Thunder Road: Walk The Edge Part 5

"Maybe next time you won't call me names." I shove a gla.s.s harder than I should into the top rack and it clanks against the others. If I were at private school, I'd be eating c.r.a.ppy cafeteria food that I didn't cook and didn't have to clean up and I wouldn't be arguing with the demon child. That is my version of heaven.

The pure hate radiating from his glare bothers me more than I wish it would. Back when he had the baby fat and dimples, I was his favorite.

"Do you know why we call her Encyclopedia-freak?" he taunts me by asking Addison.

Because that's what Clara calls me? I'm five foot six and right now I'm feeling two feet tall. I watch the water falling out the faucet and hold a plate in my hand. Addison's heard them call me the name. She knows bits and pieces of how my mind works and she's also aware of how it makes me feel so...different.

"What's the capital of Russia?" he says.

Moscow. Population of Russia: 143,025,000. Area: 6,592,850 square miles.

"Look at the freak go," Paul sings. "Her eyes dart when she's listing facts in her messed-up head, but she acts like she ain't weird."

A lump forms in my throat. Paul gives everyone a hard time, but with Clara home for the summer, it's middle school on repeat.

I slam the plate into the bottom rack. "Go take a shower or I'll tell Mom you didn't come straight home from school today."

He mumbles something not twelve-year-old appropriate, but he leaves. I hold on to the counter with both hands. This is the reason why I keep my little Jedi mind tricks to myself.

"Don't let him get to you," Addison offers. "He's an evil troll that will never get a date when he hits high school."

"He makes me feel like I'm reliving bad stuff."

"We aren't in middle school anymore," Addison says in a soft tone.

"I know."

"Sometimes I don't think you do." But she moves on before I can answer. "Jesse is following me again."

This is the reason we're friends-she doesn't dwell. Like when I told her Mom and Dad nixed my plans to leave. She shrugged an "I'm sorry" and then she painted my nails.

I continue with the dishes and run the spaghetti-sauce-stained bowl through the warm water. "I'm lost. Are we happy or sad or annoyed over this?"

It's Thursday and tomorrow is the first day of school. It's weird to start on a Friday, but the district thought that we, the high school students, would be better readjusted into the school year with this schedule. Because of this, Addison and I are completing our night-before-school-begins ritual of freaking out. This year, our worries about how the year will go are complicated by Addison's on-again, off-again boyfriend, Jesse, and their social media drama.

He unfollows her. She unfollows him back. He posts a picture of him and another girl and tags Addison. She cries. He follows her again, then tags her in some heartfelt message of how he's sorry. I was over it from the moment he unfollowed her.

Addison wrinkles her nose. "I don't know. I'm not sure I want to get back together."

"Then don't."

She sighs, and her pain is so palpable there's an ache within me. I'm not sure she liked being with Jesse as much as she liked that Jesse whisked her away from her house. Whenever, to wherever, with no questions asked.

There's a fresh bruise on her forearm that I'd bet is retaliation for my family forgetting us. I focus on how the water washes the crumbs from a plate. "Did your dad do that?"

"How is it possible that every time I visit there are a million dishes stacked up and you're forever doing them? It's like we're living in some strange sci-fi movie and your life is on an endless loop."

She switches subjects and I let her. Addison's mom won't leave her father or throw him out and Addison won't call the police because she's terrified they'll put her and her sister in foster care. Doesn't help that none of her relatives are willing to help. In other words, Addison's stuck.

"Look at me," Addison says.

I do and she snaps a photo from less than a foot away.

Her lips tilt up in a mischievous way. "Perfect."

"For what?"

"Your profile picture." She flips my cell to me and the blood drains out of my face when I spot my name, my age, my info and my picture.

Addison and I have had several intense conversations involving opening an account for me on Bragger. I agreed to it when she explained how people use social media to impress colleges and universities. She showed me articles on how colleges were dazzled when prospective students worked what the colleges shared on social media into their essays and when the students could make intelligent conversation online. And emotionally, I agreed that maybe this could help in my quest to break out of my sh.e.l.l. But now that it's here and I'm deciphering the hundreds of ways this could go wrong...

