Chapter Six
Jade
Pulling into Mr. Pryor’s driveaway was familiar since I’d done it three times a week for four years. Lennon sitting next to me, inviting me inside with a sly grin? That was completely new and exciting and terrifying at the same time.
He’s done this a million times for a million different girls.
That’s why he was the perfect guy for my free-fall-fun mission tonight. He wasn’t boyfriend material, but he was possibly the one person on the planet who could help me break out of my shell.
Logic tried to beat some sense into my brain, but I couldn’t help the heat swirling in my chest—our conversation in the car the culprit. I’d been more open with him in those moments than I ever had been before, surprising even myself. The blame could fall on the grad ceremony—the finite knowledge that tonight was the last one to break free.
“Lennon?” Mr. Pryor opened the door before Lennon had the chance to put his key in the lock. His eyebrows raised when I followed behind Lennon, and he shot his son a look that made me want to stand at attention. I didn’t have a clue what was passing between them, but they held a silent conversation I assumed only father and son were capable of.
All Mom and I ever did lately was glare. I tried to shake the thought away, fiddling with the ends of my hair while Lennon and Mr. Pryor had their stare down.
The moment ended after a few seconds and Mr. Pryor flashed me a soft smile before focusing on Lennon again. “Get tired of your party already?” he asked, car keys in his hand.
“No,” Lennon said, spinning on his heels toward his room. “Complication. Aren’t you supposed to be going to some award ceremony downtown?”
I stood still, not sure if I should follow him or not.
“Yes. I’m on my way out.” Mr. Pryor glanced at me and whispered, “Complications?”
“Laptop malfunction.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding. “So,” he continued, “are you all set for UCLA?”
“More than,” I said. “You know I wish I could skip summer altogether.”
“I know.” The laughter left his eyes as they trailed toward Lennon’s room. “I wish Lennon had some of your tenacity for education.”
I furrowed my brow.
“For after the tour, of course,” he added quickly like he could sense the defense of Lennon following his dreams on the tip of my tongue. “I would never not want him to take full advantage of that opportunity. I simply wish he’d consider attending college after it was over.”
“College isn’t for everyone,” I said, though it didn’t apply to me. College equaled freedom for me but would likely only hold Lennon back. He was an artist destined for big things, and he was chasing that dream with a tenacity I wish I could borrow.
Mr. Pryor arched an eyebrow at me, and I had to resist the urge to laugh it was so identical to Lennon’s no-bullshit look.
“What if he enlisted?” I asked.
“What?”
“What if he had enlisted in the military instead of college?”
“Well,” he said. “That’s different—”
“How so?” Normally I wouldn’t dare cut off Mr. Pryor, but he was no longer my teacher or my coach. The grad ceremony meant he was simply Lennon’s dad. And maybe I was channeling my own unresolved arguments with Mom, but I wanted him to cut Lennon some slack. “If Lennon had dreamed of joining the military his whole life, he’d naturally enlist right out of high school. Just because his dream is performing on stage to thousands of screaming fans doesn’t make the dream less.”
Mr. Pryor’s mouth opened and shut a few times before he shook his head, an amused smile on his face. “Have I ever told you you’re my favorite student?”
I chuckled. “Several times.”
“Truer words never spoken.” He sighed. “I’ve never thought about it in those terms.”
I shrugged. “It’s all right,” I said. “Sometimes parents have tunnel vision on what they think their kids should be doing.” He hissed, and I quickly raised my hands in apology. “That was more about me, sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. You’re right,” he said. “But speaking as one of those ‘tunnel-vision parents,’ more often than not our hearts are in the right place.” He glanced behind me. “I know he’ll be a success. It’s in his blood. But…he’s only got a few more years to be a normal kid. Once his music blows up, that’ll be the end of it. I just want to hold on to him a little longer, I guess.”
I pressed my lips into a line, his words hitting hard against my chest. They made sense, whereas Mom’s arguments were totally opposite. He knew Lennon’s dream was spot on for him. Mom wanted me to leave drawing as a hobby because she thought I’d pursue it, fail, and regret that I didn’t spend the time studying mathematics instead.
