Chapter Thirty-nine

KATE AND I EDGED closer to the outer rim of the collective of moving bodies. Yeah, we got a few stares.

“Closer,” Kate ordered into my ear. “Act casual.” She kept prompting me.

“I am,” I argued back.

“No, you’re not. You’re like a clown sneaking up on a circus.”

“Be quiet.”

“No, you be quiet.”

I felt something press against my foot hard. “Ow!”

I backed off from Kate. She made a “Whoops!” face at me, looking concerned. She had intentionally stepped on my foot.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. My teeth gritted together, and now I noticed that Trent and his buddies had all turned our way.

She got me again.

He pushed a few of them aside and loosened his shoulders, sizing me up. I looked for Kate, but she had somehow mysteriously vanished.

Oh, great. Now where did she go?

Then I remembered the plan.

“Where’d your date run off to?” Trent taunted. “I saw her moves. I wouldn’t mind a dance with her.”

I held firm as he stepped closer. “This is between you and me,” I said.

“So that’s what you think?” Trent slowly blinked his eyes as if he had imagined what I’d just said. Then he turned his head to his buddies Dink and Doofus behind him, and laughed. It was now or never, and I had to make my move.

Firmly planting both of my hands on Trent’s chest, I pushed strong and hard. I caught him off guard, and from the strength of my push and the off-balance weight of his body, he went down. Half turning mid-fall, Trent caught himself with his hands before he hit. My breathing was heavy, and a few other people had started to gather around us. I watched his two buddies move for me.

“No.” Trent was back to his feet, his wise-ass smile glinting from the sparkling disco ball overhead. “He wants to fight me? Then let’s see what he’s got without his bro around.”

What had I just done? I was way out of my league here. Then I did the one thing I knew I could do. I looked Trent square in the eye, matching his stare, and jumped into his mind.

***

I’D READ A LOT of minds throughout the school, and even though I’d been inside before, I always hesitated returning to Trent’s. His mind was one of those sleazy motel rooms where the sign is highlighted in neon out front and always has a vacancy. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking—it’s the kind where serial killers lure their prey. That was why, first and foremost, I was being cautious in there—whatever Trent was involved in or behind, it wasn’t going to be good.

I’d forgotten how simple his room was. It had been a while since I’d been there, and from what I could remember, it was actually not as messy as last time. Although, the murky dim glow that bathed the room fed uneasiness into the pit of my stomach, as if something were just waiting for me. Had I been tricked into coming here? Not by Kate, but by Trent?

The first thing you’d noticed in the room was a TV, but this was no ordinary set. Hanging by rusty supports that were bolted to the wall, the old box TV flipped stations as if a ghost were channel surfing. The weird part was that there was no sound coming from it. The picture wasn’t all that clear, but it was eerie to see game shows, news stories, and cartoons all flip by one after another silently, at a heartbeat pace. Trent’s current wave of thoughts ran on the bottom of the screen, displayed in closed captioning. They too set off a troubling vibe.

SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH. SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH. SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH.

They just kept repeating in tiny white lettering boxed out in a black frame. Who was “she”? Stephanie? Laura? Had Trent been in on everything? Stephanie and Laura had both been hurt in the last few days. The question still remained: did he possess powers similar to mine?

Beneath the TV stood a dresser with four standard-looking drawers; most likely they hid something inside them. Like I said, I’d been in there before, and the contents were different each time. When I turned counterclockwise from the TV and dresser, I faced a gray, wide-angle picture window, but there was nothing on the other side. It let more light into the room, but not much. The glass was frosted over or had been covered in a thick film of some kind.

I left the window and kept turning around the room. An oversized painting hung above a neatly made bed; it was the one peaceful scene in the room. A white sailboat coasted on cool blue water with a golden sunset on the horizon. Next to the bed was a nightstand with a digital clock on top, but I doubted it was the correct time because it counted down, as if it were a bomb set to go off.

My body ran with a chill just as a certain odor stung my nostrils. I wondered if it was the stained, molding wallpaper that seemed to be tearing itself from the walls, revealing water damage underneath, but I figured that would smell better than this stench.

I didn’t know Trent personally all that well, so I couldn’t make a diagnosis of how his mind worked. I could base everything off the fact that he was a bully, cheat, and criminal, but then again, the motel room really gave me no indication of what was truly going on. I’d have to dig deeper.

Taking to the chest of drawers beneath the creepy TV, I pulled them open one at a time. Inside the first drawer were shattered beer bottles. I picked one up and looked at it. The letters A-L-D were on the side. The letters were part of a word, so I searched the rest of the drawer and found a green piece that had the letter R. Another brown piece that looked way too much like a brand of beer Dad used to buy had the letters O-N on it. I tried to formulate a word in my head using the letters so far.

“Ronald?” I said.

Then I found a clear piece of glass that just said R-O-N before the rest was cracked. Then there was an L-D piece, then one that was just R-O. Whoever Ronald was, he was considered a drawer of fragments to Trent.

I closed the drawer and opened another. The smelly funk was getting stronger, and it almost brought tears to my eyes. Whew, nasty stuff.

The next drawer had a stack of photos wrapped in twine. I picked them up. The first photo on top was of a couple I didn’t recognize, but I had a sinking suspicion they were Trent’s current foster parents. Loosening the knot and releasing the twine, I thumbed through a few more. The same couple was in the next three photos, and then I found a picture of a boy, a young boy, maybe six or seven years old. The boy looked way too much like Trent not to be him. And then a few more down, I found a picture of Rick and Tracy. The Mitchells looked the same as they always had. In the photo, they had happy expressions on their faces and looked excited. I turned it over to the backside, hoping to find more clues, but there was nothing.

I retied the twine around the stack and placed it back in the drawer. Moving on to the next drawer, I shielded my face the moment I opened it and reeled back, falling to my butt. I had figured out where the smell was coming from. Inside this drawer were what looked like small dead animals. They were rotted black and almost covered completely in tiny white maggots. I used my foot to kick that drawer closed. I never ventured into the fourth drawer; who knew what would be in there.

I stood and the TV caught my attention again. On it now was an episode of some sitcom from the ’80s or something. Beneath the actors’ faces, Trent’s current string of thought ran across the screen in black-and-white block letters.

SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH. SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH. SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH.

I wasn’t getting anywhere. Rubbing the back of my neck, I turned around and was now faced with the sailboat painting again. It looked nice, too nice.