Hilary and her crew walked off down the hall. They left Lucy squirming on the floor. Just when she’d thought she couldn’t get any lower, she realized that she was going to have to go back to the cafeteria, face her gang, and admit that she hadn’t been attacked by burnouts or Freaks… she’d had her ass handed to her by a bunch of Pretty Ones.
Some Slut she was.
32
THE BLOWING WIND WAS COOL AGAINST THE spit that ran down Sam’s arms. The people who used to quake before him, they spat on him now. They cheered when Gates threw him around like a bag of books. They blamed him. They thought everything that had happened after the quarantine was his fault. Idiots. For the past few food drops, Gates had brought Sam to the quad for show, but this was the first time Gates hadn’t bothered to blindfold him. This time, he got to see all the faces of the people who hated him, he got to see their glee at seeing him demoralized. He was a punching bag, a prop, a trophy.
Saints held his arms, which were bound behind him with duct tape. His mouth was gagged. Sam stared at the ground. He didn’t want to look up, he couldn’t bear it. His father was up there, witnessing every second of Sam’s failure.
TOTAL DOMINATION.
That was his father’s favorite phrase. He’d shout it at Sam during their father-son training sessions at five a.m. They’d start with an hour of strength and conditioning in the basement. Then it was immediately on to a liquid breakfast, his father’s creation: veggies, protein powder, a mix of seven carefully chosen powdered sports supplements, water, a cup of Pedialyte, and a teaspoon of vinegar. Sam had never touched fast food until he’d started dating Hilary. He was his father’s science project. His perfect athlete.
Dominate! Dominate! his dad would yell from the bleachers on game day. Sam could remember seeing how uncomfortable it made the other parents around his father. He could remember how it made him feel, hearing it when he was on the field, in the huddle, his father screaming when no one else was making any noise. Nobody else could understand his father’s disgust with imperfection. But Sam had been raised under it. His dad didn’t just need Sam to win, he needed him to do something new that no one had ever seen, every game. And almost every game, Sam couldn’t do it.
When he would return home, there would be no love. His father would shun him after a loss. It was guaranteed he wouldn’t acknowledge Sam’s existence for at least a day. And every flaw spotted brought a punishment with it. He might take away Sam’s bed for a week and make him sleep on the floor. He’d take away his computer, or put all the TVs in the house in storage until Sam got another win. He lived by his dad’s rules, down to the detail, to get an occasional nod from his father, or a rare smile. The guy didn’t love him, not as far as Sam could tell. He loved the win, and he loved when Sam didn’t get in the way of that happening.
Sam could only imagine what his father thought when he looked down at the quad. It killed him that his father had never had the chance to see what he’d built with Varsity. Instead, all he got to see was his son as a hopeless victim.
Gates was in the center of the quad, stalking around the pile of food and supplies. The pile was about a third of the size as usual, and it was mostly comprised of something Sam hadn’t seen in almost two years. Fresh vegetables. Squash, spinach, green beans, and lettuce.
“What the hell is this?” Gates shouted up to the sky.
Gates walked over to the pile and kicked over a crate. Deep green cucumbers spilled into the dirt.
“This isn’t what we asked for!” Gates shouted up at Sam’s father in the motorcycle helmet. “Where’s the Tempur-Pedic mattresses I asked for? Huh? Where’s the above-ground pool? I asked for two matching chain saws, where are they?!”
“We can’t do this anymore,” Sam’s father’s voice blared down from above. Sam knew that tone. His father was fed up, officially disgusted with Sam. He wasn’t going to play along anymore. He’d decided Sam wasn’t worth it.
Gates pointed at Sam. “Do I have to remind you what the score is again?”
Sam dared to look up. Other masked parents had appeared on the roofline. They moved toward Sam’s father.
“Goddamnit, we’ve given you everything you wanted,” Sam’s father said. “This stops now. One of our men, a good man, died yesterday in Colorado Springs trying to get your precious above-ground pool. Killed by a pack of teens.”
“Waaaah,” Gates said, imitating a baby’s cry.
“This has gone far enough, you little—”
His mom approached his father on the roof, sunlight glaring off her lilac helmet. She touched his arm, talking him down the way she always did when he got like this. Seeing her gentle way here, in McKinley, was too much for Sam to handle. Sam felt his eyes get hot, grow wet, and overflow. He was crying. Sam didn’t cry, he hadn’t cried since grade school. An easy breeze made the tear streams go icy on his cheeks.
“If you’d just give us another chance, we could all work together, and figure this out,” Sam’s mother said without amplification. Her voice was small and sounded far away.
“Oh, you want us to work now?” Gates said.
Gates pulled a yellow metal box cutter out of his pocket and held it up for Sam’s mother to see. He extended the triangle of razor blade out of the box cutter’s handle with a push of his thumb. Then he began to cross back toward Sam, box cutter in hand. Sam let out a fearful grunt that was muffled by the tape over his mouth. His legs shook uncontrollably. Sam knew Gates was out of options, a message had to be sent, the only thing that would make an impression was to go to town on Sam like he’d never done before. Mutilation beyond recognition. It’s what Sam would have done.
“No, Jason, don’t!” Sam’s mother shouted.
His father pushed his mother away, and she fell back. He flipped his motorcycle helmet visor up. He pulled a rifle up from the ground, and laid the long black barrel over the razor wire.
Instant screams erupted from the crowd, and people scattered. They ran for the exits.
The rifle cracked. Sam jumped. Dirt kicked up beside Gates’s feet. Sam’s father lifted the rifle for a reload. An empty casing ejected from the gun and spun down three floors to land in the quad.
“You stay away from my boy, you bastard!”
Never in his life had Sam heard his father express that sort of emotion about him. He stared up in shock as the Saints ran for cover, leaving Sam alone, unguarded. His father pulled the rifle butt up to his shoulder and leveled the sights at Gates.
“Run, boy!”
Sam didn’t hesitate. He obeyed his father’s command at once. It felt like old times. He took off, running as fast as he could with his hands bound behind him. Sam dodged. He weaved. His father kept firing. Nobody was trying to grab him, they were running for their lives. Sam worked his way through the chaotic crowd, and escaped into the hall. Every gunshot he heard told him how wrong he’d been.
His father loved him after all.
33
“CHECK THE CLOSET!” GATES SAID.
Will pulled open the closet door. Empty. They were in the middle of a mad search for Sam, in a first-floor classroom that smelled like rotten milk.
Pruitt ran into the room, clutching a rifle that he’d fashioned into a club. The barrel was wrapped in athletic tape for grip.
“No sign of him in this hall,” Pruitt said. “I checked all the lockers.”
Gates punched the blackboard nearby, and Will was surprised to see it crack.
“HE SHOT AT ME!”
“Gates, calm down,” Will said, keeping his voice as measured as he could. “We’ll find Sam, and everything’ll be fine. There’s only so many places he can hide.”