Spark

CHAPTER 33

Gabriel sat in math class, hating the empty chair beside him. He couldn’t focus. Five hours ago, he’d been dragging Layne out of a burning barn.

Now he was listening to Anderson prattle on about negative numbers.

He’d been able to pull enough energy from the sun to ensure his hand wasn’t broken, but when he went for his lighter to draw more power from a true fire, he didn’t have it.

Whatever. The pain felt good.

He hadn’t wanted to come to school. But Nick had a good point: If he was already a suspect—even an unofficial one—not showing up for school on the same day as a fire might raise a huge red flag. He’d spent most of first period fidgeting, watching the door, absolutely certain that cops were going to come storming into the classroom any minute to arrest him.

Absolutely certain that Layne would have turned him in.

But as time went on, as students went about their business, he realized that nothing had changed.

He hadn’t seen Hunter yet, and the morning was too complicated to sum up in a text message. But when he hit the cafeteria, Calla was already sitting with Hunter.

Gabriel sighed and slung his backpack over his shoulder, heading for the gym.

The halogen lights were off, but sunlight streamed through the grated windows near the ceiling. The long stretch of beige floor was usually empty at this hour, but at the opposite end of the room, a kid was shooting free throws from the line. And from the looks of it, he was hitting every one.

Simon.

Gabriel stopped short. Would Layne have told her brother? Was Simon waiting here to confront him, to ask what exactly had happened this morning?

But that was crazy. He’d only just made the decision to come to the gym himself. And why would Simon be shooting free throws before a confrontation? Gabriel couldn’t make it work out in his head.

Everything was making him paranoid today.

At the very least, if Simon was here, it meant Layne was okay.

He walked into Simon’s line of sight, and the boy’s expression brightened.

“Hey,” said Gabriel. He held out a fist. Simon hit it.

But then the boy quickly gestured for Gabriel’s phone.

There was a fire at the farm this morning. Layne was there. They took her to the hospital.

It answered a lot of questions—and created just as many. Gabriel stared at the words and wondered how to play this. He looked up and didn’t have to fake concern. “Is she okay?”

Fine. Doctor says take it easy today. Precaution.

“Makes sense.”

I emailed her from computer lab. She wanted to come to school. Dad said no.

Gabriel nodded. “Figures.”

Can you stay for the game this afternoon?

This afternoon. He’d planned on it earlier this week, because he and Layne had fallen into the routine of watching Simon’s practice. He’d just assumed they’d watch together.

“As long as I’ve got a ride, I’ll stay,” he said.

Simon’s face broke into a grin.

Gabriel gestured for the ball. “Come on,” he said. “I’ve got time. Let’s play.”

It felt good to lose himself in the sport, to have some distraction. His hand ached, but he played through it. Simon was getting good—practice was clearly paying off. Gabriel used the signs Layne had taught him, but he didn’t need them much. When Simon ducked under Gabriel’s guard to steal the ball and make a basket, Gabriel started to wonder if the kid shouldn’t just be playing—he should be starting.

One of the gym doors slammed somewhere across the court, but Gabriel ignored it.

Until Ryan Stacey stepped onto the court and intercepted a pass.

His face was still bruised from Friday night, and the split lip hadn’t healed, making his smirk look a little crazy. “Looks like the retard has a girlfriend.”

“Looks like you didn’t get the message last Friday.” Gabriel could feel the anger coiling in his chest, ready to be let loose on this jerk.

But hands caught his arms, holding him back.

Ryan had brought friends.

At least four guys, but Gabriel couldn’t see who else was behind him. Probably the same losers who’d been beating on Simon last week. Gabriel tried to fight them, but there were too many—and with the lights off, he couldn’t pull any power from the electricity in the room.

Gabriel felt sure Ryan was going to take the chance to hit him—but the guy was going after Simon, who was backing away.

“Hey!” said Gabriel. “You touch him, I’ll break your goddamn arms off.”

Someone hit him in the back of the head, sending stars across his field of vision. Ryan caught up to Simon and gave him a solid shove in the chest, hard enough to knock him to the court.

Simon scrambled backward, but Ryan was leaning down, a hand drawn back, ready to slam a fist into Simon’s face.

Gabriel redoubled his struggles, but he’d never be fast enough.

“Hey!” a new voice yelled from the corner by the bleachers. An authoritative voice.

The coach’s voice.

The guys holding Gabriel scattered and ran. Ryan tried to follow, but he was under the net, and the coach beat him to it, even while dragging a full mesh bag of balls. Though he wasn’t a big man, Coach Kanner could be plenty intimidating, and Gabriel enjoyed watching Ryan’s face go pale under those bruises.

