by Taylor Hart
She grimaced. Ew.
He sent another smiley face. What are you doing this weekend after the competition?
A nervous buzz ran through the pit of her gut. What would it be like to meet him? I have to stay with the team. School rules.
C’mon, just sneak away and see me. You guys are staying in town, right?
I wish, but I’d get in big trouble. She didn’t see any way she could do that.
No worries. I’ll meet you at the competition tomorrow. I’ll see you rock it!
“Hey.” Zoey huffed and fell onto the bleacher step next to her.
Sammy startled, then put her phone into her bag, surprised that she’d missed them finishing the run-through. “Hey.”
“Who was that?” Zoey nodded to the phone.
Sammy exhaled and stood. “No one.” She turned her phone over and put it on her lap. “So, how do you feel things are going?”
Slowly, Zoey smiled back at her. “Great, but I think you were distracted. C’mon, who’s the guy?”
She didn’t answer.
“Hey,” Zoey said, standing. “I get it, believe me. I know what it’s like to have secret boyfriends.”
A nervous buzz pulsed through her. “Oh yeah?”
Zoey nudged her in the shoulder. “Sometimes it feels easier to have friends that aren’t standing in front of us every second, right?”
Suddenly, Sammy wanted to tell Zoey about him. It would sound stupid, but Zoey didn’t care, right? “Actually, he’s not just a friend. He’s more of…well, I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I guess he’s just a guy I met online.”
“Really? You don’t think he’s a creeper or anything?”
Nervous knots wove into her. She waved a hand in the air in dismissal. “No. I’ve known him for a while now.”
Zoey stared at her intently. “Because creepers never seem like creepers. They hide that fact.”
Sammy nodded, and her frown grew. “He’s fine. He used to go to high school in Castle Rock.”
“Sure he did.”
“He did. What? You think he would make it all up? He’s friends with some of my friends from that school.”
Zoey’s face got serious. “That’s what weirdos do. They pretend to be friends of your friends so you think they’re someone they aren’t.” She sighed. “Listen, I had a friend who got caught up in something like that—ended up going to meet the guy, and no one ever saw her again.”
Sammy’s heart rate spiked. “What?”
“Haven’t you heard about this? These online predators seek out young girls and guys, and they trick them into thinking they could be their boyfriends, or they trick them into thinking they could be a model and…” Zoey shook her head. “The girl goes to meet the boyfriend and bam! She finds herself getting stuck into making money for the guy.”
“What?” Sammy was struggling to keep up.
“He sells her. For money.” Zoey’s expression darkened, and stared deeper into Sammy’s eyes. “Sometimes these girls get raped twenty-five to fifty times a day in some crap motel.”
Sammy didn’t want to hear this. She shook her head and grabbed her bag. “That’s ridiculous.” Hunter couldn’t be a pimp. She scoffed and rushed down the bleachers. “I don’t believe you.”
Nicholas was coming up the stairs, and he quickly moved out of her way.
Sammy frowned at him, then paused just long enough to have the final word. “Like you have room to talk. Your stepbrother obviously likes you as more than a sister.”
Chapter 17
Zoey
Zoey watched her go, wanting to rush after her, tackle her down. She had to face the truth—she was being toyed with by a predator!
“What’s up?” Nicholas walked up the bleacher steps, watching as Sammy sprinted across the field.
Zoey sat on the bleacher bench, slamming her hand onto it. Pain ran up her arm, but she barely felt it. “I just…” She gestured to Sammy’s shrinking form. “I just blew it. I just…I scared her off. I want to just grab her and shake her and show her how stupid she’s being.”
Nicholas said nothing until Sammy had disappeared from view. He moved around Zoey and sat beside her. “It’s okay. Let her go. Tell me what happened.”
Zoey explained to him what had happened.
He grunted and dabbed his head with a towel. “It’s so hard to explain it to some people. And by some people, I mean everyone under thirty.”
