by Lamar Giles
DEDICATION
For Clem and Britney, my original female protagonists
CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Back Ads
About the Author
Books by Lamar Giles
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
CHAPTER 1
I’VE HAUNTED MY SCHOOL FOR THE last three years.
I’m not a real ghost; this isn’t one of those stories. At Portside High I’m a Hall Ghost. A person who’s there, but isn’t.
The front of the class is where I sit because despite ancient slacker lore, teachers pay more attention to the back. Between bells, I keep my head down and my books pressed tight to my chest, brushing by other students a half second before they think to look. If they catch a glimpse of me, it’s most likely a blur of dark curls and winter-pale skin flitting in the corner of their eyes. Depending on who they are—or the sins they’ve committed—they might feel a chill.
Okay. Yes. I sound like a real ghost. But I promise I’m alive.
Jocks don’t bump into me, and mean girls don’t tease me, and teachers don’t call on me because I don’t want them to. Hiding in plain sight is a skill, one I’ve honed. My best friend, Ocie, calls me a Jedi ninja, which is maybe a mixed metaphor and redundant. But it’s also kind of true.
I wasn’t always like this. There were days during the first half of freshman year when I couldn’t make it from the gym to social studies without running a gauntlet of leers and insults.
Time provided new targets to ridicule, fresh scandal—with some help.
Patience let me slip under the radar, then burrow deeper still. From there, it was easy to engineer my Hall Ghost persona. Now, in the midst of junior year, I’ve perfected it.
My name is Lauren Daniels. On the rare occasion one of my peers addresses me to my face, they tend to call me “Panda.” Not always affectionately. My most popular alias—likely because no one knows it’s my alias—is Gray, the name under which I provide a valuable, valuable public service. I make myself unnoticed by day because I need to be unsuspected by night.
It’s what all the cool vigilantes do.
We’re all something we don’t know we are.
Take my dad, who doesn’t know he’s romantic because mostly he’s not. Sometimes though, like on a random Wednesday or Thursday, he’ll bring home a bunch of Blachindas—these German pastries filled with pumpkin; here in the States, we’d fill them with apples and call them turnovers. He tells Mom he really likes the taste. Which is true, he does. He skips the part about how difficult it is to get the foreign delicacy. He has to special order a dozen from this Old World bakery in town every time he wants to surprise her, and the extra effort on the part of the chefs isn’t cheap.
What he also doesn’t say is that she introduced him to the dessert on their first date eighteen years ago, outside of an army base in Stuttgart, Germany. Every time she gives her account of that night—with her eyes glassy, like she’s reliving the evening, not just talking about it—I feel I’m there, too. A time traveler spying on the prelude to my own conception. I love it, and them, and I gulp Blachinda even though I hate pumpkin just so I can hear more. While she talks, Dad’s dark fingers and Mom’s pale ones intertwine like yin and yang in the flesh. She blushes while he nods and eats. It’s an incredible ritual to witness, Dad wooing Mom instinctively.
My parents are my Happy Place Thought as I lie prone in the bushes, pinecones and night-chilled rocks clawing at my stomach despite my layered clothing. A beetle slowly prances up my forearm toward my shooting hand. I brush it away as gently as I can and reestablish my aim. My target is stationary, in a parked car, one hundred yards away. A quick lens adjustment turns her face from fuzzy to sharp despite the darkness. An easy shot. Which I take.
Keachin Myer’s head snaps forward, whiplash quick.
I shoot again.
Her head snaps back this time, she’s laughing so hard. Odd, I was under the impression the soulless skank had no sense of humor.
I rub my tired eyes, and switch my Nikon D800 to display mode. I scroll through three days’ worth of dull photos stored in the camera. Saturday: Keachin using her gold AmEx to treat her friends at Panera Bread. Sunday: Keachin dropping a hundred dollars to get her Lexus detailed. Today: Keachin—rendered in stark monochrome thanks to the night-vision adaptor fitted between my lens and my camera’s body—belly-laughing at whatever joke the current guy trying to get in her pants is telling. Basically, Keachin being what everyone in Portside knows she is. Rich, spoiled, and popular. Nothing the world hasn’t already gleaned about this girl. Nothing real.
I intend to fix that. If she ever gives me something good.
Keachin Myer is as clueless about what she is as anyone else. And being unfortunately named is not the part she’s unaware of. If you let her tell it, her parents strapped her with such an ugly handle because, well, she couldn’t be perfect, right? That sort of conceited admission would come off like a dare from most kids, opening them up to a barrage of teasing akin to machine-gun fire. No one challenges Keachin, though. Because she’s beautiful.
That she knows, too.
She’s girl tall, with a curve above her hips that seems custom-made for football players to grab and lift and spin her while she squeals and fake-pounds their chests. I swear, it happens at least three times a week. Her eyes are blue blue. Her hair is long and shines like black glass. She’s got boobs that more than a few girls in the school may be describing to a cosmetic surgeon one day. I need something slightly bigger than a C, but really round and perky, like, well—have you ever seen Keachin Myer?
