Frenzy

by V. J. Chambers

  I was sitting opposite him, on his couch. “What is bad about it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe nothing. But the violence, that’s what’s bad. No one can deny that. If it were only kids on campus taking pills and blissing out, that would be one thing. But it’s not. There are these big crime families getting rich off of it, and they’re killing anyone who gets in their way.”

  “But that wasn’t who was responsible for the violence against Cori. That had nothing to do with her death.”

  “I know that,” he said. “But when I want justification for what I do, it’s the violence. Of course, considering who your family is—”

  “Actually, I’m not really in a great place with my family right now,” I said. “I found out that I didn’t actually shoot Heidi, but that my father pinned it on me, because he didn’t want things to go bad for the business.”

  “What?” said Levi.

  I explained the situation as best I could, going over what I remembered and what Zach had told me.

  Levi looked stunned. “That’s… that’s unbelievable. How could your father do that to you? Knowing how badly it ate at you, what it was doing to you?”

  I looked at him, grateful. I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted someone to agree with me that my father had done the wrong thing. Zach had acted as if it wasn’t that big of a deal, that it was a necessary sacrifice. But it hadn’t felt that way. It was good to hear someone confirm what I felt. “I haven’t talked to my dad since I remembered. I don’t know what I would say to him. Half of me wants to hit him. And hit him again. And again. Just hit him until… until…”

  Levi’s expression softened. “Hey. You have every right to feel that way.”

  I studied my hands. “It doesn’t matter how I feel.”

  “Of course it does.” He got up from his seat and came over to sit down next to me. He put his arm around me.

  It felt nice to touch him again. I burrowed my face into the crook between his neck and shoulder, enjoying the comfort. But then I remembered that Levi had betrayed me too, and I pushed him away.

  He sighed. “Sorry, I guess I shouldn’t have…”

  “You shouldn’t have done a lot of things, Levi.”

  He rested his elbows on his knees, hanging his head. “I know that. Jesus Christ, Molly, do you have any idea how fucked up it is for me to be doing any of the things I did with you?”

  “Why then?” I said.

  “I don’t know. Because you’re… Because I…” He rubbed his forehead. “It doesn’t make any sense.” He looked sidelong at me. “You still rolling?”

  I shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Your pupils are still huge. I think you are.”

  I hugged my knees to my chest. “That’s the thing, Levi. You know everything about drugs. It’s not like you haven’t ever done them.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “Sometimes, you have to in order to preserve your cover. That makes everything confusing, too. Really fucking confusing.”

  I chewed on my lip. “But you think you’re doing the right thing, don’t you? You wouldn’t have taken a job like yours if you didn’t truly believe that it was important.”

  He hesitated.

  “You do think it’s important?”

  “I used to. Anymore, I can’t be sure what I think.” He raised his face to look at me. “I know that no one should die because of drugs. I know that. If I stop that from happening, then I guess I’m doing something good. And I worked so hard on getting in with Professor X. But you pretty much killed that from ever happening.”

  I cringed. “Sorry.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He took a deep breath. “I probably won’t be around Keene much longer anyway. I’m no good here as an operative anymore.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t thought about the fact that Levi was only here to do a job. He wasn’t really a student. “Are you telling me that you’re leaving?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I sort of got offered a choice of three new assignments. The first one was to stick with the Professor X thing, only to shift tactics. It seems like the new partner that he got—the one that took him away from the O’Shaunessys—wasn’t Cori. It was your family.”

  “My family?” I furrowed my brow. “But if we was working with my family, why was he threatening me? Didn’t he realize that if I told anyone, they’d be angry with him?”

  Levi shrugged. “From all accounts, he’s a pretty arrogant guy. He seems convinced that nothing can touch him and nothing can stop him.” He laughed to himself. “It’s funny how I know so much about the guy, and I’ve never met him. I’ve been studying every move he made for so long. I thought for sure that if I got close, I’d be able to get deep into his inner circle.”

  “I really am sorry I messed that up for you.”

  He chuckled. “Are you? Are you really?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Because that’s not the only thing you messed up, you know. Your cousin Zach saw me. So I’m no good trying to infiltrate the Colligans to try to get to Professor X. Not to mention the fact I couldn’t do that. Not to your family. Not after we were… whatever we were.”

  I cast my glance down at the coffee table in front of the couch. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “But at least I didn’t tell Professor X that you were a cop. When we were in the parking lot, I only said that you were a danger.”

  “That guy wasn’t Professor X, anyway,” said Levi. “He was a flunky. It’s possible that if I saw the real Professor X under different circumstances, I’d still be able to get close to him.”

  “Really?” I gave him a hopeful look.

