The Truth Is.

Chapter 24

SADIE

      Expect the unexpected when it comes to Scants. After I called her, Paige gave me an address to meet up with them. I expected to arrive at a worn down park with a couple nicks in its paint. Or a restaurant with broken neon lights; instead I found a worn down barn. The shingles were loose, sliding down the roof into sprawled out piles. The sun had sucked the red out of the wood, leaving it to crack and splinter. Noise slipped into the quiet night.

At first I'd thought I was alone, until I saw all the beat-up cars tucked away into the foliage. I debated moving my car, then decided no Magnate would show to a place like this.

I slid out of Father's dark blue convertible (The most inconspicuous car we owned.) The doors locked behind me, and the keys tucked between my knuckles.

A small part of me wanted to believe that Paige wouldn't set me up, but they were clearly not to be trusted.

My laptop was hidden away in a denim book bag and thrown over my shoulder. The patches I'd ironed onto the bag in middle-school were peeling off. It was pathetic, but I'd hoped it would help me blend it.

I spent a moment searching, and came up short. If they were here, they had to be inside. As I moved towards the entrance, each step felt like a walk towards death. I knew I should've turned tail and run back home to moment I saw the door, but a part of me was curious.

How did the other side live?

Magnates hated Scants; if I wanted to fit in I had to hate them too. But after school, I was just Sadie, and they were just a bunch of kids. Kids who lived life differently.

The doors had given away and now lied on a useless heap. I stepped over it only to land my bleached converse into a pile of what I hoped was mud. While I was attempting to scrape the brown sludge off my shoe, a boy appeared.

"Who the fuck are you?" A gravelly voice demanded

I whipped around to find a broad-shouldered high school boy staring at me. His hair had been buzzed nearly to his scalp. Bruises speckled his face, dipping into his eyebrows and spreading to his mouth. He was large, it was a wonder how anyone had managed to scrape him up so badly.

The glare on his face made me shrink back. Like the rest of them he was shrouded in dark leather and a Don't-mess-with-me attitude.

"Paige invited me here."

His eyes looked me up and down. He peeled his nose up and shook his head as if what he saw disgusted him. It struck a cord into my heart until i realized I agreed. I was disgusting to look at.

"I don't think she did." He gave me one last look-over. "Fuck off."

I planned to leave when a girl emerged from the torn-up Mickey mouse blanket caked in mud posing as a door.

"Butch, leave her alone," Paige ordered.

The boy, Butch, shrunk back like a puppy, and heeded her command. The personality switch was instant, and jarring to watch.

"Sorry, he can be protective." At her words his face flushed, and he dipped back into the barn.

Paige's frame fell back, lifting the blanket and holding it out for me. Distant shouting startled me when I moved closer. I looked back at her, she nodded, and I entered.

Paige took the lead, guiding me through a shot passage. As we grew closer, the shouting grew louder. Slamming and crashing joined in the symphony of voices, bringing it to complete chaos.