Blood on My Hands

brought a fog to her brain, making her reactions sluggish. She flailed feebly at the strong gloved hands holding the rag, but her fingers seemed unable to grip. By the time she tried to scream, she’d taken a second breath, and the cry that left her throat, muffled by the rag, was so weak and faint that it sounded like the bleating of some distant forlorn animal.
    The heavy fog was like a trapdoor pressing down on her consciousness.
    Her knees gave out.
    She went limp.
    Her body would have collapsed in a heap were it not for the arms that went around her chest. Her attacker began to drag her around the corner to a parked car.
    Lucy Cunningham’s heels scraped along the dark, quiet street … and all her worries about the future became a thing of the past.

Chapter 2
    Sunday 3:02 A.M . (7 minutes earlier)
    “RICH BITCH,” TYLER Starling muttered as he steered with one hand and turned up the music with the other. It was something he called hard-style techno, which, he claimed, was very popular in Germany and the Netherlands.
    Next to him in the dark car, I winced. The loud thumping music was raw electronic and difficult to follow. An assault on the ears, especially given the late hour, it only added to the discomfort I was already feeling. All week I’d looked forward to spending tonight with this new, interesting guy who’d suddenly shown up at Soundview High almost a month after school began. He was tall, wiry, handsome, and, I thought, seriously sexy, with a slightly crooked nose that must have been the result of being broken.
    But now, as the final moments of our night together approached, my plans were slipping away into disappointment. Tyler’s “rich bitch” comment just made it worse. If he didn’t like rich people, I was in serious trouble.
    There were other reasons to feel discomfort. By dropping Lucy Cunningham off in front of her house and driving away, we’d broken an important Safe Rides rule—making sure “the client” was safely inside before we left. But it was nearly three A.M. , and Lucy was being a complete pain, standing in the street and refusing to go into her house. What were we supposed to do? Take her by the hand and lead her to the front door?
    “She’s not like that most of the time,” I said.
    “Why are you making excuses for her?” Tyler asked as he drove.
    “Because I’ve known her for a long time. In fact, in middle school, we were best friends.”
    “That doesn’t give her the right to dump on us.” Tyler craned his neck for the street signs that would lead us out of Lucy’s neighborhood.
    Twenty minutes earlier, we’d picked her up at Cassandra Quinn’s house. It was just after two thirty, and through the brightly lit windows we could see that the party was still going strong. The front door had opened and Lucy stumbled across the lawn with the unsteady gait of someone who’d been intimate with Jell-O shots. I was surprised by that, considering the medications she was taking. And why had she called Safe Rides instead of rolling with Adam?
    She opened the back door and got in. “Take me home,” she grumbled. “And make it snappy.”
    Tyler started to drive, the hard-style techno blaring.
    “Would you turn that crap off?” Lucy demanded.
    Tyler turned the music down, but not off. I heard a telltale rustle from the backseat. Lucy had placed a cigarette in her lips.
    “No smoking, Lucy,” I said.
    “Drop dead,” she grumbled, and searched her bag for a light.
    Tyler looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Keep smoking and you’ll beat us to it.”
    Lucy harrumphed as she pulled out a green plastic lighter and thumbed it. A flame shot up. She lit the cigarette, rolled the window halfway down, and exhaled. Cold November air rushed into the car. I tightened my red cashmere scarf around my neck.
    “Could anything be more pathetic than this?” Lucy muttered. “Why are you chauffeuring people around on a Saturday night?”
    “It’s my community-service requirement,” I said. “How was the party anyway?”
    “Beside the huge fight I had with Adam?” Lucy said. “It sucked. Same old, same old, except for some FCC creeps. I so cannot wait for high school to end.”
    We rode in silence until Lucy looked into the rearview mirror and caught Tyler’s eye. “I know you. You’re the one who wears that black trench coat and always sits by yourself at lunch. A regular social butterfly.”
    Tyler stared back at her for what seemed longer than necessary.