On Edge

by Gin Price

  That seemed pretty unlikely.

  “Or maybe,” she continued, “he wasn’t with Decay at all. Maybe he orchestrated it.”

  The one thing that bothered me about Liv was her ability to jump on the picket line against whoever looked the guiltiest at that particular moment. It didn’t say much for her sense of loyalty. Of course, the rational part of me realized I was probably angrier at her for first accusing my brother, and then my boyfriend, of a hideous crime. But after what Haze had done that evening, I couldn’t exactly say she was wrong.

  We pulled into the emergency entrance of the hospital, and I had the car door open before Liv could come to a complete stop.

  “I’ll just park,” she yelled behind me. I gave her the classic “Whatever” wave.

  I knew she was only concerned for me and was trying to find out who wanted to hurt me, but I couldn’t help but be annoyed by her air of superiority, like she was Sherlock what’s-his-face and I was—that other guy.

  “Surg—” I started, and then corrected myself. “Lawrence Whitney?” I asked at the admittance desk, only to feel a hand at my shoulder.

  Warp stood there, frowning as always, but this time not at me. He opened his arms and I rushed into them, sobbing openly as he patted my back.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “I’ve heard a lot of different things.” He ran a hand over my wet hair. “All kinda jumbled, really, but I guess Decay decided to declare war against us. I’ve called our crew and they’re out looking for him now. Retaliation has to be swift.”

  Bodies. That’s all I could see at the end of this story. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to talk about this, Johnny. I want to know how Surge is.”

  “They’ll let us know when he’s out of surgery. Come and sit down. We’ve got a bit of a party going on in the waiting room, much to this hospital’s ’tude. But we’re keeping it low so we don’t get kicked out.”

  When Warp led me around the corner, I was shocked by how many people were there. Our crew was out scouring the streets for Decay, but, unlike me, Surge had a lot of friends outside of our little group.

  I saw Bonnie and a couple of other gymnasts in the corner.

  “Hey!” Bonnie stood and frantically waved me over, a smile on her face despite the dark tidings. I broke off from Warp, who left to collect Liv, and walked over to Bonnie and friends.

  “Hey, LL,” Ramona said, forcing a smile to her face.

  I returned it halfheartedly but with equal amounts of plastic. “Hey. How long have you all been here?”

  “About an hour. Sorry to hear about Surge. I really like him,” Bonnie said, offering me the seat next to her.

  “Who doesn’t? I think half the school has a crush on him,” Ramona piped in, looking at me with a weird expression on her face. Hatred? Envy? I resisted the urge to smack it off.

  Bonnie giggled and nudged Ramona with the toe of her shoe. “You’re practically in love with him. Everyone knows it.”

  Wow, that’s right. I remembered Liv mentioning something about Ramona’s crush. Envy, then. I always thought she didn’t like me because of gymnastics. Now I knew she disliked my relationship with Surge.

  “You should ask him out, yanno…if—” I started to tear and all the girls in the circle stared at me. I didn’t care. Maybe offering dating advice was bad form with Surge on his deathbed, but I needed to pretend everything was normal.

  “Dramatic much?” Ramona scoffed.

  I couldn’t believe how callous she was being. I nearly jumped out of my chair at her but Bonnie grabbed my arm, her eyes bulging like one of those tree frogs I’d seen on Animal Planet. “Excuse me? My friend was run down by a car and is being put together like Humpty Dumpty on some operating table, and you’re going to talk to me like that?”

  “Um, Emanuella?” Bonnie started cautiously, putting more pressure on my arm to keep me from rising up and performing an old-fashioned ground-stomping. “Ramona and I were there to see Surge’s fight. The car came up over the curb, through the fence and toward him.”

  “Surge was pretty quick, running his sexy ass left and right, all zigzagging around. Would have been funny if…”

  “Yeah, he tried to make it to that big tree by the swings but the car was on him,” Bonnie continued, “so he jumped and did this weird flip thing and landed on the hood of the car, rolling up and over.”