“I’m going to be late,” he said, motioning toward Lennon’s room. “Could you tell him I left? Sometimes that room swallows his focus.” He laughed as I nodded. I stood motionless while I watched Mr. Pryor walk through the front door. The fact that I was alone in the house with Lennon totally froze me to the ground for a few seconds before I found my nerve again. We’d been alone in the car. This was no different.
I knocked on his open door, spotting Lennon crouched in front of his closet in the corner of the room, digging through a mound of random stuff—papers, boxes, what looked like instrument cables.
“Figures,” he said, tossing a sheet music book over his shoulder.
“Hey, your dad just left. What’s up?” I asked, tiptoeing into the room like if I stepped too hard the magic bubble would burst and I’d be propelled back to my car.
I never thought I’d be invited into Lennon’s room again—the one and only time I had been inside here I’d made a comment about the glitter on his red Fender and had wanted to crawl in a hole and die.
I’d seen many a girl come and go over the years, and I highly doubted they ever made a fool of themselves. Though I often wondered why he never hung on to one longer than a month, as I’m sure they all hoped he would. Likely because he knew he was on his way out, or perhaps he thought a serious relationship would affect his music.
“I can’t find my flash drive.” The lightness of his tone from earlier was completely gone. The panic and frustration made his raspy voice gruffer if that was possible.
Hot. As. Hell.
I blinked several times, searching for my sanity. Seeing Lennon in his own environment and in this mood was making me no better than one of those girls I was just pitying. I cleared my throat. “I’ll help you find it,” I said, scanning the room for a likely place a flash drive would be hiding.
I ran my fingers over the edges of his book shelf, not surprised that three of the shelves were lined with old records in near pristine condition. The top shelf made me gasp.
“Did you find it?” He spun around, sprinting to my side.
I gaped, sliding the graphic novel off his shelf. “You have volume 27!” I smoothed my hand over the cover. “I didn’t know you were a Kirkman fan,” I said, totally shocked he read the Walking Dead graphic novels, too.
“Oh.” He swallowed hard, his shoulders dropping.
“Sorry,” I said, and carefully slid the graphic novel back in its place. “Back to looking.”
“How far are you into the series?” he asked as I walked to the other side of his bed to search the top of his nightstand.
“Volume 23,” I said. “I’m behind because school quashed my reading time. I’ll catch up this summer.”
“It gets bloody—”
“Gah!” I covered my ears, humming a tune so loud I couldn’t make out what he said. When finally all I could see was him laughing, I lowered my hands. “No spoilers!”
His full smile made my heart race and I hurried back to searching, moving pens and guitar picks and packs of strings around to see if the flash drive was under one of them.
“Fair enough,” he said, moving to the other side of the room. “Does Braylen hound you for information?”
I snort-laughed. “All the time.”
“Fynn does, too.” He chuckled. “Do you ever give up the details? The differences between the novels and the show?”
“Never.” I gaped at him. “Do you?”
“No way.”
I tilted my head.
“Swear,” he said, holding a notebook over his heart. “I was only teasing you earlier. I hate spoilers.”
“Me, too,” I said, my eyes dropping to a doodle on the back of the notebook.
That can’t be.
He launched the notebook into the closet. “Anyway,” he said, clearing his throat. “I keep trying to get Fynn to read them, but he’s too invested in the show.”
I blinked a few times, assuring myself I hadn’t just seen one of my original drawings—a symbol that a main character in my steampunk graphic novel had tattooed on her thigh—on the back of his notebook. “Yeah,” I finally said. “Braylen, too.”
It occurred to me then how close our circles were and how funny it was that we’d only ever crossed paths here…between Mathlete practice. Whenever I hung with Bray, Fynn would be off with Lennon or Gordon. Thinking harder on it, it was almost like it was intentional. Like Lennon had stayed away from me on purpose. But that didn’t make any sense, because why would he bother? It had to be a coincidence. Any time I was with the group, he was off on a date or band practice or a gig or something.
Had to be.
Tonight had my thoughts getting tangled in overanalyzing the past. Thanks a lot, graduation.
