href="#litres_trial_promo">Chapter 41
Prologue
You know the feeling you get when you’re on the subway. Or a bus. Coffeehouse. Anyplace where people hang out. You’re texting, or cramming the rest of your homework, when suddenly you feel…something. Back of the neck prickle, goose bumps all over your arms.
You glance up—and there he is. Some cretin, pupils burning, staring at you like he’s got X-ray vision. Ripping through your clothes. Bra, panties—whatever turns the creep on. He catches your eye—that’s what he’s hoping to do—and then he does something gross. Draws his tongue over his lips, makes some crude smacking sound, gives a lewd wink. Immediately, you look down, pretending you haven’t seen anything.
But you know he knows.…
That’s exactly what’s happening. The sick feeling that someone’s staring at me. Only I’m not on the subway. Or the bus. Or even a park bench.
I’m in my bedroom. Alone.
Chapter 1
“Question of the day,” Jacy says. “What’s the worst thing that could happen to you?”
Jeremy Carl Strode, aka Jacy, settles beside me on the worn marble stoop of the brick building we both call home. Jacy and his parents live on the fifth floor; Mom and I have the apartment above them.
“Alicia!” His bony elbow pokes me. Jacy’s wearing the vintage AC/DC tee I gave him for his sixteenth birthday and a pair of ripped jeans. Knowing him, he’s probably got on zero underwear because of the August heat wave.
“I heard you,” I say. “Are you talking about school next year or, like, life?”
“Anything.”
I fan my orange tank top over my stomach. “Is this for the Gazette?”
Just before classes ended in June, Jacy was named features editor at WiHi, our neighborhood public school officially known as Washington Irving High. He’s in line for editor-in-chief when we’re seniors if he can keep his father, “Mr. Go to MIT and Be An Engineer,” out of his mop of curly hair.
“Let me think,” I say.
“That’ll take a while.”
“Not everyone aces Calc in tenth, genius-man.”
Jacy ducks his head in embarrassment and checks his cell. “Better get going if you want to show up to work on time.”
In June, I’d scored a job at Moving Arts, the studio where I study dance. The sweetest part is that I can take as many classes as I want for free.
Halfway down the steps, Jacy trips and slides the rest of the way on his butt. My laugh cuts through the muggy air.
“Glad I amuse you,” he mutters.
“All the time.”
I give him a hand up and we head north past midsize apartment buildings, neat brownstones and the ethnic restaurants that, according to my mother, give the Heights its charm. Air-conditioned cars glide down the street, although the sidewalk is empty. The smell of garbage baking in metal cans is enough to cause the fainthearted to, well, faint.
“Got it!” I pull a rubber band from my messenger bag and twist my long, wavy hair into a ponytail. “Worst thing—it’s the spring concert and the auditorium is sold-out. There’s a scout from Merce Cunningham’s company. I’m doing, like, fifteen pas de bourrée—” I demonstrate the step-side, cross-back, step-side move “—and then I trip. Not just a stumble but a humongous slip. The next thing you know, I’m sprawled facedown across the stage. God, how humiliating is that?”
The audience laughs. Samantha Warren gives a snarky smile as she completes her set of perfect pas de bourrée. I try desperately, awkwardly, to catch up to the count, knowing my entire career-to-be is ruined—
“I knew you’d say something like that.” Jacy sounds triumphant. “You always think you’re going to tank a performance.”
“I could easily blow a dance!”
“Not ever!” Jacy insists.
Pleased, I coat my lips with French Vanilla ChapStick. We’ve reached the intersection of Clinton and Montague. Clothing boutiques, Trinity Church and upscale art galleries line the sidewalks. Moving Arts Dance Studio stands across the avenue, west of the subway entrance.
“What’s your worst nightmare?” I ask.
No answer. Instead, Jacy steps off the curb—and that’s when I see it. Without a doubt, he could do the math: If an SUV travels at forty miles an hour and an idiot steps directly into its path, it would take X seconds to smash said idiot’s brains—
My arm shoots out. Desperate fingers pull his tee. “Watch out!”
A horn blares. Tires squeal. Jacy falls into the gutter with barely an inch to spare.
“Omigod!” I breathe. “Do you have any idea how close you came to roadkill?” He grins as he stands. “Don’t laugh, Strode. It’s, like, the third time you’ve done that since school let out!”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry?” I jerk him around so he has no choice but to stare directly into my eyes.
“I didn’t see the car,” he mumbles. “It came down the street really fast.”
“Not that fast. I saw it.”
“So you’re Superman with X-ray eyes and I’m not.”
“Don’t be a jerk,” I say.
“I have to be someplace, and you’re late.” He makes a show of looking both ways. “Is it safe to cross now, Mommy dearest?”
I stare at him, and he actually waits for me to nod before stomping off toward the subway.
Now, how does that work?
Jacy’s the one who does something stupid and I get snapped at. But that isn’t the only thing that pisses me off. We’ve been together more than fifteen minutes, and he didn’t bother to mention he’s meeting someone.
