I shiver and wrap my arms around myself. I used to go to parties, but my brother kept me well guarded. Stuff happened, but it was more like someone got pregnant that night, or the twins switched out on a girl without telling her. Parties were fun. Not deadly.
“I won’t be going to any afterparties next weekend,” I tell Dixie.
“You have to go to the game, though,” Dixie says as if it’s a given.
“You’re going?” I ask, surprised. I didn’t peg Dixie for a football fan.
“Of course,” she says, and I can practically hear her eyes rolling. “Everyone in town goes to homecoming. There’s nothing else to do. Most of the stores even close. It would be a ghost town. It’s bad enough during a regular game, but homecoming?”
“I don’t know…”
“You’re going,” she says. “Everyone goes. It’ll be fun. Besides, I know your brothers go. I saw them last week.”
“You did?”
“Of course,” she said. “I go to all the games. Everyone in school does.”
“Not everyone,” I mutter. From across the lawns between our houses, I hear the screen door of the Darling’s house slam. A minute later, the familiar slap of the football hitting something starts up. He’s early tonight. I usually don’t hear Devlin practicing until late in the night.
“Your brothers might be at the game as players pretty soon,” Dixie says. “I hear the Darlings might be off the team.”
I sit up straight, my heart stopping in my chest. “What?”
“Well, I don’t know about Preston and your brother,” she says quickly. “But there’s a video going around that clearly shows Devlin assaulting your brother, and then kicking him while he’s passed out on the ground. It looks pretty bad, Crystal.”
My head is spinning as it all falls into place. Baron wasn’t just getting video so he can get hits on his YouTube channel. He set this all up. They knew exactly how much Devlin loved his car. His stepmom even said so the other day. They knew he’d lose his shit when they hit it. And knowing Baron, he spliced the video to show exactly what he wanted it to show. He’s a wizard with video. He’d never admit it, but he’s a total geek at heart. He might use football to hide it so he can still get laid, but the guy is a tech genius.
“You really think Devlin will be off the team?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. I shiver at the thought of how pissed he’ll be, what he might do to retaliate if they take football away from him. I won’t be sleeping with my window open anymore, that’s for sure.
“I don’t know,” Dixie says. “His parents can probably get him back on. They can do anything in this town. But this time, it’s not just the school. The cops were involved.”
“The cops aren’t in their pockets?” I ask, thinking of how much influence my dad had back home. Surely if my dad could make a NYPD cop look the other way, the Darlings can get a small-town cop to do the same.
“Depends on the cop,” Dixie says. “Officer Gunn was one of the ones who arrested them, and he’s definitely a good cop, but he’s also friends with Mr. Darling.” She breaks off and giggles. “He’s cute, too. I’ll point him out at the game on Friday.”
I feel sick just thinking about the game. Yes, I want my brothers to have a chance with the coach, to be able to do the thing they do best. But I don’t want to think about what Devlin might do to sabotage them after this. They didn’t just wreck a car. They wrecked a priceless rebuilt classic that he worked on with his dad. They didn’t just get him arrested. They recorded it, spliced it to make him look especially bad, and quite possibly got him kicked off the team for the rest of his senior year. If he loves football even half as much as my brothers, things are about to get even uglier.
fourteen
I know I did the right thing. Dixie is no longer the Darling Dog. She doesn’t have to wear dog-ear headbands, and no one barks at her. If anyone’s going to do something, they’ll do it to me. And I can handle it. All I did was take away the bullies’ victim. So why can’t I rid myself of the little voice whispering in the back of my head that someone good, someone better, wouldn’t ruin anyone, even if they deserved ruination, to get what they want?
“I don’t know about this, Dixie,” I say as we pull up at a cemetery in a part of town I’m not at all familiar with. The houses here are boxy, brick affairs with narrow windows fitted with air conditioning units. It’s obvious they were ugly even when they were built, and that must have been decades ago, judging by the condition they’re in. There’s a reason I’ve never been to this side of town. People on my side of town like to pretend this side doesn’t exist.
“Just make it quick,” Royal says, shutting off the engine of his brand-new Range Rover.
“You know, you wouldn’t have to shuttle me around if you’d convince Daddy to let me drive.”
“When you get a license, you can drive,” Royal says with a smug smile.
“Which will never happen if you don’t let me practice.”
“You think I’m letting you practice on my new baby?” he asks with mock shock.
“I wouldn’t run it into any parked cars,” I shoot back. “So I’m already a better driver than you.”
“No license, no driving,” he says. “Go see your dead girl. I’ve got shit to do.”
I roll my eyes at Dixie, and she hops out and leads me across a small stretch of dead grass to a creaky iron gate. We enter the cemetery, which stretches back quite a way. The headstones are mostly small, with faded plastic flowers on many of them. An old white church sits beside it, the paint peeling along the bottom boards and stained with lichen and dust.