Page 75 of The Dare

“I did exactly what they told me,” he protests. “Picked up the package from their boy, took it to the place, dropped it with a guy—”

“And now they say their guy never got it.”

Kai deflates with how obvious the answer is. Because any moron would have seen this coming—and Kai never does. “That’s the gist,” he mutters. “I don’t know who’s got it out for me. Somebody’s trying to fuck me up over this and I don’t get the animosity.”

“What do you expect me to do about it? If you’re lookingfor a place to hide out, you gotta move along. I’m not having that kind of static around me. I’ve got roommates.”

“Nah, nothing like that.” He pauses, and the contrite droop of his shoulders says it all. “I just gotta pay them back, right, or they’re getting their money’s worth some other way, okay? Like I know we’ve been here before, Con. I get that. But these people think I stole their shit.”

He rubs his face. Then, with red, urgent eyes he stares at me, imploring me. We’re two kids again, making a pact in a dark room. Slicing our palms open with a pocketknife.

“Conor, they’ll kill me or worse. I’m sure of it.”

Damn him. Damn him for constantly finding ways to reduce himself to the street price of a brick of coke or an envelope of pills. Damn him for letting a bunch of Scarface wannabes run his life. Damn him for holding a gun to his head and telling me if I really care about him, I’d give him more bullets.

I don’t want to know the answer even as I ask the question. “How much?”

“Ten grand.”

“Damn it, Kai.” I can’t sit still anymore. I stumble off the bench and start pacing, my blood boiling with anxious energy. I’d beat the shit out of him if it’d do any good.

“Look, I know.”

“Son of a bitch.” I kick a trashcan, anger and desperation bubbling in my gut.

I don’t even know why I’m letting this get me so fucked up. It’s Kai. He’s acid. Potent, corrosive acid that eats everything it touches. Once you let it touch you, it seeps to the bone. Burns a hole right through you.

“No,” I finally say.

“Bro.” He grabs my arm and I shake him loose with a look that says he won’t get to do that again. “You gotta help me out. I’m not kidding. Theywillcome after me.”

“Then run, dude. Hop a bus to Idaho or North Dakota and just fucking hide. I don’t give a shit anymore.”

“You’re serious? You’d leave your best friend hanging—”

“We’re not best friends. And maybe we never were.” I shake my head a few times. “This is your problem to figure out and I don’t want any part of it.”

“I’m sorry, man.” His demeanor shifts. His eyes harden. And now I remember why he used to scare me. “I can’t let you walk away.”

“You don’t want to try me.” I warn, squaring up to him.

There was a time I was just a skinny runt on a skateboard following him around the neighborhood. Not anymore. These days, I could bench this punk and break him over my knee. Better he remembers that before he gets any really stupid ideas. “Right now, I’m letting you walk away. Next time I see you, things might be different.”

“Nah, brother.” He bares his teeth in a cheerless smile. “See, you forget I still own your ass. Ten grand. Today.”

“You’re out of your mind. I don’t have that kind of money. Even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you.”

“You can get it,” he says, still determined. “Go and ask stepdaddy for the money.”

“Fuck off.”

Kai sneers at me. “I don’t think that’s how you want to play this, Con. If you don’t get me that money, Daddy Max finds out you’re the one who gave out the alarm code to themansion and let someone break in and trash the place.” He cocks a brow. “Maybe I even tell himyou’rethe one who took the missing cash from his office, how’s that sound?”

“You’re a piece of shit, Kai, you know that?”

“Like I said, brother. We can make this easy—just tell Max you need the money for some dumb bullshit. Make something up. You get me the cash and we’re all good. I peace out and everyone’s happy.”

The thing you don’t know as a kid, when your best friends are your whole world and every day is the first and last day of your life, when everything feels urgent and dangerous, every thought and emotion an eruption of planet-colliding force, is that the worst mistake you’ve ever made will outlive all of that. A brief, blinding moment of rage spirals into a lifetime of guilt and regret.

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