The car is still in reverse. Solo eases it backward until the left front wheel encounters an obstacle. It’s Leather’s leg.
Solo says, “We’re here to pick up our friend. If you let him through, no problem. If you don’t, then I’m going to back right over your friend’s leg.”
Maddox appears. He’s soaking wet, muddy from his sneakers to his chest. Dead leaves and sticks cling to him like a halfhearted attempt at camouflage.
He’s a good-looking guy, Maddox is, in a hulky, fullback kind of way. Although right now, terrified and soggy, he just looks pathetic.
“Get in!” Aislin yells.
Solo waits until he’s buckled up. “Pull your boy out from under and call an ambulance,” he instructs the three glaring thugs.
“Everyone ready?”
Oh, we’re ready.
We pull away and Solo says, “It’s so much easier when you don’t have to worry about surveillance cameras.”
Maddox hugs Aislin like a drowning man grabbing the last life preserver. She tolerates it for a few seconds, then punches him in the chest and pushes him away.
“Hey!”
“Dumbass!” she screams.
I’m ignoring them because I can’t stop staring at Solo, who is driving away with quiet competence, merging into traffic and turning into the Sunset District.
“How did you…,” I begin, but I don’t really know how to finish the question.
He emits a short bark of a laugh. “The rat who runs the maze every day develops some moves. And I am the boss rat.”
It’s not a joke. He tries to pretend it is, but there’s something there, seething beneath the surface.
We drive in silence. At least the front seat is silent. Aislin and Maddox are alternately yelling and making out.
“I have to get the car back,” Solo says. “There’s a short window of time.”
I twist around in my seat. “Aislin, you need to come with me.”
“She’s going with me,” Maddox says. He’s sullen, not his usual charming self. Really, he is charming. But not when he’s scared and muddy and shaky with the aftereffects of adrenaline, I guess.
I know, because I’m shaky myself. I didn’t actually have time to be scared. The whole mess lasted maybe a minute or two.
No more. Now I’m scared. Scared and pissed.
“Damn you, Maddox!” I rage. “You could have gotten us all killed.”
“No way,” he protests, but it’s weak. “They would have just beaten the hell out of me.”
“Yeah, because nothing like that ever gets out of control,” I shout. “Solo saved your butt, you loser.” I’m on a roll now. “Get out of Aislin’s life and stop dragging her down with you.”
Aislin looks out the window at the lights streaking past. Not at me, not at Maddox.
“I can’t sneak them back into Spiker,” Solo says. “There are limits to my maze rat powers.”
“I can get Aislin in. Right through the front door,” I reply.
Solo shakes his head slightly. “Not without some explanation for how she got there. We need to drop her first. After we’re back, then we can get her in.”
“Aislin, we’ll drop you off at your house,” I say. “Or wherever you want. But you have to get a cab and come to Spiker. Stay with me for a while. At least until your parents get back from Barbados.”
“Belize.”
Aislin’s parents travel a lot. They are perpetually tan.
“Hey, I still have a few days of school and—”
“Dammit, Aislin!” I yell, cutting her off. “We can get you to school.”
“Sweetheart,” she says, reaching over to put her hand on my arm. She gives me the look I secretly think of as her “doomed” look. It’s the weary, knowing, sad look that says, I’m a bad seed, I’m unlucky in life, this is my fate, and you can’t really help me.
That’s all she says. Just “sweetheart.”
I turn away, angry. I tell Solo to drop Aislin and Maddox at her parents’ place.
What is it that gets inside a person and convinces them to self-destruct? Is it their home life? Sometimes. But Aislin’s home life isn’t terrible. Her parents fight, but so do lots of people’s parents. They’re not rich, but they have enough money, enough, anyway, to get her into our snooty private school. Enough to keep their tans fresh.
Her mother is kind of a weak, ditzy, and inconsequential woman—the polar opposite of my mother. Absolutely no one has ever described Terra Spiker as weak. But it’s not like Aislin is being abused. I would know. We have no secrets. Her father is just like Aislin, a funny, charming, and, um, shall we say, adventurous person. But he loves Aislin and she knows it.
They’re distracted parents, not always around, not perfect. Join the club.
So what’s the deal?
Is it all just DNA? Is that twisted double helix the all-controlling code we can never outwit? Is there some chromosome deep down in Aislin’s cells that dooms her to a life of unhappiness with losers like Maddox?
On the other hand, Aislin, at least, has a relationship.
Oh, that was a cruel shot from my own brain. I’m actually arguing with myself as we motor through the streets, looking for Aislin’s house.
Yes, she has a relationship. A bad relationship.
Is a bad relationship supposed to be better than none at all?
How would you know?