“Is that a threat?” Hilary said, loud enough for everyone to hear. Heads turned.
“You could take it that way, sure,” Terry said. He looked to the Varsity guys sitting up and down the bleachers, legs spread and kicked out. They grinned back at him.
“Bad idea,” Hilary said and pulled the pistol from her handbag. She held it up for everyone to see.
For a moment, everyone went quiet. She had the attention of the whole room. Then, the gym erupted. And not with screams. Laughter socked her in the ears. Kids in line started to shout at her and call her nasty things. They stuck their hands down their pants. They were vile. All of them. There wasn’t enough chlorine in the world to cleanse the pool of the dirt in the creases of their necks, behind their ears, in their stewing rear ends. It was all in her water. She’d be marinating in them.
How dare they laugh.
But they’d seen Saints with guns before. Guns with no bullets.
“You’re banned,” Terry said, and got up. He started a slow walk down the bleachers as if this little game had gotten out of hand, and it was finally time for him to put a stop to it. “If you ever set foot in my gym again—”
Hilary shot Terry. The gun bucked in her hand. It sounded like a car fell from the ceiling and hit the floor. Hilary’s whole arm vibrated. Everybody hit the deck.
The line to the pool tried to scatter and escape the gym. She leveled the gun at the crowd and they all froze. Some dropped to the ground with their hands splayed, pleading. Hilary’s insides tingled. The gun led her and she listened.
The gym rippled with screams, but when they died down, only one stayed at full blast. Terry was floundering on the bleachers, clutching his foot, trying to stop the blood that was pouring over his hand and onto his alpaca rug. Varsity guys ran to him, and Hilary let them.
She had five bullets left.
“I got a whole locker full of ammo,” she shouted. “And I want to use it.”
Nobody moved. She looked around the gym. No one dared to make eye contact with her. Behind her, she could hear Terry crying. She felt wild and powerful. She flashed her fury at Linda and the rest of the girls, who were staring and holding each other. They’d forgotten what it meant to fear her, but they’d remembered with the flick of a trigger.
“Shut the pool door. Now.”
Linda and another Pretty One, Britt, ran to the door. The Varsity guards stepped out of their way. They swung the door shut. Hilary would deal with the swimmers below later. She liked seeing Linda tremble and look to the Varsity boys for help. They wanted to leap behind their boys. They craved protection. Hilary laughed to herself. She realized her days of manipulating a boy to get what she wanted were over. She didn’t need anyone anymore, she had the gun. People would have to try their best to seduce her, not the other way around.
“It looks like we’ve suffered a terrible injury here in Varsity,” Hilary said. “So, I’m going to have to pick up the slack. I’m in charge now.”
She twirled her hair with the barrel of the gun.
“And while we’re at it, let’s just put me in charge of everybody. That’s for the best. You can still have your gangs. I don’t want to mess with a good thing, but think of them like states. And I’m president. Except for, I guess there was no election, so … Let’s just say I’m Queen. Call me that. I like that.”
“She shot me …,” Terry muttered. “You shot me …”
“You shot me, Queen,” Hilary said, correcting him. “Now, like I was saying, pool time is over. Everybody, get the hell out and spread the word—if I want something done, you better do it, or I’ll put a bullet in your head.”
People started to stand, cautiously. With a swing of the gun, Hilary motioned them toward the exit.
“You can leave now.”
They ran.
When a Geek girl hurried past, Hilary’s eyes were drawn to her homemade, silver-sequin high heels.
“STOP,” Hilary yelled. She pointed the gun at the girl, and the girl froze.
“No …,” the girl pleaded. “Not me.”
“Leave your shoes. And get the hell out of my face.”
The girl nodded frantically as she yanked off her shoes. She dropped them at Hilary’s feet and scurried out barefoot. Hilary kicked off her too-big boots and slipped into the high heels. They were so snug and they looked to die for with the matching silver snub-nose in her hand.
Hilary sighed. Things were looking up.
5
LUCKY DIDN’T DARE STEP FOOT ONTO THE quad. It was no place to go alone. And more than that, she’d killed somebody there. The mud was dry from the cooking sun but still torn up by the Harley’s fat tire tracks. The earth had been thrashed into long six-inch-high ridges and valleys. She could still make out the shape of her own body where she’d lain down in the quad, after Gates had died, and stared into the rain.
Lucy stood in the shadow of the south entrance, just inside the hall. A gust of wind blew in and flapped the towel she wore over her head like a sheikh. It was tied off with a headband to cover her red hair. The lockout from the cafeteria that morning had been permanent, and she was lucky the girls hadn’t shaved her head. She wasn’t a Slut anymore. She wasn’t anything. Just a Scrap wearing a black trash bag as a dress.
She stared up at the roofline, and waited for Will to appear. It had been hours and he hadn’t come yet. But he could come. It was possible.
Another gust of wind flattened Lucy’s trash bag to her front. Leaves blew into the hall from the quad. She could hear their dry scratch across the linoleum floor behind her. A woman patrolled the roof’s perimeter in workout clothes. She wore a scuba mask and a petite tank. A rifle was slung over her shoulder. The parents were using rubber bullets now. They weren’t going to tolerate another hostage situation. They seemed to want to make it abundantly clear that they were in charge. Lucy hadn’t been shot with one yet, but she’d seen a Skater get hit. The boy had lain in the dirt, squirming and crying like a baby for twenty minutes.
Lucy heard noise behind her. People approaching. She ducked around the corner and into the quad. She stood with her back to the wall, facing the quad, just feet from the hallway’s opening.
Saints poured out from the hallway. Lucy felt her grip on the gathered plastic of her trash bag grow slippery with sweat. Ten, twenty, thirty morose Saints came trudging out, looking like they’d slept in their clothes. A hungover preppy parade. The Saints barely lifted their feet as they shuffled toward the center of the quad. Lucy stayed ready to run if any of them glanced her way. None of them did. Their heads were all bowed low, except four guys who shared the burden of carrying a long, taped-up box.