Wild Awake - By Hilary T. Smith Page 0,21

tweaker moved in before the blood was even dry on the floor. There’s no respect around here. None at all.”

I wheel around to see Doug better and knock over a half-full can of beer that was perched on top of an unplugged mini-fridge. I really wish there was a light in here, because I’m starting to feel claustrophobic in the dimness with a giant trash bag pressing on my back and my ears buzzing louder and louder with every word Doug says.

“Doug,” I say in my steadiest, untrembliest voice, “what are you talking about?”

Doug reaches out to stabilize the bag before it slips out of my hands. He holds on while I get a better grip. While I’m trying to find the right place to rest the weight of the bag on my shoulder, he leans his face in close to mine and fixes me with his big drunk eyes.

“Oh, honey,” he says. “Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

chapter eleven

When I step outside again, the world feels like it’s been Photoshopped: The colors are supersaturated, and the brightness levels are way too high. The garbage bag containing Sukey’s earthly possessions is a huge sticky lump on my back. I feel like an insect, an ant carrying a crumb a hundred times bigger than I am. Except unlike an ant, I can’t handle this load. It’s too big. I can smell the panic in my sweat. I literally cannot breathe.

I see Skunk’s van parked by the curb. Sunlight is glaring off the windshield. I lurch toward it, the garbage bag riding on my back like a monster, a mountain, a grotesque ball-and-chain.

Don’t-think-about-it-Don’t-think-about-it-Don’t-think-about-it.

There’s a thin, tight thread running between my heart and the crown of my head that’s threatening to snap. I try to focus on getting to Skunk’s van, but the world is loud and awful and heavy, and the truth is even worse. I don’t know if I can make it to the van. I don’t know if I can make it another step. I can feel the plastic garbage bag stretching and straining, and it’s just a matter of which one of us breaks first.

Don’t think about it.

I hear a car door slam.

“Kiri?”

Don’t cry.

Skunk lumbers toward me. Something about the sight of his scruffy T-shirt anchors me, and I shuffle toward him like a duckling imprinting on a backhoe.

“Hang on.”

I stop. Skunk lifts the bag off my back. I wait next to the van while he opens the back door and hoists the bag inside. My back and shoulders are aching from the trip down the stairs, and my heart is beating so hard it feels like it’s trying to dig a tunnel out of my chest.

“You okay?”

Don’t cry.

My best and most reliable Normal Voice comes out as a high and strangled squeak.

“Yup.”

“You sure?”

Rapid nodding.

“You want a ride home? You look kind of freaked out.”

I decide that Skunk must be very perceptive for a person whose wallet is attached to his belt by a chain. When I get into the van and close the door, I am finally able to breathe.

Just as we’re buckling our seat belts, Doug comes staggering up the sidewalk and knocks on the window. I can’t imagine how he got down the stairs so fast—he must have rolled down, or used someone’s greasy pizza box as a toboggan. I don’t want to talk to him, but the morning has already taken such a gruesome turn it can hardly get any worse. I grab the old-school plastic handle and crank the window down. He sticks his grizzled old face through the window. His beer breath fills up the whole van. I notice Skunk sizing him up, probably wondering whether to step on the gas and rip his head off.

“Hey. Hey!”

Doug’s shouting like we’re across the street from him, not sitting within spitting distance. His yellow fingers grip the edge of the window like he thinks that’s going to stop us from driving away.

“Honey, listen. I didn’t mean to upset you back there, eh? We all loved Sukey-girl.”

I don’t want to hear it, and I don’t want Doug’s nasty beer spit spraying onto my skin. His face is huge and mottled and much, much too close.

“It’s fine.”

He leans his head in even closer. “I didn’t mean to scare you, eh, honey? You know if you ever—”

“IT’S FINE.”

His eyes widen, and he moves his head back like I’m the one shouting in his face while he’s trying to drive away. He glances back toward the doorway of the