Lennon knelt again, propping a wooden box on his knees and popping the lid. After a few more minutes of digging through it, he glanced up at me where I’d wandered to his guitars. I wasn’t sure why a flash drive would be over there, but I had always wanted to see his guitars up close.
“Did you mean what you said earlier?” he asked, and I jerked my gaze to him.
“I almost always mean what I say, but you’re going to have to be specific with me.”
He smirked, motioning his head toward his door. “To my dad. About me following my dream. Or were you just trying to be nice?”
He heard?
Heat swept over my cheeks, and I pushed my glasses up my nose in an effort to hide my face. “I totally meant that.” My voice was much softer than moments before.
He stood up and moved until he was only an arm’s length away from me, his dark eyes pinning mine with an amused gaze that made my stomach flip. “Seems like tonight is all about me thanking you.”
“Huh?” The word was a whisper, my muscles trembling slightly from how close he was.
“You seem to be either rescuing me or defending me at every turn tonight.”
I shrugged, the motion less graceful than I’d intended. “Anyone would. I just happened to be there.”
He shook his head. “Not true.”
“It’s not a big—”
“Jade,” he said, licking his lips. Something crackled between us and featherlight sparks teased my skin until I had to hold my breath to stop from shaking.
What the heck is wrong with me?
I released a sigh when he didn’t continue. “Wish I could locate your flash drive for you.”
That irresistible smirk shaped his mouth. “Then let’s keep looking through this chaos.” He laughed, poking fun at his own disorderly room.
After another thirty minutes of turning the place inside out, I was absolutely hopeless. Not that being surrounded in all things Lennon was a bad thing, but I hated when there was a solution to a problem and I couldn’t reach it.
“I don’t think it’s in here, Lennon,” I said, spinning on my heels. I misjudged my footing and tripped right into the closest guitar stand in the corner where I’d been searching.
The black acoustic chimed from the hit and tilted toward the ground. I managed to reach out and steady it before landing on the floor myself.
“Whoa,” Lennon said, sliding on his knees in front of me. He took the guitar with one hand and lifted me with the other. A breath of space separated us, his arm locked around my waist as he helped me up. He grinned down at me. “If you wanted to touch Cash, all you had to do was ask.”
I laughed, warmth pulsing in my blood, his hold on me electric and delicate at the same time. “Cash, huh?” I asked, stunned. “He is my favorite,” I admitted, having admired the guitar on the nights Lennon chose to play him at Mathlete practice.
“Yeah?” He inhaled deeply, and I couldn’t tell if his fingers squeezed tighter on my hip or if I was imaging the pressure. A blink and he released me, spinning the guitar up and between us as he situated the hand that had just held me over the strings. “Funny, it’s mine, too. But we’ve never played an acoustic show.”
My heart still raced in my chest, the spots where he’d touched me begging for more. No wonder he had so many girls falling all over him. Too bad I wasn’t his type.
Tell that to my body.
“You should,” I finally said, pulling myself together.
He strummed the guitar, the same melody I’d talked about in the car filtering into the room. I closed my eyes automatically, the habit ingrained within me when I heard the chords. The music stopped too quickly, and I opened them, finding myself under Lennon’s gaze once again.
“Don’t think I could appease a crowd with just that.”
“I do,” I said. “But I also love what you do now.” I shrugged. “Combine them? Could be a killer combo.”
He set the guitar back in its stand, nodding. “I like the way you think.”
I chuckled, the sound forced with all the nerves twisting in my body.
After a few tense seconds where I contemplated bolting—either toward him or away from him, I couldn’t tell—he reached in his pocket for his cell.
He held up a finger as he pressed it to his ear. “Dad?” he asked after a few seconds. “Yeah, do you have any idea where my black flash drive is?” He clenched his eyes shut, nodding. “Yes. The one that was on my nightstand this morning?” He hissed, and I swallowed hard. “No, it’s fine. I get it. I know you can’t leave.” He huffed. “No worries, Dad. Really. I’ve totally got this. Yeah. Bye.” He ended the call and pocketed the cell.
“Everything all right?” I asked, even though I could tell from the tension in his muscles it wasn’t.
Something sparked behind his eyes. “That depends.”
“On?”
“On if you feel like breaking into the school with me or not.”
A tiny gasp left my lips.
