Mason’s better idea involved the fifty yard line of the high school stadium, a full bottle of Smirnoff, and a Ziploc bag of nubby joints. Ava balked at the tunnel that led out onto the field, hating every single part of this. But Mason smirked at her and said, “Maybe you people aren’t that outlaw after all.” Wanting to punch him in the throat, wanting to punch Mercy in the throat for giving her the need to fling herself away from all that was comfortable and into the arms of this strange “normal,” she followed the others out onto the turf.
It was a Thursday night, which meant no games, which meant the stadium was bathed in darkness. The girls had pocket-sized flashlights that they clicked on and set up in a small circle. The light ringed them in angled cones across the grass, its dull green the only color in their underwater world of blue and gray and glowing white lines that marked off the yardage, even in the dark like this. Ava didn’t like the way she couldn’t see much of anything; she didn’t like the idea of Jerry the live-in janitor finding them out here.
But she was the one who’d continued to tag along. If the night went badly for her, it would be her own fault.
She sat cross-legged between Carter and Beau. Beau smelled like he’d borrowed his grandfather’s aftershave. Mason lit the first joint and passed it to Ainsley. He took the first swig off the Smirnoff. Ava didn’t want to touch the places the others’ mouths had touched.
Megan screwed up her face and said, “So, are you two, like, going out or something?”
“No,” Ava said quickly.
Carter glanced at her, hurt flickering across his features.
“I mean…” There was no way to soften it. “No, we’re not. We’re just friends.”
“Um, not to be rude,” Ainsley said, and Ava bit down hard on a laugh. “But, like, why are you even here?”
“Because Carter invited me.” She kept her personal reasons to herself.
Ainsley rolled her eyes and shot Carter a murderous glare. It was no small secret Ainsley had wanted to get her claws into the quarterback for a while now. She slept with Mason in the clumsy way of entitled teens who thought maturity was bound up in sexuality somehow, but Carter was the prize she was truly after.
Then, because Ainsley couldn’t hold onto any thought for long – not even hatred – she glanced over at Megan and said, “Oh my God, did you see what Rebecca was wearing?”
Ava accepted the joint as it reached her and passed it along to Carter. She had no idea what these morons had rolled and she wasn’t going to find out.
Mason noticed; his laughter cut through the dark and he didn’t attempt to squelch it. He was Mason Stephens’ son, damn it, and he could bray like a donkey while trespassing if he wanted to.
“Seriously, Teague – you dress like that, you’re a fucking biker chick, and you’re gonna puss out over a little dope?”
“Stop talking to her like that–” Carter began, as the two girls snickered into their hands.
Ava held up a hand to stop him. “I’m the sister of the biggest asshole I’ve ever met,” she said to him in a stage aside, “I can handle this little shitstain.”
“Oh!” Beau said like he thought a real fight might break out, and he was excited about it. “Dude!”
Mason inhaled, ready to return fire, but Ava beat him to it.
“Yes, Mason, I called you a shitstain. Because that’s the nicest thing I can think to call you. And yes, before you say it, I know exactly who you are. You’re the pain in the ass son of a pain in the ass man, and you’re the sadist who’s tried at every turn to crush me under your penny loafer just because it’s fun to verbally assault a girl. Well, this just in to the news desk, dumbass, you don’t scare me. You cannot peer pressure me. You are nothing to me, and I hope you crash your car into a telephone pole the second you leave here.”
And with that she stood, kicking herself for having allowed the night to go this far.
“You can’t talk to him like that!” Ainsley said.
“Um, pretty sure I just did. And I, like, totally can do it to you too.”
Ainsley gasped, at least smart enough to know she was being mocked. “Mason! Mason.”
Mason, as per maddening usual, was unaffected. “Let her go,” he said as Ava turned to leave.
“Ava,” Carter said as he scrambled to his feet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think…”
“She can explain to the cops,” Mason continued, “how her daddy Dog sold me these.”
When she turned – and oh, how she hated to give him that much satisfaction – she saw that he’d picked up one of the flashlights and was shining it on an upheld baggie, not the one with the joints, but a different one, one full of what looked like SweeTarts.