  “Then the car took off,” Ramona said. “It was gross as hell! Surge’s head was all bloodied up and he was cussing a road to hell.”

  “So, he’s not like—dying?”

  “Nope. He’s going to be fine but they have to do something to his shoulder,” Bonnie smiled, obviously glad she could let go of me.

  I sagged back in my chair and let the tears flow freely. “Warp made it sound like he was dying!”

  “Your brother’s kinda mean to do that,” Bonnie said and gave my arm a reassuring pat.

  “So you really think I’ve got a shot with Surge?” Ramona asked, failing miserably at casual.

  “Sure,” I said, absently thinking about Surge’s sexual uncertainty. I shrugged, thinking she had a fifty-fifty shot.

  Warp paced into view, his head bent toward his phone. I rose from my chair and made my way toward him.

  “What’s—” Warp started. But I didn’t let him finish.

  I slapped his cheek so hard I put the sting in my teeth. “How could you let me think Surge could die?”

  “I don’t know his condition.”

  “But you probably heard the same as I did. That he was cussing and lucid when the ambulance took him away! How could you puppet me like that?”

  “I tried to call you and you weren’t answering your phone. You’ve been blowing everything off to hang out with that idiot boyfriend of yours. I couldn’t be sure you’d come down here, and I needed to be sure you were safe.”

  “You’re such an asshole! Like anything would keep me from Surge’s side when he’s in the hospital? I have morals and priorities that escape you, but you’re going to stand there on some high horse, doing pony-tricks for the audience, pretending you have to keep me in line? To make sure that I do the right thing? Oh, you’re triple thick!”

  Warp and I faced each other down until Liv positioned herself between us. “Okay, calm down before you both give the staff excuses to throw us all out,” she scolded.

  My brother didn’t even look her way, which was surprising for him. “I know you, Emanuella. You don’t think rationally where Haze is concerned. You’d walk right up to him and let him kill you, realizing too late what he is.”

  I flinched. Warp had no idea the amount of truth behind his words.

  “I did what I had to do to make sure you were where I could see you. I ain’t gonna let someone take you like they did Heather.”

  I wanted to be mad at him, but in his eyes I could see worry and fear. He thought I was going to be killed.

  He wasn’t the only one.

  Twenty-two

  “You look like you were run over by a truck.” Surge grinned at me as I sat down in the visitor’s chair.

  “That’s my line.” I grinned back.

  Shimmying out of my coat, I winced. Once the adrenaline of my adventurous day faded, the soreness was setting in. I was tempted to steal Surge’s IV filled with pain-killers.

  “I have an excuse to look like this. What’s yours?”

  “My boyfriend tried to kill me and his best friend tried to run down one of my best friends. I guess I really don’t have an excuse.” I tried to smile but there was no hiding the tears clouding my vision.

  “Hey, LL. I’m good here. I’ll be back to practicing with the crew in no time a’ight? No reason to get all emo and blame-tastic.”

  I leaned against the side of his bed and grabbed his hand, kissing the back of it. “I thought you were dy
ing. Warp went all drama on me to get me down here. I felt so—lost.”

  “Well, we both know your brother’s an attention whore these days. I’m sorry you got so scared, girl. But I’m good. I’m serious. I get to keep all my parts and the number of girls my dad said are out in the waiting room—keeps them from thinking I’m gay for a while longer.”

  I smiled and squeezed his hand. My backside hurt too much to remain in the sulking position, so I sat back in the chair with a little groan of pain and closed my eyes. This was one crazy day.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  I opened my eyes to see Surge’s face back to serious mode and tried to brush it off. “I did a lot of parkour after school. Guess I spent too much time out there. Maybe if I hadn’t, I could’ve been around to make sure you didn’t do anything crazy, like challenge a guy bigger than you to a fight.”

