Page 82 of Science Project

“Oh my God.” I stuck my head into the toilet and puked up the remainder of my dinner. Another wave of bile rose in my throat, burning the back of it. I gripped the toilet bowl. “This is sick. This is fucking sick.”

In the other room, Patty O’Neil lay dead. He was the job that Mom had given me to do in order to get information out of her about Pick. And I suddenly wished that I had gotten that information someplace else.

When I finished puking up the only contents left in my stomach, I walked to the sink. I wiped my mouth, cupped my hands under the running water until they filled, and then splashed it on my face to wake myself up.

This had to be a dream—a nightmare. What I had seen in here was …

Sick. Repulsive. Nauseating.

Those words didn’t even cover how I felt right now.

After turning off the water, I opened the bathroom door and walked out of the room, through the hall, and to the back door. Droplets of water ran down strands of my hair and onto my face. I needed to get out of here, and I needed to get out of here fast.

With Patty’s body lying in a puddle of his own blood in the middle of the living room, I exited the house and slammed the door behind me. Shit in Redwood was more messed up than I’d thought, and usually, I had a front-row seat to what Mom was a part of, what she forced me to watch, what she forced me to do. And yet … I still didn’t even know everything.

Once I slid into my car, I slammed my finger on the button to start it.

Fuck!

I had come here to do a job so Mom would tell me about Pick. I had come for Nicole.

And now, I knew more about Redwood than I wanted to know. I had learned that the unthinkable was happening on the streets, with girls I went to school with, with girls who smiled in the hallways as if nothing bad was happening to them.

As if they weren’t being sex-trafficked.

I slammed my foot on the accelerator to get the fuck out of here. I needed to talk to Kai, to tell him to keep Imani safe from my parents, from Principal Vaughn, from everyone that he didn’t trust … and maybe some people that he did trust because she wasn’t safe.

But I doubted he’d even talk to me.

Once I made it to Mom’s place down the beach where she did most of her work, I parked my car and stormed into the building, following the sound of her voice to her office. I opened the door, not caring what meeting I was interrupting.

Mom sat at her desk, on the phone, and clicked it off when I walked in. “Akio.”

“I held up my end of the deal. Now, who’s Pick?”

She raised her brows at me. “You did it?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “Prove it.”

“He was sex-trafficking women.”

“So, that’s all it takes to motivate you to do shit for me.” She smirked. “Interesting.”

“Did you know about this?” I asked.

Mom clenched her jaw, her eyes hardening. “Found out about it yesterday. Terrible, isn’t it?”

“It’s worse than terrible,” I growled.

If Patty had been sleeping around with some cheerleaders at Redwood, there was a possibility that Nicole was involved in this. A possibility that her bruises and tenderness were from some sex trafficker raping her.

Did she know about this? Was she involved? Was that why she wanted to keep it a secret from me because she was embarrassed? Or maybe someone was blackmailing her, threatening to embarrass her and her family.

“So, now, you see how fucked up this town is, Akio,” Mom asked. “You understand that I’m not the bad guy here, don’t you? That I do what I have to do, not what is right? You’ve always despised me, but I’m here to help you.”

I clenched my jaw and stared blankly at her because I didn’t believe her. She had been selling me lies since I had been a child. Why should—or would—I believe her now? She didn’t care what happened to girls here, only that she controlled the town, that she had the money.

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