Bang (13 page)

gods,” he breathes. “Did you see the line?”
“How could we miss it?”
Rowan’s hair is stuck to her forehead with sweat. She

grabs a towel and wipes her face, then throws the towel

into the dirty bin. “Blown away,” she says. “I do not understand why you guys enjoy this truck so much.”
I give Sawyer a hasty tour, show him how we do our

orders, and set him up filling bread bowls with meatballs and sauce so we can catch up on the backlog. I make him taste everything. “This is excellent,” he says,

his mouth full.
“Don’t be stealing our recipe now,” Trey says as he

hands an order through the window to a customer.
Sawyer laughs, but he shoots me an anxious look that

says,
Does he know about our parents?
I shake my head and start grating fresh mozzarella

like it’s going out of style. “No wonder you’re blown

away. You’ve got no
mise en place
. You’re out of everything.”
Trey gives me a scornful look. “Oh, we had everything

prepped, I assure you. Again, I refer your gaze to the line

out front and ask you to kindly note that it’s been like this

for four hours.”
“Point taken. We’ll set you back up. Right, Angotti?”
“Yes, boss,” Sawyer says.
I look around and it feels a bit too crowded in here.

“Ro, you want to go outside and take orders and hand ’em

through to Trey? That way you can go down the line a bit

and we can get things moving faster.”
“Good call,” Trey mutters.
“Gladly,” Rowan says. “It’s fucking hot in here.”
I look at her as she leaves. “When did she start cussing?”
“Mmm. Yeah. That would be today,” Trey says.
Sawyer laughs. He works really fast, and once he’s

caught up with the bread bowl orders, he looks for other

things to do. “How can I help?”
I grab bunches of fresh spinach from the cooler and

shove them at him. “Rinse, spin, steam two minutes, and

rough chop. Got it? Then garlic and onions over in that

cooler—you okay chopping onions?”
“Pfft. Of course,” he says, like I just insulted him.

And I freaking love that he knows everything I’m talking

about. I remember my dreams of leaving love notes made

of green peppers for him on the cutting board and laugh

under my breath.
Once I have the cheese tub filled, I chop tomatoes,

and then the orders start getting filled again and the line

begins moving.
“Okay,” Trey says when we have a good rhythm going.

“Catch me up. Are we still looking at Monday or Tuesday

for the thing?”
“Don’t know,” I say. “For a while we were actually

thinking tomorrow night, but now we’re not sure. Still,

Sawyer’s visions are so bad he can’t drive, and he’s seeing

them everywhere.”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Yeah.”
“Great.”
“At least if it is tomorrow, it’ll be over soon,” Sawyer

says, moving to get onions. He looks in the caddy to see

how we dice them and starts in. His knife skills are pretty

great, and I’m freaking in love all over again.
“So what’s the plan?” Trey asks. “Do we have one?”
“Um . . .” I say, and I feel really helpless, because we

don’t have a plan at all, despite my promise to Sawyer that

we’d have one by now.
“I think what we need to do is forget about the classroom,” Sawyer says decisively. “And focus on the sidewalk and the shooter guy—girl—walking there. If we stop her,

the rest of the plan doesn’t come together for them. If she

doesn’t show up, I bet the other one—or two—abandon

the plan.”
Trey gets backed up, so Rowan pops in to help with

a stack of new orders. “You guys better not die while I’m

gone,” she says. “I mean it.”
“Shit,” I say, remembering. “I’ve got to get you to the

airport.”
“Yes, you do. You ruin this for me, and I ruin your face,

bitch.” Rowan smiles sweetly and hands off another order

through the window.
“Wow.” I glance at Sawyer and he’s grinning. He

looks at me. “I freaking love you guys. Can I work at your

place?”
“Um . . .” we all say, knowing it was a joke, but I change

the subject back to what Sawyer just said. “Anyway, I think

you’re right, Sawyer—we don’t have enough information,

so we go with what we know. We know the shooter walks

down the sidewalk by Cobb Hall. So we plant ourselves

there around sundown in the next few days, or whenever

the weather looks like the skies could be dark.”
“And that’s so easy to predict in Chicago in spring,”

Trey says. He hands off another order. “Nice, too, that

the campus is just around the corner from our house.” His

sarcasm is evident.
“But we’re on spring break, so that’s easier.”
“But we have jobs.”
“Some of us do,” pipes Rowan from outside the window.
“This is more important,” I say.
“Your face—” Rowan says.
“Shut it,” I say. “Inappropriate at this time.”
“I love you all,” Sawyer says.
“Well, let’s just get through this before you go spouting off with your overemotional diatribe,” Trey says.

