by Gin Price
“So,” I repeated. “That hoodie look familiar to you?”
Surge peered down at the newspaper photo much like I had, before his shocked face jerked up to stare back at me.
“Next-level.”
***
I paced around the kitchen and then sat down for the twentieth time. I can’t remember a time in my life when I was ever so anxious about a run-in with my brother. Of course, I’d never suspected him of murder before.
A million thoughts went through my head, a million outcomes of confronting Warp with the full newspaper clipping, and none of them turned out with a hug of forgiveness in the end. What could he possibly say to make everything better?
Two years ago my brother started acting different. He had what Pops called a chip on his shoulder, whatever that meant. I’d always thought my mom’s death had taken a little while to get to him and the realization finally sank in around that time. After all, it took a few years for me to understand the full impact of my mom’s absence. But I guess I felt it before either of my brothers, because when my mom took her own life, I became the only female in the house, without anyone to confide in.
Ander’s moment of anguish came shortly after mine. Warp’s? Well, I’d assumed that our mother’s death finally caused him to have his own downward spiral two years ago. But now I suspected a different reason for his personality change.
“What are you doing in here?” Warp asked, walking toward the fruit bowl. Most everything in the bowl was overripe but the apples were okay. He picked one up and took a bite, staring at me expectantly.
I reached into my pocket and withdrew the torn newspaper he gave me the night before.
He looked from it, to me and shrugged. “And?”
“You didn’t get that from the library.”
He stopped chewing and talked around the apple bits in his mouth. “What?”
“I went to the library to read the full story. I was hoping I’d see something that would clear Haze’s name or at least give me insight as to why he might want to murder his sister and then me.”
Warp swallowed hard. “So?”
“So…I found out some very interesting things. One, that you never went to the library to get this article, and two, the reason you tore it the way you did is because you didn’t want to take a chance I might recognize you standing in the top left corner!”
I reached into my pocket again and withdrew the photocopied version of the newspaper with his silhouette circled in red pen.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You can’t pick out a random guy and pretend it’s me to clear your boyfriend’s name. A boyfriend, by the way, that you told me you broke up with but now I’m thinking you never did!”
“Don’t try to change the subject, Warp! That,” I pointed to the hooded figure, “is you.”
He shook his head and I wanted to scream in frustration. He obviously thought I was an idiot with the memory of a goldfish.
“The last hoodie Mom ever bought for you. You slept in it, you wore it every day, even to school. You fluffed it in the dryer when the stench became too strong, afraid to wash it or it might fall apart.”
He looked away from me and set the apple down on the counter.
“We were beginning to learn parkour from Ander and you fell off Mr. Zegger’s fence and tore open the right sleeve. You got up, looked at Ander and me, and you tried so hard not to cry. Blood was everywhere and you panicked, not wanting to do any more damage to the hoodie, so you ran home so fast that Ander said you were at—”
“Warp speed,” he finished.
I nodded and tapped my finger against the picture. “There’s a huge scar on that sleeve, in bright white thread so thick it looks like yarn. You started a fashion trend without intending to after you patched it up. But I remember the truth behind it. I bet after this showed up in the newspaper, you never wore it again so no one would know what you did.”
His head snapped up and his eyes blazed with fury. “You think you got it all figured out, little sister? You think I killed Heather? You’re a genius! This is exactly what you need to clear your boy of everything and see that your brother is behind bars. As long as you’re happy, right?”
“What are you talking about? I wouldn’t—”
“You think I don’t know what this looks like? Why do you think I’ve been hiding it these last few years? I look guilty! If the cops find out I was involved with Heather, what do you think they’d do to me?”
“Johnny.” I hadn’t called him by his given name, in anything other than a joking manner, in a long time. He lifted his bloodshot eyes to mine when I whispered it. “I’m here to listen if you’ll explain to me. Around the time of her death you changed. You became darker.”
“Dark enough to want my own sister dead?”
“No, I don’t think you want to kill me. I wouldn’t confront you at our house alone if I thought you were capable of murdering me. But something isn’t adding up and you need to tell me what is going on. Are you painting pictures of me so you can frame Haze?”
I watched his jaw tighten and his fists clench, and for the first time, I was afraid I’d been wrong about him, but I did my best to pretend I was calm on the inside.
“No. I need you to tell me what you think you know. You think seeing me at Heather’s memorial somehow makes me guilty of killing her and makes Haze innocent?”
“No. But you lied to me, Johnny. I don’t think you murdered her in cold blood. Maybe it was an accident, maybe you’re protecting someone. I don’t know. I only know you hid the fact you even knew Heather.”
He leaned against the counter and pinched the bridge of his nose, the strain of his memories obviously weighing on his mind. He was quiet so long I thought he was just going to ignore me.
“Like you and Haze,” he started, “Heather and me hid our relationship from everyone. There wasn’t much of a rivalry back then, but there was definitely some tension. The city grouped parkour and graffiti artists in the hoodlum category together and practically dared us to take each other out. People were starting to choose sides.