Until he realized Simon was just as pale, his breathing quick.

“Come on, Coach,” said Ryan. “We were just messing around.”

“You don’t mess around on my court. You’re out of the next two games.”

Ryan’s eyes just about bugged out of his head. “What? But that’s not—”

“Want to make it three?”

“Whatever.” Ryan turned away.

The coach called after him. “Stacey!”

Ryan looked like he was going to keep walking—but he must have wanted to stay on the team. He turned. “What?”

The coach raised an eyebrow.

Ryan sighed. “Yes. Sir.”

“See you on the bench at four.”

Ryan stormed through the doors into the locker room, shoving the door behind him to make the sound echo across the court. Gabriel would have mocked the dickhead, but he knew better. He was already on shaky ground with the coach. Instead, he put out a hand to pull Simon to his feet.

The coach looked at the younger boy. “You all right?”

Simon nodded. His face was red, his jaw clenched.

Gabriel felt for him. Simon could play—but he couldn’t play, for real, in a game. He was small, and though a few years would probably take care of that, a year was an eternity. Especially a year spent getting your ass kicked.

And all that was on top of not being able to hear.

The coach rubbed at the back of his neck. “I caught some of your playing earlier. You’ve been working hard.”

Simon nodded.

Then the coach gave Gabriel a good-natured shove in the arm. “Unless you’re just getting lazy.”

“Nah.” Gabriel smiled. He’d forgotten how much he missed the easy camaraderie of a sport. Had it really only been a couple weeks? “It’s all him.”

Coach Kanner looked back at Simon. “Think you can play like that this afternoon?”

Simon’s eyebrows went way up. He nodded vigorously.

“We’ll give it a try,” said the coach.

Simon nodded again.

The coach held up a finger. “One time.” Then he slung the bag of balls over his shoulder and turned for his office at the back of the gym.

Simon turned wide eyes to Gabriel. He gestured for the phone.

Holy crap.

For the first time since the weekend, Layne fired up her computer.

She didn’t even bother with her e-mail, rolling her eyes at the bolded number showing how many unread messages she had.

Seriously. Didn’t they have anything better to do?

She couldn’t stop thinking about fire. About arson. About Gabriel.

And her scars.

She’d stared at herself in the bathroom for what must have been a good twenty minutes. At first she’d wanted to yell for her father. She’d wanted someone else to see what she was seeing, to pinch her arm and prove she wasn’t dreaming.

But her father would want explanations, and she sure didn’t have one.

What had happened in that barn?

That night I drove you home was the first night—

A notebook sat open next to her laptop. She had to think back. The night her father had worked late. The night Gabriel had played basketball with Simon. Wednesday.

Wednesday, she wrote on the paper.

She went to the local news Web site and searched for the word arson.

Bingo. There’d been an article on Thursday about a fire Wednesday night. A family of four, though only three had gotten out. The reporter had interviewed the mother, a Mrs. Hulster, who said that the fire chief had declared the house too dangerous to search, that no one could be alive inside.

Yet somehow a firefighter had been in there. Somehow, her daughter had been pulled out.

Hulster. It sounded familiar.

Alan Hulster! Of course! Taylor had been talking about the fire the next day in class.

Had Gabriel seemed upset? Had he known about it?

Layne tapped her pencil on her paper. She couldn’t remember.

She skipped to the next article. Another fire, another suspected arson. The firefighters had been ordered out, but one fell through the floor. He should have been trapped—he should have been killed.

But again, someone dragged him out.

So Wednesday, Thursday . . .

Friday was the night of the party. Layne had been with Gabriel, until late.

No arson.

Saturday. A day full of highs and lows. A day that ended with her father being a jerk in the Merrick driveway.

She scrolled to the next arson article and clicked on the link.

A day that ended with a fire in a townhome community. She’d already seen this article—Ryan Stacey had forwarded it to her with mocking comments.

This time she actually read it. A four-alarm fire, an entire row of homes completely consumed.

No fatalities. Only one serious injury.

She stared at the timeline she’d drawn on her paper.

One of those articles quoted a fireman as saying “this guy has a hero complex.” That the arsonist was setting fires just so he could go in and save the victims.

That didn’t match Gabriel at all.

Or did it? Had he done that exact thing this morning?

She remembered her question from the hillside. Did you hurt someone?

And the haunted look in his eyes. No. Just the opposite.

That seemed to point in both directions.

Her head hurt.

A knock sounded at her door, and Layne turned off the monitor before her father could see what she was looking at.

He leaned into her room, looking frustrated. “What time is Simon supposed to be home?”

