Rebel, Bully, Geek, Pariah by Erin Jade Lange Read Free Book Online Page B

the dark in our direction.
    Andi shoved me hard toward the SUV. “Move.
Now
.”
    I stumbled, letting her push me into the clearing. Ahead of us, the boys were climbing into the front seats of the SUV, York behind the wheel.
    â€œNo way!” York cried. “The keys are in the ignition!”
    Andi dragged me to one of the back doors, and I pulled out of her grasp.
    â€œWe can’t ride with him. He’s been drinking!”
    It would occur to me later that it was also a bad idea to steal a car and run from the police, but in the moment, I only had the wits to focus on one drama at a time.
    Andi jumped into the backseat and dropped the messenger bag with the violin at her feet. To my right, labored voices were floating up a path cut through the trees—the path to the boat dock. The SUV would be gone before they got here, and so would Mama’s violin, along with all of my money. I was already thinking about how I would track Andi down later to claim my stuff when she yanked the violin out of the bag and held it high.
    â€œGet in, and it’s yours,” she said.
    I couldn’t understand the intensity in her voice, but it was that sense of urgency, even more than the lure of the violin, that pulled me into the SUV.
    â€œDrive!” she screamed, and the engine roared in response.
    Within seconds, the SUV was flying backward as York did the three-point-turn maneuver I’d learned in drivers’ ed last year. The SUV rocked back and forth until it faced up the road and away from the river.
    I opened my mouth to—I don’t know, protest, maybe? Or suggest another plan, or maybe just ask to be let out of the damn car. But whatever I was going to say got knocked right out of my brain as York hit the gas and slammed us back in our seats.
    We sped all of ten feet down the road before a bright flash of light glared off the windshield, followed by something large flying out of the woods to our left. It was a blur of black, and it made an awful
thump
as it hit the front fender and rolled up the hood of the SUV.
    York slammed on the brakes, and the body—
Oh God, it’s a body!
—rolled back down the hood, the megaphone attached to its hand
clunk-clunk
ing against the car all the way down.
    Â 
    7
    THIS IS WHAT people mean when they say silence is deafening.
    The quiet shock that filled the car was a tangible thing, and it swelled until it felt like the small confines of the SUV would burst with it. A car door opened, and the
ding-ding
warning bell cut through our hush.
    â€œStay here,” York ordered.
    So, naturally, every one of us opened our own doors and followed him to the front of the SUV. The officer had fallen to the side of the dirt road, half-concealed in the weeds and grass. He was not moving.
    â€œHe’s dead,” Boston said in a strangled whisper. He said it again, and this time it was a scream that reached all the way to my bones. “HE’S DEAD!”
    Jail is for drunks and accidental car thieves. Prison is for cop killers.
    I backed away from the officer’s body and fumbled in my purse for my phone. It had been so long since I’d had to dial9-1-1.
My mama is missing. My mama won’t wake up.
It made me sick to my stomach.
    But before I could punch the numbers, York let out a 9-1-1 call of his own.
    â€œHelp!”
    It took me a second to realize he was shouting his SOS directly out toward the river.
    â€œHELP!”
    He was calling for the other police.
    And they answered.
    The first shot whizzed by us far to the left, lost somewhere in the woods.
    The second bullet burrowed deep into a tree just over the fallen officer’s body.
    By the time the third bullet screamed into the rear bumper, we were all back inside the SUV.
    Andi yelled for York to “Go! Go! Go!” but he really didn’t need her prodding. His foot was on the gas before our doors were even closed.
    Two more shots rang out, and I couldn’t help but