“Like what?” he questioned as he took my hand.
Reed chipped in from behind us. “Don’t worry. We’ve all had words.”
“I’ve said I won’t do shit. But if the pigs don’t find the cunt that stuck Micah, I may have to make a few inquiries.”
His words did not make me feel any better, and my shoulders slumped.
When we got to the bottom of the stairs, Hudson turned me in his arms and kissed me softly on the lips.
When he lifted his head, he nodded at Storm. “Look after her, Storm. Don’t let me down.”
Storm nodded and placed her arm around my shoulders, no longer the mean girl. “Come on, Mols, let’s leave the boys to do their shit. I’ll walk you to class.”
“Keep your phone on,” I said to Hudson over my shoulder. “We need to stay in contact with each other. We don’t know what’s going on. Please, promise me.”
Hudson nodded. “I’ve got my cell. You need me, you call me.”
As Reed and Hudson made their way off campus, my gut continued to burn with that feeling that it wasn’t over yet.
I sat through that morning’s lessons with a massive headache. I had arranged to meet with a counsellor after lunch. That feeling that something was still off continued to plague me.
And then my intuition that it wasn’t over yet came in the shape of a text message. The number was from an unknown caller, but I knew who it was as they identified themselves.
Molly. This is Xander. My father knows it was Hudson. He’s in danger. Please meet me by the school entrance that backs onto the park now.
And then I knew the attack on Micahwasdue to the drugs, and that Hudson was possibly next.
That message gave me palpitations, and I automatically went to call Hudson, but then stopped myself. If I called him and told him he was in danger, would he even listen? No, he’d take matters into his own hands and could make things worse. I toyed with going to my dad, but again, that didn’t feel right.
I knew at that point that I had to do something. Find out what Xander was talking about. How had his father connected Hudson to the drugs? Maybe he was bluffing. There were so many questions swimming around my head.
I recalled how Xander had tried to warn Hudson before, and his reaction to that.
No, this time, we needed to do things my way. I would get the facts before I went to Hudson. Not everything could be fixed with violence. Sometimes it was better to talk, maybe negotiate.
And then I realised that Hudson was on his way to collect the drugs to dispose of them. He said the journey to the area where he intended to dump them would take around an hour. That meant I didn’t have much time to stop him, if I needed to.
If Xander’s father had hurt Micah, he was more dangerous than I had thought. If I promised Xander I could get the drugs back, maybe we could make a deal.
When the bell went to signal the end of my lesson, I gave Xander Creed my answer.
I’ll be there.
TWENTY-TWO
HUDSON
Reed and I left the hospital feeling a huge sense of relief. Micah must have been feeling better, considering he had bounced back into giant dick mode. The dude didn’t like hospitals, who did? He was acting up with the doctors and nurses like a huge douchebag. Not taking his pills, fucking with all the buttons on his bed, demanding to be allowed outside to smoke, the list was endless.
We spoke about what had happened. He told us the same thing he told the police: that he had no idea who attacked him. I grilled him repeatedly, desperate to know the punk's identity so I could ensure he had a slow, painful death. My suspicions were still stacked towards a kid from St Andrew’s. I was intending to visit Fletcher Lewis. I still had his jersey, and it was only right to return it. And yes, returning part of his fucking football uniform wasn’t the only thing I’d be doing there. I knew there was a chance that it wasn’t him. That’s why I would tread carefully.
The thought that the attack on Micahcouldhave been related to the drugs had always been on my mind, but accepting that hurt like fuck. When Micah explained that the cops had told him that no prints were found on the knife, that again pointed to Creed’s family. A disgruntled student wouldn’t have thought to wear gloves when lashing out in the spur of the moment. But I couldn’t process that right now, I had a job to do.
I thought back to Molly’s dad’s address to the school that morning. I’d only gone so I could check Molly was OK and collect the coke bricks. They were now covered by a tarp in the back of my truck.
After dropping Reed off at the house, I decided to dispose of the powder in the water at Narragansett Bayso that the shit dissolved. The thought of being pulled over with three kilos of narcotics in my car didn’t sit well with me, and so I drove slowly, taking the back roads to the coastline.
As I was stuck in traffic, my cell went off. It was on the passenger seat, and I swiped the screen and put it on speaker. Driving with your cell phone in your hand was also illegal in Rhode Island. And again, I didn’t need the cops crawling up my ass and adding to the bust of the century.
