Unleashed Read online

  Misty sighed and wrapped an arm around Val. Exhausted from comforting her boyfriend all night, Val needed comfort herself now. Letting her head drop to Misty’s shoulder, Val yawned and said, “There should be a fine for keeping somebody on your mailing list after they die. Jackasses don’t know what they do to people. They don’t care.”

  “Still, it’s cool Eric gets to sleep in whenever he wants,” Marc said.

  Val’s head jerked back up. “Because his brother’s dead.”

  “I know. I don’t mean that part’s cool.”

  Both girls looked at him, then at each other. “If you listen real close, you can actually hear the hamster wheel in his head spinning,” Misty said.

  Marc punched her. Misty punched him back.

  “Well? We’re werewolves,” Marc growled. “And we have to come to school every day? It’s retarded.”

  “Marc, you’re just mad because you’re a werewolf and you still don’t have any chest hair, so just shut up,” Val said.

  “Oh, hell.” Marc lifted his T-shirt, displaying a downy streak of hair running down his stomach.

  “Aw, it’s like dandelion fluff,” Val cooed. “If I blow it off, do I get a wish?”

  “That’s the treasure map, baby. Leads all the way down to the pirate’s chest.” He started belly dancing. “It’s okay, Valentine. Give in to your desire.”

  Val tried to shout, “You’re so stupid!” but was laughing too hard.

  “Don’t make me show my nipples, Valentine. You know my nipples shoot love beams straight into your heart.”

  Squealing, covering her face, Val retreated into the corner. Marc chased her with hip-swaying steps. “All right, I didn’t want to do this, but, pow! There’s one. Pow! There’s the—”

  “Hey! Put your shirt on. Now!”

  Mr. Fine, the vice-principal, pushed through the crowd toward them. Marc let his shirt drop back into place.

  “What’s the matter with you? Do you see anybody else ripping their clothes off?”

  Marc fixed a bored expression on his face, staring off to the side through half-closed eyes.

  “Well?”

  “No.”

  “Then cut it out, or you’re going to ISS. Clear?”

  Marc shrugged.

  Mr. Fine gave Misty and Val a warning glare, then stalked off. Once he’d walked away, the three pulled tighter together.

  “Let’s maul him,” Misty said. “Rip his throat out.”

  Grinning, Marc and Val watched Mr. Fine over their shoulders. Then Val turned back to Misty. “Oh. Remember Monday I was complaining about Geneva Jones being in my health class? Wondering why bother since she’s already got every crotch critter in the textbook?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, I should have kept my mouth shut, because the very next day Angie Walton transferred into that class too.”

  Misty snorted. “There’s probably a couple crotch critters named after her.”

  “I know. God, I hate both of them.”

  Daniel stood with his friends and lieutenants near the trophy cases, waiting for first bell. The lobby’s commotion swirling around them, Angie squeezed herself against Daniel, her head nestled on his shoulder.

  “Mr. Morning!”

  Daniel stiffened at the sound of his name. Mr. Fine appeared, his right hand extended. “I heard you got some good news over the holidays.”

  Daniel shook the vice-principal’s hand. “Yeah. I guess I did,” he said, glancing sideways at Keith.

  “Congratulations, Daniel. I know how hard you’ve worked for this. I know you’re going to make us all proud.”

  “Thanks. I’ll try.” Daniel squirmed inside, but he kept the grinning mask in place as Mr. Fine slapped his back and rambled.

  “Daniel Morning at Cornell. That’s just wonderful. We all knew you could do it.”

  “Ew. That’s gross,” Geneva said.

  They all looked up to see what she was talking about. Across the lobby, Marc Sandlin had his shirt hoisted to his chin, dancing around like a short bus kid off his Ritalin.

  “Good job, Daniel,” Mr. Fine said, already weaving through the crowd. “Come by my office later today. Can’t wait to hear all about it.”

  “I sure will.”

  “Hey! Put your shirt on. Now!”

  Daniel slumped back against the wall, watching Mr. Fine read Marc the riot act. Bwana mumbled, “I really didn’t need to see that.”