“You don’t have to. Honestly, you’ve already done enough.” He shifted his weight. “But my dad borrowed my drive this morning to transfer some of his files from his school computer.” He rolled his eyes. “He thought he was grabbing my spare, not the one I’d loaded my backup music on.”
“Oh,” I said, finally understanding. “It’s in Mr. Pryor’s room at school?”
“Yup.”
“And you need it to put on your show.”
“I could try and wing it, but it really is vital to the performance to have my laptop synced—it has the lights programmed on timers, the background effects, everything. I need what’s on that drive. No one outside the band knows this, but there is a record producer from LockedIn Records coming to the show tonight. If we nail it? We’ll get a fully-funded, professionally produced album.”
“That is amazing!” It would be like the equivalent of an editor at Penguin reading my graphic novel. Breaking into the school wasn’t on my list of things to do tonight, but if Lennon needed a partner in crime—to achieve this major dream of his—I wanted to be it. I wanted to be whatever he needed, if only this once. “What time does your show start?”
“Eleven-ish.”
We had enough time to gather everything and get back. “Let’s go,” I said, leading the way out of his room.
“Really?” he asked, grabbing his laptop and following me out of the house.
“Absolutely,” I said, smiling. I started this party adventure tonight wanting to be anyone but the rule-abider I normally was. This would only satisfy that and had the added bonus of helping my friend while he chased his dream. Win-win.
Lennon’s grin was worth my decision to commit my first crime. He climbed into my car and tucked his laptop under the passenger seat before sinking in.
I turned the key, silently praying for it to start.
Its signature clunking sound filled the car, and a new blush raked over my cheeks.
“We okay?” he asked.
I pressed my lips together, nodding a little too rapidly. “Just a sec.”
I took my key out, sucked in a breath, put it back in, and twisted it back and forth with microscopic movements, shook it a little, then fully turned it.
The engine roared to life, and I let out a little victory squeal.
Lennon’s laughter brought me back to earth. “What was that?”
I cleared my throat and reversed out of his driveway. “Sometimes it takes a bit of magic to start this car.”
“Good to know you’ve got the touch, since this is now our getaway car,” he teased.
Right. A nervous thrill rushed through me, but I told it to calm down. I’d been invited to enter that school every day for four years. Going there at night wasn’t that big a crime…right?
The brick of the school was cast in moonlight, and the darkened windows made the building I’d spent four years of my life in look downright ominous. The vacant parking lot only added to the eerie atmosphere. I crept through the lot, finally electing to park around the back of the building hoping no one would notice.
“Just when I thought I was free,” Lennon said, gazing up at the school as I killed the ignition. He turned his focus on me, his eyes lighting up with mischief and fire and everything that made my heart race.
I forced out a breath, trying to calm my shaking fingers as I reached for the door.
Lennon stopped me by placing his hand over mine. “Hey,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t have to do this. Really.”
I parted my lips to argue, but I couldn’t deny the nerves filling me with dread.
“Stay here,” he said. “I have to go in. Rachel won’t only give us an album if she signs us. She’ll also extend our tour with the BlackHats beyond three months. It could be anywhere from seven to twelve if we land her. So…this is something I have to do.”
I gaped at him, realizing the stakes. This was everything to him. Tonight could make or break his career. And here all I’d set out to do was get a little crazy for once.
Warmth flooded underneath my skin, chasing the fear away as I watched Lennon get out of the car.
“Let’s do this, then.” I followed suit, shutting the door as quietly as possible.
“You sure?” Lennon asked, pausing with his door open.
“One hundred percent.” I nodded.
He returned it before slamming his door so hard I jolted. I glared at him as we crept toward the back doors near the school’s gymnasium.
“What?” He shrugged.
“Loud enough?” I asked.
“No one is here to hear us, Jade.” The way he said my name sent a warm tremor straight through my middle. “Come on,” he said, motioning me to follow him around the back corner of the building. “Coach Murphy never locks his office window.”
“How do you know that?” I whisper-hissed despite his insistence to speak at a normal level. A sense of excitement and dread filled my heart, swirling in frantic-like patterns. I’d never broken the rules before, let alone broken into the school before. But Lennon needed that flash drive, and I’d already saddled up to be his partner in crime tonight. I couldn’t stop now.