“Sheesh. You’re even scaring the gays.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Sawyer says, scooping

up his diced onions and putting them into the onion bin.

“At my place, it’s a bunch of old ladies, my parents, my

older brothers, who are almost never there, and me. And

my cousin Kate—she’s cool. But she’s in college so she

only works a couple shifts a week.”
I frown, glancing at Trey, who looks horrified. “That

sounds awful,” he says.
“It is, trust me.”
“And then you also get punched in the face.”
There’s an awkward pause. Sawyer tries to blow it off.

“Yeah. Just one of the many perks of the job.”
I shoot Trey a warning glance, but he chooses not to

see it. “You know,” he says, “once this whole thing is over,

we’re going to talk about that.” He looks at his ticket.

“One salad, one balls minus cheese, one heart attack,” he

calls out. “Come on, step it up back there.”
And there’s something comforting about Trey being

there, knowing he’ll be with us tomorrow and the rest

of the week too. Once we get Rowan out the door, we’re

My parents are strangely silent about my being

gone all day, probably due to Rowan handing over gobs of

money and telling them how I went out to save them when

they were blown away. My mother thanks me for helping

out, and I respond kindly, coolly, and that’s the end of that.

Sawyer and I talk on the phone until he falls asleep.

I toss and turn all night, and so does Rowan, making me

think she’s actually nervous about flying for the first time

all alone.

Sunday morning dawns, and I hear my mother moving

around the apartment, getting ready for mass. Rowan has

already begged off mass after the long, arduous day on the

food truck, and Mom said she could skip today, which was

the plan all along. Rowan goes through her duffel bag for

the millionth time. By eight thirty, I think I hear dad moving down the hall, but when Mom leaves, I strain to hear Dad’s footsteps on the steps too and I don’t hear them.

Rowan looks at me and mouths a cuss word.

I sit up and shrug, hearing his door close again. “Meh.

No worries. It’s not like he’s going to notice us.”

Once we’re ready, Rowan gets her bag and we sneak out

to the pizza delivery car. I have directions printed out

and Rowan goes through her purse nervously. “Photo

ID, ticket, toiletries,” she mutters. She tells me her airline and we head out to the glorious world of O’Hare Airport, a slithering ant farm of a place where even really

seasoned drivers choke and get lost. After missing the

correct terminal, almost getting plowed over by a bus,

and more swearing by the innocent fifteen-year-old I

once knew, we finally find the right place, and I do what

everybody else seems to do—park any old where I feel

like it.

She puts her hand on the door handle and looks at me.

“Thanks,” she says.
I smile. “Have a blast, okay? And if it’s not what you

expect, call me. I will come and get you.”
She laughs. “You have a few other things on your

mind.”
“You’re my number one,” I say. And then I have to

punch her in the arm before things get mushy. “You know

what signs to look for inside?”
“Yeah. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“You either.” I pinch her knee, which she hates, and

then she’s opening her door, slipping out, and she’s gone.

A second later I roll down the passenger window and yell

out, “Call me when you get there!”
She looks over her shoulder and smiles. “I will,” she

says. She lifts her hand in a wave. And she looks so damn

excited it makes me cry.

On the way home I can’t get my stomach to settle down.

I know our parents are going to freak, and if they find out

I drove Rowan to the airport, they’ll probably have me

arrested or something—I wouldn’t put it past them. My

dad, anyway. And you know what? I’m trying really freaking

hard not to care. Before I head back inside the house I call

Sawyer to discuss the plan for the day, which is to get the

hell out of here before my parents figure out Rowan is gone.

Inside I can hear the TV, which means Dad is out of

his room and hopefully getting ready to open the restaurant rather than sit in the blue TV haze all day with the shades down. They’re going to need him down there

without Ro and Trey. I feel a twinge in my gut, but I have

to ignore it. Today is not the day for that. I slip past the

living room and knock lightly on Trey’s door.
He opens it and lets me in, closing it behind me.

“You ready?” I whisper. “Mom will be home any minute.”

