Prom

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Amy’s eyes swiveled to Andrew. He was moving his finger around on the touchpad of his laptop, waking it up.

Amy hissed into the phone. “How do you have my number? Did we meet? Did I… Am I the one who…”

Beatrice’s voice was insistent. “We can talk about all of that later. Right now, you have to get out of there. Andrew is not on your side, do you understand?”

“My side?”

“Amy!” Beatrice was yelling now. “I’m trying to save your life. Go. Now.”

“Why? What can he —“

But Beatrice cut her off. “There’s no time. I have to go.” She hung up.

Amy stood staring at her phone.

“Who was that?” asked Andrew.

“Nobody,” said Amy. She knew Beatrice even less than she knew Andrew, but even so the call had shaken her. “I’d better go.”

Andrew looked confused. “But you just got here.”

“I’ll see you later, ok?”

He shrugged, and she turned for the door and opened it. The wail of sirens penetrated into the room. Beatrice’s head flashed into Amy’s mind and she felt a second of overwhelming guilt and fear. She turned back and met Andrew’s eyes for a fraction of a second and saw something like fear there, too. She didn’t stop to think about it. She left the room, closing the door behind her, and started down the stairs as quickly as she could.

The sirens were getting louder. She fumbled with the lock to her bike. It seemed to take forever to open. She hopped on and started pedaling out when someone called her name. She turned around. Andrew was at the base of the stairs, next to his car, a boxy white Chevy. He was wearing a huge black backpack.

“Want a ride?” he asked. He had to yell to be heard over the wail of the sirens.

Amy shook her head and then started to pedal. She turned her head back to look in front of her and then she saw the police cars. Three of them, coming straight for the parking lot of the apartment building from two different directions. She stopped pedaling and looked back at Andrew again. Had he called them? But he looked even more scared than she was. He stopped fumbling with his car lock and their eyes met again. They had a moment of mutual understanding.

“Come on,” he said. “Drop the bike. We can go out the back.”

Amy nodded and dropped the bike where it stood. Andrew was already running around the side of the building, and she followed him. They had just rounded the corner when the sirens became intolerably loud and then cut off.

Andrew lead her through a path in the garden towards the wooden fence in the back. When they got close she saw that the bottom of one section was covered with a big blue tarp. Andrew lifted it up to show a gap underneath.

He gave her a mischievous grin. “After you.”

Amy hesitated for a second, but anything was better than facing the police. So she headed forward, stooped down. Behind the gap there were bushes she would have to push through, and as she started to shove them aside with her hands Andrew dropped the tarp on her back.

“Hey,” she said.

And then she heard the running footsteps coming up to her and a harsh voice yelled.

“Freeze! Police!”