“Sorry.” She folded her arms and tried to look confident. “Dad doesn’t sell candy. But I can get you a deal on an oil change if you want.”
“Oh, I bet you could.” He grinned as he set the flashlight on the ground and the baggie opened with a crackle of the seal. “But right now, it’s all about this. And the beauty of this, Teague, is that when I get home, and my pupils are big as baseballs, my dad’s gonna take me to the ER and have a tox screen run on my blood. And when he asks me where I got this, I’m gonna tell him the truth. I bought it from your old man.
“And then,” he went on, gleefully, “the police will come batter your door down in the middle of the night, and they’ll dig through all your closets; go through the drawers and throw your mom’s thongs all over the floor. They’ll find your illegal guns and drugs and they’ll arrest your parents.”
Ava swallowed and felt her throat get stuck together. “You didn’t get that from Dad,” she insisted.
Mason’s teeth flashed in the night as he grinned. “You wanna see my receipt?” He fished into the baggie and came out with two of the tablets; their bright colors seemed fluorescent.
“The Lean Dogs,” Ava said, forcing her voice to be loud, strong, clear. “Don’t sell drugs. End of story, Mason. Just shut up about it.” But inside, she could already envision the house raid, the police in riot gear, her mother fuming at them as she was manhandled out to the curb.
Mason chuckled. “Keep telling yourself that.” And he deposited both tablets on his tongue and closed his mouth over them.
“Jesus Christ, Mason,” Carter groaned. “What are you doing, man?”
“Is it any good?” Beau asked. “Can you feel it yet? I want one.”
“Do you even know what you just put into your mouth?” Ava asked, fear crawling down the back of her neck. “It could be lye, for all you know.”
“What?” Megan asked. “Did your dad sell him lye?”
“No,” Ava said through her teeth. “My dad didn’t sell him–”
Mason went stiff. Ava saw the way his arms snapped to his sides, the way his spine went rigid and his muscles clamped together. Like a marionette, he drew up totally straight, totally still.
“Mason,” she said. “Shit–”
And then he fell to the ground, in the grips of a full-on seizure.
“Mason!” Ainsley screamed.
“Get him on his side,” Ava said as she tried to move toward him. “On his side, hurry!”
Beau reached him first and complied, rolling his friend over. Mason’s arms flailed and his legs kicked and he made a freakish grunting sound.
“He’s got foam coming out of his mouth!” Beau shouted. “Oh, shit! Shit, shit, shit!”
“Here.” Ava moved in to help…
And was tackled backward. Her head thumped the turf and the air was forced from her lungs as she made impact.
It was Ainsley, her perfect nails going for Ava’s face. “What did you do to him, you bitch?”
Okay, that was it. That was fucking it.
Ainsley may have been a cheerleader, may have been athletic, may have been half-drunk and fueled by rage. But her anger had nothing on that which lived in Ava’s DNA. And she hadn’t been raised by an army boxer-turned-outlaw-biker and a teenage mother with a mean right hoo
k. Ainsley wasn’t in love with a man who tortured for a living.
Ava brought her knee up in one swift move and caught Ainsley just beneath the ribs, knocking the breath out of her. She heaved at both the other girl’s shoulders and sent her sprawling backward. By the time Ainsley got her legs under her – she was swearing and screaming and sobbing, as Carter and Beau yelled at Mason, asking if he could hear them – Ava was on her feet and ready.
“You bitch!” Ainsley screeched. “What did you do?!”
Ava ducked Ainsley’s clumsy slap and popped back up, fists raised. It wasn’t a left jab, but her mama’s hook she threw at the blonde’s face full-force. Ainsley’s nose crunched. Blood spewed on impact. Ainsley screamed again and dropped to the ground, clutching her face.
“I didn’t do anything to him,” Ava spat, rolling her shoulder; she’d almost thrown it out of the socket with that punch. “He did it do his fucking self.”
