Panic (20 page)
Authors: Lauren Oliver
HEATHER HAD SUCCESSFULLY MANAGED TO AVOID talking to Anne for a whole day. After her fight with Bishop, she had walked two miles to the gully and spent the afternoon cursing and throwing rocks at random things (street signs, when there were any; fences; and abandoned cars).
His words played on endless repeat in her head.
You want everything to be shitty . . . so you’ll have an excuse to fail.
Unfair,
she wanted to scream.
But a second, smaller voice in her head said,
True
. Those two words—
unfair
and
true
—pinged back and forth in her head, like her mind was a giant Ping-Pong table.
By the time she returned from the gully it was evening, and both Anne and Lily were gone. She was seized with a sudden and irrational fear that Anne had taken Lily back to Fresh Pines. Then she saw a note on the kitchen table.
Grocery store
, it said simply.
It was only seven thirty, but Heather curled up in bed, under the covers, despite the stifling heat, and waited for sleep to put a stop to the Ping-Pong game in her mind.
But when she woke up—early, when the sun was still making its first, tentative entry into the room, poking like an exploratory animal through the blinds—she knew there was no avoiding it anymore. Overnight, the Ping-Pong game had been resolved. And the word
true
had emerged victorious.
What Bishop had said was true.
Already, she could hear Anne noises from downstairs: the
clink-clink-clink
of dishes coming out of the dishwasher, the squeak of the old wooden floorboards. When waking up in Fresh Pines to the usual explosion of sounds—cars backfiring, people yelling, doors banging and dogs barking and loud music—she had dreamed of just this kind of home, where mornings were quiet and mothers did dishes and got up early and then yelled at you to get up.
Funny how in such a short time, Anne’s house had become more like home than Fresh Pines had ever been.
And she had ruined it. Another truth.
By the time she came downstairs, Anne was on the porch. She called Heather out to her immediately, and Heather knew: this was it.
Heather was shocked to see a squad car parked a little ways down the drive, half pulled off into the underbrush. The cop was outside, leaning his butt against the hood of the car, drinking a coffee and smoking.
“What’s he doing here?” Heather said, forgetting for a moment to be scared.
Anne was sitting on the porch swing without swinging. Her knuckles around her mug of tea were very white. “They think the other one might come back.” She looked down. “The ASPCA would at least use a stun gun. . . .”
“The other one?” Heather said.
“You didn’t hear?” Anne said. And she told her: about Kirk Finnegan and his dog and the gunshots, twelve in total. By the time she was done, Heather’s mouth was as dry as sand. She wanted to hug Anne, but she was paralyzed, unable to move.
Anne shook her head. She kept her eyes on the mug of tea; she hadn’t yet taken a sip. “I know it was irresponsible, keeping them here.” When she finally looked up, Heather saw she was trying not to cry. “I just wanted to help. It was Larry’s dream, you know. Those poor cats. Did you know there are only thirty-two hundred tigers left in the wild? And I don’t even know which one was killed.”
“Anne.” Heather finally found her voice. Even though she was standing, she felt like she was shrinking from the inside out until she was little-kid-sized. “I’m so, so, so sorry.”
Anne shook her head. “You shouldn’t be playing Panic,” she said, and her voice momentarily held an edge. “I’ve heard too much about that game. People have died. But I don’t blame you,” she added. Her voice softened again. “You’re not very happy, are you?”
Heather shook her head. She wanted to tell Anne everything: about how she’d been dumped by Matt just when she was ready to say
I love you
; about how she realized now she hadn’t really loved him at all, because she had always been in love with Bishop; about her fears that she would never get out of Carp and it would eat her up, swallow her as it had her mom, turn her into one of those brittle, bitter women who is old and drug-eaten and done at twenty-nine. But she couldn’t speak. There was a thick knot in her throat.
“Come here.” Anne patted the swing next to her. And then, when Heather sat down, she was shocked: Anne put her arms around her. And all of a sudden Heather was crying into her shoulder, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“Heather.” Anne pulled away but kept one hand on Heather’s shoulder. With her other hand, she brushed the hair back from Heather’s face, where it was sticking to her skin. Heather was too upset to be embarrassed. “Listen to me. I’m not sure what this means for you and Lily. What I did—keeping the tigers here—was illegal. If your mom wants to make a big deal out of it, if the county wants to—the police might force you to go home. I’ll do everything I can to keep you here for as long as you and Lily want to stay, but—”
Heather nearly choked. “You—you’re not kicking me out?”
Anne stared at her. “Of course not.”
“But . . .” Heather couldn’t believe it. She must have misheard. “I was the one who let the tigers out. It’s all my fault.”
Anne rubbed her eyes and sighed. Heather never thought of Anne as old, but in that moment, she truly looked it. Her fingers were brittle and sun-spotted, her hair a dull and uniform gray. Someday she would die. Heather’s throat was still thick from crying, and she swallowed against the feeling.