  “Hey, I would’ve had him and he knew it. Why you think he ran me over instead of getting out to fight me? He knew he couldn’t win.”

  “Or he wanted to make sure you were out of the way because of how protective you’ve been over me.”

  He frowned. “You’re saying Decay ran me over to make sure you were accessible?”

  “I don’t know, but Liv told me a lot of people heard Decay cackling and Haze laughing in the passenger seat. That seems like a good explanation as to why you were run over and why Decay challenged you to a fight in the first place, don’t you think?”

  “Sounds like a good theory, girl. I wish I could help you prove it, but I didn’t see or hear anything cuz I was busy gettin’ run over and all.”

  I sighed and rubbed my hand down the front of my face. “You know what’s horrible? All the clues point to Haze and friends and I still can’t bring myself to believe it. Even with some of the proof stamped on my ass.”

  Surge sat up quick, gasping as the pain of the movement caught up with his impulse. “Ow! Shit!” He swallowed and worked his mouth, trying hard not to squeal like a girl, I was betting. After a couple of minutes, he came back to the track. “What’s stamped on your ass?”

  The look on his face told me he wouldn’t budge on the subject until he had all the details. And in truth I wanted to tell him everything, from the moment I left the school to the moment his parents allowed me to come in and visit him.

  I felt a little bit selfish. Like I was taking advantage of Surge’s moment. Here he was, sitting in a hospital bed with his glossy eyes trying to focus on every word I said, and me telling him about all I had been through. Liv was right. I truly was a selfish bitch.

  When I finished telling him everything, I shook my head. “I’m so sorry to bug you with all this but—you’re like, my best friend. The only person I’ve been honest with from the beginning and the only one I trust to tell about this.”

  “I’m not sure you should trust me with this, LL. All I wanna do right now is reach for the phone and call the police. The only reason I haven’t is that I can’t reach the phone.”

  I pressed my lips together, trying to fight off another wave of tears. “I know. I know I should’ve called the cops, and I feel like a newb for not doing it, but Surge, something doesn’t add up here. And maybe he accidentally pushed me too hard, yanno? He was sure someone was after us. He even called me Manu, which he only does when he’s concerned about me or being kinda…”

  “Mushy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, he pushed you hard and you went over the edge nearly to your death. And it would’ve been end-game if you weren’t a freerunner.”

  “Which he knows,” I interjected.

  “Granted,” he acknowledged. “And you saw him standing near a dripping piece of you painted all dead-like with a can in his hand.”

  “Yeah. I think it was him, I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Okay. Despite the condensed indecision, that’s pretty incriminating. And the only thing telling you that he might be innocent is—?” He let the question hang for my fill-in-the-blank.

  “My gut.”

  “Your gut?”

  “Also, if he ran you down with Decay he would’ve had to drive downtown, climb to the roof and paint a wicked-sized piece of zombie-me in very little time. He couldn’t do all of that. I dunno. The truth is, I didn’t see him painting. I couldn’t see much of anything in the rain from a distance with just the storage shed security light on. Liv thinks maybe he did run you down and came to finish something he started earlier. If that’s the case, I think he would’ve painted the piece of me and just had his buddy run you down, less gas money.” I sighed. All the speculating giving me a headache.

  Surge’s head lay back on his pillow, and I could tell he was fighting to stay awake. I felt selfish again.

  “I’m sorry, Surge. We shouldn’t talk about this now. You get some rest and I’m going to come back tomorrow.”

  “No!” he practically sonic-boomed. “You’re going to stay here with me.”

  “What? I need to go home and get my phone charger. I’m not going to—”

  “Argue with me? You’re damned right you’re not. Right now, hospital security is all I’ve got to protect you with, LL. Anyone you need to be talking to right now is here or knows you’re here and can call my room. And Ander would have my ass if I didn’t keep you safe. Promise me. Promise me you won’t go anywhere.”