Trey sighs. “Yeah, about that,” he says. “I think I need

to stay here for the afternoon, at least. You’re pretty sure

this thing is happening in the evening, right?”
I nod.
“I’ll meet you guys out there before dark. I just think

I should be here for when they find out about Rowan, you

know? So they don’t call the cops.”
I sit down on his bed and rub my temples. He’s right,

of course. And he’s the best one to handle them.
“Yeah, okay,” I say.
“If anything crazy happens, call me. I’ll be there as fast

as I can.”
“Okay,” I say again. On an impulse I reach out and

hug him around the neck. My cast clunks against his head.
“Ouch. When are you getting that stupid thing off?”

he asks, laughing.
“Friday morning. If we all live that long.”
“And we have multiple opportunities to die,” Trey

says. “Death by exploding heads. Er, I meant Dad, not . . .

the other.” He cringes.
“That was bad.”
“I know. Sorry.”
I rap on his chest with my knuckles. “We’ll be in the

quad. I’ll call you if anything changes.”
His lips press into a wry smile. “Be careful,” he says.

“It’s not worth dying for, okay?”
I nod. And I know. “We’re calling the police as soon

as we have an idea of what’s happening, and when, and

where.”
I open Trey’s door and almost run into my dad. “Oh.

Sorry.”
He startles too and hits one of the stacks of Christmas

tins. Finally, after years of waiting, they come crashing

down, making way more noise than something so lightweight should make. I stoop down and help pick them up, putting them back on the precarious pile as best as I can

with my dad blocking the hallway. I hand the last one to

him, not quite looking him in the eye.
“Thank you,” he says.
I nod and back into Trey’s doorway again so he can get

past me.
“And thank you for helping your brother and sister

yesterday,” he says gruffly. “Mom will add those hours to

your final paycheck.”
“That’s fine.”
He doesn’t ask me if I want my job back. And I’m too

proud to ask for it.
Scary how much like him I am.

Dad goes into his bedroom, I duck into mine,

grab my backpack, make sure I have my phone, and scoot

out of there. As I descend the stairs, I hear my dad calling for Rowan, and I can’t run away fast enough. “Trey Demarco, you are a saint,” I mutter under my breath. I

owe him big for handling this.

The sky is dark. Occasional giant drops of rain splat

on the pavement in front of me, and I wish I’d thought to

bring an umbrella. I grab the bus to Sawyer’s neighborhood, call him to let him know I’m coming, and just miss a wave of pouring rain. It’s only spitting by the time I hop

off. And when I look down the street toward Angotti’s

Trattoria, I see Sawyer walking toward me.

“Okay, so here’s what I know,” he says in greeting.

“Main shooter girl is holding a Glock 17 Gen4. It holds

at least seventeen bullets. She doesn’t have an additional

magazine on it.”

“Hmm,” I say. This information means nothing to me,

other than the fact that the killer woman can shoot at least

seventeen times. Which is more than eleven.

Sawyer grips my hand as the almost empty bus pulls up

and he buys two fares. We grab a seat in the back. “Also,

I finally managed to figure out a few words on the whiteboard. Musical terms and composer names.” He flashes a triumphant smile.

“How did you manage that?”
“Every time I tried to zoom, the pixels went nuts and

I couldn’t read anything. But I finally thought to use my

mother’s reading glasses to magnify the words—she’s, like,

totally farsighted—and I got these words: Rachmaninoff,

Vespers, E A Poe, The Bells.”
I frown. “Edgar Allan Poe is a writer, not a musician.”
“Right, but I looked up ‘The Bells,’ which is by Poe,

and Sergei Rachmaninoff turned it into a symphony.”
I feel a surge of hope for the first time in a long time.

“So it’s a music classroom, you think?”
“That’s what I think.”
“So, wait—the victims are not the Gay-Straight

Alliance people? It’s, like, a regular music class?”
Sawyer’s breath comes out heavy, and his face is

strained. “All I know is that the GSA is meeting in the

Green Room, and the room in the vision is a regular music

classroom. So the two events don’t appear related.”
“But that means . . .”
“We’ve got everything wrong. But at least we know it’s

probably not going to happen today—there are no classes

in session until tomorrow.”
I think for a moment. “But the weather is supposed to

be sunny tomorrow, and you said it’s cloudy and the pavement is wet in the vision.”
He shrugs. “Maybe there are sprinklers on the quad.

Or maybe it rains when it’s not forecasted—wouldn’t be

the first time.”
“True.” I look out the window. “So, wait. Why are we

going there today, then?”
“To see if we can find the music classrooms and figure

out which ones have evening classes. Hopefully the buildings will be open now that students are returning from break.” He pulls out a map of the entire main quad, and

it’s like he’s been energized.
“Are you . . . feeling okay?”
He looks at me. “Actually, for once, yeah. The vision

calmed down after I figured out the music thing. So I feel

like I got something right.”
We stop for an early dinner near campus at Five Guys

and spend a couple of hours talking everything through.