“You know, Heather, I was with my husband for thirty years. Since we were kids, really. When we first got together, we had nothing. We spent our honeymoon hitchhiking in California, camping out. We couldn’t afford anything else. And some years were very hard. He could be moody. . . .” She made a restless motion with her hands. “My point is, when you love someone, when you care for someone, you have to do it through the good and the bad. Not just when you’re happy and it’s easy. Do you understand?”
Heather nodded. She felt as though there was a glass ball in her chest—something delicate and beautiful that might shatter if she said the wrong word, if she disturbed the balance in any way.
“So . . . you’re not mad at me?” she asked.
Anne half laughed. “Of course I’m mad at you,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to stay. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring.”
Heather looked down at her hands. Once again, she was too overwhelmed to speak. She felt as though, just for a second, she had understood something vastly important, had had a glimpse of it: love, pure and simple and undemanding.
“What’s going to happen?” she said, after a minute.
“I don’t know.” Anne reached over and took one of Heather’s hands. She squeezed. “It’s okay to be scared, Heather,” she said, in a low voice, like she was telling her a secret.
Heather thought of Bishop, and the fight she’d had with Nat. She thought about everything that had happened over the summer, all of the changes and tension and weird shifts, as though the air was blowing from somewhere totally unfamiliar. “I’m scared all the time,” she whispered.
“You’d be an idiot if you weren’t,” Anne said. “And you wouldn’t be brave, either.” She stood up. “Come on. I’m going to put the kettle on. This tea is ice-cold.”
Bishop had, for the most part, come clean to the police. He’d been questioned for the better part of three hours and had at last been released back home to his father, pending official charges.
But he’d lied about one thing. The game wasn’t over. There were still three players left.
It was time for the final challenge.
It was time for Joust.
DODGE KNEW IT WAS JUST A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE Bishop came to see him. He didn’t wait long. Just three days after Bishop had turned himself in to the police for the Graybill fire, Dodge came home from work and spotted Bishop’s car. He wasn’t outside, though; Dodge was surprised to see that Dayna had let him in. Bishop was sitting on the couch, hands on his knees, knees practically to his chin, he was so tall and the couch was so low. And Dayna was reading in the corner, like it was normal, like they were friends.
“Hey,” Dodge said. Bishop stood up, looking relieved. “Let’s go outside, okay?”
Dayna looked at Dodge suspiciously. He could tell she was waiting for a sign, an indication that everything was okay. But he refused to give it to her. She had betrayed him—by changing, by suddenly flipping the script. Panic had been
their
game, a plan they had made together, a shared desire for revenge.
He knew, obviously, that nothing could bring his sister back, and that hurting Ray, or even killing him, wouldn’t restore Dayna’s legs. But that was the whole point: Ray and Luke Hanrahan had stolen something Dodge could never get back. So Dodge was going to steal something from them.
Now that Dayna was shifting, turning into someone he didn’t know or recognize—telling him he was immature, criticizing him for playing, spending all her time with Ricky—he felt it even more strongly. It wasn’t fair. It was all their fault.
Someone had to pay.
Outside, he gestured for Bishop to follow him into Meth Row. For once, there were signs of life here. Several people were sitting out on their sagging porches, smoking, drinking beers. One woman had snaked a TV out into the front yard with her. Everyone was hoping to catch a glimpse of the tiger; in just a few days, it had become an obsession.
“I’m out, you know,” Bishop said abruptly. “I won’t get my cut or anything. It was all pointless.” His voice was bitter. Dodge felt almost bad for him. He wondered why Bishop had ever agreed to judge, to go along with it. Or why anyone else agreed to it, for that matter. Maybe all of them—the players, the judges, Diggin, even—had their own secrets. Maybe the money was only part of it, and the stakes were much higher for each of them.
Dodge said, “We’re almost at the end. Why back out now?”
“I don’t have a choice. I broke the rules. I talked.” Bishop took off his hat, ran a hand through his hair, then smashed his hat back on. “Besides, I
hate
it. I always have. Fucking Panic. It drives people crazy. It
is
crazy. I only did it because . . .” He looked down at his hands. “I wanted to give Heather my cut,” he said quietly. “When she started playing, I had to keep going. To help her. And keep her safe.”
Dodge said nothing. In a screwed-up way, they were both acting out of love. Dodge felt sad that he hadn’t gotten to know Bishop better. There was so much he regretted. Not spending more time with Heather, for example. They could have been real friends.
And Nat, of course. He’d royally screwed things up with her.
He wondered if all of life would be like this: regret piled on regret.
“Did you ever do something bad for a good reason?” Bishop blurted out suddenly.
Dodge almost laughed. Instead he simply answered, “Yes.”
“So what does that make us?” Bishop said. “Good, or bad?”
