First We Were IV

by Alexandra Sirowy

  “In the sixth grade Izzie and Graham pretended they had chicken pox. They were home from school recuperating”—she makes air quotes—“for a week. I put the sugar water on myself too, but when the mosquitoes started landing, I jumped into the pool.

  “Don’t get me started on what a nightmare PE was. I had no one to block me in the locker room while I changed into my sports bra. Humiliating. I told my mom I was achy, and she wrote a note excusing me from participating.”

  She cups her chin with her hand. “Amanda was a sickly worm in sixth grade. A mental patient. She lost it over her parents’ divorce. I mean, hello, parents get divorced—not mine, obvi, but it happens—and not everyone goes bald. She always sat out PE. At first we didn’t even look at each other even though we were a foot away. But then Emerson Talbott got her PE shirt hooked on her braces and she couldn’t get loose. Hysterical. Laughing led to talking.

  “Amanda and I had tons in common and it was supernice to talk about clothes and boys with another girl who cared. And don’t you dare roll your eyes, Izzie, ’cause you know you’re not into that stuff. Amanda said I could come to her birthday mani-pedi party and we were making all these plans.

  “But then I was in the bathroom on Friday at lunch—in a stall—and I heard Amanda tell a bunch of other girls, I can’t believe her mom’s only going to have one boob. And one of them asked if it would grow back.” Her eyes tear up. “And Amanda said, ‘You should ask her.’ Then they all laughed and talked about how desperate I was for Amanda to like me. She told them I’d begged her to be invited over her house and to her mani-pedi birthday.

  “I told Amanda my biggest secret like a brainless loudmouth and she blabbed it. She laughed about it.” She wipes away the mascara under her eye. “Remembering makes me want to shove a hat pin in her heart. It makes me sick that I trusted her and that I was such a desperate moron thinking she’d be my friend.

  “But my god. Tonight, when I thought everything was going to hell and that maybe we’d get caught, I realized exactly what I need to do.”

  Video stop.

  Retrieved from the cellular phone of Harrison Rocha

  Transcript and notes prepared by Badge #82827

  Shared Media Folder Titled: IV, Wed., Oct. 23, 5:04 a.m.

  Video start.

  H. Rocha’s face is shadowed. “I slept like crap.” His voice froggy. “I just convinced Simon to go back to his own room.” He sniffles. “I’m a horrible big brother. I didn’t think about how scared Simon would be when he heard the sirens. Or how he’d look out his window and see blood. And that it would remind him of Dad’s attack and visiting the hospital.” He shakes his head slowly. “There are other kids on this street. Littler than Simon. They didn’t deserve to be punished.

  “I can hear Graham—I can hear you, bro—in my head saying collateral damage. Telling me it’s not worse than anything kids see in comics. I’m pissed about Goldilocks too. That girl—she should be alive. Someone should pay. I’m not saying that assholes who hear a girl crying for help and don’t do shit don’t deserve it. They do. Worse.” He groans. “The Order, its power, it’s a high. I feel it. But it’s also like this shadow I keep seeing out of the corner of my eye. I turn my head and it’s gone. It’s there. Dark. Waiting.” Another shake of the head. “I’m rambling. Just tired is all.

  “I should be figuring out an embarrassing rite to give Conner. The others all gave out a funny one already, but everything I come up with is too sadistic. Or dangerous. The problem is, I don’t want to embarrass Conner. I want to take him apart.”

  Video stop.

  26

  I didn’t wake up until half past six in the morning. My legs straightened and kicked the vanity cabinet, my head pinned between the toilet and tub.

  Gingerly I peeled the crusty towel from my hand. Dried blood marbled my skin. Afraid to twitch my fingers for the pain it could bring, my hand stayed an arthritic claw. The wound was a black divot. Deep. Hadn’t even scabbed. Likely needed stiches. I dabbed a damp washcloth around it to remove some of the blood. I placed a large square bandage over it, like the one I’d had on the opposite hand a couple weeks before. I flipped the lid off the aspirin bottle using my teeth and swallowed three.