I lunge for the phone and she's off the counter and on the other side of the breakfast island before I can reach her. We stand on either side and each time I inch one way, she edges in the opposite direction.

"You're the one that said you wanted to be noticed," she says. "Bragger's a community of people. You can post pictures or something short, something long, something funny, something insightful, and then people like and comment. Whatever your little heart desires. The main point being, you will be interacting with other humans. If you want out of the box you hide in, then you need to crack open the flaps and bask in some sunlight."

"Remember when we decided my wardrobe change was going to help?" I counter. "The result of that experiment was Kyle Hewitt trying to con me into writing his papers. Change is overrated and my box is comfy."

"You told me all summer that you feel cramped in the box." She's right. I did say that. "You're suffocating and I'm tired of watching you turn blue. This isn't middle school anymore. People have matured. If you be yourself around everyone else, they'll love you like I do."

My heart pounds hard, but I pause because what she's saying is what I want. For once in my life, I'd love to be myself around everyone else and be accepted for who I am instead of staying silent for fear of people mocking me.

Maintaining eye contact with me, Addison raises my phone and pushes Save.

The door to the living room swings open and my younger brother Joshua enters. He wanders over to us and his eyes flicker between us as Addison and I continue to stare at each other in recognition of how huge this moment is for me.

"What's going on?" he asks.

"Congratulate your sister," says Addison. "She's on Bragger."

RAZOR.

IT'S A HUMID NIGHT. The day was so hot the air smells of melting blacktop. Bugs fly near the town's light posts and the promise of violence is so thick I can taste it. Chevy swings off his bike and straightens to his full six feet. His p.i.s.sed-off glare could shatter the diner's window.

Since I arrived home last night to Dad's broken promise, I've been itching for a release. A scan of the diner and I catch up on why Chevy nine-one-one'd me and Oz. Never thought I'd be happy to see Chevy's ex-girl, Violet, locked in a kiss in the corner booth with the town's biggest a.s.shole, but G.o.d does work in mysterious ways.

Oz's big black Harley rumbles up next to me. He kills the engine and his head is that of an owl as he swings his gaze between us and Violet's public display. A crowd of guys from school are hanging in the diner. They eat and shoot the breeze as the guy shoving his tongue down Violet's throat begins to move his hand near the hem of her shirt.

"s.h.i.t." Oz verbalizes how deep we are in this minefield. People are automatically scared of Oz, with that unruly black hair and don't-f.u.c.k-with-me att.i.tude. Now that he officially has the three-piece patch of the Terror on his back, people fall over themselves to get out of his way.

He flips me the bird and I flip it back. Not ready for Dad's father-son talk, I went fishing at the Pond with Oz. Chevy texted a few minutes ago he needed backup, and Oz and I raced to town. I cut Oz off near the railroad tracks and he's p.i.s.sed I beat him on my pieced-together bike.

"We doing this?" Oz asks Chevy as he sidles up to the two of us.

Chevy's dark eyes harden into an answer. He's one hundred percent a McKinley. Chestnut hair, brown eyes, tall as h.e.l.l and a mean b.a.s.t.a.r.d when he chooses to be. Even at seventeen, his personality mirrors that of his grandfather and uncle-the two most powerful guys in the Terror. Each of them are laid-back, easy to talk to, but if you push their b.u.t.ton wrong, they'll hurl you through a concrete wall.

"There's six of them," I state. And three of us. I thrive off those odds. "Two of those guys in there were some of the ones that stood back and watched when that a.s.shole beat up Stone last year. I still believe a lesson should have been taught to them all." Not just to the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who we made cry when he picked on a kid four years younger.