She glanced over at Megan, who seemed to have no idea if she should be crying, helping her friend, or running for her life. “Call nine-one-one,” Ava said. “If you’re even capable.”
Someone, probably Jerry the live-in janitor, cut on the stadium lights with a deafening whump – hummmmm. And the night was flooded with white light. Ava closed her eyes against the assault, and the tears she refused to shed.
“So help me God, if I don’t get to see my daughter…”
The interview room door closed, sealing off Maggie’s squad room tirade.
“We’ll let her know you’re okay in a minute,” Officer Fielding said as he returned to the table and took his seat opposite Ava. “For right now, let’s just you and me talk.”
They were in the cushy interview room, the one that made you feel a little less criminal. But Ava could see the judgment lurking behind the cop’s façade. He was a longtime acquaintance, never a friend. He’d gone to school with Maggie, had even, if the rumored whispers were true, carried a bit of a torch for her. He was a pleasant-looking man, fit and unremarkable; his brown eyes carried a professional amount of sympathy at all times. His uniform was always spotless, his belt and tie straight. Ava would never forgive him for the time he’d come to visit them in the hospital when Aidan broke his arm falling off his dirt bike at fourteen and Fielding asked Aidan if it had truly been an accident, or if Ghost was to blame for the injury. He thought they were scum, the lot of them, and no amount of understanding nods and soothing platitudes could win Ava over.
“Officer Fielding, I’m seventeen,” she said, folding her arms. “You can’t talk to me without a parent present.”
He twitched a humorless smile. “I was hoping you wouldn’t know that. Then again, you weren’t brought up by your average soccer mom, were you?”
“No, sir.”
He sighed. “Look, Ava, you aren’t under arrest. This is off the record. I just want to hear your version of things. I’ve got all those other parents breathing down the department’s neck, and I need to be able to advise your school on your punishment.”
“Punishment?” She felt her spine draw up tight. Fear flooded through her veins. She was applying for a scholarship. There was a good chance, given her grades, she could earn an almost full ride to UT. Any sort of school disciplinary action would sully her record.
“You broke Ainsley’s Millcott’s nose,” he said. “Yeah, there’s gonna be consequences for that.”
Ava bit down hard on what she wanted to say. She was learning, the older she grew, that she’d inherited a mean cocktail of both her parents’ tempers. Calmly, she said, “Not to sound like a five-year-old, but Ainsley started it. I’ve got the grass stains on the back of my jacket to prove it.” She lifted her hoodie off the back of the chair to demonstrate the streaks of green the turf had left.
Fielding’s face colored and he glanced away from her. He was good at being a cop, and bad at being a human, awkward and uncomfortable with women, always. “Ainsley claims you got those stains doing something very different.”
Anger boiled in her gut. “I’m sure she did, but you can call my doctor in right now and we’ll do a pelvic exam to prove that’s not true.”
Fielding turned vermillion.
“Ainsley took a swing at me, Officer Fielding. It’s what she does. She’s a bitch. And she bats her lashes at the boys to get away with it. She hit first, but she’s not very good at it, and I ducked. I hit back – to defend myself. I’ve got a right to do that.”
A fraction of his composure returned as he straightened the cuffs of his uniform shirt. “That’s not true, actually. Your school has a zero tolerance policy against violence, Ava. And in this case, the violence occurred on school property. Anyone participating in a fight earns ten days out of school suspension, no exceptions.”
“Ten!–” She ground her teeth together and fought the onslaught of furious panic.
Then a horrific thought struck her. “Ainsley – she’s getting the ten days, too?”
Fielding glanced down at his hands. He’d brought a pad and pen into the room, but so far hadn’t written a thing. True to his word, if nothing else: this was off the record.
“She’s not, is she?”
“Ainsley has a broken nose and two black eyes. She sprained her ankle during her fall,” Fielding said, voice heavy with apology. “You don’t have a mark on you, and Megan Anderson swears you were the only aggressor.”
She clenched her hands until her nails cut crescents into her palms. “What about the zero tolerance policy?”