  An hour later, I sat on the porch waiting for Harry to pick me up. While I did, I thought about what Dad had shared at breakfast.

  A neighbor at the base of our street arrived home late last night from Santa Barbara. His high beams streaked across houses as he turned into his driveway. There was red on the front of his neighbor’s house. It was nearing Halloween—decorations, he figured. Then a sensor triggered his porch light. Red on oak. His front door was marked with an X. All of the front doors on our street were. He heard a crash a couple houses away. Spied a masked figure. He ran after him, but fell over a shallow retaining wall dividing his neighbor’s property from his own.

  His wife woke at his shouting and parted her curtains to see what the matter was. It snowballed from there, neighbors calling neighbors, people in their robes and slippers on front lawns. Dogs barking. Those with broken windows dialed 9-1-1. Officers with flashlights searched backyards. A manufactured dawn lit the street for half the night.

  Dad came inside after half an hour of the bedlam, assuming I’d gone back to bed. He was shaken up enough to set our alarm for the first time in years. He wondered aloud at breakfast, Why were the doors marked? Was it a threat?

  Harry’s sedan puttered up to the sidewalk, coming from downhill rather than his house.

  I dropped into the front seat. “Hey.”

  He fixed my injured hand with an intense stare. “Graham called this morning. He said it’s bad. ER bad. I’ll take you if you want. I don’t care about getting caught.”

  “I do.” I held it up. “It’s nothing. See.” Flexed my fingers. Swallowed the urge to scream.

  “It isn’t nothing. You got hurt because someone didn’t follow our instructions.”

  “I didn’t throw the rock with the letter hard enough. I had to pick through the glass in the yard. Totally my fault.”

  “This never would have happened if Conner hadn’t gone early.” Conner, he said, like the name tore at him.

  “The first window break came from down the street—Trent. Not Conner,” I said. “And it wasn’t his fault. His neighbor came home and it was probably a now-or-never situation. If Trent had just run rather than follow through, the neighbor might have called the cops and one of us could have been caught as we waited outside for seven more minutes.”

  Harry’s huff was so derisive and unlike him that I did a double take.

  I could see the effort it took him to smooth out his scowl. “Where’d you just come from?”

  He stifled a yawn. “I’ve been up since five. Interviewing and taking pictures. Sorry for the bad mood, I’m just tired.”

  “Interviewing?”

  He looked at me sideways. “I’m a reporter for the Seven Hills news blog and last night my entire street was vandalized. It would be suspicious if I didn’t write about it.”

  Harry honked as he pulled into Viv’s driveway.

  “Lemme see your damaged goods,” Viv demanded, climbing into the car a minute later.

  She grabbed my wrist and I winced at the ferocity of her inspection. “At least it’s not so big you can’t wear a bandage.” She tugged my sleeve down over it. “Keep it covered. The cops are looking for vandals who busted windows. Even a bandage is suspicious.”

  As we drove, I stared at a couple of adults bent over a bird illustration. Harry pointed at a group of middle school–aged kids snapping pictures of a giant IV painted on the siding of a gray house. “There’ve been kids out the whole morning taking pictures and selfies with the graffiti.”

  Graham was particularly keyed up, his blue eyes extra piercing as he greeted us with, “IV is trending. Trending. Across platforms. Whole streets are not usually vandalized with iconography that doesn’t appear to be gang related. We’re an anomaly and it’s gotten p
eople’s attention.” He rucked up his sleeves rather than wearing his usual neat roll.

  The red paint ended abruptly as we turned from Driftwood.

  Viv pressed her nose against the car window. “Stuff looks the same.”

  “Did you expect citywide looting and fires in the streets?” Graham asked. “That Seven Hills would revert to tribal law or that bands of cannibals would be hunting for breakfast?”

  I glanced at Harry to share in a laugh. He stared straight ahead, the muscle in his cheek flexing and releasing.

  Viv may have been disappointed with the scene out the car window. I was not. There were the subtle signs of a population unnerved. Cup of Jo was closed, an event so rare and unexpected that a throng of confused patrons had formed under its awning, peering through its windows, rapping knuckles on the door. The owner of Cup of Jo, Lottie Cooper, lived on our street. Her house had been defaced with the others.

