Snow On The Beach // R.C.

1.19

Unable to shake Peterkin's words, I hurry out of the station, barreling for my bike. Something is wrong, I think to myself. Because if I have one skill, it's the ability to read people, and I think she knows who killed those two men and dumped them. But she won't say who. Despite scouring my mind for all the possibilities—is she protecting someone, does she really not know—I feel lost, like my brain is a labyrinth that I have no idea how to get through.

Pulling my phone from my pocket, I shoot John a quick text, demanding that he call me as soon as he can. Again, like my messages this morning, it doesn't go through. I try to keep from panicking. We need to have another talk (we've been having a lot of those lately), and contrary to his belief, I dread them more than he does. But this one feels necessary. More necessary than the last few. Extremely necessary. Because now I know what he's been up to. It's so clear all of a sudden that I wonder how I didn't see it before.

He's searching for the goddamn gold. Just like our dad. And I'm willing to bet my internship—and both of my kidneys—that he has that compass those two psychopaths were looking for.

With jittery fingers, I'm about to text him again—maybe start blowing up his friends' phones—when I run smack dab into somebody.

"I'm so—" I cut myself off when the person turns around. Rolling my eyes, I try to move around him, but he steps in front of me no matter which way I go. Right and left. Up and down too, I imagine. "Move."

"You're rude for a Pogue, you know that Routledge?" Barry's lackey asks me, crossing his arms over his chest. He's not the one with the hooded eyelids who stood in front of my bike the other night, but the one with the curly hair and the sorry excuse for facial hair. The one who asked me to get him a beer.

I don't allow myself the time to wonder how he knows my last name. "No, I'm rude to you. Now, get out of my way. I have somewhere to be." My lunch break is almost over, and I have to finish out the day with Ward.

He steps in my way again, a smile spreading across his mousey face. "Yet you don't even know my name."

"I don't need to know your name to be a bitch to you." Finally able to push past him, I practically throw myself onto my bike and pedal away, never looking back. Not even when he shouts:

"It's Alan, by the way! You can call me Alan, Cecilia!"

The only response I offer is my middle finger.

🐚

"So I saw one of Barry's guys today," I tell Rafe as we approach the park. It's teeming with people, blankets strewn about the grass and a giant screen growing brighter as the sun sets lower. Dusk has turned the sky a deep powder blue. "Alan I think was his name."

"Oh yeah?" Rafe looks at me out of the corner of his eye, adjusting his backwards cap.

"Yeah."

"Did you talk to him?"

"I didn't really have a choice." I shrug. "He was blocking my bike."

Reaching over, he takes the blankets we brought to sit on from my arms, holding them in his own. "You call me next time. Okay?"

I open my mouth to speak. Then promptly close it. Yet again, Rafe Cameron has rendered me speechless. "Why?" Is all I can come up with. Obviously I know why. They're dangerous guys. Rafe says as much. I suppose I'm asking because: "Why do you care so much is what I mean."

Again, he looks at me like I'm stupid. "Are we not friends?"

"We are."

"Then there's your answer," he says, leaning into my ear as he does. "Friends protect each other. If Barry or his guys ever bother you again, stay where you are or get somewhere safe and call me. Understand?"