Stone is the fourteen-year-old and awkward-as-h.e.l.l kid brother of the girl currently giving us heartburn. Stone and Violet's dad belonged to the club and died in an accident a little over a year ago. Club takes care of their family now, but Violet's gone rogue, alienating anyone from the Terror, even us-the guys who have grown up with her since birth.

"Should I mention hanging with them is Violet's choice?" Oz asks. I level my glare on him. I want this action and logic could kill my one possibility of throwing a punch.

"Was that picture put on Bragger Violet's choice?" Chevy spits.

There's a d.a.m.n account set up on that nonsense Bragger site called Snowflake s.l.u.ts. A couple weeks ago someone posted a compromising picture of Violet. Oz and Chevy confronted her on it and she laughed it off, claiming it didn't bother her. But then she showed at my house later that night trashed and crying to the point I couldn't understand her.

That's a lie. She did make it clear she would never speak to me again if I sought revenge on the a.s.shole who posted the pic or ran the account.

f.u.c.ked-up part-none of us can prove who posted the pic, and because I'd prefer for Violet to come to me when she's in trouble, I haven't tried too hard to figure out who's responsible. But my gaze wanders into the diner again and it lands on the group inside.

I've heard rumors. Noticed the way girls targeted on the account look at those guys like they've stolen a part of their soul. As far as I'm concerned, that's judge, jury and verdict.

"That's our family in there being mauled by the biggest jacka.s.s we know," Chevy argues with Oz. "You think he respects her? You think he has her best interests in mind?"

"You think beating the h.e.l.l out of them is going to make her like us again?"

"No." Even I notice the chill in the air a.s.sociated with my voice. "But it will keep them from touching her. You graduated this spring, Oz, and the burden to protect anyone in school a.s.sociated with the Terror falls hard on me and Chevy. She thinks she can blend in with this crowd at school, but we all know how this is going to end. We need to prove a point."

Violet eases back from her public display of torture and her face pales against her red hair when she spots us. Not really us. Chevy. She used to be in love with Chevy. Still is in love from what I gather, but she blames the Terror for her dad's death. Though Chevy can't patch in until he's eighteen, he's Terror to his bones. He won't walk from the club. Not even for her.

Violet stands. The guys in the diner all look out the window, and one by one they cast down their eyes. Like most everyone else in the town, they'll talk s.h.i.t about us, but they won't back up anything they have to say with action.

Chevy mutters a curse and pivots away like he's going to vomit. He lowers his head as he scrubs his face. "I can't keep doing this."

"Then don't," comes a familiar feminine voice. Violet sways by the door to the diner. I notice her lack of balance, and by the subtle way Oz readjusts his feet as if he's readying to spring toward her, so does he. She rubs her bloodshot eyes, then glances at her parked car.

Great, she's drunk and/or high. Night before school, too. This year's going to suck.

"We won't let you drive home." There's a sharpness in Oz's tone. Even when we were tight, Oz and Violet tore into each other. Violet claimed it boiled down to hair color-her fire-red hair and temper and Oz's black hair and att.i.tude to match.

They've always fought because Violet pretends she's in control. Oz is the one in charge, Violet was our glue, Chevy's the follower, and me? I don't follow and I've never cared enough about leading to challenge Oz for the role. I exist.

Violet rolls her shoulders like she's preparing to attack. "Are you guys stalking me?"

"I wanted food." Chevy keeps his back to her. "Just some f.u.c.king food."

"We're going to get you home," Oz informs Violet.

Her hands wave in a huge, unbalanced way. "No. No way. I'm staying. You don't have any say over me. The Terror doesn't-"

"Violet," I cut her off. I may not be vocal about every d.a.m.n thing, but I understand Oz's anger and Chevy's pain. There's only so much of her mouthing off even I can stomach.

Her eyes meet mine. I've protected her secret like she's asked. I've broken Terror code by withholding the fact that she's shown at my house in trouble. But sometimes, we all have our secrets to keep. I've done this for her. She can shut up and let someone take her home for me.