Lennon slipped behind a row of green hedges that were neatly trimmed and bordered the building. “Because,” he said, stopping in front of a window that rested knee level from where we stood. “I hate gym class with a passion—I’d rather workout solo—and I’ve lost count how many times that aversion has landed me in his office for the entire period.”
He dropped to his knees before me, his eyes looking up at me from underneath his perfectly thick lashes, his mess of brown hair falling over his face. I about damn near melted into a puddle right there. My eyes flew wide, heat flushing my entire body. “What are you doing?” I asked, breathless.
He smirked, then pushed on the window that he was now eye level with. “After you, mathlete.”
Another warm shiver rolled through me, the nickname no less powerful than when he’d called me by my real name. I hesitated, contemplating what the punishment would be if we were caught. Would I lose my spot at UCLA? Would my parents lose their minds and force me to stay inside all summer? Would we get real time in jail? I gulped down my fears as the panic settled deep in my chest.
Jade 2.0, remember?
“Hey,” Lennon said from his crouched position. He reached up and smoothed his hand into mine. “I really need a lookout, but if it bothers you that much you can wait at the car. I’ll be in and out.”
“No,” I said, almost too instantly, my determination in direct conflict with the warning in my head. “I said I was in. I was just…” I sucked in a breath. “Giving myself a mental pep talk.”
He chuckled. “How’d it go?”
I arched a brow at him. “You first, rock star.”
“If you insist,” he said, and slipped through the small window like he’d done it a hundred times.
Summoning all the strength of the great Diana Prince, I knelt and shimmied myself through the open window, wishing like hell I had her grace, as well. But I wasn’t Wonder Woman. I was Jade Aaron, Mathlete, and totally coordination-challenged. So, when I meant to plant my shoes firmly on the desk beneath the window, I naturally wobbled and slipped right off the lip of the desk.
I crashed into a strong, warm chest, right before I took that hot body down to the cold, tiled floor with me. Lennon’s arms encircled me as we hit the ground, him taking the brunt of it, the air in his lungs flying out with an umph.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, shifting to lift myself on one arm to glance down at him. “Are you all right?”
His eyes were wide and bright and the smile on his lips wasn’t as wolfish as it normally was. “I’m perfect,” he said, almost in a whisper.
The heat between our flushed bodies seemed to have its own pulse, like our heartbeats were syncing. My hips pressed into his, his hands on the small of my back. I licked my lips, searching for something to say before I realized I was the one pinning him to the floor of the office we’d just broken into. I scrambled off him, pushing my hair out of my face and righting my glasses.
“Sorry,” I said again, because I legitimately didn’t know what else to say.
Lennon pushed off the floor, following me to stand, and laughed. “I’m not.” He fished out his cell and swiped up to turn on his flashlight.
The dark room was illuminated, and I gasped. “Omigod, I’ve never been in the boy’s locker room before,” I blurted out.
That only made Lennon laugh harder. It was infectious, and I couldn’t help but join in.
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” he finally managed to say as we reeled in our hysterics.
“It smells,” I said as I followed him out of the office.
He snorted. “I must be used to it.” He glanced over his shoulder as we weaved between the wooden benches that rested next to the lockers. “Are you saying the girl’s locker room smells like a field of wildflowers?”
“Ha-ha.”
“What?” he asked innocently.
“You’re hilarious, acting like you don’t know exactly what the girl’s locker room smells like.” The rumors surrounding him and the many adventures of the girls who trailed after him were practically legendary. One of those rumors included him and a freshman hooking up in the girl’s locker room. My stomach turned at the thought, despite not having a reason to be jealous of the rumor.
Lennon stopped short as we cleared the door, the dark hallway thankfully sweat-scent-free. I bumped into his tense back and glanced up at him. “What’s wrong?” I whispered the question, terrified he’d seen some secret school police just waiting to catch us.
He slowly turned around, the lines of his face softer, almost…sad. “You believe what you hear about me?”
