The Smaller Evil

Dutton Books

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

Copyright © 2016 by Stephanie Kuehn

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

eBook ISBN 9781101994719

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kuehn, Stephanie, author.

Title: The smaller evil / Stephanie Kuehn.

Description: New York, NY : Dutton Books, [2016] | Summary: “Chronically sick and anxiety plagued Arman Dukoff runs away to attend a self-actualization retreat where he eventually discovers both a bloody corpse and a sense of self that was not what he bargained for”—Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015035869 | ISBN 9781101994702 (hardback)

Subjects: | CYAC: Self-actualization—Fiction. | Anxiety—Fiction. | Coming of age—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Depression &

Mental Illness. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Drugs, Alcohol,

Substance Abuse. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Self-Esteem &

 Self-Reliance.

Classification: LCC PZ7.K94872 Sm 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2015035869

Jacket photos courtesy of Shutterstock.com

Jacket design by Krisitin Logsdon

For my November boys,
who have so many stories inside of them.
I can tell.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.
—Aristotle

ALWAYS, ALWAYS . . .

You know what you're looking for. Age doesn't matter, but you're drawn to youth. It's your sentimentality, perhaps. Or the alluring knife-twist of nostalgia. That's a type of grief, isn't it? Pain from the past you're willing to relive, over and over and over again. It's the inevitable loss of yesterday.

It's the inevitable weight of more loss to come.

You don't have to do anything when you see her. That's the best part. The girl comes to you. You're seated in the crowded café, best table in the house. The one with the view of the gray skies outside. There are birds out there, too. There are blossoms on the trees.

There's also an empty chair right beside you. She asks to sit. You nod, and she sits and she tells you about herself. You knew she would. But you enjoy listening to her words. She's not dull or simpleminded, just filled with the false cynicism of her age. It's sweet, really. Like a rose who believes its thorns can keep it from being plucked. She's a college student, of course. An intellectual, she says with a blush. A deep thinker. She wants to be challenged. She wants more out of life.

It's almost too easy, this game you play. When the time comes to talk, you know the questions to ask. You know the things to say. Soon she's nodding. Soon she wants so much more of you.

That's how this story goes, my friend.

You know what you're looking for.

You know how to get it.

You always, always do.

ARMAN LOOKED OVER HIS SHOULDER
and held his breath. His burning eyes squinted into the blinding Santa Cruz sun.

Besides a few palm trees, a jagged crack in the sidewalk, and a seagull pecking in the dirt, there was nothing in his immediate vicinity that he could see.

Nothing at all.

Sweat pooled in the small of his back. The air chafed his lungs. He turned to face forward again and kept walking. Using his right hand, Arman reached to adjust the nylon strap of the messenger bag he carried slung across his collarbone. It'd been gouging into his skin for a while, the strap, and shifting the bag's weight felt good. Well, not good, exactly, but
better
, since the absence of pain didn't imply pleasure.

All around Arman, the day shone bright, clear, and the air swelled ripe with brine and sea-rot the way it always did this close to the beach. He had nothing to worry about, he told himself. Not now. Not out in the open on a perfect summer day like this.

Right?

That's when Arman did it again. The looking-over-his-shoulder thing.

He couldn't help it.

Still nothing. Just shadows. Sun. In the distance, tourists strolled the boardwalk, the pier. Surfers paddled in the water. The usual.

Arman felt silly about the way he was acting, like a spooked kid who believed monsters lived under his bed. But his heart disagreed. It pounded and pounded, going free-fall speed,
thud, thud, thud
, like it just might know something he didn't.

So he walked faster.

And faster.

• • •

By the time Arman made it over to the westside harbor, sweat was no longer pooling—it was pouring down his back. And his forehead. And the inside of his thighs. It felt like little rivulets of liquid had actually formed their own currents: merging and splitting and merging again as they ran to escape his body. Arman regretted not wearing shorts, even though he never wore shorts. And so with a sigh steeped in the banality of his own self-loathing, he ended up regretting that, too. The things that made him who he was.

Veering off the main road, Arman began the long march up the narrow path that led out toward the boulders and the waves at the end of the point. There was more wind here, a welcome relief from the late-morning heat, but the quick gusts off the ocean made his already itchy eyes sting with saline and his ears hum with the force of their roar.

He found them in the shadow of the lighthouse. Kira and Dale. It was where they'd been told to go, and they stood leaning against the tower's stone wall. More statues than teenagers. More dead than alive. They didn't look happy to see him, Arman noted as he drew closer. On the other hand, they didn't look
not
happy.

Just . . . neutral.

A fresh twinge of regret pinched at Arman's nerves, hard enough to
bruise. Neutral was another way of saying he had
zero impact.
Neutral was another reminder of why he was here and, oh, what he was willing to give in order to change.

Which was just about
anything.

Wasn't it?

Kira spoke first.

“Hey, kid,” she said, reaching up to smooth her long braids.