“So when we started dating, we kept it quiet. I tried to show her some moves and she took to them immediately. She was resilient and graceful.” The way Warp talked about her, I could tell he’d loved her. It reminded me of how I felt about Haze. He and his sister were so much alike, I could sympathize with the pain I saw shimmering in the corners or Warp’s eyes. How would I feel if Haze was dead? Oh, God.
The grief he felt was palpable. His body shook with his attempt to hold back sobs he’d probably only dared let loose in private, if he ever had at all.
“She took care of me. I’d bust skin on a move and she’d be there, grinning, with gauze in her hands and med tape. She’d always use too much.” He choked out the last, disguising his emotional hiccup with a cough.
My eyes started to water, and though I didn’t need Warp to prove his innocence any longer, I didn’t dare interrupt him. “She was nearing the point of telling her brother and his crew about us in hopes of bringing us all together. We talked about it the night she died. ‘Freerunners and graffiti artists complement each other,’ she said.”
Swallowing repeatedly wasn’t helping him. Loss laced every word he spoke.
“You don’t have to say any more,” I said, my voice unstable.
“No. You have to hear.”
I nodded and he continued. “We met on a rooftop that night for her first-ever training session outside of a park. We made a few jumps and then we—” He shook his head, the details of the night haunting his face. “I had…presidential relations with her, yanno?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“It was the first time for both of us. We could see the whole city from where we were and everything felt right. But she couldn’t stay long. She told me she had made plans, and after what we’d just done,
she wanted to tell everyone she knew how much she loved me.” His gaze grew distant. “She still glowed. I waved at her and could see her face and…she glowed.”
He broke down. Turning away from me, he put his elbows on the counter and his head in his hands and he actually wept.
I sat at the kitchen table and frowned, my eyes streaming with pity but my mind numb with shock. I’d never seen my brother react to anything so strongly. It was as if everything he’d been trying to hide behind his anger in the last few years came out in heart-wrenching grief.
In an unfamiliar place, I got up from the chair and walked over to him. I pressed against his back and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, feeling every shudder of his anguish as I hugged him.
“You shoulda told me.”
“You were…too young to understand.” He sniffed and stood straight, righting himself as abruptly as he shattered. He faced me and I was forced to let him go. His eyes were puffy but guarded once more. “Besides, I was too scared to even whisper her name. I thought for sure the cops would figure out through DNA who she’d been with and come knocking on the door any second. When they didn’t, I knew she hadn’t had the chance to tell anyone we were together, and since I haven’t broken any laws, my DNA isn’t on record. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut.”
“You must’ve been terrified.”
He did the macho shoulder lift, as if a severed heart was nothing more than a flesh wound. “I hated pretending she was some girl I’d heard of when I really wanted to confront her brother and his friends and beat the truth out of them. I know they had something to do with it. I feel it in my bones.”
“You think she told Haze? Because of the graffiti bit?”
“Heather used to show me his stuff. I know what his style is like, little sister. I know you don’t want to hear it but I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
“And if someone is biting off his work to make it look like Haze?”
“Who would do that?”
I sighed and took a few steps back to reseat myself at the table. “I don’t know. But I can’t accuse Haze because of the graffiti. After what you just told me, it’s clear not everything is what it looks like.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “And sometimes it is.”
“Why are you so sure it’s Haze?”
“Because Heather was afraid of disappointing her little brother and she worried about his bouts of anger. She said her parents had to put him in karate to keep him from hurting others.”
“A violent streak in young men is hardly rare. The dojos are filled with them. With as many times as you’ve provoked him, I think if Haze still had a problem with anger management, you would be the first to know.”
“He showed it the other night.”
“You practically made him hit you, Warp. You accused him of killing his sister.”
He widened his eyes, accentuating each word. “Truth hurts.”
My emotional roller coaster took another turn. I was trying very hard to understand where my brother was coming from, but I stopped feeling sorry for his loss when confronted with his stubbornness.
“I never knew Heather, but as a sister of a hotheaded brother I think I can safely say she’d be disappointed in you going after Haze because you think all the pieces fit. Well, they don’t. If Heather told Haze about your affair, one word from him would bring the cops here, and your DNA would have matched what they found on her and you’d look like the guilty one, even though you’re innocent, right?”
I saw him flinch, which meant he finally saw a tiny bit of truth in my words. It was a start.
“I think if you really loved Heather, you would help her by proving her brother innocent.”
Warp’s eye twitched. “How do you propose I do that?”
“Help me find out who’s painting my face on these walls.”
“And if it ends up I was right, and it is Haze?”
I was confident in Haze’s innocence, and yet when Warp posed the question I stalled for a second. “If Haze is the man harassing me?” He nodded and I shifted my feet. “Then I’ll help you bring him down for Heather’s murder.”