  “Val sits in front of us in health,” Angie said, motioning to herself and Geneva. “I wouldn’t have changed classes if I’d known I’d have to stare at her back-fat all day.”

  While everybody snickered, Daniel slapped his cousin in the back of the head. “What are you telling Mr. Fine my business for?”

  “What?” Keith asked. “He asked if you’d heard anything yet. Didn’t know it was a big secret.”

  “You’re such a suck up.” He noticed Keith had stopped wearing his new watch.

  First bell rang a minute later. Angie and Daniel shared a quick kiss, then hurried to their homerooms. In trig, Daniel used the parallax method to calculate the distance from Earth to different stars. He scribbled down notes and thumbnail diagrams, copying step-by-step the examples Mrs. Schiff put on the whiteboard.

  With winter break over, at least Daniel could keep his mind busy. Getting lost in double-angle identities and the Battle of Verdun, he didn’t have time to obsess over the bluestone towers of Cornell or the slimy therapist who’d gotten him there.

  He wouldn’t have been so moody lately if he was still playing ball. Heading to government class with Bwana, Daniel mulled over trying out for the Big Red once he got to Cornell. Bwana laughed out loud. “Cornell sucks.”

  “It’s the Ivies,” Daniel said. “They’re supposed to suck.”

  “They suck for the Ivies. Their last league championship was when? Like in eighty-five?”

  “Eighty-eight. A mere twenty years ago. And they’re just waiting for a good shooting guard. They’re just waiting for me.”

  “You need to try out for rowing or something like that. Do they have squash up there?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “They do? I was totally making that up. They really have a squash team? What about cricket? No, you’ve got to join the polo team.”

  As they walked into government class, Daniel changed the subject. “Which one? Jessica or Emi?” he asked, nodding at the Orr twins gossiping.

  Bwana puffed his cheeks with air and let it out slowly, considering the question. “Jessica’s ass. Emi’s tits.”

  “How are you going to—” Somebody bumped into Daniel from behind. He stepped aside to let Misty Sandlin pass. They muttered, “Sorry,” at the same time.

  “How are you going to do that?” Daniel finished his thought. “Saw them in half and stitch the best parts together?”

  “It’s a hypothetical. So hypothetically, I can mix-and-match. Now, which one would I do, that’s not hypothetical, because I could get both of them down to their skivvies before you slapped on your cologne. That’s just reality.”

  They kept up the bored banter until Mrs. MacKaye appeared. After the class took their seats, she handed out a list of different forms of government. Everybody had to choose one from the list and write a three-page paper detailing its pros and cons. The class gave up a collective groan.

  “Don’t make it three pages, please?” Jessica begged. “That’s too long.”

  Mrs. MacKaye sighed. “What do you want? To make a shoebox diorama? Make a little Stalin out of pipe cleaners and glitter?”

  “Yes!” Jessica said, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Come on, guys. When you go to college, three pages is the bare minimum you’ll be expected to write for every exam. If you think anybody’s going to hold your hand, you’ve got—”

  Tires squealed outside, and an animal screamed. Twenty-three heads whipped around. At the bottom of the campus hill, a car drove down Nineteenth Avenue, leaving behind the dog it
had hit.

  The brown mutt tried to get out of the street. The class watched it struggle up, crumple, then struggle up again. Daniel could see one of its hind legs was crushed.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Mrs. MacKaye said. “Oh, why do idiots let their pets just run around like that?”

  “Should we call the police or something?” Emi asked. “Pve got my phone.”

  Mrs. MacKaye hesitated, then pulled her eyes away from the window. “The main office can handle it. We’ve got a lot to cover, okay? Come on, guys. The main office can handle it.”

  The dog kept whimpering, but with the windows closed, the sound was thin. They could ignore it.

  “Let’s go over the instructions, okay? Zach, I’m not explaining this twice. Now, all these forms of government have been tried at one point or another. So when you write your pros and cons, I want actual—pay attention, Misty.”

  Misty Sandlin sat in the row of desks nearest the windows. Ignoring Mrs. MacKaye, she toyed with her lip ring and watched the dog.

