Entanglement (YA Dystopian Romance) - By Dan Rix Page 0,13

to his coach, “which she will!”

“Say hello for me when she does.” Aaron slung his clean shirt over his shoulder and headed to his car alone. So much for forgetting about her. After that last sizzling look she gave him, that was going to be impossible.

Aaron sighed, imagining how much simpler his last month as a seventeen-year-old would have been if he’d never met her—and wondering if he’d ever have the courage to delete her number. Or call her.

His Mazda waited, black and sleek. Aaron was almost at the door when he noticed the damage, and his heart jolted.

He scanned the lot, hardly breathing. Nobody lingered. Nobody had left a note.

Aaron stared at his car. A dent stretched across the door, broken glass and crumpled metal, bashed inward. Bare steel glinted underneath, deformed and scraped white. Black flecks of paint streamed in rivulets along the asphalt under his feet.

“No—” he whispered, and he laid his palm on his car’s frame.

It wasn’t a fender bender. The dent was too deep, as if someone had deliberately driven into it, their toe to the floor—or beaten it with a crow bar.

Aaron pulled the handle, and the door collapsed an inch and screeched open. He stared at the ruined door, and pressure tingled in his sinuses, like two thumbs pressing under his eyes.

The driver’s seat was soaked, and the door didn’t close. It just banged against the side and swung back open. Aaron squeezed his shirt into a ball and flung it across the parking lot.

Then his cell phone rang.

“Hello,” said Aaron.

“Aaron Harper, how are you?” said an icy drawl.

A chill slithered up Aaron’s spine—Clive Selavio.

He scanned the deserted school, the houses across the street. “Who gave you my number?” he said, his heart pounding. All he heard was Clive’s heavy breathing infused with static.

“I told you to stay away from her,” said Clive.

“How’d you get my number?”

“But you didn’t listen,” said Clive.

The air stirred in Aaron’s ear, like someone breathing behind him. He spun.

Nobody.

“It was you—” Aaron’s eyes darted across the street. Down in the shadows between two bushes, hunched over. Nobody.

“It was you—that was my car, asshole!”

Clive chuckled. “Next Friday,” he said. “Expect me. I have a little surprise for you, Aaron Harper.” Then he hung up.

THREE

18 Days, 2 hours, 45 minutes

Aaron didn’t know whether to feel terrified, pissed off as hell, or betrayed. He was sure Amber gave Clive his number, unless Clive hacked it off her phone somehow. Or threatened her. Still no excuse.

By morning, pissed off as hell won out, and Aaron hunkered down at his desk before first period, kneading his fists. He’d spent everything he had on his Mazda, he loved that car. Sure, he wasn’t always on time with the oil changes and he had to hotwire the thing each time he started it, but to him, his car meant freedom—and Clive Selavio had defiled that.

If Clive thought Aaron was just going to disappear like Justin Gorski, just another name off his hit list, he was dead wrong. Next Friday, Clive was going to lick asphalt.

Emma Mist came in late and slogged to her seat, and Aaron noticed something off about her. Her face was pale, and her hair, usually full and glossy, looked wilted. He caught her eye as she slumped into her seat, and Aaron knew this was his chance to apologize. Before she could look away, he mouthed, “Can we please talk?”

She stared at him, her brown eyes clouded by weariness, then gave a stiff nod. Aaron felt a weight off his chest already.

But while his eyes were still on her, her back arched suddenly. She gasped, and her bony shoulders tensed before she fell forward, shivering. Students’ heads swiveled toward her, and Mr. Sanders, who had started his lecture, trailed off.

“Emma!” Their teacher ran to her desk and knelt beside her. “Emma, talk to me—what’s wrong?”

She clutched her stomach, and a tear slid down her cheek from her wide, terrified eyes.

“Is it a stomach ache?” said Mr. Sanders.

When Emma spoke, her voice was a whimper. Almost too low to hear across a classroom, but Aaron heard.

“I . . . I can’t feel him,” she said, and another tear splattered on her desk. “I can’t feel my half.”

“Let’s get you to the nurse,” said Mr. Sanders, helping her to her feet. “It’s going to be fine.”

Emma touched the back of her own head, winced, and collapsed against his chest. She was breathing too fast, hyperventilating.

Mr. Sanders looped his arm behind her knees, scooped