For a few moments, they were quiet. She didn’t know why, but she found herself telling Nicholas the story. “When I was at the Olympic training center, I was just like her.” She gestured to the rest of the girls, who were still practicing. “All of them, potentially. I was lonely.”
Nicholas listened intently, watching her hands move erratically as she spoke.
“I was good. Really good.” Anger pulsed through her as she thought about how she’d thrown it all away. “But I got so caught up in the stupid jealousy games with the other cheerleaders. I got caught up in having to have friends. And I didn’t have any. They…” This was hard to talk about. “They did bully me. Not just to my face, but on social media. So I started chatting with people online. It started innocently. This guy was trolling Olympic websites too and commenting. We ended up in a group chat and then took it to messenger and started talking. He…I thought Marcus really understood me. I thought he was my friend.”
Silence reigned, and she chided herself for spilling her story on a whim.
Nicholas sighed and turned over his wrist, pointing to the snake tattoo there. “You know I was trafficked my whole life, by my mother.”
She sucked in a breath and put her hand on his. “I know…I’m so sorry.”
His expression clouded and he pulled his hand back, staring out at the field. “The sad thing is that she actually gave me up for adoption when I was a baby, and later she went back and got me from the same orphanage when she realized she could make money off of me.”
The horror of what he was saying chilled her to the bone, and she saw his tough veneer in a new light.
He sucked in a breath. “When I was a kid and bad things would be happening to me, I held on to Bon Jovi’s music. ‘Livin’ on a Prayer.’”
She nodded. When she’d been at her lowest, she’d also tried to go someplace else in her mind.
“I wanted to get to America and meet Bon Jovi.”
Chills washed through her and she felt emotional for him. “So how did you get here?”
He looked at the tattoo on his wrist. “I knew I was getting too old for most people to want. I would hear my mother talk about how I wasn’t a young boy any longer.”
Zoey’s stomach turned. She couldn’t even imagine her own mother saying such a thing.
“I’d tried to escape a couple of times, but my mother was powerful. She had security, and they would beat me. And they watched me around the clock.”
She was familiar with being beaten and watched. It had been suffocating.
“One day she drugged me—it wasn’t the first time—and I woke up in a tub of ice.”
Zoey put a hand to her mouth. She had heard that when pimps were done with kids, they would sometimes sell them for black market organs. “Your mother sold you for parts?”
Nicholas nodded. “But there was this loud voice in my head. So loud.” His breath hitched, and he stared into her eyes. “The voice of God, the same feelings I had when I listened to Bon Jovi, rushed over me like warm water was being poured over me again and again, and the voice said, ‘Run!’”
Another round of chills raised goose bumps across her skin. “I believe you.”
He blinked. “I knew you would. I knew you had felt the voice of God, because God doesn’t just talk in words.” He pointed to his chest. “He speaks to your heart, too. If you allow yourself to be vulnerable and hear him. He has many languages.”
Zoey was humbled by the way this guy, who had had so many bad things happen to him, still believed in God. “What happened?”
&
nbsp; “I got up, and there was no one there. I don’t know where they were, but I ran. I went to the police and I told them everything. And…” He blinked, and she could tell he was holding back tears. “I was placed with the Schmidts. And they lived in a completely different city than my mother, hours away. And I finally felt safe at night.”
She thought of the boy Nicholas had been and all the horror he’d faced. She squeezed his hand.
He smiled at her, then shrugged. “Cyrus came to me a year ago, when I was done with school and started working for a mechanic. He came out of nowhere and asked if I wanted to go to America and save some kids from the life I had grown up in.”
She couldn’t stop the tears from filling her eyes. “And you said, ‘It’s My Life,’” she sang out. “‘It’s now or never!’” She laughed and air quoted.
Then he laughed, too. “Exactly!”
She threw her arms around his neck and held him, feeling—for the first time in a long time—that maybe God was real after all.
Nicholas held her back.
And Zoey felt safe in a guy’s arms. A feeling she never thought possible, again. More tears fell down her cheeks.