Arman frowned. He was seventeen, like she was. In fact, he was eight months older than Kira, something he knew well, seeing as they'd gone to school together since the second grade. He figured she had to know it, too. And still, she had to go out of her way and say something like that, just to make him feel small.

Dale, on the other hand, said nothing. Just lifted his stubbled chin in greeting while keeping his hands in the pockets of his oversized shorts with the surf logo on the side. His mirrored sunglasses were pushed back on the top of his head and his eyes were bloodshot, which meant he was either stoned or hadn't slept. Or both.

“You ready to do this?” Arman's voice came out more tentative than he intended.

“You're not having doubts now, are you?” The intensity of Kira's gaze scorched him, made him squirm. For Arman, this was nothing new. Kira was about the hottest girl he knew, all soft lips and regal bones, always dressed in the kind of effortless clothes that teased of worlds he'd never know. Country clubs and art galleries. Dinner parties. Ivy League schools. Arman grew nervous whenever Kira looked right at him, despite the fact that she was black and he didn't go for black girls.

At least, he didn't think he did.

“No. No doubts,” he said firmly. Gripping the messenger bag tighter to his body, Arman resisted the urge to peek over his shoulder again.
Forget small talk. This sucked, standing here. He wanted to get going, get started, get the hell out of this town. Once on the road, his paranoia would ease.

Wouldn't it?

“Yo,” Dale said, in his lazy, soft-spoken way. Like he hadn't a care in the world. “They're here.”

• • •

The passenger van sat idling in the lighthouse parking lot with its side door open. A welcome invitation and one they rushed toward. The van was white and it had five rows of bench seats with an aisle down the near side. Like a prison transport vehicle, Arman decided as he crawled in behind Dale. They could be San Quentin–bound or preparing to pick up trash off the side of the road, for all anyone watching them would know. It made about as much sense as what they were actually planning on doing.

A handful of adults, all middle-aged or older, none of whom Arman recognized, occupied the back of the vehicle. They looked nice enough, sort of friendly, open, with no obvious barriers to connection, but it wasn't like Arman could
really
tell. What people looked like sometimes told him what they might act like, but the correlation wasn't consistent enough for him to take any chances. He ducked his head and said nothing, sliding into an open seat as quickly as possible.

The man sitting next to the driver, at the front of the van, however,
was
someone Arman recognized. More than recognized. He was the reason Arman was here. The reason they were all here. The man's name was Beau, which was short for Beauregard, and Arman had met him precisely two weeks ago. While only the back of him was currently visible, Arman knew for a fact that Beau was tall and thin, with wide shoulders and eyes the color of river pebbles—slick and pale, first gray,
then brown, then gray again. Staring at him, Arman felt a dizzying sway inside his stomach. Not from the motion of the van, which was nosing from the unpaved lot with its slow jolt and roll. No, this sway came from being in the presence of someone he respected. Admired, even. That had to be the word for the way he felt around Beau. This queasy mix of eagerness and hope. Like a listing ship just longing to be righted.

Beau glanced back only once, to survey the van's occupants. Arman tried smiling, eager for connection, but Beau's gaze passed him over. There was no warmth in his river-pebble eyes at the moment. Just curt appraisal. Maybe a hint of judgment.

He's busy
, Arman reminded himself.
He's working.
That's not a rejection. It's not personal.

Because it really wasn't
.

Right?

As the van picked up speed, heading for the highway, Arman started to relax. His body sank deeper into his seat, limbs loosening, mind quieting. He even let the messenger bag slip from his grasp to the floor with a soft
thunk,
as he shut his eyes, recalling the masterful way Beau had coached him on leaving home without arousing suspicion. Everything Beau had said worked perfectly. Like the proverbial charm. Two nights ago, Arman simply informed his mom that he was going camping in the mountains with some friends for the week. Deep down, he knew she didn't care. Deep down, he knew he could be leaving to join the rodeo clown circuit or train as a male escort, and she wouldn't lose an ounce of sleep worrying about his safety or well-being. Not so long as it meant her only child getting the hot fuck out of her sight and their non-air-conditioned POS Beach Flats apartment for a whole week of summer vacation.

The thing was, Arman's mom wasn't known for being rational. Or
for acting in her own self-interest. No, she was known for her cynicism, the end result of a long string of disappointments that stretched back to before Arman was even born. Unfortunately for him, his mother's cynicism often came dressed as spite, so he'd braced himself for her resistance. The instant the words left his mouth, he just knew she was going to say no and cause a scene, determined not to suffer alone in her sweltering misery.

Only she hadn't.

Because Arman had
told
instead of asked.

Which was what Beau advised.

And now look. Look at him. He was free as a bird. Just like in that old song.

Well
, almost
free. Arman's gaze darted to the messenger bag at his feet. His stepfather, of course, was a different matter altogether. Arman had made his leaving and his freedom infinitely more complicated by getting that asshole involved.