Nineteen
Liv stared at me, walking to school on autopilot Wednesday morning, eerily missing every bump in the sidewalk and overgrown limb without shifting her gaze. Then she snapped her gum. “Wow. You’re living in a soap opera. Your boyfriend…oh, I mean ex-boyfriend…and your brother are both thinking the other is guilty of murder and threatening you. Meanwhile, your brother had a secret affair with the deceased sister of your ex-boyfriend, and Bren snuck in moments of young passionate love in a supply closet at school with you.”
“Yeah,” I said lamely.
“Wow,” Liv said again and focused her gaze straight ahead. “Suddenly my life with my defunct ’rentables doesn’t seem so bad.”
“I know, right?” I grinned over at her but stopped when I noticed her frown. “What’s up?”
“Heather had a secret relationship with Warp. You had a secret relationship with Haze. Neither one of you told me. I’m starting to think I’m not a very good friend.”
“Oh, hey, Liv, seriously. You shouldn’t think that. I can’t speak for Heather but I can tell you that my fear of what would happen if my relationship with Haze got out made it hard to whisper it to myself, let alone tell you.”
She shrugged. “I know I can be bossy sometimes too, Ellie, but I promise you, no more. I’m going to relax and make sure I’m much easier to talk to. I can’t help but feel that if I listened to Heather more instead of always trying to grill her for the latest gossip in her life and school, maybe she would’ve told me something that could’ve brought her killer to justice.”
I wanted to ask her if she suspected my brother, but I wasn’t sure I’d like her answer. “We’ve both been a little off this year. It’s to be expected with the added violence and tension, right?”
“Right,” she answered, not sounding very sure.
“We’ll both work on being better friends, all right?”
She nodded, and several seconds passed as we started walking again. True to form, the silence became too much for Liv. “So what are you going to do next?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to Haze since Art class on Monday, and I know he’s going to be looking for me today.”
She sighed. “About that, Ellie. I know you have a lot of confidence in him and all, but I think you should at least be cautious. Not all killers look like unwashed psychopaths.”
“I know.”
“See, that’s what I been telling her all along. But does she listen to me?”
I jumped as Surge emerged with his words of wisdom, and as a reward for his efforts, I threw a playful swat at his beaming face. “Jesus, you scared the hell outta me.”
“You didn’t actually think I was going to allow you to walk to school with only the beautiful Liv Menesa beside you, right?”
Liv stopped and put her hands on her hips. “You saying I couldn’t scare some freak away from her?”
“I’m saying I’m here to protect the freak from you, kind lady. I think the cops would want him alive.” Surge displayed a fine row of pearly whites as he wrapped an arm around both our shoulders and got us moving again. “I’m the stallion of the stables.”
“Please,” Liv said with drawn out emphasis. “Like I need to get involved in a ménage. It’s bad enough everyone thinks you two are dating, throw me in, and the school has a new scandal to obsess about.”
I tripped on my own foot, forcing Surge’s forearm to ride over the back of my head and mess up my hair. Not that I cared, I simply pushed it out of my face and gawked at Liv. She slowed her gait to a halt, pushing Surge’s arm off her shoulder and lifting an eyebrow at me.
“What? Like you’re surprised?” Liv looked from me to Surge. “You two spend ton
s of time together. Guys and girls can’t be friends without rumors, especially not in high school.”
My bro-friend didn’t look at all put out by this revelation. In fact, I’d say he looked pleased. “Surge?”
He held up his hands. “A few guys have asked me what’s up. I don’t say nothing. Ain’t no one’s business and if they think we’re going out that means I can protect you better.” Was that it? Or was he using me to hide his own closet secrets? I couldn’t help but be annoyed.
“But Haze…hello!”
Liv shook her head. “I thought you said you weren’t with him anymore.”
“I said that the other day to keep Warp from freaking out. I told you we meet in the closet.”
“You said ‘met’ as in used to meet.”
I threw up my hands in frustration. “Well…”
“Ellie, either way, it’s better if everyone thinks you’re with Surge and not with Haze. Right?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem fair to Haze.”
“Then tell everyone you’re not with Surge,” she said impatiently, and I knew she needed more time to get used to the idea of Haze and me. “Useless, if you ask me. No one is gonna believe you two are friends with as much time as you spend together.”
“Who did you hear the rumor from?” Surge asked.
“One of Ellie’s gymnastic buddies, Ramona, called me under the pretense of needing some homework. She wanted to know if the two of you went to the tardy party at Damien’s. Apparently, she’s got a crush on you, Surge.”
He seemed to mull the info over. “Really?”
“Don’t get too excited, I told her it’s possible you and Ellie are an item. That Ellie and I don’t really talk about guys much.”
“Oh come on, Liv. That ain’t cool.”
She sighed. “To be honest, Ellie, I wasn’t sure if I should say anything at all, so I denied knowledge. I’m worried about this graffiti stuff, and I feel like I can’t trust anyone with any kind of information. Like, I tell Ramona, but I don’t know who she tells, and I couldn’t bear it if someone who is out to get you…got you because of something I said.”
