know.” He was calmer and happier now. Less intense than he’d been the night before. He’d obviously gotten plenty of sleep and backed off the caffeine.
“Thank you.” I stood on my toes for a mint-flavored kiss—a better kiss than what he usually got on school grounds—and only pulled back when shouting from the other end of the parking lot caught our attention.
Scott had just discovered his frost was missing.
“Come on.” Nash took off and I held my backpack strap in place while I raced after him. My boots clomped on the concrete as we tore past my loaner, Doug’s loaner, and dozens of other cars still parked in the lot. We had to be there to look surprised by Scott’s loss.
Doug and Emma were huddled together in the empty space to the left of Scott’s car, hands stuffed into their jacket pockets against the cold. Doug scowled, almost as angry as Scott over the loss. Next to him stood Brant Williams, who’d obviously been promised a sample, too. Other students watched all over the lot, curious but uninvolved.
And suddenly I was really glad we’d taken the balloon, in spite of the risk. This crowd was too big. How were we supposed to protect the entire school?
“Are you sure you brought it?” Doug tugged his duffel higher on his shoulder and his hand twitched around the strap.
“Hell, yes, I’m sure.” Scott punched the back of his front seat, which he’d folded forward for more room in the backseat. “I took a hit this morning before I got out of the car, then stuffed it in my gym bag. And now it’s gone.”
“What happened?” Nash asked as I wandered to the edge of the small crowd to stand with Emma. She tucked a long blond strand of hair behind one pierced ear, then shrugged to say she had no idea what was going on.
“Somebody broke into my car and stole my shit,” Scott snapped, and I wasn’t the only one surprised by the sharp edge of fury in his voice. Not just anger, or frustration, or disbelief. Scott’s words dripped with rage, laced with some dark, desperate need no one else seemed to understand. Not even Doug. But as his hand convulsed around the edge of the open car door, I understood.
Scott was going into withdrawal. For real. He wasn’t just itching for another hit—he was physically, psychologically, maybe even soulfully, addicted. He couldn’t function without frost now.
But that couldn’t be right. He’d only had one balloon, and it was still half-full. How could this happen so fast?
With that thought, a new fear twisted in my stomach. Had we made everything worse by taking the balloon? Harmony had said withdrawal could be just as deadly as Demon’s Breath itself… .
But what were we supposed to do, give the balloon back, with our blessings? Let him sink into insanity and brain damage, and possibly drag Sophie along for the ride?
“Dude, calm down,” Doug said, sniffling in the frigid wind, and I was relieved by the composed—if stuffy—quality of his voice. Somehow, though he’d been on frost longer than Scott and had taken more of it, he was obviously much less dependent on it. “Unless you want to explain to Coach what you’re yelling about.”
Scott only scowled and ducked into the backseat again, digging in the green-and-white duffel. But the volume of his anger and denial dropped low enough to avoid notice by the teachers monitoring the parking lot from near the west school entrance.
Nash dropped his bag at my feet, and I was impressed by how steady his cold-reddened hands were as he knelt to examine Scott’s driver’s side door, concentrating on the seal at the base of the window. “It doesn’t look like it was forced, but all that would take is a coat hanger or a slim jim …” He stood and wiped his hands on his jeans, then opened the door wider and fiddled with the automatic lock to demonstrate that it still worked. “There doesn’t seem to be any damage… .”
But Scott wasn’t listening. He was still digging in his bag, anger exaggerating his jerky movements, like he might somehow have overlooked a half-filled black latex balloon among the sweaty sports equipment.
I glanced around the lot for Sophie and found her watching with a couple of her dancer friends, all bundled up as they unloaded several gallons of paint and new brushes from Laura’s trunk. Presumably to be used on the booths for the Winter Carnival.
“What’s wrong with him?” Emma whispered, still staring at Scott’s breakdown. “He’s really freaking out.”
I shrugged and shoved my frozen hands into my pockets. “I guess frost is pretty hard to come by.”
Em huffed, and a white puff of her breath hung on the air. “What is it, anyway? Some kind of inhalant?”
“I don’t know.” I felt bad about lying to Emma, even if it was for her own good, so I compensated with a little bit of the truth. “But it’s not good, Em. Look what it’s doing to Scott.”
Scott’s anger simmered just shy of the boiling point. Fortunately, the small crowd had dispersed—all but the central players—and there weren’t many people left to watch as Doug and Nash tried to talk him down. Less than a minute later, their efforts failed.
“Screw this!” Scott threw his bag into the car, where it smacked the passenger’s side window, then tumbled to the floorboard. “I can’t be here right now.” He dropped into the driver’s seat and shoved his key into the ignition. Then he slammed the door and gunned his engine before taking off straight across the parking lot. Bright winter sunlight glinted on his rear fender as he raced between two parked cars, sending students scrambling out of his way.
Across the lot, the teachers on duty scowled and crossed their arms over their chests, but there was nothing they could do, except be grateful no one was hit. And possibly recommend that the principal suspend his parking pass.
With Scott gone, and Nash and Doug conferring softly in the space he’d just vacated, my gaze settled on Sophie, who now stood alone in front of her friend’s car, a bucket of paint hanging from each clenched fist. Her mouth hung open, her nose red from the cold, and I got a rare glimpse of pain and disappointment before she donned her usual arrogant scowl and marched across the lot in a pair of trendy flats, as if she couldn’t care less that her boyfriend had just bailed on his promise to her without a word.
And everyone knew it.
“YOU SURE SCOTT’S OKAY to drive?” I asked as Nash placed his palms flat against my temporary car, on either side of me. I was trapped, but willingly, deliciously so, and when he leaned in for a kiss, I stood on my toes to meet him.
“Yeah, he’s fine.” Nash’s mouth pressed briefly against mine, then he murmured his next sentence against my cheek, near my ear, which lent his words a tantalizing intimacy, in spite of the subject matter. “He’s pissed, not high.” Another kiss, this one a little longer and a lot deeper. “And I’ll check on him when we get done here.” He and Doug were going to stay and help the carnival committee, to honor their friend’s promise in his time of … withdrawal. “Call me when you get off work?”
I ran my hand up the cold leather sleeve of his jacket. “Yeah. My dad’s working late, and I think I might need help with my anatomy.”
Nash’s brows shot up. “You’re not taking anatomy.”
I grinned. “I know.”
The