I opened and closed my mouth, my words getting lost inside my fumbling brain. “I didn’t mean…I mean there is nothing wrong with the fact that, you know, that you d-do things…” I stammered, pushing my glasses up my nose to try and hide my embarrassment.
“Jade.” He said my name so softly, I might’ve imagined it. The callused finger tipping my chin up to meet his eyes? Definitely real. “I thought you knew better.”
I tilted my head, his touch making my insides both frantic and calm at the same time. “Why would I know better?” It was true that our “nothing” conversations had revealed to me a Lennon that I felt no one else knew or truly understood, but I’d still seen him go on more dates than a Bond villain.
He dropped his finger, never losing my gaze. “Because you’re smarter than that. You’re smarter than everyone.”
I snorted, my nerves bubbling up with the fierceness of his gaze. “Right. Mathlete.” I shook my head. “I didn’t mean anything by it, rock star. It’s totally within your right to live up to your title.”
“It may be my right, but it doesn’t make me who I am. And just because I’ve been labeled doesn’t mean that dictates my actions.” He flashed me a knowing look and turned back around to lead the way down the hallway.
Hello, Mr. Mysterious. What was that about?
The bright light from his cell phone lit up the hallway as I walked beside him in silence. “This is creepy,” I said, scanning the quiet rows of lockers that lined the walls.
“It is a little, isn’t it?” Lennon asked, and I was relieved that his tone was back to his normal playfulness.
“Totally. I’ve never seen it like this. Have you?”
“No,” he said, stopping in front of Mr. Pryor’s closed door. “I’ve never wanted to be in this place longer than I had to.”
I laughed. “I was always looking for excuses to stay away from home longer. Sometimes when we didn’t have practice at your dad’s place, I’d hang out with Braylen and Fynn in the Journalism room while they worked on the latest issue.” I motioned toward the room across the hall.
“How long do you think it takes Fynn?”
“Takes him what?”
“To realize she’s the one for him?” He handed me the cell and dug around in his pockets.
“It’s been four years,” I said. “If he hasn’t realized it by now…” I wished he would. Maybe if Bray actually admitted she was in love with him, it would change things. I glanced at Lennon, unable to deny the sparks crackling between us. He was a player, right? That’s why our secret conversations had never meant more. Because the kind of girls he wanted…they weren’t anything like me.
He said you should know better.
Talk about confusion central.
“It only takes a second,” he said, drawing me back to the present as he dropped to his knees again. Seriously, that boy was testing my ability to stay solid. He slipped something into the lock on the door and fiddled with it for a second before it unlatched and he pushed open the door. “I bet Fynn leaves for college and only goes a day without her before he realizes what he’s been missing all these years.”
I smiled. “Lennon Pryor. Rock star. Romantic.” I chuckled.
He rolled his eyes as he held the door open for me. I walked into Mr. Pryor’s room, resisting the urge to head straight to my front row seat and prep for course work—muscle memory at its finest.
“But I do hope you’re right,” I said as he beelined it for his dad’s desk after I handed him the cell phone back. “Braylen deserves to be happy.”
“They both do,” he said, rummaging through a top drawer. “But sometimes guys can be…blind.”
“That’s for sure. They’ve known each other since kindergarten. I can’t imagine what that’s like.”
“Rare.” He smiled up at me. “Got it!” A huge sigh of relief poured from between his lips, and I high-fived him.
“Nice!” I waved toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Don’t you want to stay and explore?” he asked as he followed me into the hallway.
“Not a chance,” I said. “This place is too creepy at night. Let’s get out of here.”
“As you wish,” he said, taking an overexaggerated bow.
We laughed as we walked back the way we came, and I was both in shock and bliss at how easy being around him was. Even when we were actively breaking into the school, it wasn’t hard. The laughs, the banter, the more serious topics…they all came effortlessly.
Lennon stopped suddenly again, grabbing my hand with his free one. “Wait.”
“What?” I whispered, clutching his hand tighter.
“Was that door open before?” He pointed at a pitch-black classroom, the door wide open.
“It had to be, right? We’re the only ones in here.”
He shook his head. “I don’t remember it being open.”
