Rule of the Fist

Chapter 10

As Riley was walking home from Sara’s on Monday, she decided to cut through Cambridge, which as an apartment complex that contained narrow streets and dull, gray houses. The water fountain near the back of the complex sparkled and gleamed in the late afternoon sun.

She spotted a bunch of boys horsing around in somebody’s front yard. She squinted, trying to make out who the familiar face she saw belonged to.

Is that Jacob?

He was the tallest of the group, and he didn’t see Riley staring from across the street as the boys tossed around a football.

She realized with a jolt that Max was playing with them, and she tripped and fell on the grass. It didn’t look like a bad fall, but he struggled to stand up and limped. Jacob stopped mid-throw and walked to his brother's side, gently sitting him down. He said something to Max, who pointed at his leg. Jacob glanced at Max's leg, pressing his nose against it in mock curiosity as he looked for a bruise. Max threw back his head and laughed. Jacob did too. 

He was acting like a completely different person. He seemed younger, more innocent. Somehow, it made Riley angry to see it. She shook her head and walked away before he could turn around and recognize her. She'd probably made things worse with the Halloween attack. What if he figured out who it was?

Actually, forget that. Maybe he already knew. His threat was all-too-fresh in Riley's mind. 

Sara had actually gotten in trouble for what had happened during Halloween. A lot of Jacob's friends and Jacob himself had told their parents that they'd been attacked at her haunted house. Sara didn't mention anyone else's names to her parents, but they grounded her for pulling the prank in the first place. 

As Riley turned onto her street and walked up her driveway, she had that familiar feeling of apprehension that she always did when she saw her aunt and uncle’s car in the driveway. They’d gotten home from work before she came back from Sara’s house. Riley put her skateboard in the driveway before going through the front door.

Abby was at a friend's house, so Riley made her way to Nate's room and looked through the doorway. Her brother was usually up for a Wii game.

Nate sat slouched on his bed, facing the wall away from her. His legs dangled off the sides and he bounced a tennis ball against the wall. "Nate?" Riley said. He didn't turn around. 

"Are you okay?"

"Go away." He caught the tennis ball as it bounced off the wall and held onto it, squeezing tightly. 

"What's wrong?" Riley asked. Her brother turned around and glared at her.

"Just leave me alone."

"But-"

"I said leave me alone!" He threw the tennis ball at her but missed, instead hitting Mark, who had come to investigate, in the chest. 

"What's going on? Nathan?"

"Nothing," Nate snapped. Mark turned to Riley.

"Can you excuse us for a minute, Riley?"

She nodded and backed away as Mark closed the door. Riley lingered, unsure. She knew it was wrong, but the temptation just became too much. She crept to the door and pressed an air against it. It wasn't easy to hear, but she could make out bits and pieces of the conversation.

"She broke up...said she wasn't happy...not fair."

"Think Allison was...unhappy...how it was going?"

"Don't know...wasn't working out...really stupid."

Feeling guilty, Riley stepped away from the door. Her brother and Allison had been dating for a pretty long time. Riley had thought that when people fell in love, it really lasted.