CHAPTER 27

I SLOWLY START down the ramp.

I think to myself, It’s just a door. Open it.

I reach out and push it open a crack. Then some more and I peek in. Nothing.

I stare harder into the darkness. Nothing moves. No sound.

I step in.

The only light comes from the open door behind me.

Then something in the room moves. I see a shadow of someone about my height. Who is—?

The shadow pitches something at me.

BOOM!

Something hits me hard between my eyes, and all I can do is cup my forehead with both hands.

The room spins.

The weird thing is, I don’t feel hit. I feel shock. Then wobbly. Then blood.

My blood.

I reach out my hand to feel for the door I came through.

“I’m going in!” I hear Christopher run down the ramp, and then he’s there at the door.

Jen is with him, yelling, “Oh my god! You’re bleeding, Stephen!”

“What?!” Jeremiah rushes over too.

I stumble out into the sunlight and open my eyes again. Blood is on my hands, dripping on my shirt.

Jen grabs me by one side and Christopher grabs my other. They guide me up the ramp.

“I think I’m good,” I tell them.

“No, you’re not good!” That’s Jeremiah’s voice.

I hear Gabe and Chad hoot and holler, laughing about what I look like.

“He’s like a human unicorn, with a knot between his eyes instead of a horn!” Gabe says.

“I guess the ghosts didn’t want him in there!” Chad laughs. “One must’ve thrown something at him.”

Thrown something? Is that what they said? Like they know?

“Just shut up,” Jen shouts at Chad and Gabe.

“Yeah,” Christopher tells them, “it’s not the time to make jokes.”

Then a crowd of grown-ups arrives.

“What happened to that boy?” a woman asks.

“Can he see?” a man asks.

“Sheesh!” another man says. “If whatever hit him landed an inch to the left or right, it would’ve taken his eye out.”

I’m kind of spinning when, all of a sudden, Gabe is in my face, taking a photo. He shows Chad. “Look at this shot!”

Jen grabs his phone. “Are you crazy? You’re taking pictures when he’s hurt and bleeding?! I’m deleting these now!”

A shout comes from the direction of the park. “Is that Stephen?!”

“Is that Wes?” I ask Jeremiah and Christopher as I blink in the voice’s direction.

“Yeah,” Christopher says. “He’s running over here with a lot of guys! And he looks mad-mad.”

That’s when I hear Wes yell again. “Chad, if you and your friends did this to Stephen, you’re getting beat!”

And guess what happens.

Chad and Gabe run. They run away from us so fast, they don’t look back.

Wes comes through the crowd to me, takes off one of his shirts, rolls it into a ball, and presses it to my head.

“Ouch!” I wince.

Wes snaps, “Stop flinching away. You need pressure on that.”

I notice the Jordan symbol on his shirt. “You using that shirt?”

“Look at your face! You bleeding and you care about my shirt?”

His shirt cost a hundred dollars. I know because kids in school talk about wanting that shirt.

I stop moving my head away and let him press it against my knot.

That’s when I hear another familiar voice that shocks me. “What happened?!”

I ask Wes and everyone, “Is that Dan?”

Wes shouts at Dan, “Your cousin did this and ran! You knew he planned this?”

“No way! I didn’t know. I’d never hurt Stephen!”

Dan starts walking over. “Dang, Stephen. Your face.”

I tell him, “I thought you were sick. Your parents said not to go out.”

“I am. They did. But when you said you were coming here, I got a weird feeling it wasn’t right, and I ran out.”

Wes asks me, “Where your parents now?”

“Home.”

Wes examines my head. “You’re bleeding less. I’m taking you there.”

Dan grabs my other arm. “Me too.”

We walk. On one side of me: Dan, Jen, Christopher, and Jeremiah. On the other side of me: Wes and a bunch of his friends from the handball court. On both sides, everyone talks about what happened to me.

Dan and Wes take turns cracking jokes to cheer me up.

Every time I laugh, I wince. “Y’all need to stop. My head hurts when I laugh.”

But they don’t. Dan and Wes don’t stop trying to cheer me up. They keep telling me I’m lucky that whatever hit me missed my eyes.

And I don’t stop thinking how lucky I am that they’re my boys.