Sawyer tells me the entire vision one more time, using the

map to point out where he thinks things are. I borrow his

phone to check the weather, but it still calls for sunny skies

tomorrow.
“Question,” I say. “In the vision, when you see the,

uh, girl,” I say, looking around to see if anybody can hear

me, “do you see other students around? Like, do you get a

broad view of the quad?”
“No other students, no broad view. Just the sky and

tree, then the grass and pavement and little stop sign. We

zoom in to the building, then out to see the back of the

girl’s body, and then we’re in the classroom.”
I look more closely at the map, seeing the individual

buildings labeled. “Do you think the music building is in

the main quad?”
“That’s my guess.”
I frown and start googling the names of the buildings

around the Snell-Hitchcock Halls. “These are mostly

sciencey. Like labs and stuff.” I keep going. “Cobb. That’s

the building with the ivy that we thought the vision was

focusing on the other day, right?”
“Yeah.” He’s got his laptop out and is searching too.
“Here,” I say. “Music. It’s this one next to Cobb.

Goodspeed Hall. Offices, music classrooms and practice

rooms all on the bottom four floors. Practice rooms open

seven days a week.”
“Sweet.” After a minute, Sawyer looks up. “Is Trey

coming?”
“Oh, crap,” I say. “Yeah. Does he need to? Are you

sure it’s tomorrow?”
“It’s a classroom, Jules. It’ll be tomorrow.”
“Okay, well, that’s probably better timing . . .” I whip

out my phone and call Trey.
He answers and says in a curt voice, “Not now. I’ll call

you later.”
“Oh,” I say, but he’s already hung up. I look at Sawyer.

“He’s handling the Rowan thing.” I drum my fingers on

the table, suddenly nervous about that. She should have

called me by now. Hours ago, in fact. I call her cell phone.
“Are you alive?” I almost yell when she answers.
“Shit,” she says. “I forgot, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I figured you knew I made it since Mom’s been screaming at me on the phone for the last two hours.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not at home. How’s it going?”
“Good. I think Trey has them settled down enough

not to call the cops, and poor Charlie here is kind of pissed

at me for doing this without them knowing.”
I hadn’t thought of that. “Ack. Do his parents know?”
“Not yet. Hopefully not ever.” She hesitates and I hear

her talking to someone. “I gotta go, Jules. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
“And, Jules?”
“Yeah?”
But she doesn’t say anything, and I figure one of us

hit a dead spot, or she’s got to answer another call from

our parents. I bite my lip and hang up. And then I look at

Sawyer. “I think I’d better head home.”
He smiles. “Yeah, you definitely should. Poor Trey.”

He gathers the wrappers and we get up. “I’m going to go

to the campus and see if I can figure out the classroom

situation.”
I feel terrible leaving him here alone. “Are you sure

you’re cool with that?”
“Hundred percent.”
I glance at my watch. There’s a bus in twenty-three

minutes. “Okay. Call me whenever you find out anything.

And when you’re on your way home. And when you get

there. And if anything weird happens.”
He grins. “I’ll call you every five minutes just to let you

know I’m still alive.”
I grin. “That sounds perfect.” I look outside, and it’s

sprinkling again. The sky is a roiling cauldron of dark,

angry clouds. We go outside and I reach up to kiss him,

and then we split up, him to campus, me to the bus stop.
As I stand there under the shelter of a nearby overhang, the rain pelting down, I grip my phone, waiting for it to ring. Waiting to hear from Sawyer. Or Trey. And I

think about my parents, and Rowan, and how everything

we’re doing feels so underhanded, and I kind of don’t like

myself much these days. It’s way too easy to lie. I have an

argument with myself, telling me that there’s no other way

to go about it. That all the superheroes have to lie to hide

their true identity, and this is a lot like that.
“Except you’re not a superhero,” I mutter. “You’re a

not-quite-seventeen-year-old kid with a contagious mental disorder.” I bounce on my toes, waiting for the stupid bus, which is most certainly late. “Come on. Somebody

call. I’m anxious.” I pause, and then I say, “I’m so anxious

I’m talking to myself.”
Finally, ten minutes late, the bus pulls up just as the

heavens open. I watch the people get off and prepare to

make a mad dash for the bus door.
And then I see her getting off the bus.
It’s the girl. The girl with the gun.