Dodge shrugged. “Both, I guess,” he said. “Like everybody else.” He felt a sudden pang of guilt. What he was doing—what he wanted to do to Ray—was really bad. Worse than anything he’d ever done.
But there was that old saying: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That’s all he was doing. Getting even.
After all, he wasn’t the one who had started this.
Bishop turned to him and stopped walking. “I need to know what you’re going to do,” he said.
Bishop looked so lost, standing there with his big arms and legs as if he didn’t know how to work them.
“I’m going to keep playing,” Dodge said quietly. “We’re almost done. But not quite. Not yet.”
Bishop exhaled loudly, as though Dodge had just punched him in the stomach, even though he must have been expecting it. And Dodge suddenly knew how he could make Bishop feel better, how he could do something good for a change, and how he could make sure that Ray lost.
“I can keep Heather safe,” Dodge said. Bishop stared at him. “I can make sure she doesn’t go up against Ray. I’ll make sure she doesn’t get hurt. Deal?”
Bishop watched him for several long minutes. Dodge could tell he was struggling with something; he probably didn’t trust Dodge completely. Dodge couldn’t blame him.
“What do I have to do?” Bishop said.
Dodge felt a weight lift from his chest. One step closer. Everything was slotting into place.
“A car,” he said. “I need to borrow a car.”
Dodge had been worried Heather wouldn’t listen to him. After all, he was the one who’d told her all deals were off, no splits. But when he asked her to meet him at Dot’s, she agreed. It was ten p.m.—the only time the diner was ever empty, in between the dinner rush and the late-night crowd, when couples blasted from the bar next door came in for pancakes and coffee to sober them up.
He explained what he needed her to do. She’d ordered a coffee, made it light with cream. Now she stared at him mid-sip. She set her cup back down.
“You’re asking me to lose?” she said.
“Keep your voice down,” Dodge said. His mom had worked the early shift and was probably out with Bill Kelly—they were practically goddamn inseparable at this point—but he knew everyone else in Dot’s. Including Ricky, who he could see every time the kitchen door opened and closed, grinning and waving at him like an idiot. Dodge had to admit the kid was pretty nice. He’d already sent out a free grilled cheese and some mozzarella sticks.
“Look, you don’t want to go up against Ray, do you? The kid’s a beast.” Dodge felt a tightening in his throat. He thought about why he was doing this—thought about Dayna wheeled home for the first time, Dayna falling out of bed in the night and crying for help, unable to climb back into bed. Dayna wheeling around, hopped up on pain meds, practically comatose. And even though she’d seemed better and happier lately—hopeful, even—he, Dodge, would never forget. “He’ll knock you off the road, Heather. You’ll end up losing anyway.”
She made a face but said nothing. He could tell she was thinking about it.
“If we play it my way, you still win,” he said, leaning over the table, tacky from years of accumulated grease. “We split the money. And nobody gets hurt.”
Except for Ray.
She was quiet for a minute. Her hair was swept back into a ponytail, and she was flushed from a summer outside. All her freckles had kind of merged into a tan. She looked pretty. He wished he could tell her that he thought she was great. That he was sorry they had never been closer.
That he had fallen for her best friend, and had messed it up.
But none of that mattered now.
“Why?” she asked finally, turning back to him. Her eyes were clear, gray-green, like an ocean reflecting the sky. “Why do you want it so bad? It’s not even the money, is it? It’s about the win. It’s about beating Ray.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dodge said a little roughly. The kitchen doors swung open again and there was Ricky, his cook’s whites streaked with marinara sauce and grease, grinning and giving him the thumbs-up. Jesus. Did Ricky think he was on a date? He turned his attention back to Heather. “Listen. I promised Bishop I would—”
“What’s Bishop got to do with it?” she asked sharply, cutting him off.
“Everything,” Dodge said. He drained his Coke glass of ice, enjoying the burn on his tongue. “He wants you to be safe.”
Heather looked away again. “How do I know I can trust you?” she said finally.
“That’s the thing about trust.” He crunched an ice cube between his teeth. “You don’t know.”
She stared at him for a long second. “All right,” she said finally. “I’ll do it.”
Outside, at the edge of the parking lot, the trees were dancing in the wind. Some of the leaves had already begun to turn. Gold ate up their edges. Others were splotched with red, as though diseased. Less than three weeks until Labor Day and the official end of summer. And only a week until the final showdown. After saying good-bye to Heather, Dodge didn’t go home straightaway, but spent some time walking the streets.
He smoked two cigarettes, not because he wanted them, but because he was enjoying the dark and the quiet and the cool wind, the smells of autumn coming: a clean smell, a wood smell, like a house newly swept and sprayed down. He wondered whether the tiger was still loose. It must be; he hadn’t heard anything about its capture. He half hoped he would see it, and half feared he would.
All in all, the conversation with Heather had gone easier than he’d expected. He was so close.
Rigging the explosion, he knew, would be the hard part.