Endangered

by Lamar Giles

  Durham, Taylor

  Flynn, Eduardo

  Goldweather, Holden

  Joshi, Raj

  McCoy, DeQuan

  Parham, Brock

  Hope this helps. Let me know if you need anything else.

  Roz.

  P.S. You’d asked about Marcos Dahmer. Best we can tell, he’s got NO tech skills. If he’s your guy, he had help.

  Switching apps, I text Taylor back.

  Me: You’re at the top of this list. Should I be looking @ you?

  Taylor: Isn’t it alphabetical order?

  Me: Fine. Got me there. What about Marcos Dahmer?

  Taylor: He’s not on the list for a reason. He edits the yearbook and can barely use Word.

  Me: Are you sure?

  Taylor: Why are you?

  My concerns about Marcos are too long to text. Plus, I’m not ready to tell him everything about Dante, Neptune’s Fury, and the rest.

  Me: If I’m ruling U out, which one of these a-holes is the likely suspect?

  Taylor: I’m thinking the biggest a-hole. Do I need 2 clarify?

  Me: You do not.

  Brock Parham, then. I never knew he was good at anything besides being a D-bag, but if Taylor’s saying he’s got the computer skills . . .

  That’s only half of the equation, though. My Admirer is a photographer and a techie. Best I can tell, neither Brock nor Marcos fits both criteria.

  Or one of them is hiding a talent. Not unheard of. I should know.

  Taylor: FYI—Roz was a good draft pick

  Me: I thought she needed ur help

  Taylor: She’s green, but she’s also a fan of Urs

  Me: ????

  Taylor: You see her email address?

  Me: Yeah. What’s it mean?

  Taylor: Ask her. Or look up the hex code 778083. U know what a hex code is?

  Me: Ur question w/ a question thing is getting annoying. Yes, I know what a hex code is.

  Taylor: Text back once you see it.

  Hex codes are six-character designations for colors across a visual spectrum. Mostly used by designers, illustrators, and, on occasion, photographers. A code of all zeroes—000000—is solid black. FFFFFF is white. When I search for 778083 on my web app, I get a pleasant surprise.

  The color gray.

  Me: THX778083 means “Thanks Gray”? What’s she thanking me for?

  Taylor: Not my place. I’ll let her tell it. Just thought U should know EVERYONE hasn’t turned on U

  Me: It’s a small comfort

  Taylor: What now?

  Me: Now, I figure a way 2 get my sentence shorted. Parental lockdown over here.

  Taylor: That sux

  Me: Yep. Then I have a little chat with Brock.

  Taylor: Don’t you mean we?

  Me: I don’t.

  There’s a long break with no text. Maybe I pissed him off. If so, it’s not intentional. This time. Him admitting the total dickishness of what he’d done to me, and helping me gather some intel on potential Admirer candidates, is appreciated. I don’t want him thinking that we’re Team Hug now. That we’re rekindling something.

  Perhaps it’s time to lift his Ocie ban. Her tutoring will give him something else to do.

  My phone vibrates again.

  But it’s not Taylor.

  SecretAdm1r3r: School’s not the same without you here.

  Ignore. Ignore. Ignore. It’s the smart thing to do. I do the other thing.

  Five letters, keyed in a blur.

  Me: Fuck U

  Acknowledging him is a mistake; I’m too angry to care. Getting beat up, grounded, and being told you’re getting shipped off to Warden Vicky’s . . . it can have that effect. I send my message again.

  Me: Fuck U

  SecretAdm1r3r: I guess I had that coming. Sorry. Okay.

  Okay? Really? No! It’s not okay. It’s pretty freakin’ far from okay. I let him know with yet another colorfully worded text.

  SecretAdm1r3r: I said I’m sorry. How long r u going 2 throw it in my face?

  Me: You ruined my f’n life, asshole.

  SecretAdm1r3r: By telling the world about GRAY? I didn’t ruin you. I freed you.

  Me: U R Crazy! Making me like u with those photos and your little mind games. I’m done.

  SecretAdm1r3r: No. Ur not. You don’t get 2 b done with me.

  Whatever I felt I had to say to him, I’m not feeling it anymore.

