David’s machete clapped against his back with every step. He’d fashioned a sheath for it out of thick, folded cardboard and fastened it to his back with string. He looked over the chaos of the market, at all the flapping mouths, the bared teeth, and the grabbing hands.
He didn’t want to be here long. Get in, get out. Thirty Loners stood behind him carrying goods for trade; the rest he’d sent back to the Stairs with the food they’d need until the next drop came.
“Ritchie, take Nelson and your team to the Sluts. Try to get the bulk of supplies from them. Toilet paper, soap, the usual.
Everybody else, make your free trades, but stick close to each other.”
“Loners!” somebody shouted over the crowd. David didn’t have to look up to know who it was: Bobby Corning, the Freaks’ leader, who now insisted on being called Jackal. He painted his face white. He thought it made him look undead.
David couldn’t bring himself to call Bobby Jackal. Before he’d decided to reinvent himself as a satanic singer- songwriter, Bobby had spent his freshman year in pastel polo shirts. That was hard to forget.
“You picked a good day to die!” Bobby said as he cut through the market with a swarm of Freaks behind him. Other gangs stopped what they were doing to watch.
“That’s your big line?” David said with a grin that covered up the anxiety churning his insides. “I hope you didn’t spend all day on it.”
Bobby’s face soured. “No, I just came up with it right now!” he said. He flipped his blue bangs out of his eyes with his sharpened black nails.
David relaxed a little. He already had the upper hand.
“You owe us a TV, bitch!” Bobby said. He got in David’s face.
Will lunged for Bobby. David barely caught him by the waist of his pants. He yanked Will back beside him.
“You want that TV? You come and get it! Bring all your poser friends!” Will said, trying to fight David off in the same breath. David motioned for Gonzalo to intercede. Gonzalo wasted no time picking Will up and walking him away to the back of the group. But he still got one last jab in. “They can watch me beat your face in, toilethead!”
“It’s Jackal!” Bobby shouted after Will, spit flying from his mouth. He turned sharply to David. “Who the hell are you, huh? The Loners? You’re not a gang, you’re nothing.” The Freaks creaked forward in their shoes, waiting for Bobby to say the word. Grab your machete, Bobby’s eyes seemed to say. David had only thirty people with him; the rest were on the other side of the school by now. That’s why Bobby had picked the market instead of the quad to face off. Bobby had at least sixty Freaks with him now. The Loners would lose.
“Just take it easy, Jackal,” David said.
“Stay outta the drops, Loner. You’re messing with our livelihood,” Bobby said, getting louder so other gangs could hear.
“You’re messing with the whole food chain! I want to hear it, right now! I want to hear you say the Loners are off the quad for good.”
“Fuck off,” David said. His hand crept up toward his machete.
The Freaks raised their weapons, but they didn’t have a chance to use them. Varsity surrounded the Freaks. Bobby’s nose crinkled in confusion as Sam stepped out from the forest of his guys. David was shocked. Everyone was. Sam hadn’t made a public appearance since he was nearly killed by the Scrap mob in the quad.
Sam looked pale, which was an odd thing for David to think, considering no one had been outside over a year. But this sort of pale was different. It was a sickly pale; the natural ruddiness of his skin was gone. Sam’s eyes seemed darker too, like his pupils had spilled and stained his corneas. Sam rushed toward Bobby and David. David sped up his reach for his machete, and as he wrapped his fingers around the hilt, Sam grasped Bobby’s hair.
With a single yank, Sam pulled Bobby off his feet and dragged him to the closed door of a classroom. The door had a two-by-two-foot window in it, at head level. Sam slammed Bobby’s head into it. David heard the glass crack with a pop.
The Freaks lurched forward, shouting, but Varsity held them back. They watched as Sam pressed Bobby’s face hard into the cracked glass, and leaned close. He whispered in Bobby’s ear, but he kept his eyes locked on David. Sam’s eyes quivered with rage.
POP.
The single crack in the glass grew longer, reaching up from the bottom corner toward Bobby’s face. Bobby was staring straight at it, like he was face to face with a rattlesnake. Sam pressed Bobby’s face harder and harder into the glass, whispering all the while. He sneered at David. If the glass gave way and his head went through, the glass would filet his face.
David pictured Bobby trying to pull his head back out and leaving half of his cheeks behind, hanging from the shards like a wet leather glove.
P-POP.
The crack splintered off into smaller ones. One touched Bobby’s nose. He whimpered. The Freaks pushed at Varsity.
They were upset now, yelling and punching back. Bobby’s eyes bulged. Sam wasn’t whispering anymore. He bore down on Bobby’s head.
Sam pushed off of Bobby and stepped away. Bobby didn’t move at first. He just kept his face to the glass, staring at the cracks that could have disfigured him. The Freaks ran to him.
He wouldn’t look any of them in the eyes.
The whole market watched as the Freaks, with their tails between their legs, pushed past the Loners toward their trading post. As Sam walked in David’s direction, David finally pulled his machete from the sheath. He held it down but ready, and the Loners flanked him. Sam walked like he was going to pass David right by, but stopped. He stood in profile but slowly lifted his head and turned it toward David. There was dirt on his face. He must not have washed it in days.
“Nobody’s gets to kill you but me,” Sam said. “Happy shopping.”
Sam walked on, and the rest of Varsity followed.
David spent the next twenty minutes in a fog. He had gotten too comfortable with Sam not being around. Varsity had attacked them repeatedly in the halls, but they were unfo-cused without Sam’s leadership. Loner-Varsity scuffles had become routine, but Sam’s return was a bracing reminder that this was personal and always would be until one of them was dead. David sank. Whether it was tomorrow or in a month, the only way David could stop this vicious cycle was to kill Sam.
Could he do that?
“We’re good to go,” Ritchie said, his team behind him with a full load of supplies from the Sluts.
David nodded. “Good. The rest of the team is at the Nerds’.
Let’s get the hell out of here.”
David stepped away from the wall and into the flow of market traffic. Someone in the crowd took his left hand for a moment and squeezed it. It was a Scrap girl David didn’t recognize. Her white hair was gray with filth, and it hung over her face. She wore a ratted-out down jacket two sizes too large for her, and a slash in the nylon fabric left a trail of down feathers behind her. Some of the feathers clung to the rags wrapped around her feet. There weren’t many Scraps left who hadn’t joined up with the Loners. She must have been one of the kids who’d lost their minds.
David pulled his hand away out of instinct, and the Scrap girl kept walking without flinching or looking back.
“I didn’t know there were any more Scraps left,” Ritchie said.
“Some people just want to be alone,” Will said with a shrug.
David felt something stuck in his palm. He opened his hand to see a folded rectangle of paper in the middle of his hand and flipped it open with his thumb. “Follow me,” it read. “H.” H.
David knew the handwriting. Hilary. He looked up and frantically scanned the crowd for the girl. He spotted her as she slipped between a bunch of Skaters and a troupe of Geeks promoting their next show. She ducked into the Nerds’ trading post.
“Uh…,” David stuttered. “Why don’t you guys… Why don’t you guys meet me at the market entrance. I’ll get everybody else.”
