Wild Awake - By Hilary T. Smith Page 0,4

Lukas. Should have tried Mom and Dad. Shouldn’t have come down here at all.

I’m so busy debating whether I should just go home that I don’t notice the broken glass on the road when I ride right through it. I hardly hear the soft hissing sound of my back tire deflating. Nope—I don’t notice anything until the thump of my rim riding the pavement jerks me back into reality.

I get off my bike and drag it onto the sidewalk to inspect the damage.

The back tire is completely flat. When I run my fingers around it, I find a tiny green shard of glass lodged in the rubber.

Shit. Shitshitshit.

I start walking, dragging my bike beside me like an awkward, clomping, injured horse. It thumps along beside me, but I try not to slow down. As dodgeball has taught us: Slowness shows weakness. Weakness means a ball in the face.

I don’t think I need to elaborate any further.

A couple more guys on bikes reel past me, carrying bulging garbage bags full of empty pop cans on their backs.

“Hey!” I shout after them. “Where’s Columbia Street?”

The one on the left turns his head. He’s wearing a denim jacket with a black hoodie underneath. With the trash bag on his back, he looks like a punk-rock janitor.

“Two blocks thataway.”

“Thanks.”

He gives me a lopsided salute, and they disappear around a corner. I hurry my bike in the direction he pointed. When I see the green sign that says COLUMBIA in white letters, my knees go loose and weak. I recognize this place. I don’t know why, but I do. Something about the red brick buildings makes my memory spit and cough like an engine that can’t quite start up. I stand still, straining my ears, as if someone might whisper the answer.

Nothing. Just car sounds, tree-hush, the hoots and squeals of police cars two blocks away.

My hand moves to my pocket for the piece of paper with the address, but it’s not there. I check the other pocket. Empty. I rack my brains for the street number, but draw a blank.

Suddenly, this doesn’t feel like an adventure anymore.

Actually, it feels a lot like I’m standing on a sketchy block in the Downtown Eastside with a flat tire and no idea where I’m supposed to be or who I’m supposed to be meeting.

Nice work, Kiri. Way to be a badass.

I’ve stopped in front of a Chinese grocery store with a metal screen pulled down over it for the night. There’s a bakery next to it, and across the street there’s a six-story brick building with an old plastic sign above the door that says IMPERIAL HOTEL. There’s some classy-looking buttressing around the first-floor windows, but whatever its former glory, it now looks like a National Register of Historic Places building crossed with a meth lab.

Where are you? I plead silently, but Sukey doesn’t answer, and Doug doesn’t appear.

There’s a pair of crouched figures in the doorway of the hotel who look at me and mutter to each other in a way I don’t like. A moment later, one of them takes out a needle and starts shooting up right in front of me.

Just when I think things can’t get any more messed up, the yellow-haired homie who asked me for a cigarette at East Hastings rolls up on his bicycle and hovers next to me, his body so close I can smell the stale sweat on his jacket.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” he says to me with breath so thick with liquor it makes my head spin.

I strangle my handlebars.

“I’d rather you didn’t, dude.”

His face twists up.

“You’re an uptight pussy.”

That’s it. That takes the freaking cake. I grab my bike and run the hell away from Columbia Street.

chapter four

“Got a flat?”

The guy who just spoke to me is standing outside a club where a speed metal band is thrashing away. I can hear the muffled bass and shrieking vocals, like they’re murdering something onstage. I nod without making eye contact, thinking, I’ve dealt with enough sketchy dudes for one night. I feel like I’ve been trudging along for hours, but I’ve only just made it back to the part of East Cordova Street where I can finally stop pretending to be holding a can of pepper spray.

His voice wafts after me. “I’ve got a spare tube at my place. If you need it.”

I tell myself this is some kind of sleazy trick to get me to go home with him, but I can’t help