Finally, Nicholas pulled back. “I knew when Cyrus told me that I was a child of God and I deserved to be free…I knew that I might not have understood why I was born to a mother who did that to me, or why anything had happened to me. But I knew that with God’s help, I could help others. I could find others.”
Zoey liked that. She searched his face. “‘The Finder.’” She smiled. He deserved a superhero name like that.
He grunted and stood, reaching out his hand to her. “That one’s better.”
Chapter 18
Sammy
The next day, Sammy avoided Zoey as much as possible, sitting in her car at lunch and then giving one-word replies when Zoey spoke to her. After Zoey’s little speech about weirdos on the internet who would sell her for sex, Sammy decided she didn’t need her. She didn’t need friends around who didn’t support her; she was done with friends like that. Plus, what did Zoey think, that she only had creeper friends?
Once practice was over, Ms. Montlake stood in front of the cheerleaders, holding up a clipboard. “Remember, everyone, we have an early day tomorrow, so get rest and be at the bus at five-thirty tomorrow morning!” She put on a smile. “Go, Lions!”
“Go, Lions!” they all echoed back.
As soon as she could, Sammy rushed away from everyone, heading to the parking lot.
“Hey!” Zoey called out. When Sammy pretended not to hear, she tried again. “Wait, Sammy!”
Sammy turned and saw Megan, Liz, and Zoey all approaching her. She hesitated, yanking out an earbud. “Yeah?”
Megan waved her over. “Come to Frankie’s party with us tonight.”
She stiffened. Had Megan been invited to Frankie’s party?
Megan held up an invitation. “He invited me and my ‘friends’ yesterday, so I say we go.”
“So want to come with us or not?” asked Liz.
Liz was treating Sammy like a friend, too. Sammy fumbled for words. “Um…”
Tiffany sauntered past. “No, the only reason she would go with you is because she doesn’t have any friends.”
Sammy watched as Tiffany, Kira, and a group of her old friends congregated at the other side of the parking lot. She let out a huff.
“Don’t worry about them,” Nicholas said, walking up.
“Yeah, totally don’t worry about them,” Megan added.
“It’s fine,” Sammy said.
“So we’ll pick you up in a bit?” Zoey asked.
Sammy wondered just how long it would take the sting of seeing Tiffany hang out with all of her old friends to go away. “I guess.”
Zoey wiggled her nose at her. “Perfect. Text me your address.” Then she casually hit Nicholas in the shoulder. “You need a shower.”
All the girls laughed.
He scowled at her.
“I’ll meet you guys there.” Sammy took off, then turned back. “Hey, Zoey.”
She turned to face her.
“Let’s all go together?”
Megan and Liz were standing there.
Zoey turned to them. “You guys in?”
“Yeah,” Megan agreed quickly.
Liz shrugged. “Sure, this ought to be fun.”
Sammy grinned at them. “Megan and Liz, want to come get ready at my house? You guys aren’t that far away from me?”
They both nodded.
Nicholas pointed at all of them. “We’ll pick you up at seven.”
Chapter 19
Zoey
Zoey and Nicholas drove to Sammy’s house to pick up Sammy, Megan, and Liz for the party, and even though it was so stupid and she shouldn’t feel nervous, she did feel like she was in high school again.
“What’s going on, Tumbler?” Nicholas asked her, saying the last word with his usual dramatics.
“Nothing, ‘Finder.’ What’s up with you?”
Nicholas sighed. “The parties are fun in high school, but you know this one will be drama, right?”
“Oh, yeah. But it gives me a chance to fix my mess-up with Sammy.”
They pulled up to Sammy’s house, which was typical of the American middle class: two levels, black shutters, and flowers on the windows. It was nice. Zoey thought of her own home; her parents had been so amazing. She made a point to call them every couple of days, and they seemed to be doing well. She tried not to think about how much they worried about her. Pushing those thoughts out of her mind, she got out of the Mustang and went with Nicholas to Sammy’s front door.