Here’s the part that Keachin doesn’t know about herself: she’s a Raging Bitch Monster.
I’m sure she suspects it, but not in the way, say, a meth-head might suspect that smoking chemicals brewed in a dirty bucket isn’t the best move, thus triggering thoughts of a lifestyle change. Keachin, as best I can tell, does not have such moments of clarity. To her and her pack, bitchiness seems to be something more altruistic. An act of kindness because, otherwise, peons might not know their place.
I’ve watched her do it for years. Not the way I watch my dad and his pastries. There’s nothing about Keachin’s judgy tirades that I like. I’m an observer by nature. I needed to know if she required more of my attention.
For a long time I thought not. Sometimes my peers are douche-nozzles. Period. There aren’t enough hours in the day for me to nip that bud. But, there’s mean, then there’s what happened to Nina Appleton.
My fingers are shaking, and not from the cold. What Keachin did to that girl . . .
Breathe, Panda, breathe.
I suck in frigid air, so cold it feels like ice chips cartwheeling down my throat and into my lungs. I fight the shivers. Something rustles a nearby grove of trees, and I’m no longer breathing or shivering. I’m stuck midexhale, listening, or trying to. My suddenly elevated heart rate causes blood to roar in my ears. Of all my senses, unimpeded hearing is the one I want most in this moment because my eyes are useless under the moonless sky. Unlike my namesake, I don’t have an enhanced sense of smell. I need my ears to confirm/deny what I fear is true.
That I’m not the only watcher in the dark tonight.
A twig snaps and I choke down a yelp. Screw this. I point my camera in the general direction of the commotion. The whole forest flares neon white and gray in the LCD display. I pan left to right over X-ray-like images of inanimate trees, and brush, and long dead leaves. Nothing capable of making any noise without assistance from the wind, or, um, an ax murderer.
My heart keeps pounding, I keep panning, and when I detect movement to my extreme left, I freeze.
There. Staring at me. A raccoon.
It scopes me like the trespasser I am, a silver animal shine in his eyes. I toss one of the pebbles that’s been making my evening uncomfortable in his general direction. He jerks a foot to his right, though he was never in danger of being hit, then slinks off into the night, rustling more forest debris on his way.
I reposition, adjusting my lens for another clear view of Keachin in the car. The scene change is apparent.
She’s no longer laughing her head off, or facing the proper direction. She’s turned toward the rear of the car, propped on her knees and hunched, her head lightly bumping the vehicle’s ceiling. The passenger seat she occupied is reclined so it hovers inches over the backseat. Also, the guy who drove Keachin to this secluded spot, his face in shadow, is in the seat with her. Under her. Directing her slow up and down motion with hands on hips, which has the car rocking to their rhythm, the geeky My Other Car Is an X-wing bumper sticker rising and falling by degrees. . . .
As a reflex, I reach for my shutter release to take the picture. My finger jabs the button with half the pressure required to trigger a shot. I pause, waiting for the perfect moment.
The guy’s having a good time, he’s thrashing his head in ecstasy, first to his left, toward the steering wheel. Then right, toward me. His face is visible in my display now.
Oh. My. God.
I recognize him. Anyone who goes to Portside High would.
He’s been teaching there for years.
CHAPTER 2
NINA APPLETON, THE GIRL KEACHIN HUMILIATED, is not my friend. I don’t have many of those.
I like her, though. Before last week, I would’ve said everyone in school liked her, too.
Nina has cerebral palsy and walks with the aid of forearm crutches. That’s not what’s most memorable about her or the reason she’s so well liked. She’s not the school’s pity mascot for disabilities or anything like that. People like Nina because she’s funny as hell.
We had algebra together once, and Mr. Ambrose worked this problem on the whiteboard. It was all this exponential, carry the such and such, divide it by whatever stuff. In the end, the answer was “69,” and you could just about hear him curse under his breath as he finished writing it.
He spun around, saw the grins on all our faces, then stared Nina down.
“Go ahead,” he said, anticipating the dirty joke he’d set up, “I walked right into it.”
Nina’s eyes bounced over the room—her audience—then she threw her hands up, exasperated. “I got nothing.”
It was enough. Perfect timing. Expert inflection. Playing against the tension and buildup. The class roared. Even Ambrose smiled, appreciating how classy she’d been in the moment.
Class Clown three times running, she was quoted in the last yearbook as wanting to be the first disabled regular on Saturday Night Live. Personally, I think it’s foolish to bet against her. As long as her spirit’s not broken. An atrocity Keachin may have already committed.
That atrocity must be repaid.
Funny kids have a way of pissing off humorless people. When Nina, perhaps thinking herself brave, interrupted Keachin’s reaming of a lowly freshman girl to say she saw Keachin’s new red leather jacket on sale at Goodwill as part of a Santa outfit, it put her on the Fashion Tyrant’s radar in the worst way.
I didn’t see what happened in the bathroom after that, but I heard. Everyone heard.
Nina’s crutches got “misplaced,” and she was forced to crawl across the filthy floor, crying for help. No one heard her until class change, over an hour later. The vice principal had to carry her to the nurse’s office while everyone watched.