  Holy Bagels was the only game in town for caffeine today, and in line, Graham overheard that Lottie had packed her three kids in the family minivan and driven to her parents’ house in Portland. The abrupt departure was attributed to the eerie graffiti and broken windows. We’d scared a single mother out of town. I flexed my wounded hand, named the pain a souvenir from the night, like the tattoos had been, and smirked.

  “Satisfied?” Graham asked Viv as we returned to the car.

  She indicated her to-go cup of coffee. “That I won’t have chai or espresso for the foreseeable future? No, I most certainly am not.”

  “I am,” Graham said. “People are going to unwind without their fancy espresso beverages. First triple shot mochas, then what, running water goes? We’ve got hysteria in the making.” He shook his fists in the air, happily crazed.

  In the school courtyard, Jess’s upraised arm beckoned us to the flagpole. Our six initiates had deer-in-headlight expressions. A thrilled energy manifested in ragged surges of conversation. They snapped their lips closed almost as soon as the words escaped. They couldn’t believe what they’d pulled off.

  “We’re famous,” Rachel crowed, indicating the feed on her cell. “Everyone I know has posted pictures.”

  A scolding finger in the air, Graham said, “IV is famous. Not you.”

  “My dad was on the phone with the security company the whole morning,” Conner gloated. In his excitement, he forgot to look superior. “He was so pissed. Kicked a door right off its hinges. Hurt his foot and everything. He’s having a camera installed up on the gate. He’s hiring a rent-a-cop to sit on his new development at night.”

  “Overreact much?” Viv said.

  Amanda batted Conner’s shoulder. “Conner gets his temper from his dad.”

  “My mom caught my little sister with her chalk trying to color in the bird’s wings in the driveway,” Trent said, eyes growing large. “She lost it.”

  Conner channeled his pleasure into destruction, kicking at the branches of a rose bush in the planter surrounding the flagpole. “I got rocks off into three houses before I made it home.”

  “You were only supposed to hit one,” Harry said.

  Conner kicked harder.

  Trent shook his head. “Not me, man. I barely got one off before this dude came bum-rushing me.”

  “About that,” Graham said.

  Trent fake punched Graham’s shoulder. “C’mon, man. I know what you’re gonna say. It was either throw it or give up and go home. I had to go early.”

  “I know. You made the smart call.” Graham swallowed like the words tasted foul. “None of us would have known that someone was about. He might have alerted the police while we were still outside, waiting, like sitting ducks.”

  “Unbelievable,” Harry muttered.

  “Dude, what is your problem?” Trent asked.

  Harry’s usually calm veneer shattered. “Izzie got hurt because you couldn’t follow simple directions. Because you’re a dumbass who doesn’t consider anyone else but yourself.” He stepped forward, holding himself tall. “What if someone had come outside and caught one of us because you threw when we weren’t ready?”

  “Step off him, man,” Conner said, arms thrown out like he might shove Harry.

  “No one got caught,” I said. “This”—I waved my palm—“is nothing. It doesn’t even hurt.”

  “Oh, hold up.” Conner tucked his square chin into his neck. “I know what’s going on. You’re crashing the custard truck with her.” A finger ran connecting Harry to me.

  “Oh my god, you’re repulsive, Conner,” Viv announced.

  Harry let out a ragged sigh of frustration. “I can’t be around him without wanting to hit him,” he said while looking at me, though everyone heard. Conner made kissing sounds and a flush crept up Harry’s neck. He hiked his backpack high and thrust himself into the sea of our classmates like he was throwing himself from a cliff.

  “Jesus, Conner,” Jess said. “We’re all getting along, remember?”

  Hands in his pockets and staring at his shoes, Campbell muttered, “It didn’t feel like it while I was eating cat food.”

  My cheeks warmed. Viv’s rite for him had been brutal. I opened my mouth to assure Campbell there’d be nothing like that again. But I couldn’t promise anything. Not without talking to my friends first and trying to add rules where none existed. Not without forcing the issue with Viv, who I assumed wanted the secret rites to get revenge on Amanda.