A woman who Zoey assumed was Sammy’s mother opened the door, and then Sammy and Megan and Liz all pushed their way out.
“Thanks, Mom,” Sammy said, rushing out and heading straight to the car.
Her mother looked a bit annoyed. “Wait, I don’t know you. What is your name?”
“I’m Zoey Pierson. Nice to meet you.” Zoey smiled and put her hand out.
Nicholas was still next to her, so he put his hand out as well. “I’m Nicholas Cross. Nice to meet you.”
Her mother looked uncertain. “You’re the new students who joined the cheer team?”
Zoey nodded. “Stepsiblings. New to Denver.”
Her mother smiled at them and shook their hands. “Okay, well, thanks for introducing yourselves, and have fun.”
Zoey and Nicholas walked back to the Mustang. The girls were already in the back seat.
Nicholas got in and started the car. “Let’s party!”
The girls were laughing. If nothing else, Zoey and Nicholas had helped Sammy to make new friends—and if she felt like she had friends, then she wouldn’t need stupid @hunterlives.
“I can’t believe we’re going to Frankie’s party,” whispered Liz.
“Right?” Megan agreed.
Nicholas turned on some Bon Jovi, and they rolled down the windows.
“Whoo!” Zoey put her hand out of the window and let herself relax. When was the last time she’d really let herself relax? She hadn’t even let herself do that in high school, partly because she’d been at the boarding house for gymnastics and they’d been on a strict regimen. She thought about how nice it was to be away from that life. And tonight, sitting in Nicholas’s Mustang, with the music blaring and the wind in her face, she actually felt normal.
Sammy was giving directions to Frankie’s house. “Yep, right here on the right.”
The house was all lit up and the music was booming out of the windows. They got out of the car, and Zoey noticed there were a ton of people. That was a good thing, right? Less chance of it all blowing up between Sammy and Tiffany, and more of a chance for her to talk with Sammy.
As soon as they reached the door, Frankie threw it back, his eyebrows rising to the top of his head. “More cheerleaders, party!” Zoey caught the way Frankie looked at Sammy—he was clearly surprised she was there. He pointed to Nicholas as they walked by him and into
the house. “You’re the new cheer guy, right? Hit me up top, big guy.” He held his hand up.
Nicholas frowned, then gave him a high five. The slap was loud enough to make Zoey’s ears ring.
“Ouch.” Frankie tugged his hand back, rubbing it and frowning.
Nicholas kept walking with Zoey. When she laughed, he grinned at her. “He said, ‘hit me.’”
She laughed harder.
There was clearly alcohol, Zoey could see, noting the red cups and a table at the back of the hallway cluttered with assorted beverages. Another table boasted an array of food: chips, pizza, cups, candy, and a birthday cake.
Frankie followed them. “Come on in. I have a pool in back, and the parents aren’t home.” He leered at Megan. “I don’t know if you brought your suit, but you can just lose the clothes.”
A hysterical giggle came out of Megan, who was clearly nervous.
Zoey wanted to karate-chop Frankie’s airway out of annoyance. It was a trigger. She knew that high school guys said sexually suggestive stuff to girls all the time, but she’d had enough of that in her lifetime to be way over it.
Nicholas’s hand was on Zoey’s mid back. “It’s cool. They’re kids. Just be chill.” He pushed her toward the kitchen.
“I’m chill.” She didn’t really mind his touch as he gently guided her through the people.
Sammy was in front of them, bravely walking with Liz by her side. Zoey could see she was a bit subdued, but that made sense. Sammy was probably nervous about the inevitable confrontation with Tiffany, Kira, and Karl.
“Hey, stay close,” Sammy said in almost a murmur. “I can’t face all this by myself.”
Zoey was surprised; Sammy had been freezing her out all day.
They followed her through the living room, where they spotted a hippie-looking guy who Zoey recognized; he always sat at a table in the cafeteria and played his guitar. Now, he was all set up with a full band, and they were pounding out the rock. Several clearly drunk girls were shimmying and shaking and rolling their heads.