  “Maybe. But I’m never going to get a chance like that.” He leaned back into the couch. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ve got other options. One is to stay close to this area and to try to bust dealers outside of high schools by posing as a buyer. They seem to think I can still pass for seventeen. I don’t know, but I can try. Or… Mexico.”

  “Mexico?”

  “Yeah, cartels and stuff like that. It’s where the big action is.”

  “Mexico,” I said again. It was so final. He’d be gone, really gone. In a completely different country.

  He nodded. “It might be a nice change of pace for me. My Spanish is kind of shit, though.”

  “I don’t know if I want you to go to Mexico.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  I looked at my hands. “I mean, I guess I don’t really have any say over it or anything.”

  He cleared his throat. “Well, if I did the other thing, the high school thing, I probably wouldn’t even have to move out of this apartment.”

  I looked up. “Are you saying…?”

  He got up off the couch. “Fuck, I don’t know what I’m saying. It wouldn’t work, would it? Even if I wasn’t actively working against you and your family and your family’s interests, we’re still on opposite sides, aren’t we?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Hell,” he said. “I keep trying to tell myself that this thing I have about you is all in my head. Maybe it’s just because I got dosed, and I went to bed with you. Maybe it’s my guilty conscience, because I don’t want to be the sort of man who sleeps with a younger girl and runs out on her. Maybe I don’t care about you at all.”

  I swallowed. I pulled my knees tighter against my chest.

  He turned to look at me. “It’s only that I can’t make it stick. I can’t make myself believe it.”

  I wanted to touch him. I put my feet on the floor.

  “It doesn’t matter, does it? I mean, you hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you.” I got to my feet. I reached for him.

  He went into my arms. He rested his face on my shoulder, holding onto me. “But it’s crazy, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  We stood there, like that, clutching each other in his living room.

  Finally, he lifted his face and gazed into my eyes.

&n
bsp; “When do you have to decide?” I whispered. “About Mexico?”

  “Next couple of days.”

  I stroked his face.

  He closed his eyes. “God, I want to ask you to stay here tonight.”

  I wanted to stay. I wanted to be close to him again.

  He opened his eyes. He backed away from me. “You can’t, though.”

  “But—”

  “No.” He put a lot of force behind the word. “It’s not fair to you. I won’t do that to you. To either of us.”

  I twisted my fingers together.

  “You need to go, Molly. We both need to keep our distance.”

  “But—”

  “It’s better that way.”

  * * *

  It was hard to find a quiet moment in my new room. There were four other girls living in there, so I was never alone. The next morning, I lay on my bed. The television was on, and two of my roommates were watching it while they painted their nails. I stared up at the ceiling, trying to block out the sound of the TV and get my thoughts together.

  It was impossible.

  Every time I tried, I kept getting distracted by the voices on the TV or the voices of my roommates.

  Wyatt called me. I couldn’t hear him over the din, so I took the phone outside. I meandered around outside by my dorm.

  “You just left last night,” he said. “Where’d you go?”

  “Home,” I lied.

  “You doing okay? After all that shit with Jill? I could see how it would get to you.”

  “I’m fine.” I actually wasn’t even thinking about that. I was only thinking about Levi.

  “Look, Molly, I know that I was kind of an ass to you when we met, but—”

  “Don’t worry about it, Wyatt. Since then, you’ve been a really good friend.”

  “Doing my best, I guess.”

  “That’s the way I think things should stay between us, don’t you? We should stay friends? We shouldn’t try to do anything more?”

  “Oh, totally,” he said. “I wasn’t calling you because I was trying to declare my undying love or something.”

  Great. Now I felt stupid. “Well, we did kiss last night.”

  “Yeah, but we were rolling. Hell, one time when I was rolling, I kissed every guy in the funk band. With tongue. And trust me, I am not gay in the slightest bit.”

  Right. Well, there was that. “So, you were just calling to be friendly?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, if you ever want to have a friendly fuck or something, you could probably talk me into it, but I’m not really looking to get serious, you know?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I understand.” He was kind of a jackass when it came to girls, wasn’t he?

  I chatted with him a little after that, and then we hung up. But since I was outside, I decided not to go back up to my room. I decided to keep walking.

  At first, I trudged through campus, wandering amongst the other students.

  But then I found myself moving onto the other streets of the town, walking down blocks of houses that had been carved into apartments for coeds.

  I was having an idea.

  It was a crazy idea.

  It was probably dangerous, too.

  And it involved my turning my back on everything that I’d ever believed.

  But the thing was, ever since I’d figured out who killed Cori, I’d felt like something was missing in my life. It had felt good to be doing something, working towards a goal. And it had felt good to know that what I was doing righted some wrong in the world.

