Liam is silent. Too silent. Almost makes me forget the bass line throbbing all around us. I keep my face as still as possible. Don’t give him anything before this all goes to hell.
“What you say your name was again?” he finally asks.
“I didn’t.” I extend a hand. “Bowie,” I say, because it’s the first name that comes to my mind.
“Bowie?” He raises an eyebrow. “Your parents named you Bowie?”
I shrug. “What can I say? They loved the movie Labyrinth.”
“Yeah . . .” He scratches the back of his neck. “Weird, though. I definitely would remember a black guy named Bowie in my class.”
I ignore the spinning in my stomach. The spinning in the room. This guy knows something, so I have to be even until I find out what. “I like to chill in the cut. Philosophy’s never been my thing.”
Liam’s head cocks to the side. “Philosophy?”
Fick. Fick. Did I say the wrong class? “I’m so lit.” I laugh. Liam looks around and I have to reel him back in. “But yeah, that honey I was talking about earlier—”
“Nah, bro. Don’t know who you’re talking about.” His jaw clenches. Adam’s apple bobs up and down.
I give a slight frown. “You sure? Pretty sure she’d be hard to forget since you don’t have that many sisters that come around here.”
Liam’s eyes graze over my shoulder again and he shakes his head. “Nope. I’ll let you know if she swings back again. Look, man. We’re about to clear people out of here. Why don’t you stick around, though? Seems like we have a lot to catch up on.” He slaps me on the back again. This time a little too hard. I nod at him as he pushes through the crowd, not even responding to someone else that calls his name. He moves as if someone’s life depends on ending this party at a reasonable time.
I look behind me again. What was going on back there that kept Liam’s attention like that? Then I spot it. A closed door near the end of the hall. Not like the other rooms—this one had a dead bolt on it.
Nic.
Something tugs at my chest, almost pulling me to that door. Something’s going on in there. Nic could be down there. Question is: Is she dead or alive? I’ll need backup to get past that lock. I reach for my phone. No way Officer Hunter will be able to hear me through all this chaos. I search for an exit. But everyone’s searching for an exit. One of the frat guys stood on a couch, got on a megaphone to tell everyone to peace out. They usher us out now in droves, even though I can still hear the music from neighboring houses. Either the DU house is the most responsible fraternity on Frat Row, or they have a reason to get everyone the hell up out of here. Something tells me it’s the latter.
I decide against the front door in case I bump into Liam again. He’s onto me. I just know it. I reach the kitchen and find a screen door leading into the backyard. Perfect. I’ll run about a block or two away. Wait until I hear the sirens before coming back. No matter how they find Nic, I know I needed to be there when she’s found.
I grab the handle of the screen door and pull it. The cold night air hits my face . . .
And something else hits the back of my head. Before I can reach to feel the damage, I tip forward and the night eats me up.
Twenty-Seven
THE BACK OF MY HEAD THROBS TO A STEADY BEAT:
Thump-a, thump-a, thump-a.
Feels like my head’s about to explode. I groan. Blink until my eyes fully open. I’m greeted with darkness. I blink some more, force my eyes to adjust. The thumping continues. I touch my head to make sure a vein’s not about to punch out of it. Pain sears from my scalp as soon as my fingertips graze it and I wince. Pain is good, though. Pain tells me that I’m not dead.
“Jay?”
My heart catches in my throat. That voice . . . that voice sounds familiar. The same one that would shake me awake in bed to make sure I didn’t miss the bus. The same one that would whine at me when I had to shake her to make sure she didn’t miss the bus. The same one that would reassure me of its presence when everything got too much: “You and me against the world, right?”
I push myself up to all fours. The dark room starts spinning, and I search for the voice. Search for something to keep me steady.
Again: “Jay!”
“Nic!” Her name explodes out of me, eclipsing any thumping going on.
My eyes catch on to an outline of my sister running toward me. Her gait is so strained, so jagged, that I almost think she’s a ghost. But then she pulls me in for a hug, and she’s so warm and real that the tears burst out of me.
“Nic,” I choke out. I touch her braids. Make sure she’s still real. “Nic?”
“It’s me,” Nic sobs and squeezes me tighter. “I promise. It’s me.”
We cling to each other with all the strength we have left. When one of us buckles, the other lifts us back up. I bury my face in the space between her neck and shoulder. Can’t remember the last time we hugged each other like this. With so much sentiment. Maybe it was right after MiMi explained to us that Mom was going to be gone for a long, long time. Nic pulled me to her chest, let me bury my face in her shoulder so nobody else had to see me cry. I left a puddle on her new sweater, but she didn’t care. She looked out for me like that. She’s doing the same for me now, even though she’s the one that’s probably been through hell. Doesn’t matter. She’ll be my big sister ’til the end.
Finally, Nic pulls away. Cups my face in her hands. “You’re real.”
I choke out a small laugh. “I’m real.” I touch her face, too. “So are you.”
Nic smiles and rests her cheek more into my palm. Then she blinks as if suddenly remembering she left the oven on. “Did they hurt you? What are you doing here?”
Here? Where’s here? I wipe away the rest of my tears with the back of my sleeve and scan the room. It’s dusty, dank. Cluttered with a tattered plaid couch and old foosball tables and paddles and flags with Greek lettering on it. DU. Delta fickin’ Upsilon. The bass continues and I realize it’s not coming from my head—it’s coming from outside. Somewhere above us. The music on Frat Row. I’m still in the damn frat house. The basement, maybe? This must be the room with the locked door that Liam kept sweating about.
Against one of the walls is a mattress on the floor covered by a thin sheet. A tray lies next to it with discarded pieces of fruit and a sandwich. The sight makes me want to gag. I really take Nic in. Her braids hang limp from her head, almost like they’ve given up. Her jean skirt has a tear on the bottom, and her shirt is wrinkled and covered in dirt. Now my stomach clenches even tighter.
“Have they been keeping you in here?” I ask Nic.
Nic’s bottom lip trembles as she nods. She rubs her eyes furiously with the heels of her hands, like she’s refusing to let herself cry about it.
“Nic.” I hold on to her arm. “I don’t understand. What happened?”
Nic blows breath out of her mouth, puffing some of the braids out of her face. “Javon and I got into it a few weeks ago at a party.”
I nod rigorously. I knew this part. The party a little over two weeks ago, where Sterling was being a bad friend and Javon was being a worse boyfriend.