When the administration questioned Nina about the assault (make no mistake, that’s what it was—not a joke, or some “kids being kids” BS), Nina kept quiet in some misguided attempt to honor the code of the streets. Snitches end up in ditches, or something.
I don’t blame her for that. I’ve been there.
But now I’m here, doing what Nina can’t do for herself. I depress the shutter release, capturing Keachin’s tryst with Coach Eric Bottin, gym teacher and fearless leader of our district champion football team.
I take more photos, fighting the unease of watching such a personal, and possibly illegal, performance. Of all the times I’ve done this—of all the secrets I’ve exposed—this is easily the most mind-blowing.
Get every detail, Panda.
Increasing my aperture, ramping down my shutter speed, and a bunch of other tiny in-the-moment adjustments are the difference between crisp images and blurry abstractions in such low light. I make all these changes across the mission control–style menus in my camera without looking. Like Petra Dobrev—a celebrity in the wildlife photography community and my idol—says you should.
“When you’re shooting a pride in Africa,” Petra says in her instructional photography DVD, Lensing Wild Things, “you want your eyes on those hungry lionesses, not your switches and buttons.”
Then again, Petra also says, “If you’re determined to shoot hungry lionesses, I recommend a camera trap. The plastic and metal are much less appetizing than flesh and bone.”
A camera trap shoots without a photographer being in the vicinity. Great if you know where your prey will be ahead of time. My work rarely has that sort of predictability, so I have to know my camera the way a blind man knows Braille. I use it the same way I use my lungs. Inhale, adjust exposure. Exhale, shoot.
The car’s bouncing motion increases with such verve, I hear the suspension squeaking. There’s a final groan from the shock absorbers, and it’s done; a panting Keachin hurls her sweaty self into the driver’s seat as if Coach Bottin is suddenly too hot to touch. He twists and shifts oddly. After a second, I realize it’s the motion I use when I tug on my jeans lying down.
Maybe they’re too tired to perform whatever limber maneuver got them into opposite seats, because they open their respective doors and circle to the rear of the car, where Keachin adjusts her skirt and gives him a brief peck on the lips before reentering the vehicle for Coach Bottin to drive her home. I’ve got shots of it all. The hungry lioness never knows I’m there.
There’s another piece to Petra’s advice, though. A piece I forget. Or ignore because I’m giddy over the debauchery gold that’s now stored on my SD card.
“When you’re watching a beast, ensure no other beast is watching you. Lest you’re caught unaware. The roles of ‘hunter’ and ‘prey’ can reverse with a breath and a pounce.”
Coach Bottin and Keachin drive away, and I gather my equipment to make the hike back to my own car. Never realizing that I’m not alone, and I’m not talking about a raccoon.
We’re all something we don’t know we are. In that moment, I have no idea that I’ve gone from watcher . . . to watched.
CHAPTER
3
IT’S 10:37 P.M. WHEN I GET home, nearly an hour past my weekday curfew, and there’s mud on my steering wheel.
I’m in my beat-up Chevy, parked in the driveway behind Mom’s Honda and Dad’s truck. I have four missed calls from my parents, and every light is on in our house, like they’re looking for me behind the furniture. I peel off my dirty gloves, shimmy free of my dark zippered hoodie. Hitting the switch on the dome light, I check my face in my visor mirror for smudges, sweat, and/or blood. When you’re sneaking through the woods, hopped up on adrenaline, you might not feel a stray branch or briar scrape you. With my complexion, the slightest scratch looks like I’ve been mauled.
I’m claw-mark free, so I take the time to mentally rehearse my story while I pop my trunk to stow some of my more nefarious tools. My rolled-up shooter’s blanket goes into the duffel bag with my climbing gloves, grappling hook, night-vision goggles, lock picks, a couple of wigs, and a few other knickknacks relating to my, er, hobby.
I push all that to the corner of the trunk and gently dress the bag in a bunch of car junk—jumper cables, a rusty jack, half-full bottles of tire cleaner.
I slip my Nikon case into my school backpack. That goes inside with me. Always. Before I start the show, I remove the battery from my cell, drop it in my hip pocket.
When I enter the house, hobbled by my heavy bag, they descend on me immediately. Parental hyenas.
“Wo warst du, Lauren?” Mom says. I can tell she’s irritated because she’s speaking German. Lauren, where have you been?
“Bei Ocie, lernen.” At Ocie’s, studying. I answer back in German because it seems to calm her. She likes the bond.
“Try again,” Dad says. “Ocie’s mom said you finished studying over three hours ago.” He sounds every bit the army drill sergeant he used to be. Sometimes I let him believe his intimidation voice still works on me. Like now.
“Yes, that’s true.” I reach into my bag and produce a kettlebell-heavy copy of The Complete Shakespeare, purchased yesterday. “We’re doing Macbeth in Lit Studies, but the school’s copies are all scuzzy. I went to the bookstore to grab my own. When I got there, pumpkin spice lattes got the best of me and I lost track of time in the photography section. Sorry.”