She glanced at the clock. It was after four. “His first game is today. The activities bus drops us off around five-thirty.”

“His first game?”

“Yeah. His first basketball game.” She folded her arms on the back of her chair. “Though he’s probably not playing.”

“He was serious about that whole basketball thing?”

“Yeah, Dad.” Layne stared at him, feeling sorry for him and wondering if he deserved it. She’d never sided with her mother, but maybe the woman was right about him working too much. He and Simon never talked, and she’d always thought it was because Simon resented his father.

She’d never really thought about her father making no effort to remedy the situation.

He came into the room and dropped onto the end of her bed. “Are you going to be all right?”

Layne thought about her scars disappearing. “Yes. I always am.”

“I’m sorry if I seemed insensitive this morning. After hearing you were in a fire . . . after everything we went through when you were little . . .” He ran a hand through his hair, and now she could hear the emotion in his voice. “And then with your mother . . . It was . . . a lot.”

Layne went and sat next to him. “It’s okay.”

“I never liked you going to that barn by yourself, but I always worried about you taking a fall—”

“Dad. It’s fine.”

He put an arm around her and kissed her on the top of the head. “I know it’s not perfect right now. But I’m trying.”

“I know.” And she did. He was trying to keep doing what he’d always done—working himself too hard, forgetting to eat, leaving it to someone else to keep dinner on the table and the family in order.

At one time it had been her mother.

Now it was Layne.

“Want to go watch Simon sit on the bench?” she said.

He kissed her on the head again, giving her another squeeze. For a moment, she actually thought he might say yes.

But he stood. “I hate to leave you alone, but I need to head in to the office. My afternoon appointments were rescheduled for this evening, so . . .”

And she tuned him out.

She was back to square one. Familiar ground.

Alone.

The basketball game should have been dramatic, what with Ryan Stacey confined to the bench and Simon starting center. Poetic justice would have dictated that the stands be packed, with Simon making the winning shot in the last seconds.

But it was only JV, and the first game of the season, so the bleachers weren’t crowded. The other team sucked and was barely organized enough to move the ball down the court.

But Simon was great. They were in the lead from the first shot.

And they won the game by twenty-two points.

“You said he can’t hear?” said Hunter as they filed off the stands. He’d stayed for the whole game. “You couldn’t prove it by me.”

Gabriel snorted and tossed his soda can into the recycling bin by the door. “Let’s hope the coach feels the same way.”

He’d been worried Hunter would judge him—for the fire at the barn, for telling Nick, for something else he couldn’t quite identify. But Hunter had been steady as ever, listening as Gabriel rehashed his morning from a nearly empty section of the bleachers.

And then he’d said what he always did. “You want to stop?”

Gabriel didn’t.

He couldn’t. Even now, even after this morning, he could feel need burning under his skin, like a junkie going through withdrawal.

He wished he had his lighter.

They waited outside the gym to congratulate Simon, kicking at loose gravel as kids streamed through the doors around them. Mostly students first, finishing up after-school projects and clubs. Then the JV cheerleaders, arm in arm and giggling as they half danced across the parking lot to the activity busses. Then basketball kids, half damp from the showers, but high-fiving over the win.

When the flow of students dropped to a bare trickle, Gabriel wondered if he’d somehow missed Layne’s little brother.

But he hadn’t seen Ryan Stacey either.

Gabriel swore and went for the doors—but on this side of the school, the doors were locked to the outside. He pounded, but no one answered—of course, since he’d stood here like an idiot watching everyone leave.

“Come on,” he said to Hunter, turning to sprint for the front entrance.

“What happened?”

“Ryan Stacey.”

They tore through the halls, shoes squeaking on tile as they skidded around corners. A teacher yelled at them to stop running, but Gabriel didn’t recognize her and they were well past before the words registered in his brain.

The gym: empty, aside from a few girls hanging a banner for a bake sale next week.

The locker room: empty. Boys’ bathroom: empty.

Gabriel swore again. The school was huge—they could be anywhere.

“Wait.” Hunter caught his arm. Gabriel froze and listened for a moment, but he didn’t hear anything.

Hunter stepped across the narrow hallway and pushed on the door to the girls’ locker room, opening it a few inches. The lights were off, revealing a well of shadowed tile and the edge of a trash can, but he yelled through the gap. “Anyone in here?”

Silence.

Hunter hit the light switch. Pink tile came to life, leading to pink steel lockers.

Empty—but Hunter strode forward anyway, rounding the corner into the girls’ shower area. That’s where they found Simon, shivering behind one of the pink shower curtains, sporting a black eye and a split lip.

And absolutely no clothes.