doing? Is this some sort of joke?”
Will could see it for what it was. Mutiny. Nerds filed out from the stacks on either side of them. They were stone-faced.
Their earlier distractions, reading and gaming, that was all a ruse. Nerds clutched thick, heavy dictionaries in their hands, ready to swing.
“Give us David now!” the freckle-face said again, with more bass in his voice.
Kemper stomped forward and stretched his arms out as if he was protecting all the Loners.
“Henry, this is unacceptable. Put that bat down right now-” Henry planted his bat right in Kemper’s gut. Kemper stared at his gang mate in confusion and crumpled to the ground.
Violent growled and threw the freckled kid to the ground.
“Push!” a voice shouted.
Bookshelves behind Will toppled over, crushing the majority of the Loners underneath them and raining books down on their heads. The Nerds attacked from every angle. Will fled, pulling David and Lucy with him. Nerds poured out from every corner after the trio. Books sailed through the air after them. One smacked directly into Will’s temple. It was a hardback encyclopedia, and it knocked him off his feet.
“Will,” Lucy cried out.
He lost his grip on David and fell to the ground. He was in pain. He rolled over and struggled to his feet, still woozy.
He saw a cluster of Nerds tear David away from Lucy. She shrieked. It took four Nerds to hoist David up and push him onto a rolling book cart. They ran fast, wheeling David through the common area and back toward the west fire door.
He couldn’t lose him.
But he did. Will tried to run, and he fell, still dazed from the book to the head. By the time he pulled himself back up, David was gone. He had spent years protecting Will, and Will hadn’t lasted an hour in David’s shoes.
35
Lucy rattled the handles of the library doors and yanked with all her weight. The Nerds had forced her out, but she had to get back in. She had to get back to David.
Behind her, Violent fought a hulking Nerd with a droopy face and giant hands. Three other Sluts stood and watched as the Nerd threw a punch at Violent. It connected with her ribs, and she stumbled back. She shook it off and swung a swift kick into his kneecap. Instantly, his leg buckled. He squawked and collapsed to the ground.
“Wait,” Lucy shouted. “He can help us get back in!” Lucy ran to intervene, but one of the other Sluts stepped into her path and shook her head. It was Julie Tanaka.
“Keep out of this,” Julie said.
“Get up,” Violent said to the Nerd. He struggled back up, keeping his weight on his good leg. “You fuckers messed up big. You’re nothing without Kemp.”
“No, he messed up when he started making out with you…
Slut.”
The Nerd hopped forward like he was going to attack. Violent kicked him in the chest. He stumbled back down the hall.
He looked up to the ceiling, and his face flashed with panic.
“No…,” he said.
A rain of bricks fell out of the ceiling and pummeled his skull. He dropped to the ground. Lucy jerked her eyes to the ceiling above her, terrified that the same thing was about to happen to her, but no more bricks fell. Violent stepped toward the Nerd’s broken body and knelt. Blood oozed from his head onto the chunks of ceiling and fallen bricks that piled around him. She placed her fingers under his jaw to feel his pulse.
“Dead,” Violent muttered coldly.
Lucy looked up, above the dead body. An entire line of ceiling panels had broken away. Some still dangled from the ceiling. A heavy curtain that had been holding the bricks and rubble hung down.
Lucy’s stomach sank. She stared at the short hall before her.
Ten yards down, it cut right. The floor was covered in dust. No one had walked through in ages. This was the main entrance to the library, where all the traps were.
“I told you to stop!” Lucy shouted at Violent. “We could have held him hostage to get back in!”
“Hostage, huh?” Violent laughed and arched one of her black tape eyebrows. She kicked the dead Nerd’s shoe and said, “Well, he’s kind of useless now.”
“We’re not getting back in the library, that’s for sure,” Julie said. “Those doors won’t budge.”
“What happened in there?” Lucy said. Every second she was away from David made her more panicked. “I thought you had an understanding with the Nerds! You said we’d be safe!”
“This is Lucy, that girl who turned us down,” Julie said with smug grin.
“Yeah, because I have a gang. And you set them up.”
“You better think twice before you get in my face, girlie,” Violent said. “I didn’t set anybody up.” Julie rolled her eyes. “Can’t believe I thought you were Slut material.”
It was a comfort to know that Lucy and Julie would have never been friends. She could scratch that off the bottom of her list of regrets. Violent looked Lucy up and down with a sneer, then turned to Julie, “Let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah, that’s the thing,” Lucy said. “How?”
“It’s a hallway. We walk out,” Violent said.
“But the booby traps… there’s gotta be more. Do you know anything about traps?”
“No,” Violent said, “I don’t know anything about traps! Who the hell does? I grew up in Hillcrest.”
Violent edged forward. Lucy stared at the ominous hallway beyond the Nerd’s body. Behind every surface hidden pockets of death lurked, coiled up and waiting to burst. Lucy didn’t want to go down that hall. She didn’t want to be crushed by bricks. What she wanted to do was plop down on the floor with her arms crossed like a six- year-old’s and shout, “No!” She knew she couldn’t do that. She was going to have to trust Will to find David, and she was going to have to get back through these deadly traps. Her only shot at survival now was sticking close to Violent.
“You know, my grandparents live in Hillcrest,” Lucy said.
“Congratulations,” Violent said.
“I visited them a lot. I’m surprised we never ran into each other.”
Lucy had assumed that Violent grew up someplace rough, like an evil orphanage or some war-torn foreign country.
Maybe in a jungle. But not Hillcrest. It was one town over from Pale Ridge. It was full of yogurt shops and golf clubs and had wide black roads that were repaved every two years.
People from Hillcrest weren’t tough.
“Do you know the bicycle shop on Sixth?” Lucy said. “My uncle owns-”
“Shut up.”
Violent picked up a brick and chucked it. It scuttled to a stop at the end of the hall. The other three Sluts liked Violent’s plan. They chucked brick after brick down the hall to try to trigger any traps ahead. Nothing happened.
“Let’s go,” Violent said.
The five of them ventured out into the hall. Lucy stuck close to Violent. She cringed with each step, waiting for something awful to happen to them.
Violent screamed. Lucy jumped.
Violent’s leg had gone through the floor. She was grabbing at her leg and shouting. Julie tried to help her pull her leg out.
“Spikes!” Violent screamed.
Violent peeled back the broken floor tile to reveal the hole in the floor.