  “Misty!”

  Rolling her eyes, Misty stood up. She walked past the teacher without a glance. Mrs. MacKaye yelled at her to sit down. Misty opened the door and vanished. The whole class sat stunned, listening to her boots thud down the empty hall as she broke into a run.

  Suddenly, the spell of Mrs. MacKaye’s authority shattered. Chairs scraped the floor as every student crowded around the windows. Misty reappeared, crossing the frost-silvered campus.

  The dog had made it to the strip of dead grass between the curb and the sidewalk. Blood stained the snow. When it saw Misty approaching, it dragged itself toward her with its front legs. Misty pulled off her sweater. Kneeling on the ground in her T-shirt, she bundled the dog up and scooped it into her arms. Through the window, Daniel watched Misty rush the dog to her car while he, McCammon High’s shooting star, stood with the gutless, gawking rest.

  It took a minute for Mrs. MacKaye to get the class back under control. She sent a discipline slip for Misty over to the main office. They talked about the assignment some more and then the three branches of the federal government.

  After third period, the story began spreading to people who hadn’t seen it. When Daniel and Bwana told their friends they’d been in the same classroom as Misty, they wanted all the details, what she’d said and how she’d acted.

  “She didn’t act any way,” Daniel told them. “She just walked out.”

  Listening to the hurt dog whimper, Daniel had felt sorry for it. He’d wanted to do something and had seethed at Mrs. MacKaye because she wouldn’t. But Daniel had never considered going to help himself. All Misty did was walk out, but watching her, it had seemed as astonishing as if she’d swooped out the window and flown to the dog’s rescue.

  Daniel mulled it over through lunch and the last half of the school day. By the time the three o’clock bell rang, Daniel could finally put into words what had been gnawing at him all week.

  He hadn’t wanted to cheat. Daniel blamed his parents for pushing him into it, but he could have refused. He could have answered the therapist’s questions honestly. Walking into the testing room, he could have just not handed the proctor the form saying he had ADHD. Instead, hating every minute of it, he’d done exactly what they wanted him to do.

  He’d gotten into Cornell, his dream school. But in the end, it hadn’t been because he was bright or determined. Daniel was going to Cornell because he was obedient. Because he had never, not once he could remember, stood up for himself the way Misty had stood up for a mongrel.

  There was a student rep meeting after class. Daniel was headed there when he remembered Mr. Fine had asked him to stop by. He really didn’t feel like chatting with the vice-principal today, but he turned around, anyway.

  Keith worked in the main office as a student aide. When Daniel pushed through the glass doors, his cousin had an elbow propped on the chest-high counter, scratching his head over some geometry problems. He glanced up when Daniel walked in. “Hey. What’s up?” Looking back down, he started erasing an answer.

  “Mr. Fine wanted to see me.”

  “Oh, yeah. It’ll be a minute, though.” Keith leaned over the counter grinning. “Misty Sandlin’s in there now.”

  Daniel glanced at the vice-principal’s closed office door. “Really?”

  “Batshit crazy,” Keith whispered so the secretary wouldn’t overhear.

  Suddenly, the door jerked open and Misty stepped out. Scowling at the floor, she walked around the counter, almost bumping into Daniel for a second time that day.

  Misty and her brother were both nasty little things with personalities like battery acid. The last person to cross Misty had been her boyfriend, Andre Swoopes, last October. She’d locked him out of his house naked, then burned his clothes. But even though Misty was a vicious thug princess, she’d done something Daniel hadn’t had the courage to do. Maybe never could, if he wanted to be a shooting star.

  “So, uh, is that dog okay?”

  “What?” She shot him a look as beguiling as a brick thrown at his head. Misty was half-black, her skin a sallow, almost sickly, yellow. Thick eyeliner gave the impression of a permanent flu. He guessed her lip ring was fairly new; the hole seemed infected.

  “That dog,” Daniel said again. “Is it okay?”

  She gave a tiny shrug. “Drove him to a vet. They said he’d probably live, but they’ll have to amputate one of his legs.”