He shone his light toward the open door, but it was only strong enough to illuminate the empty rows of desk chairs inside the front of the room. “I thought that all the teachers were required to shut and lock their doors at night?” He crept closer, me now clutching his arm with both hands as the light slowly revealed more and more of the room.
A low, rumbling noise came from inside the room, and we both froze. “What was that?”
Lennon eyed the way I gripped his arm, then smirked. “Probably Pennywise.”
My eyes bulged.
“It’d be the perfect place to lure a kid, right? Classroom and all,” he continued.
I snort-laughed through the terrifying vision of King’s damned psychotic clown waiting inside the room to murder us. “That is so messed up, Lennon.”
He licked his lips, parting them to say something else but was cut off by that rumbling sound again. I jolted against him.
“We’re so going to die,” I half joked.
“At least we’ll be together,” he said as he tugged me closer to the room, and the sincerity in his tone nearly made me forget the terror coursing through my veins.
I held my breath as we rounded the corner of the door, the light from his cell fully blasting the space with light.
“Holy shit!” Lennon screamed at the same time I shrieked.
Two beady eyes gleamed in the glow of the light, and a big feathered chest puffed out just as the room rumbled with a loud gobble.
“That,” I whispered, still not daring to move, “is the biggest turkey I’ve ever seen.”
“What the hell is it doing in here?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but it still hasn’t blinked.”
Lennon gulped. “Maybe if we don’t move it won’t see us?”
“This isn’t Jurassic Park,” I said, trying like hell not to laugh. “What do we do?”
“I say we grab it and roast it at the party bonfire.”
“Lennon!” I hissed.
“Joke.”
“Be serious.”
“It’s obviously a senior prank. Whose room is this?”
I racked my brain, but I didn’t know. It wasn’t Mr. Pryor’s or the Journalism room, and those were the only two I knew in this hallway. “Whoever it is will get a nasty surprise on Teacher Clean Up Day tomorrow.”
“That’s the point,” Lennon said.
“Well, whoever did it wasn’t a good planner.”
“Why?”
“Because they left the door open so it can get out.”
“Good call. Let’s back up slowly and shut him in there.”
I slowly slipped one foot behind me, Lennon mimicking my movement.
The turkey expanded his feathers; the thing was big enough to eat a horse. It shrieked and clicked as he freaking sprinted toward us.
“We didn’t do it!” Lennon screamed as he spun me around and we bolted down the hallway.
“Omigod!” I yelled, glancing over my shoulder as the easily hundred-pound turkey charged after us, gobbling and snarling.
Lennon gripped my hand, the light from his cell frantically moving as we ran toward the boy’s locker room.
“Come on, come on!” Lennon said as he ripped open the door and hurled me inside. He slammed it behind us. “These don’t lock.”
My breath came in rushed huffs and I leaned over, hands on my knees, trying to catch it. “You think it knows how to open doors?”
Lennon burst out laughing, holding his side as he leaned against the closed door.
A loud gobble made us both jump.
“Window!” he demanded through his laughter.
I obeyed and hopped onto Coach Murphy’s desk, shimmying my way back outside. I tugged on Lennon’s hand, helping propel him to the ground as he climbed out. We both fell backward from the force of my tugging, the hedges giving under our weight.
I was laughing so hard that tears stung my eyes, but we managed to get untangled from the bushes and book it to my car.
We didn’t stop laughing until we were safely inside.
“I didn’t know turkeys could be so vicious,” I said, finally able to breathe.
Lennon shook his head. “I didn’t know they could be so big.”
I scanned the empty parking lot around us. “I wonder who did that?”
Lennon shrugged. “Who knows. But you have to give them credit for originality.”
I chuckled. “I guess.”
Lennon held up the flash drive, grinning. “At least we got what we came for.”
I nodded, smiling back at him as I started the car. “At least we weren’t murdered by Pennywise.”
The car started without a hitch, thankfully, and Lennon snapped his fingers. “I bet that’s the name of the turkey!”
“Ha!” I pulled out of the parking lot and turned on Main Street, shocked we’d come out of our breaking and entering unscathed, if not a little shocked. “Let’s tell everyone that when we recount the tale.”
He rolled the flash drive between his fingers. “And let’s leave out the running away screaming in terror part.”
“Deal.”