Pulse

Chapter 29

Cian

I leaned my head on the dash of Lucie's Subaru; Vinny and I had, again, neglected to use any standard method of transportation, as we didn't need to. The car was parked in Bay Area High School's back lot, beside a hot pink convertible and a Jeep that looked as though it could fall over in the next five seconds. The radio's static was a soft drone in the background, the heat radiating in through the open windows.

I fanned myself with my shirt to try to keep it from sticking to my skin, sitting up. "Any luck?"

Lucie squinted at her phone screen, her lip curled. This had to be the five hundredth time she'd dialed her friend's number, but we were getting nothing. The look on her face told me what she really wanted to do was chuck the device out of her window, but she refrained. Shaking her head, she mopped hair off her forehead and beat her head back against the seat. "Nope. She won't pick up. Do you think she's in trouble?"

I shrugged sheepishly. "I don't know."

She widened her eyes at me. "That's not how you answer that question, you idiot. If I ask you if you think my friend's being, like, I don't know, murdered, you don't just shrug and say I don't know."

I raised my eyebrows at her, crossing my arms. "Forgive me, then. How do I answer that?"

"You gaze into her eyes and tell her it's all going to be fine," called Vinny, who was reclined in the back seat, his legs stretched out towards the opposite window. Pale streaks of hair spread underneath his head like sun rays, his gold-flecked eyes trained at the car's roof. He sounded bored, as if this was obvious. "She's right. You're an idiot, Cian."

"I feel as if I'm being ganged up on."

"That's because you are," Lucie said, trying her phone again. A few moments passed before, with a dismantled grunt, she tore the phone from her ear and yelled into it: "JIYA YOU FREAKING IDIOT IF YOU DO NOT CALL ME BACK I AM GOING TO EXPLODE. DO YOU HEAR ME? I DON'T CARE IF YOUR PHONE'S DEAD. REVIVE IT AND FREAKING CALL ME BACK."

She hit the end button with a theatrical amount of force, then looked at me. "I feel bad about this. Like, really bad about this."

I gazed into her eyes. "It's all going to be fine."

"That was horrible," Vinny judged from behind us. Then: "Hey, Lucie, what's in that bag, anyway? You've been practically guarding it with your life."

"Ah!" she exclaimed, then picked it up from the dash and shoved it into my lap, clapping her hands. I stared down at it, then up at her, then back down at it.

I moved the bag's plastic aside, and recovered a Straight Talk Wireless box. I looked back up at Lucie again, and there was a smile on her face, one that lit up all angles of her face and made her even more beautiful than she already was. "What is this?"

"A cell phone."

"Why did you buy me a cell phone?"

"Because Vinny is not a cellular device."

"Amen," Vinny agreed, then sat up, craning over the center console to get a better look. "Wait, is that actually a cell phone?"

"Uh-huh," I said in disbelief, opening the box tenderly. Snuggled in a safe maze of cardboard was a tiny smartphone, likely a model from years before. A charger wrapped in plastic was beside it, as well as an SD card and a full set of instructions. "This is ridiculous. You can't buy people cell phones."

"Why?" Lucie asked me. "Just because I don't live in a mansion or have maids or drive a Cadillac?"

"I didn't say that," I argued.

"He didn't say that," Vinny added.

"So you'll keep it. Because when I need to call you, I need to call you, silly," Lucie finished, then reached over, slipping her hand over mine. My breath hitched a little as she guided my fingers to the phone's on button, pressing downwards. Together, the three of us in Lucie's old Subaru watched the little screen light up.

We spent a few moments going through all the setup steps, then Lucie grabbed it and said, "Here. Here's my number, and I'll take yours. See? Communication."
"Something I'm bad at," I commented.

"So I've seen," Lucie said, then handed the phone back to me. She sighed, picking up her car keys from the dash and placing them in the keyhole. Giving it a jerk, the engine roared to life. She reached to turn the radio up. "I'm going to find her. I'm not stopping until I know she's safe. If you have any objections, speak now or forever hold your peace, boys."

Neither Vinny nor I said anything, though I did want to say something. I wanted to know how she was so okay with this, okay with the fact her brother was somehow still out there and was taking people's lives, had almost gotten rid of Vinny and was now trying to kill her best friend. How was she so at ease?

I watched more closely, noticed the set of her mouth, the fluttering of her fingers across the steering wheel. Her eyes were dark and reticent.

She was not okay with this. She was just acting like she was.

My family already put on enough of a show; some dark part of me couldn't bear to see her put on the same phony face. "Lucie," I said.

Her eyes flitted up to mine, and then her phone started ringing. She reached for it with enthusiasm, scrambling to hit answer and hold it up to her ear. "Hello?"

Silence. I glanced at Vinny. Vinny glanced at me. We looked at Lucie.

"Oh thank God," breathed Lucie. "You scared the crap out of me. Stay there! I'm coming. Just stay. Don't move."

Lucie clicked the radio off as Jiya spoke from the other end of the phone. Then: "Just trust me. Don't worry. Just trust me, alright? Yeah. Okay. Be there soon."

She ended the call and tossed her smartphone to the dash, sitting back against her seat with a heavy sigh. Her eyelids folded over her eyes, soft ink-like lashes brushing the tops of her cheeks. The setting sun behind the car window outlined the profile of her face like a work of art, her lips like rosy hills. I swallowed down the desire. I wanted her, but did I have her yet? What would it take to call her mine?

"So?" Vinny asked.

"She's at an orchestra rehearsal," Lucie told us, opening her eyes. "She's a quite competitive cellist, if competitive is the word you use for that type of thing. I wouldn't know. Basis is, she's okay. But we still need to get to her to keep her that way. Like I said: objections?"

I shook my head, and upon my prompting glance, so did Vinny. "Put the car in gear. We're a team, right?"

Lucie hesitated, then smiled warmly at me. "Yeah. Always."