  “That’s good. That—that he’ll live. Too bad about his leg, though.”

  “Yeah. He had a collar on, so they called his owners. Told them where he was.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “Yeah.”

  They stared at each other. When Daniel couldn’t think of anything else to say, Misty shrugged again. “Well, see you.” She walked out of the office.

  “I’ll tell Mr. Fine you’re here” Keith said, heading toward the vice-principal’s office.

  “Hold up a second.” Daniel followed Misty into the lobby. Her brother and her friend Val lingered outside the main office. Daniel had passed them a minute earlier without noticing them.

  “ISS?” Val asked.

  Misty nodded. “Five days.”

  “Mom’s gonna whip your ass,” Marc laughed. “Gonna take off her belt.”

  “Don’t tell her. I’ll tell her when I get back from work tonight.” Misty sighed. “Jesus. All this, and I’ve still got to be at the deli at five.”

  “You were right, we should have—” Val saw Daniel walking up behind Misty. Her eyes narrowed.

  “It was just really cool,” Daniel said. “I mean, everybody saw what happened and felt sorry for that dog, but nobody did anything. Except you. Too afraid to stick their necks out or whatever.” Watching him, Misty’s hard expression softened into something closer to bafflement. Daniel heard himself rambling but couldn’t shut up. “I mean, it was just really … dashing.”

  That made the corner of her mouth twist upward into a smirk. “Thanks.”

  “Wow.” Val tilted her head to one side. “You’re very sensitive for a dumb jock.”

  Daniel nodded. “I can be. It gives me migraines, but I can be.”

  Misty had a gentle laugh. “Well, see you around.”

  “Yeah.”

  Misty, Val, and Marc headed outside. Marc held the door open for the girls like a butler, giving an elaborate bow as they stepped through. Val whispered a few words to Misty, then Misty glanced over her shoulder. She met Daniel’s gaze and held it for a just moment before the door swung closed.

  With two hours to kill before Misty and Val had to be at the deli, the girls and Marc drove to Eric’s house. Eric was barefoot and rumple-haired, having just gotten up an hour ago. After he made sure his mom was still asleep, the pack started planning for next weekend, unfolding a map of Birmingham across Eric’s bed. Black Xs marked where they’d already painted their sign.

  “We’re getting farther and farther from the furnace,” Eric said. “From now on, we need to pick a
meet-up point beforehand in case we get separated.”

  “Wouldn’t get separated if everybody watched the streets they’re supposed to,” Marc grumbled.

  “That cruiser still would have come,” Misty said. “And stop talking like a badass; you ran five blocks before realizing the police weren’t after you. I was the one who spent an hour looking for you.”

  “Did you? Really? Gosh, Misty, that’s so … dashing.”

  “Shut up!”

  Before the fight escalated, Val cut in, “Misty, we better get going.”

  Misty and Marc shared their grampa’s old Ford Lincoln, so Marc would drive it home now. Misty would go to work with Val, then get a ride home from her later tonight. The driveway gravel crunching under their boots, Val and Eric talked in soft voices, savoring warm touches against cold skin. Misty sat in the passenger seat of Val’s car trying to ignore them.

  “C’mon, Val. Ilie’s gonna bite our heads off if we’re late again.”

  “So? He bites our heads off no matter what we do.”

  Which was true, but Val gave Eric one last kiss then got into the car. Once they were on the road, away from the boys, she smacked Misty’s arm. “What is up with Daniel Morning hitting on you?”

  Misty shook her head. “He wasn’t hitting on me. I don’t know what that was about.”

  “He was babbling, Misty. You made him babble.”

  She smiled but said, “He’s dating Angie Walton.”

  “So?”

  “So, I don’t know what he wants, and I’m not going to waste my time trying to figure it out. If he wants to be friends, that’s cool. But I’m not looking for a relationship now. Especially not with some overachiever jock with one girlfriend already. My life’s too confusing as it is.”

  “All right.”

  Misty slipped on her aviators. She watched the passing city, then said, “But do you think he has those super-sculpted jock shoulders? I really like those.”

  CHAPTER 3