  SecretAdm1r3r: So lets continue

  Continue what?

  There’s a crawling sensation at the base of my skull, like my spine is the water spout from the itsy-bitsy spider nursery rhyme, and the little arachnid is doing a short-lived victory dance at the top.

  Staring at my phone, I anticipate his next taunt. The inactivity stretches ten, twenty minutes. I glance at the clock: eight thirty. School’s started. Unless he’s sneak texting between classes, I won’t hear anything for the rest of the day.

  Seven hours of waiting for him to say something. Or send something. Or—this is the scariest one—do something.

  Swinging my feet from under my comforter I stand, then crouch, retrieving Victoria’s collapsed makeup mirror from beneath the bed. On my dresser I unfold it, and flip on the battery-powered light, illuminating my battered face in three separate panes. I wince at the initial sight, like my reflection’s going to punch me, too.

  It’s not so much the bruises that stun me. It’s the thought of my aunt Victoria having the perfect makeup to cover them while giving me the smoky-eyed look of a runway model. All because everyone thinks I’m the lunatic, and everything that’s happened is my fault.

  Maybe the Admirer’s right. I don’t get to be done. He’s going to regret letting me in on that little secret.

  CHAPTER 28

  MOM AND DAD LEAVE ME WITH a list of weird tasks, as usual. I buckle down and fly through everything in under three hours, giving myself six hours before either of them will be home. Time to do some real work.

  Getting my equipment back is easy. It’s all locked in a backyard shed, same place Dad used to hide my Christmas presents. Dad keeps the shed key on him. No issue. When I taught myself to pick locks, I practiced on the very padlock I’m breaking into now.

  Inside, the smell of lawn mower gas is cloying, swirling around me on a cool breeze. There’s a dust-free plastic tub in the back corner by the garden shears. Inside I find my camera, laptop, and a few other useful items Dad confiscated in his sweep. Decorative bricks, left over from the flower bed Mom created in the spring, are arranged on a shelf. I drop a couple in the tub to throw Dad off should he make it out here in the next few days and move stuff around, then I transfer most of my gear to my car trunk. I won’t need my camera or the other stuff inside the house, and my MacBook will be easy enough to conceal when my parents are around.

  Back in my room I make the most of my alone time, arranging everything I’ve ever gotten from my Admirer in a single file. I sit back, viewing it all as one big picture, each item layered in cascading windows, looking for clues with the scrutiny I reserve for Gray targets.

  Everyone I ever exposed, I had to get to know from afar. Their friends and their patterns. Of course, I always had a name and a face to start.

  He’s awesome with a camera. Able to get into places other people can’t get in, either through his charm or stealth. He can get his hands on crime scene photos from secure police servers. He’s a meticulous planner. If he wasn’t we would have never crossed paths because he’d have cooked himself alive trying to get the Dante shot.

  What don’t I know?

  I spend the afternoon combing through Marcos’s and Brock’s Facebook pages, Twitter, Tumblr, whatever I can find. They’re my only suspects. Yet, I can’t find anything to suggest either one of them could pull off what my Admirer has.

  All I get for my effort is a dose of torment. My social media accounts are filled with hate messages from everyone who’s turned on Gray. Me.

  The most brutal posts have as many as three h
undred likes. I consider deleting my page altogether, but there’s a single friend request. Roz Petrie.

  I accept and spend some time clicking through her photos because old habits don’t die. Mostly selfies of her hiking, or canoeing, or lying in bed making goofy faces. Nothing spectacular, though she is pretty when she’s not hunched and shuffling.

  Aunt Victoria pops into my head: She could look like a young blah, blah, blah, with some effort.

  My hands retract from the keyboard and rest on my thighs. Those were Victoria’s words, but not her voice in my head. It was mine. Making the same judgments as my annoying aunt and soon-to-be roommate.

  One hand darts to my Magic Mouse like a squirrel snaring an acorn, moving the cursor and clicking things until I reach the MESSAGE icon on Roz’s cover page. I start a private conversation with her that she’ll answer at her leisure though it eases my conscience right away.

  Roz,

  Thanks for helping me. For being a friend. You’re awesome.