  Maybe I’d been brought up in a family of criminals, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know the difference between right and wrong.

  And my family had betrayed me.

  My mother was broken. She couldn’t handle the scandal of my father’s arrest, and she’d never been the same since. It didn’t help that she’d only ever wanted my father for shallow reasons—money and status. She’d checked out of my life a long time ago.

  And my father was willing to allow me to think that I’d shot my best friend to death. He didn’t give a flying fuck about my feelings. I wasn’t sure if he really cared about me at all.

  I’d come to Keene for a fresh start. I’d wanted to get away from my past.

  Finding Cori’s killer had changed me.

  Levi had changed me.

  Things weren’t the same.

  And so, by the time that I stopped walking at the door to Levi’s apartment, I had made up my mind.

  * * *

  “You said you’d spent a lot of time studying Professor X, didn’t you?” I said. “That you were sure if you got close that you could get deep inside his operation?”

  “That doesn’t matter anymore.” Levi stood just inside his doorway. He’d let me in, but I hadn’t even taken off my coat yet.

  “You said that you wouldn’t be any good working with my family because Zach knew you.”

  “Not just that. If you and I were together, there’s no way I could work against your family. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  I swallowed. “What if I said that I wanted to work against my family?”

  “Molly—”

  “I think you should stick with Professor X,” I said. “Is that still an option, besides high schools and Mexico?”

  “I guess,” he said. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you should try to get close to my family. I can help. And the fact that Zach knows you already is actually a good thing. He won’t think you’re a threat. He’ll think you’re my boyfriend. It’s not uncommon for women in my family to bring their significant others into the fold if the relationship is serious.”

  Levi’s lips parted. “Molly, no.”

  “Yes,” I said. “We’ll work together. I want to do something that sets right wrongs in the world, Levi. I want to be driven again. You said that was why you were attracted to me. It turns out that I happen to like that about myself as well. I want to help. Let me help.”

  He reached for my coat. “Whoa, just hold on a second. Why don’t you come in, and we’ll talk about this a little bit, huh?”

  I surrendered my coat. “Not if that means you think you can talk me out of it. I want to do it. It would help, wouldn’t it? It would help you get to Professor X?”

  He cleared his throat. “Well… yes. It probably would. It would actually make it a lot easier to get inside, to get where I need to be.”

  “So, then, I don’t see the problem.”

  “Well, it might not just be Professor X that takes the fall, Molly. It could be half your family. Your father.”

  I lifted my chin. “Good.”

  “Hey, maybe you’re angry with him now, but once this ball gets rolling, you’re not going to be able to stop it. He might go to jail for a very long time. He might never get out. That’s not only going to hurt him. It’s going to hurt your mother—”

  “Whatever,” I said. “I don’t give a shit about her either. They both deserve it. My family hurts people, and no one cares. My mother least of all. All she cares about is her social life and her anti-depressants. My family kills people.”

  He took a deep breath. “But they’re your family.”

  “These are the people who are responsible for the death of my best friend. For what happened to Heidi.” I thought about her broken, bleeding body again. My breath caught in my throat.

  He was quiet. He hung my coat up. He looked at me. Then he nodded slowly. “Maybe I can see where you’re coming from.”

  I gave him a small smile. “And it means we can be together, doesn’t it? It means your cover would be dating me.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I guess it does.”

  “It’s the best way for us to do this. You said last night that we were on opposite sides. But if we weren’t… if we were on the same side, then it’s all a little bit less crazy.”

  He shook his head at me. “You kind of blow me away, Molly Colliga
n. This is the bravest, most ridiculous thing ever.”

  “But it’s the right thing to do. What my family does is wrong. I don’t want to be part of it anymore.”

  He licked his lips. “Molly, If we do this, you’re going to be very part of it. You’re going to have to pretend.”

  “I know that.”

  “But you still want to.”

  “Yes.”

  “Even if…” He fixed me with a stare. “Even if this makes things complicated between us? Even if this ends up making it harder for us to be together?”

  I chewed on my lip. “I would want to do this regardless. It’s like finding Cori’s killer. I would have done that with or without you.”

  “You did do that without me.”

  “Well, this is the same thing. It’s not because I want to be with you. It’s because I want to do the right thing. That I get to be with you, well, that’s a bonus.”

  He smiled back. “I have to admit that part doesn’t sound like it would suck.”

  My smile widened. “Do we kiss now?”

  He laughed. “We could do that.”

  And I was in his arms.

  I could totally see writing a sequel to this book about the two of them undercover. But I’ll only do that if I think there’s an audience for more.

  So, if you liked this book, and you want more about Levi and Molly, help spread the word. Word of mouth is the number one way readers find new books. Tell your friends, write reviews, and share!

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