“I didn’t make it and I don’t enforce it. You’ll have to take it up with the school.” He shrugged, helplessly.
Ava sat back in her chair, all the fight knocked out of her. Her future, her college career, her dreams of writing – all smashed and bloody, like Ainsley’s nose, just because she’d been stupid and heartsick and had wanted to try and be normal for just one night.
She stared at the far wall and let her eyes lose focus. “What happened to Mason?” He’d still been flopping like a landed fish when they’d loaded him in the ambulance.
Fielding said, in a low, sympathetic voice, “I know you weren’t involved with that. Mason’s been caught with drugs more than once.”
“Yeah, but what happened to him?”
He sighed. “He had a grand mal seizure, but I guess you saw that. He should be okay, but the docs have him under close observation.”
“Dad didn’t sell him that stuff,” she said, unable to put any of her worry into her voice. She’d reached the overload point for the night.
“Just let me worry about that.”
She nodded, studying the way her blurred vision turned the aerial photo of Neyland Stadium on the far wall into a happy blob of orange and green. “Do I need to give you an official statement?”
“Yes.”
“Go get my mom, please. I won’t say anything without her.”
He rose to fetch Maggie, and as the door opened, Maggie’s tirade of, “…have all your badges!” ended as she caught sight of Fielding. “About time!”
Ava sat, wooden, as her mother entered the room and draped an arm across her shoulders, hugged her tight and whispered in her ear that everything would be fine, and that she hoped she hit that bitch Ainsley with all she had. Don’t worry, Fielding assured, Ainsley had a badly broken nose. Maggie thought that was fantastic as she settled into the offered chair and informed the officer that her daughter was in no way a criminal.
Ava recited the night’s events, her voice flat and lifeless. She didn’t name-call. She didn’t rat Carter out. Only the facts, straight and to-the-point.
After, she ignored Fielding’s condolences and trooped from the room without acknowledging him. Maggie followed in more boisterous fashion, telling Fielding they would be fighting the school’s decision, that she expected the PD to reinforce Ava’s story that she hadn’t been the one to start the fight. She roped an arm around Ava’s waist and steered her from the squad room to the lobby, where Ghost waited, hands on his hips, looking pissed-off
in his usual, composed fashion.
Ava ducked her head, not wanting to meet his gaze.
“Hey,” he said, lifting her chin with a knuckle. His tan, lined face was fiercely attentive. “Did you hit the bitch hard?”
Ava took a shaky breath. “I broke her nose.”
“Did she hurt you?”
“Not even a little bit.”
A scant, fast smile graced his mouth. “Good girl.” He kissed her forehead. “Go wait out front and your mom and I’ll be out in a sec.”
Maggie kissed the side of her head. “Love you, sweetie.”
She was glad to get away from them, and step outside in the cool, covering dark of night. She folded her arms against the chill and moved to stand at the top of the precinct steps, staring across the lamppost-studded street toward the benighted city.
She should have known she wasn’t alone. But in her current rattled state, it took a full four seconds before she detected the presence of a tall shadow propped against one of the pillars of the low stone wall, watching her.
She knew it was Mercy before he said, “TKO in round one. I’m impressed.” And stepped into the light.
He’d put a black hooded sweatshirt on over his sleeveless tee, under his cut, and it made him look taller, bigger, darker and more sinister. Ava’s heart fluttered, shaking off its funk and making itself known. I want him, her heart said. I want whatever he’s willing to give. Pathetic. But the truth was, after the night she’d had, there was no one she would rather see. She craved the comfort of his big arm and the familiar smell of his sweatshirt, like when she’d been a little girl and cuddled up beside him.
“I got ten days OSS,” she said, glumly, “don’t be impressed with that.” She sat down on the top step and hugged herself, the breeze playing with her hair.
Mercy moved to sit beside her, his knees jacked up by his long legs, his shadow enveloping her. He sat too close – closer than a single man should have sat beside a single girl and still tried to pretend things were just friendly. He’d been that close to her for years, but suddenly, it wasn’t appropriate anymore, not when she wanted him even closer.
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