"I'll do it," Chevy says. "I'll get her home."

Lines form between her eyebrows. The idea of being alone with Chevy clearly rams a stake through her heart. But as Chevy starts for her car, because there's no way she can hold on to him to ride his bike, Violet trails after him-swerving.

"I'll get Eli's truck," Oz says. Eli's the father of the girl Oz is dating. He's also a board member. "Then I'll pick Chevy up."

I nod. Not much else to say to that. We watch as the taillights of Violet's rusted Chevelle pull away. "We could still do it," I say. "Beat the s.h.i.t out of those guys."

Because truth be told, there's this slow burn that's peeling away at my insides. The edginess is getting harder and harder to control. First the detective, Breanna's family leaving her for dead at school, Mom on the brain, Dad's woman at the house, and now this s.h.i.t with Violet. Someone's got to pay for something. There can't be this much injustice in the world.

"I think one of them's behind that Bragger account." I'm dangling bait, praying Oz bites.

Oz gives me the once-over. "Do you have proof?"

I shove my hands into my jeans pockets and Oz shakes his head. "Then we can't make a move. Board told us we're frozen with the Bragger situation without proof and their approval."

"The board can kiss my a.s.s."

Oz stiffens. He's a club boy. I am, too, but I color outside the lines. The rumble of motorcycles interrupts his sure-to-be-well-thought-out lecture on how I need to conform.

Two bikes tear past, and it's not the speed at which they are flying through our town that causes my blood pressure to rise. It's the patch on the back of their cut. It ain't a skull, it's a reaper. The Riot are a long way from Louisville, and they are currently in our town.

Breanna "YOUR SISTER HAS officially joined civilization." Addison props an elbow on Joshua's shoulder, and because he's taller, her arm is angled up. Joshua stares at her like he died and went to heaven. He's sixteen and has been way too infatuated with my best friend for two months.

They look odd yet beautiful together. She's blond-haired and fair. Like me and Liam, Joshua also has black hair and is well tanned from summer.

Joshua clutches his heart. "I'm so proud. It seems like yesterday Bre was making up stories about being around the Reign of Terror. Oh, wait, it was yesterday."

Addison swats him on the back of the head, and when Joshua overly dramatizes his pain, she throws him a mock kiss as she walks over to me. She tosses my cell in the air. I catch it and sigh. Thomas just fixed it and, thanks to Addison, that cell was seconds away from breaking again. "How is it possible that I already have five followers?"

"I sent out an invite to everyone in your email contacts. You now have to wait and see if the rest of your contacts will actually follow."

My stomach rolls. Great. A popularity contest and my senior year hasn't even started yet. "I can delete the account, you know."

"You could," Addison responds. "But you won't. I know you've wanted on Bragger but have been hesitant to do it. Consider this your push."

"Why are we friends?"

"Because I'm pretty," she says to me, then c.o.c.ks an annoyed hip as she a.s.sesses Joshua. "That Reign of Terror stuff wasn't bull. We were terrified."

He eyes Addison in a way that suggests he's thinking things involving her that seriously gross me out. "You could have called me. I would have given you a ride."

I toss my arms out to my sides. "I asked for a ride! I texted, remember?"

"I said her, not you. Besides, Liam picked you up. FYI, I overheard Zac and Elsie conspiring to act like you don't exist again. That should make bedtime fun."

Pretending I don't exist. It's a fun game all my siblings have played on me. Liam started it when he was eight-mad we were forced to share a bike as a Christmas present. To this day, I'm not sure how he felt slighted. It was a boy bike.

"Then do me a favor," I say. "You give them baths and get them in bed. I've got dishes."

Joshua claims his keys from the hook by the door. "No can do. Mom called. She forgot her checkbook and told me to tell you to make sure they're in bed by the time she gets home."

"Ask Clara to get Mom."

He grimaces. "That would mean Clara would have to stop living in a dark room feeling sorry for herself. I don't do angst. You want her help, you ask for it."