However, Brent rarely doesn't have an answer. "Video cameras?" he pondered aloud. "If the police force really is working to cover it up, you'd expect them to have those installed."
"They wouldn't show up just for a pack of kids."
Brent drummed his fingers on the cheap plastic table. "The question," he said sharply, nearly cutting off my last word, "is what made the kid scream. That's why they came, whatever it was."
"How did they get here so fast?"
"They're watching that place, Taylor!" he half-snarled. "I told you! This isn't some stupid conspiracy theory! Well, maybe it is, but it's true!" He was talking too fast to notice how idiotic he sounded, I concluded. "Something crashed, something crashed and someone doesn't want it to come out. Keith, put the damn beer down!"
Before I could comment on his choice of words, Keith waved the bottle a little drunkenly. "They're gonna take a fake ID," he slurred, "I'm gonna take a drink."
Brent swore a few times in his general direction. "They got Patrick. Those weren't normal cops, guys. I'm telling you. No cop goes after kids."
"You said it yourself," I pointed out. "They weren't after us. They were after... whatever was there."
"Witnesses," he said. It took me a moment to get what he was saying. When I did, I threw back my head and laughed. Keith laughed along, an empty, too-happy giggle of revelry. It grated my nerves. My nerves had been stretched too tight.
"Why the hell are we in a bar, anyway?" demanded Brent. "We can go anywhere, and you pick this place? Patrick got arrested and all you care about is drinking?"
"I don't know, man. Something's not right," he babbled. "Not normal. It's not normal. We're --"
I slammed the table. "We're going home," I interrupted. "Patrick will probably spend a night in jail and get bailed or whatever and be home by tomorrow. We'll talk tomorrow and he'll prove that you're all just psychos!" I stopped dead, and my tone dropped as I looked at Brent. "I've never seen him look like that."
"I know," he whispered. "It's like he found... whatever he was looking for. You don't find that running from cops. Even Patrick wouldn't find it running from cops."
We were crazy, that was it; the night had driven us crazy. I couldn't keep my brain still. It was galloping off on tangents, distracted, was it distracted or was I distracted? Were we distracted? Who is we? Is there someone else in my head?
Prom queen, coward, and some twisted part of me that wanted to stay with Patrick, knew I would be complete if I'd stayed with Patrick, not for Patrick, but for what he was up against.
I make no sense, I realized. Not even to me. It's just a flood of emotion and everything's coming out...
"Come on," Brent said, with an attempt at calmness. "We're rattled, Keith isn't even sober, we'll go home and it'll be okay. Taylor's right, it will all be okay tomorrow." The set of his jaw confirmed what I was thinking: he knew it was BS. He knew it was BS as well as I did.
"Why are we so panicked?" I reasoned, anyway. "They're law-abiding cops. Law-enforcing cops. Whatever. Nothing to worry about. They'll find out we didn't do anything, and it'll be fine."
"We're going home," said Brent, and then, when he looked at Keith, "and I'm driving."
"Gotta pay," Keith muttered, dragging a crumpled twenty out of his pocket. He left it on the table when we stumbled out.
I looked over my shoulder. "There's going to be change, Keith. That was one bottle."
"Don't want it. Don't need it. We're going to die anyway." He looked at me, and his eyes were glazed and hopeless.
The door swung shut behind us, and I threw my hands in the air. "What, are you all crazy? We're just scared little seniors! This isn't some movie! It doesn't all have to be a plot to kill everyone! It's just a mistake. The cops just made a mistake."
Brent shrugged at me. "Just go home, Taylor. I'll see you at school."
I let out a frustrated yell and stalked to my car. "I've had it with both of you!" I threw over my shoulder. "It'll be fine! Stop being such idiots!"
The drive home was a blur. The thoughts trapped in my head kept spilling out, and twice I caught myself babbling out loud. I was shaking, I was shaken, I was out of control, and I don't know how I made it home alive. Got the finger once, got honked at twice, and not in a "hey, baby" way. By the time I pulled in my drive, I was ready to either throw up or cry, shivering and panting and hysterical and not even knowing why. I grabbed the box, the box, was it worh all this?
I opened my door. The cat was waiting for me, purring. Her feline eyes drifted to the cube, and she let out a soft miaow.
"Yeah, Hawk. Isn't it pretty," I said flatly. I stalked past her, headed upstairs.
I passed my father's study, smelling the familiar aroma of cigarettes. I stuck my head in on my way to the room, to sleep, to an escape. I took in the appearance of the room. Books lined every one of the five shelves. The elegant mahogany desk was accented by an equally elegant chair, supporting a slender man with streaked silver-black hair, high cheekbones, and dark-circled eyes that commanded respect. In one hand the man held a liquor glass. An ashtray on the desk held a cigarette.
"I'm home, Dad," I said, for no reason. My parents don't monitor when I come in, or if I come in at all.
He nodded at me. "Good," he said, also for no reason. "You're early. It's not even eight yet."
Had it all gone that quickly? "Yeah. I'm going to get some sleep. Night." I sighed, wrapping my arms around myself. "Don't hit the cigarettes too hard tonight, okay?" I said, and added, with a halfhearted attempt at a joke, "Someday you'll burn the house down."
He chuckled. "I'm always careful. You know that." A shadow of a smile crossed his face. "Night, Taylor."