Just having a little fun.” He shoved the car into fifth gear.
“This isn’t fun, you jerk!” Jade shouted. “Take me back to Donna Dee. You can’t leave her out there alone. She’ll be scared.”
“It is awfully dark out there, Neal,” Lamar remarked uneasily.
“Do you want out?”
“No, I just—”
“Then shut up.”
Neal’s comrades obediently fell silent. Jade tried to regain her composure and quiet her fears. These boys weren’t strangers—she’d known them all her life. Lamar and Hutch were stupid but basically likeable. Neal, however, could be vicious.
“We’re not going in the direction of town, Neal,” Hutch observed. “Where are you taking her?”
“She was on her way to see Gary, wasn’t she?”
“So we’re going out to Gary’s house?” Lamar asked hesitantly.
“Hutch, will you please let go of my wrists?” Jade asked calmly. “You’re hurting me.”
“Sorry.” He let her go. Likewise, Lamar released her.
“We’re just giving you a ride out to Gary’s place, Jade,” he said with a short laugh. “Then he can drive you back to Donna Dee’s car. His daddy probably has a gas can he uses on his tractor.”
She looked at Lamar but didn’t return his feeble smile. They lapsed into silence. If
this were an ordinary ride, they would be ribbing one another, cracking jokes, discussing tomorrow’s chemistry test. The taut silence made Jade even more uncomfortable. If Neal’s two best buddies were uneasy, she had every reason to be afraid.
“The turn-off is coming up,” Hutch said. Neal didn’t downshift. “Fifty yards or so up there on your right, Neal.”
The car sped past the narrow country road that came to a dead end at the Parkers’ farm.
“What are you doing?” Jade demanded of Neal’s handsome profile. “Let me out. I’ll walk from the intersection.”
“Neal, what the hell?” Hutch asked.
“I want to make a stop first.”
Jade’s heart began to pound in fear. An hour ago she had been celebrating the good news about her scholarship; now her palms were damp and cold with apprehension.
Neal turned left onto the next road, which wasn’t much of a road. The dead stalks of tall weeds crowded twin ruts that were unpaved and very bumpy. The headlights rose and fell like the lights on a buoy in high seas.
“Are we going back to the channel?” Lamar asked.
“Yep.”
“Why?”