The Captive Page 0,31

you know, I was just wondering"-she started to set the ball back down-"whether you might, um, want to-oops."

The ball had shot out of her sweaty fingers like a watermelon seed, landing with a ping somewhere under the workbench and disappearing. Cassie looked up, horrified, and Nick slammed down the screwdriver and swore.

"I'm sorry-honest, Nick, I'm sorry-"

"What the hell did you have to touch it for? What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I..." Cassie looked at his wrathful face and the last of her courage left her. "I'm sorry, Nick," she gasped again, and she fled.

Out of the garage and down the driveway. Without thinking she turned right when she got to the street, heading back for her own house. She didn't want to go to Diana's, anyway- Adam was probably there. She walked up Crowhaven Road, her cheeks still burning and her heart thumping.

It had been a stupid idea from the beginning. Suzan was right; Nick was an iguana. He didn't have any normal human emotions. Cassie hadn't expected him to want to go to the dance with her in the first place; she'd just thought maybe he wouldn't mind, because he'd been nice to her in the boiler room that night. But now he'd shown his true colors. She was just glad she hadn't actually asked him before she'd dropped the ball-that would have been the ultimate embarrassment.

Even as it was, though, her chest felt tight and hot and her eyes felt sore. She kept her head carefully high as she passed Melanie's house, and then Laurel's. She didn't want to see either of them.

The sun had just set and the color was draining out of everything. It gets dark so early these days, she was thinking, when the roar of a motor caught her attention.

It was a black Suzuki Samurai with the license plate FLIP ME. The Henderson brothers were in it, Doug driving too fast. As soon as they spotted her they pulled over and stuck their heads out the windows, shouting comments.

"Hey, what's a nice girl like you doing in a neighborhood like this?" "You wanna party, Cassie?" "C'mon, baby, we can show you a good time!" They were just harassing her for the fun of it, but something made Cassie look up into Doug's tilted blue-green eyes and say nervily, "Sure."

They stared at her, nonplussed. Then Chris burst into laughter.

"Cool; get in," he said, and opened the passenger side door.

"Wait a minute," Doug began, frowning, but Cassie was already getting in, Chris helping her up the high step. She didn't know what had possessed her. But she was feeling wild and irresponsible, which she guessed was the best way to be feeling when you were with the Henderson brothers.

"Where are we going?" she asked as they roared off. Chris and Doug looked at each other cagily.

"Gonna buy some pumpkins for Halloween,"

Chris said.

"Buy pumpkins?"

"Well, not buy, exactly," Chris temporized.

For some reason, at this particular moment, that struck Cassie as funny. She began to giggle. Chris grinned.

"We're goin' down to Salem," he explained. "They have the best pumpkin patches to raid. And if we get done early enough we can hide in the Witch Dungeon and scare the tourists."

The Witch Dungeon? thought Cassie, but all she said was, "Okay."

The floor of the minijeep was littered with bottles, bits of pipe, rags, Dunkin' Donut bags, unraveling cassette tapes, and raunchy magazines. Chris was explaining to Cassie about how to construct a pipe bomb when they reached the pumpkin patch.

"Okay, now, shut up," Doug said. "We've gotta go around back." He turned the lights and engine off and cruised.

The pumpkin patch was a huge fenced enclosure full of pumpkins, some piled up, some scattered across the ground. Doug stopped the Samurai just behind a large pile by the booth where you paid for the pumpkins. It was fully dark now, and the light from the enclosure didn't quite reach them.

"Over the fence," Doug mouthed, and to Cassie: "Stay here." Cassie was glad he didn't want her to climb it; there was barbed wire at the top. Chris laid his jacket on it and the two boys swarmed over easily.

Then they calmly started handing pumpkins over the fence. Chris gave them to Doug, who stood on the pile and dropped them to Cassie on the other side, motioning her to put them in the back seat of the jeep.

What on earth do they want with all of these, anyway? Cassie wondered dizzily as she staggered back with armload after armload. Can