Wild Girl (Slateview High 2)

She flopped back on the couch again, gazing up at the ceiling as she peppered me with more questions. A few hours passed, and once Jessica got her fill of hearing about my “fancy-ass rich life,” she told me more about her own.

Apparently, she hadn’t lived in Baltimore all her life. Her father had been in the military, and as a kid, she’d moved around a lot. But after her parents divorced, her mom got custody of her, and they moved here.

Jessica’s voice softened a little when she talked about her mom, insisting that she’d done the best she could as a single mother while admitting that a lot of the child support checks that came in ended up going toward things they shouldn’t. There was a reason there was always so much booze available at Jessica’s parties.

I felt for her, and it was… nice that I was able to talk to another girl about something that had nothing to do with the insanity otherwise going on in my life. It was freeing. It felt like what having a real friend should feel like. We spoke and listened to each other without judgement, something I’d never really been able to do with the girls I’d once called friends. In my old world, any sign of weakness had been an open invitation for an attack.

We were packing up our books several hours later, having finished all of our homework, when the front door open

ed again. The Lost Boys strode in, and my heart leapt as I lurched to my feet. I scanned each of them for any sign of injury, but they didn’t look beat up. They didn’t look like anything bad had happened to them. If anything, they looked… happy.

“Hey,” I said, trying not to seem too eager to see them again. Jessica had already figured out I was on edge about something; I didn’t need to give her any more reasons to be curious about what was going on. “How’d it go?”

“Hell of a thing.” Bishop shook his head, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “We got a promotion.”

I blinked.

“A… promotion?” That was the last thing I’d expected to hear.

“Yup.” He looked over my shoulder, nodding to Jessica. “Hey, we’re gonna take Cora and bounce. Gonna get some dinner. See you at school?”

Jessica waved her hand, absorbed in a text message that was probably from Liam and was probably filthy as hell.

“Yeah, definitely. Congrats on your promotion, ya big shots.” She glanced up quickly and grinned, then shifted her focus to me. “Study session again next weekend?”

“Sounds good.”

I flashed her a quick smile before she went back to her phone, then gathered up my things in a rush. I was teeming with questions, but if Bishop was anxious to get out of here, it meant there was more he wanted to talk about than just the promotion from Nathaniel.

Had Nathaniel asked them about Flint? Why had he promoted them?

I couldn’t contain the questions crashing around in my head by the time we got out to the car.

“What happened?” I blurted immediately. “Obviously things didn’t go too badly. God, I was worried as fuck about you guys. What did he say? Do you think he knows?”

Bishop started up the car, shaking his head as he glanced over at me.

“Well, he knows something’s up with Flint. He hasn’t reported to work in a week, and nobody’s heard from him. But I don’t think Nathaniel’s been able to track down more info than that yet. Flint deliberately chose a place outside of Nathaniel’s territory when he met up with you, someplace he knew he wouldn’t be recognized.”

“So Nathaniel doesn’t know he met with me?” I asked, my heart thudding hard in my chest.

“We don’t think so. If he did, he’s playin’ it super close to the chest.” Misael shrugged, a look of concern flitting across his face.

“How did you…” I shook my head. “Why did you get a promotion?”

“Because Nathaniel’s preparing for the possibility that Flint’s either dead or has turned on him and gone into hiding,” Bish said flatly.

“The fucker used to do a lot of shit for Nathaniel,” Kace grunted. “So with him out of the picture, there was slack that needed picking up.”

“He asked us to keep our ears to the ground, see if we can pick up anything about Flint’s whereabouts.” There was a note of dry humor in Bishop’s voice, and my head whipped toward him, my eyes going wide.

“He wants you to investigate Flint’s disappearance?”

“Well, I’m sure we’re not the only people he told to keep an ear out. But you can sure as hell believe we’re not gonna tell him we found anything.”

I settled back against the seat, gazing out the window as I tried to sort through the implications of everything they’d just said.

If Nathaniel didn’t know yet what had happened to Flint, that was a good thing. He wasn’t stupid, so of course he suspected some kind of foul play, but it seemed that his suspicions were focused outward—probably at a rival gang member or something.