  Amanda had been oddly quiet, mouth twisting as her eyes ping-ponged around. She committed to a smile and damage control. “So, guys. What’s next? Because we all really, really want to do more. It’s next-level shit.”

  The courtyard was increasingly crowded.

  “The next get-together,” Graham’s cautious whisper came, “is Thursday night—early Friday morning, really.”

  “Thursday. Thursday,” Amanda said, like the promise of a new rebellion tasted delicious.

  It was easy to track our initiates in the throng of students after the bell rang. They were all wearing at least one article of white clothing. It could have been coincidence. Or compulsion, the Order worming its way into their brains.

  “Jesus. Harry’s got it bad,” Viv was saying.

  I asked with my eyes.

  “The protective boyfriend routine. Made him way hotter,” she answered.

  “I think it was more about hating Conner than sticking up for me.”

  She brushed her cheek to mine. “You’re cute and naive. Later, gator.”

  The aspirin wore off too fast. I wore my hoodie until third period, when being in class with Viv, Jess, Conner, and Trent emboldened me. So what if someone saw a Band-Aid on my palm? The police probably weren’t even looking for a girl as their suspect, let alone a girl who was a solid student, seemingly docile, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  Harry’s coverage hit the news blog that period. Our peers weren’t usually abuzz over our student news organization, but given the strange events and the silence from the adult-run newspaper in Seven Hills, I got the impression kids had been hitting refresh on the blog’s homepage all morning.

  Harry was clever. Through the guise of sharing facts, he gently directed the reader in the direction we wanted. A graphic inset in the text was made up of thirty-six smaller pictures, the driveways of every house on Driftwood painted with a red bird, wings splayed. All those pictures, little tiles in one big square, took your breath away.

  Harry quoted an anonymous source who lived on the street:

  “That bird symbol means something to people who live on this block. It makes us think of dark times. It’s identical to the way those bird skeletons were found, wings wide open, by the archeologists on the Marlo property years back. That poor dead girl found in the same area was also staged with her arms wide open, rocks and her T-shirt cut to look like wings. Poor thing. The authorities never even could give her a name. Doesn’t take a genius to see someone wants to dredge her murder up.”

  Apparently Harry had spent the first two periods of the day collecting comme
nts from the student body. There were those who called IV a vigilante, others a badass, and a few who wondered what they’d pull next. Harry’s finishing lines cut to the quick: This journalist, for one, sees a clear connection between the actions taken by IV and the unsolved case of Jane Doe’s death. Someone is angry and it appears to be over a cravenly negligent investigation and the unsolved death of a young woman in Seven Hills.

  At lunchtime there was a current of what-the-hell running through the student body. For the first time ever, I overheard snippets of conversation, kids asking details of the unsolved murder and guessing at how IV was connected.

  We met to eat in the courtyard again.

  Harry said, “I’ve been assigned a follow-up piece.” He reached up from the ampitheater riser below me and touched my wrist. “Your hand still okay?”

  I waved off his concern. “Tell us about the follow-up.”

  Harry glanced over his shoulder at the kids eating on the riser below him. Their backs were to us, but still. Curiosity was at a fever pitch. “The perp—IV—broke Lorin Yu’s living-room window. Lorin found the brick that did it, and get this: there was a letter rubber banded to it. Lorin took a picture of it. Sent it to friends and one of those friends brought it to Ms. Hendricks. The cops took the original from the Yus and told them to keep quiet about it—ongoing investigation. Hendricks called the police for a quote. They denied the letter exists. She’s suspicious. I’m interviewing Lorin about the letter and trying find out if anyone else received them. She wants me to start with the houses that have broken windows. She says that given the content of the letter, it’s significant that some houses have worse damage than others.”

  “Fascinating,” Graham said.

  Viv, picture of nonchalance as she tamed the wisps of hair blown into her eyes, said, “Why would the cops want to keep the mysterious letter a secret?”

  No one expected for any of the letters’ recipients to do anything but throw the letters away. Hide their crimes. But why had the cops done it?