Page 95

Sleep dragged at the edges of A.J.’s mind as his hand upset the lamp on his bedside table. He’d been searching for the source of the noise that dragged him out of oblivion. There were a lot of things he could sleep through, but the 8-bit shriek of an Evanescence ringtone he’d paid a buck for back in grade ten wasn’t one of them.

“Crap.”

He shimmied towards the edge of his bed as the cursed cellphone fell to the floor with a carpet-muffled thud. His hand found it in the darkness and he had just enough brain power to note the time—two in the morning—before flipping it open.

“Hello?”

His voice was hoarse with lack of use, but he didn’t have it in him to worry about phone etiquette.

“Arlo?”

Bren’s voice broke through the dreamy haze that had been trying to pull him back into sleep’s cushy embrace. A spark of worry flashed in his stomach but flickered out before it could catch into anything more than that.

He’d had to spend two hours after school singing at an old folks’ home for Valentine’s Day, so he hadn’t had a chance to talk to Bren. He was probably calling to talk about the presents they’d exchanged. He couldn’t wait to hear what he thought about his songs.

“Mm, Bren? Happy Valentine’s Day. Did you get your—”

“Arlo.”

The spark caught now as Bren’s tone broke through the groggy fog. It was calm, measured, but with something urgent lurking below the surface.

“Cian’s been arrested.”

45

“I would like a drink, please.”

A.J. didn’t wait for Nat to reply. He just flopped face-first onto her pink and black comforter so she had to grab her sketchbook to keep it from flying off.

“Any requests?”

“Strong.”

He hadn’t gotten a look at her before he’d face-planted, but her tone said she knew what day it was. “On it.”

The bed rocked again as she headed off to raid her parent’s liquor cabinet. He had enough brain power to register how lucky he was that her parents worked until six as he maxed out the volume on his Discman. Then again, they might have looked the other way this once, given the day he’d had.

He was up at five in the morning so he could make an attempt at looking as least wrecked as possible by the time the clock struck one in Glenbridge and the arraignment began. He’d been told that he wouldn’t be on camera this time, but watching the proceedings in his pajamas felt wrong.

He touched the spot on his abdomen that had been bothering him since the feed connected and he’d gotten his first look at Cian and Co. since last June.

Like him, they were wearing suits, although they also wore matching looks of contrition. He thought there was something almost bored in Cian’s expression, like some part of him knew his parents would sweep the whole thing away before it got out of hand.

“Fucking hell!”

He’d fallen so far into a pit of his own thoughts that he’d forgotten where he was. Heart struggling to remember the pace it usually beat at, he turned down Short Stories with Tragic Endings and pulled himself upright.

“Sorry!” Nat said, the green highball in her other hand sloshing as she took a step back.

“No, that one was on me,” A.J. replied, taking the glass.

“You said it, not me.”

She looked like she wasn’t sure if they were allowed to make jokes, so he did his best to smile before taking a sip. Green Apple Sourpuss and Midori with bitters and 7 Up. They’d dubbed it the Elphaba back in grade ten and had refused to admit that it was disgusting ever since—she’d get you where you needed to go in the end.

“So,” Nat said, the singular ice cube tinkling against her glass when she picked it up off her dresser. “How’d it go?”

He remembered staring at the trio that left him for dead, swimming in their suits among the consequences of their own actions, tiny on the laptop screen. Two lost lambs and a wolf who’d donned their wool.