Raunch threw herself against the lockers and flailed her arms for effect. She banged her elbow, then grabbed it like she’d really hurt it.
“Ow, shit.”
Lucy covered her smile with her hand. She was still trying to act like kicking a Skater’s ass wasn’t a big deal, but it kind of was. She’d chased that Skater girl and cold cocked her. It was nothing the old Lucy would have done.
Lucy wasn’t the only one who had changed. In the quad, when everyone was waiting for the food drop that didn’t happen, she’d witnessed Ritchie with the Skaters, in his new black mohawk, nod to Leonard by the Geeks, who looked like a genie in parachute pants and a vest, with no shirt, and a purple mini-ponytail. She’d seen Leonard then wave across the quad to Colin and Mort, who looked like blue-haired, undead versions of themselves. They’d given subtle waves back. But none of them even looked Lucy’s way. Not even Will. Without knowing she was in the Sluts, they had no reason to look for her there, because she knew the idea of Lucy being a Slut was unimaginable to them. She wondered what they’d say when they found out.
“You made us look good out there,” Raunch said.
“Thanks.”
“So, hey… You think if this Gates guy pulls this move off, maybe you can get Will to get you some stuff? You’re tight with him, right?”
Lucy stopped walking, and Raunch raised her eyebrows like she’d said the most innocent thing in the world.
“Hold on,” Lucy said. “Is that why you’re being nice to me?”
Raunch fell against Lucy like a pleading toddler. “Girl, you got no idea how bad I want some footie pajamas. The real soft ones.”
Lucy smiled; she liked that Raunch didn’t even bother to deny her motive.
“Footie pajamas,” Lucy said. “Like what little kids wear?”
“They are soooo comfy, you don’t even know. In fact, get yourself a pair. On me. Also, hook me up with a massage chair.”
“A massage chair? Are you crazy?” Lucy laughed.
“You don’t get anywhere thinking small, Lucy,” Raunch said. “You think this guy can really pull it off? Do you think the parents are gonna deliver?”
“Honestly?” Lucy said. “Sam’s parents didn’t come this far to keep us safe. They came to keep him safe. I think they’re gonna try. I’m pretty sure my mom and dad would.”
“Yeah,” Raunch said, wide-eyed and smiling. “Mine too. This is gonna rule.”
“You are evil,” Lucy said.
Raunch cackled, “No, Sam is. We’re just finally getting something good out of it, thanks to Gates. I heard that before the quarantine, he took over an airport and threw a three-day party.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I heard he punched, like, eight cops,” Raunch said.
“I heard it was one. At a Kmart.”
Raunch looked Lucy up and down. “You think he’s bullshit, huh?”
“I’m just not convinced he’s the school’s savior like everybody else is, that’s all,” Lucy said.
“Well, I heard those St. Pat’s kids were snobs, but after today, I think I like rich kids. Especially ones that like to spread it around. I wonder if Gates has got a yacht.…”
It went on like that between Lucy and Raunch for the rest of the walk back to the cafeteria. Lucy had stopped arguing with her when she realized Raunch wasn’t ever interested in resolving any points she brought up, she just liked to talk. Lucy had found her first real friend in the Sluts.
Lucy wondered if Will had gotten close with anyone in the Saints. In spite of the way he’d talked to her in the Stairs, she still worried about him. She couldn’t help it. It was hard seeing him standing with a bunch of strangers. They didn’t know him like she did, and she wasn’t sure they’d be a good influence. But he had people looking out for him, and that was something. And as hard as she knew it was to ask for his epilepsy medication in front of everyone, she was proud that he was brave enough to do it. For a split second out there she had wanted to run to him and wrap him in her arms. In that moment she missed him like crazy. But that was pointless. They lived in different worlds now. He’d made his decisions and she’d made hers.
As Lucy walked into the cafeteria, Raunch was doing an impression of Sam with his face taped like a mummy. This was the third time she’d done it on the walk back from the market, but it got Lucy each time.
“Stop… stop…,” Lucy said between laughs.
Raunch said in her best Sam voice, exaggerated and fierce, “How dare you! How… dare… you…” then she mimed being struck by the hammer. “Bwuh—”
Raunch fell into Lucy so she had to catch her trim little frame. They walked into the cafeteria and Sluts began to unload bags of food and supplies at the doorway to the pantry hall, while others started stripping down out of their food drop armor and hanging up their larger weapons.
Every Slut carried a knife. Lucy kept hers sheathed in a water-warped paperback that she tied around her thigh with cooking twine. It was a normal metal cafeteria knife, but the rounded tip had been ground into a nasty point, and the cutting edge had been hammered until it was paper thin. The metal was cloudy and scuffed from countless trips through a dishwasher, but an S painted on the base of the blade, in a curving, hair-thin line of red nail polish, gave it character. She hadn’t pulled it on anyone yet, and she hoped she wouldn’t have to, but most likely she would.
“C’mon,” Raunch said, eyeing Lucy’s bloody forearm. “Sophia’ll fix you up.”
Raunch and Lucy walked over to a long table where a bunch of Sluts were comparing injuries.
“Some Skater clotheslined me with a board,” a flat-chested girl said. “I’m gonna need a boob replacement.”
“You wish,” another said, and the whole crew laughed.
“Check this out,” one girl said and held up her middle finger with a strained grin. It was bent sideways at a sharp angle, a nasty-looking break but nothing a splint wouldn’t fix. “A Skater stepped on it.”
“Gimme your elbow, honey,” Sophia said to Lucy from the other side of the table. She was the gang’s Band-Aid girl.
Sophia was a perfect specimen. Everything on the girl seemed to push out; her cheekbones were round, her lips were pink pillows, her eyes gorgeous ovals with an elegant swoop. Her hair was a long shimmering auburn with bounce that defied gravity. She looked like the slow-motion girls in shampoo commercials.
“Am I going to need stitches?” Lucy said.
Sophia narrowed her eyes at the gash and twisted her lips in thought.
“Nah,” Sophia said.
Sophia wiped the blood off Lucy’s arm with some dampened toilet paper, and picked up a box of salt. Sophia tipped the box’s metal spout over Lucy’s arm and poured a long pile of salt across the cut. It stung a little, but Lucy was focused on her nurse. She had actually been looking for an excuse to talk to Sophia for a while now, but had never found a natural opportunity.
Sophia embodied sexual confidence, and that fascinated Lucy. The name “the Sluts” was misleading. Violent had chosen that name for her gang, for her own reasons. The girls in the Sluts weren’t slutty, so to speak. It wasn’t as if they slept with anyone and everyone who came along. They dated aggressively, and it was usually the boys who were the ones asking to make things exclusive.
“I like that Gates,” Sophia said. “He’s sexy.”
“If you like pink eye,” somebody said.
“Whatever, I’ll just borrow Raunch’s goggles,” Sophia replied.
“Sophia, please go on a date with Gates and wear my goggles,” Raunch said, laughing. “That would be so hilarious if you just never mentioned them, and acted like you looked all sexy and everything.”
When Sophia laughed, she laughed with her whole body, twisting around and closing her eyes like she was savoring it. “You guys, I’m saying, I like a man that can take charge. That’s hot. If he gets out of hand, whatever, I’ll stab him.”