Page 68 of Risking it All

“Want me there when you do?” Relic’s expression had that look to it, like he was offering to enter a brawl at school.

I toed the concrete. “Not at first, but they’ll want to meet you.”

“I’ve never met parents before, but I’ll do it. I can’t promise they’ll like me.”

I couldn’t promise they’d like him either. In fact, I had a sinking feeling my father was going to detest him. “Seth said you’re part of some gang.”

“Do you believe him?”

“No. But I also think your life is more complicated than yes or no answers.”

“That’s true,” he mumbled, then he gazed out over the empty lots as though he saw far more than the dirt and weeds. “My dad’s part of a crew, and I’m being heavily recruited, but I’m moving heaven, Earth, and hell to stay out.”

“The gang is why you want to leave town, isn’t it?”

He nodded, and his heaviness squeezed the air out of my lungs. I had one more question, and while I hated how this conversation brought him down, I deserved to know. “Is it possible the gang recruiting you…” I phrased it this way because I didn’t want to mention his father. “Could they be responsible for carjacking me?”

“No. I have close contacts I trust in the gang. Jacking cars aren’t on their radar. They make their money focusing on other endeavors.”

Other endeavors… I assumed that meant selling drugs. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t comprehend Relic’s world. Even if I wanted to use drugs, I wouldn’t even know how and where to score them. Before the carjacking, my biggest worry was how much playing time I would have on the volleyball court, or whether I was going to win student body president again. Now, all of that seemed trivial.

“The same contact is the one helping me identify the known people in other gangs actively stealing cars. He put a dot on the names of the possible people in your yearbook.”

I bent over as I unsuccessfully tried to breathe through the nausea. Relic gently rubbed my back as I waited for the dizzy spell to dissipate. Finally, I straightened, and Relic tucked a stray piece of my hair that had fallen out of my ponytail behind my ear.

“How am I going to do this?” I asked Relic in a plea. “How am I going to find who did this to me when my body revolts each and every time we barely talk about it?”

“You’re doing great.”

“I’m not,” I snapped. “We’re halfway through the summer. I need these people arrested before fall, and you need the money to leave. I’m failing you, and I’m failing me and—”

“Stop.” Relic slipped to stand in front of me. He cupped my face with his hands, his gaze catching mine. “Stop. You’re not failing anyone. You’re slaying this.”

I scoffed, but he continued, “You’re driving without panic.”

“A few blocks,” I muttered.

“You visited where you were carjacked.”

“Throwing up everywhere.”

“And you’re going to take this yearbook and look at these faces and see if anything rings any bells.”

“I didn’t see their faces.”

“But you saw something. All we’re trying to do is find the backdoor to your brain, the loophole that’ll give us one more clue.”

The tattoo.A whisper in my brain, a slight push as if maybe my mind was giving me permission to speak those words aloud. I had nightmares about that tattoo. Thought of it many a time, but that tattoo terrified me. Yet, that tattoo was a clue. A clue that could bring us one step closer.

Could I do it? Could I speak of the tattoo?

I froze, Relic noticed, and I breathed out slowly again as another wave of dizziness overtook me. As if doing so would help Relic to crawl up inside my brain and see what I saw, I extended my right arm and touched the skin above the wrist. My throat closed, I became hot and cold and clammy and sweaty, but I needed him to know this. I needed to find who had done this to me.

Needing air, needing space, needing to scream at my inability to speak, I stumbled away, but then forced myself to turn back to Relic. He watched me in confusion as I kept my right arm extended and kept gesturing at the skin of my forearm until I was smacking the area.

His head tilted as he understood I was playing the most screwed up game of charades. “You saw the exposed skin of one of their arms.”

I nodded furiously as I choked back a dry heave.

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