  I stood up and kissed his forehead, grinning down at him as his eyes lost the fight. “I won’t go anywhere,” I promised. And for Surge’s sake, I had to keep it.

  ***

  After his nap, Surge visited with a good portion of the friends who had come to make sure he wasn’t dead or dying. The nursing staff and hospital security lost their cool after the third group of schoolmates, making everyone but Warp, Liv, and me leave.

  Warp visited with Surge while Liv and I went down to the cafeteria to get some dinner. I chased the food around my plastic plate with my broken spork for a few minutes before Liv sat down across from me with half the cafeteria’s food on her tray.

  “Hungry?” I mused and took a bite of my expensive and bland beef stew.

  “Starving.” she smiled. “It’s been a weird day.”

  The silence stretched between us, the remnants of our conversation in her car. “Look, Ellie, about earlier…”

  “I really don’t wanna talk about it.”

  “I know. But it is important to me that you realize I say the things I do because I care about you. I’m worried you’re not thinking straight on this. Your boyfriend is trying to kill you and you’re just—”

  “Jesus, Liv. Didn’t I say I didn’t wanna talk about it?”

  She blinked at me and pushed her tray into the middle of the table as if the fifty bucks she spent on mediocre food would go to waste because of my outburst.

  I sighed. “I have a long night ahead of me in this damned hospital and I don’t feel like talking about Haze or anything else emotionally draining.”

  Pouting, she reached for the orange on her tray and began to peel it one tiny circle at a time. “I doubt your brother is going to stay long. He seemed eager to join in the search for Decay. When he comes down we can get the hell out of here.”

  “Not me. I promised Surge I’d stay.”

  She set the orange aside, and I had the feeling I made her lose her appetite again. “What?”

  Telling her why Surge wanted me to stay was out of the question, so I simply lifted a shoulder in a pseudo shrug. “Yeah, I won’t have a phone, but I’m pretty tired. I’ll probably just nap anyway.”

  “I think it’s selfish of him to want you to stay here with him all night so that he feels more comfortable, especially when you’re going to be bored as hell without your phone.”

  “I’m not really up to hearing from anyone right now anyway, so it’s probably a good thing.” Would Haze try to contact me? Was he already trying and leaving a mil
lion voice messages? I was okay not dealing with it just then.

  “Not even me? Fine. Whatever. I still say it’s selfish of Surge to guilt you into staying here.” Liv was going to have another of her spaz-rants. Yippee.

  “He was run over by a car, Liv.”

  “He’s fine.” She huffed.

  “I think he’s entitled to make a small request to his best friend.”

  She sat up straighter. “And what about me? I’m not your best friend, too? My opinion doesn’t count?”

  “I didn’t say that,” I sighed. I was going about this all wrong. Between my inability to confide in her and her bullheadedness, we were doomed to end this conversation, and our friendship, badly. I didn’t want that. When Liv was being normal and funny, I really dug hanging around her. But I’d never seen how she’d react not being the center of attention before.

  “Of course your opinion counts. We’ll hang out tomorrow and do whatever you like, but tonight, I’m staying here with Surge. What’s the big deal?”

  “People will talk. Your reputation won’t thank you for it.”

  I had to laugh. “And we’re what? In the Renaissance era? What do I care what people think? If everyone in school wants to think I’m with Surge…” I paused, thinking about Haze and how it would hurt him to hear the rumors. I sighed. “My friendship isn’t sold out because I fear what people might say. You should know better than that by now.”

  “You know, Ellie, sometimes a little selfishness is necessary.”

  I couldn’t argue that point. I agreed, usually. But Surge wouldn’t be able to rest—not to mention he would open his big mouth and bring down the wrath of Ander on me—if I even thought about reneging on my promise.

  “Yeah,” I said, “but not in this case. I don’t get why you’re making such a big deal out of it.”

  The chair scraped as she stood from it abruptly. “Enjoy your night.”

  “Come on, Liv. Don’t get all pissy because I agreed to stay here.”