  Taylor explained your email address to me. THX778083 = “Thanks Gray.” Tell me what I did for you.

  For a while I surf aimlessly before returning to Facebook and seeing the little speech bubble icon lit up with a red “1” in the top corner of the page. I open my new message, Roz’s response, and I’m excited. Who doesn’t like reading praise?

  Hey Panda (Gray . . . hehe). So you know I’m a fan now. ::blushes:: Okay, I thought I was being clever with my email but Taylor got it right away. No surprise there, he’s like a genius. What can I say? Us nerds love our Easter eggs and double meanings, and love decoding them even more. Speaking of, have you ever read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline? It’s awesome and Taylor could totally be a gunter. Go Parzival! ☺

  Anyway, I digress. I’m thanking you for Randy Sigell. A lot of Gray Beards owe you for that one.

  Ah, Gray’s third exposé. A classic bully known for robbing neighborhood kids, boys and girls, of whatever cash their parents had entrusted them with, then bragging about it.

  I caught him vandalizing a teacher’s house by sprinkling chlorine pellets on the lawn during a late-night rain shower. I don’t think he got in much trouble, but he calmed down significantly before his family moved to Maryland last year. A minor victory.

  Her gratitudinal email address is now clear. But her note generates other questions and not about “Gunters” and “Parzival,” whatever those are.

  Two words are what I send.

  Gray Beards?

  I don’t wait long.

  You don’t know? Gray Beards are like Browncoats, or Rihanna’s Navy. Here, see what I mean:

  A link follows. It takes me to another Facebook page. A private group that I can now join thanks to Roz’s hypertext invite. The Gray Beards.

  My official fan club.

  Okay, okay. I sought out Roz because I needed a pick-me-up, but this? This is going to Starbucks for caffeine and getting heroin.

  There are 204 members, a bunch of kids I know from school—including a few from my DP class. Several of my revealing photos are visible in the news feed and thumbnails. No one here is trashing me. I scroll through and learn that “Gray rocks” and “bullies suck” and, and, and . . .

  Perked up and curious, I click the link that always interests me most on FB pages, photos. There are two albums. One is named “Gray Scales” and is a compilation of everything from my site. The other, it makes the bottom of my stomach fall out.

  It’s called “The Game.”

  Click.

  There are dozens of photos, with hundreds of comments spread among them. I look through many of them. Selfies, photobombs, landscapes. Amateur shots from fuzzy to awesome. On the better photos there’s a trend of some commenter giving begrudging praise (“Sweet, but peep this . . .”) then linking to another photo meant to outdo the last. Exchanges I’ve become very familiar with in recent weeks.

  There’s no Dante, or Neptune’s Fury, or any of the other visual capital my Admirer and me have traded. Certainly no plain, bleached picture of Keachin, or the richly colored snapshot of her cracked skull, with a convenient link back to the profile of whoever posted the pics.

  The game I thought so unique to me and my Admirer appears to be a common thing here. That’s the bad news.

  The worse news: I just gained 204 new suspects.

  CHAPTER 29

  WHEN MY PARENTS GET HOME, I have to tuck my Mac between my mattress and box spring, then get back to it after they’re in bed. I don’t mind the break, because the challenges I’m dealing with are frying my brain.

  Next steps? Well, in the immediate, the plan doesn’t change. I talk to Brock first. From the technical angle of my undoing, Taylor likes him as the prime suspect. Also, it’s less sanity-destroying than printing off a list of Gray Beards and throwing darts at it.

  While I comb through Brock’s online profiles, I get pinged by the actual culprit—whoever he is—several times.

  SecretAdm1r3r wants to chat.

  I don’t care what he wants.

  Near midnight my eyes are burning, and my temples pulse. I shut the machine down and lie on my bed, my phone on my chest. It’s Friday. Me and Ocie’s night when I’m not in solitary confinement.

  It’s still our night.

  Me: U up?

  Ocie: what?

  Me: I’m sorry about what happened.

  Ocie: Took u long enuf.

  Me: Been grounded. No phone.

  It’s a lie. I could’ve been texting and emailing all day the same way I’ve been communicating with Taylor and Roz. Just forgot. Focused on the mission. Probably best not to mention that.

  Ocie: What u did was cray, for reals. A lot of people r mad @ u

  Me: I’m sure. Just like I’m sure most of them have Gray Scales in their favorites. Whatever.

  Ocie: What do u want? It must b something.

  Me: All I want is 2 make sure we r cool & 2 pass the time while I serve my sentence.

  Ocie: My mom doesn’t think it’s a good idea 4 us 2 hang anymore.

  That knocks my thought train right off the track. I didn’t see that coming. Not in a million years.

  Me: Do u agree with her?

  Ocie: Idk. Would’ve been clearer if it didn’t take U 2 days 2 hit me up.

  Me: I told u I was grounded and couldn’t text

  Ocie: Funny. Taylor told me something different. Guess it’s not so stupid 2 deal w/ him these days.

  She’s still been talking to him. She knows I’ve been talking to him. Crap.

  Me: It’s not what u think.

  Ocie: Right. Because UR the same old mind-reading Panda. U know what I think b4 I do.

  This is going bad. Fast. Face-to-face will be better. Then she’ll understand.

  Me: Sorry. Okay? When I’m out of solitary, lattes for a month. Deal?

  Ocie: G’nite Panda.

  Mrs. Horton doesn’t want me and Ocie together anymore? Of all the ways my life’s gone to pot since my secret came out, this feels most surreal. The most excruciating.

  No. I’m losing everything else. Not my best friend. I’ll speak to Mrs. Horton myself and explain that I’m not some low-life bad influence. Make her see it’s all a misunderstanding. That I made a mistake and I’m sorry. All that good stuff parents like to hear.

  Once I get out of this house.

  The next morning, Dad’s up early and off to the gym. It’s his weekend ritual. Which is why I was up even earlier, waiting.

  The hiss-spray of the shower in my parents’ room comes on. It’s time.

  Sticking my head in their bathroom, I say, “Mom, I’ve got your grocery list and the credit card. Be back in an hour.”

  “What?” She pokes her lathered head from behind the shower curtain, her eyes sealed against the sluicing soap.

  “Early start to the chores. Up and at ’em. See ya.” I run for the stairs.

  She yells, “But that’s not your chore!”

  I don’t slow, and don’t look back. I figure I’m halfway do
wn the block before she can get to her bathrobe. There’s a stop sign at the end of my street, then a left to get to Ocie’s.

  I go right.

  I’ll fix things with Ocie and her mom, for sure. After I pay Brock a visit.

  A small delay in my repentance isn’t going to kill anyone.

  CHAPTER 30

  BROCK’S NEIGHBORHOOD ISN’T KEACHIN-LEVEL SWANK, BUT his family is a couple of rungs above mine on the affluence ladder. I pull to the curb by his brick-and-siding McMansion and stare across a lawn so perfect it looks like a green swimming pool. The street is silent except for the swish-swish-swish of a nearby sprinkler. Brock’s probably sleeping soundly.

  Enough of that.

  I dial the cell number I pulled off his Facebook profile. Convenient for me, but tarnishes my theory that he’s my guy. My Admirer’s tech savvy, and most tech-savvy people know to adjust their Facebook settings to hide such info. Still, a conversation is in order, if only for the sake of elimination.

  The phone rings and rings, then goes to voice mail. I hang up and dial again. This cycle repeats three more times before a groggy troll picks up.

  “Who is this, you freakin’ dickbag?”

  “Come outside, Boy Wonder.” I kill the call and wait.

  Within a minute he’s stepping onto his porch wearing basketball shorts and pulling a Portside Football T-shirt over his admittedly ripped torso. He crosses the lawn in bare feet, squinting in the daylight. He’s close enough to touch my car when recognition hits.

  “Morning, Brock.”

  He leans forward with his elbows on my window frame. “I thought you, like, skulked in the shadows and shit. Doesn’t sunlight hurt you?”

  “No, but your morning breath does. Please direct it elsewhere.”

  He inhales deeply then blows a slow blast of foulness into my vehicle. It smells like warm Dumpster juice.