Wes laughed. “Army of geeks. Whatever.” He looked at me. “Hold him tight,” he told the guy behind me.

  “Seriously? We’re outnumbered. And Mrs. H is with them.” His cohort didn’t release me even as he sounded unsure, but he did release the hold enough to give me room. I quickly moved my right hand to grab my captor’s hand so I could spin out of his hold.

  Fury etched across Wes’s face as he reached for me—a reach I dodged as Dean and Lars got to Wes and held him back. They had a hard time as he bucked and pulled to get away.

  “Police are on the way, and Ms. Cohen will be out in a moment,” Mrs. H said, grabbing hold of the guy who’d held me and pulling him over near to where Wes was being held.

  “Oh come on, Reese and I were working out some stuff from last week.” Wes sounded like he was catching on this was trouble for him.

  “While you’re suspended, being on school property is trespassing so the police are on the way. Not to mention that we all saw what you did.” Mrs. H sounded rather satisfied. I guessed her students put up with a lot of crap from the likes of Wes.

  Sirens sounded in the distance. “Let me go.” Wes sounded defeated as he continued to struggle. The guy who’d held me didn’t even try to run for it.

  “Oh, Theo,” Mrs. H said. She released her grip on Wes’s goon and came up to me. “You’re bleeding.”

  Great. With the intensity of the pain, it wasn’t surprising that my wound had opened. The stitches weren’t due to come out for another few days.

  I looked at my shoulder and saw what Mrs. H had. Even through my hoodie and sweatshirt, a splotch of blood had appeared.

  Mrs. H looked at me while the police arrived, and Ms. Cohen crossed the parking lot from the other wing of the building.

  “I’ll put pressure on it.” I placed my right hand over the blood spot—almost exactly what I’d done right after I was shot. “There’s no way I’m going to easily get out of the clothes to hold it any better.”

  She nodded. “Probably the best thing. The less movement the better.”

  The officers arrived, and Mrs. H and the team explained what they’d seen and had them call an ambulance for me. I didn’t want another trip to the hospital, but there was no choice. I sat in the back of the police car, holding my shoulder, to wait while the cops talked to people.

  “I think you dropped this.” Dean held out my phone, with a seriously cracked screen. “You’ve not had good luck with these the past few days.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  We traded easy smiles over the sad state of my phones.

  “I didn’t get to see you after, but—”

  Mrs. H came over. “The ambulance will be here in a minute. They’ll take you to Memorial.”

  I nodded. I needed to call Dad to let him know. I pressed the unlock button on my phone and it didn’t respond. Apparently more was wrong than a cracked screen. Lorenzo would start charging for these soon.

  “Here.” Dean took his from his jeans pocket and handed it to me.

  “Thanks.”

  I made the call. I didn’t have to edit anything since this happened at school. He said he and Mom would meet me at the hospital and have John take care of the car. I handed the phone back to Dean.

  “So, I haven’t really had…. It’s not….” Dean paused and seemed to collect himself. “Thank you. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t been there when they took us to that house.”

  “Teamwork. I couldn’t have done it on my own either.”

  We looked at each other for a moment. “Actually, I think you could’ve. Jessie was right, you’re pretty badass.”

  I shrugged, and immediately regretted it.

  “Okay, maybe not a complete badass,” Dean said through a smirk. “Badasses don’t wince when they shrug.” He tentatively laughed.

  “Jerk.” I laughed freely even though that hurt too. At least it hurt less than the shrug.

  The ambulance pulled into the parking lot.

  “Can we talk one day next week? I’ve got some afternoons free.”

  “Uhm… sure.” Dean sounded confused.

  “Don’t worry. It’s nothing bad.”

  “Okay.”

  “Excuse us. We need to get in here.” The paramedics interrupted.

  “I’ll catch you later,” Dean said as he stepped back. Behind the paramedics, I saw Wes and the guy with him being lowered into a police car.

  The medics helped me out of the car and to the stretcher. I couldn’t hold back a sigh while they loaded me into the ambulance to go to the ER.

  Again.

  Thirty-Two

  “Jesus, Theo, I thought I had a lot of hardware. It’s like mission control in here.” Dean walked around my desk and looked at the monitors, various computers, servers, and other things I had on and behind my desk.

  I’d asked him to come over so we could talk privately, and this was the first day we could do it since the whole parking lot incident.

  “I admit, some of it’s for show, especially the stuff behind the desk. But I use a lot of it. I need powerful stuff for my clients, and for gaming.”

  “Oh, man. I bet games are sweet with all this processing power and that larger screen.”

  I dropped my backpack in its usual place by my desk and shrugged out of my coat.

  “Wanna give it a go?”

  He made a noise that implied I didn’t need to ask. “Hell yeah.” He took off his jacket and tossed it on the bed.

  I brought up the sizable list of games I had on the big screen. “Your pick.”

  Dean scrolled through the list. It was the most relaxed I’d ever seen him. Maybe I shouldn’t bring up the file, or Wes. Except I wanted to know how he was doing because I’d had similar experiences. Obviously I couldn’t discuss Denver, but my abduction was common knowledge.

  “Dude, you’ve got the latest Grand Theft. I’ve been saving for that. Let’s do it.”

  “All right. Gotta warn you, I’m good.” I got the game started on the Xbox I had wired in to my hardware.

  He grabbed a controller from the bin where I had them stored. “Let’s see about that.”

  After pulling a chair over from the other side of the desk, he plopped himself down next to my chair. I got my controller but stopped short of sitting down.

  “Damn. I kinda forgot in the moment.” I gestured at my restrained arm and hand.

  He shrugged and put the controller on the desk. “It’s okay.” He tried to cover up his disappointment. “Another time.”

  “No way.” My excitement roared back. “I’ll take you with one hand.”

  He snorted, which made me even more determined. I gently adjusted my arm in the sling, taking the thumb out of its restraint. Locking the controller into my left hand, I settled into a position that seemed like it would work. It’d be awkward, but testing things out, I could make do.

  “You sure about this?” Dean took up his controller. “I don’t want to be responsible for breaking you worse.”

  “You can try.” I was just as cocky with him as I was with Eddie and Mitch.

  “Let’s do this.”

  We dropped into the game. It wasn’t easy with one hand, and there were times I pulled on my shoulder, but it was fun. Dean had an interesting strategy, and it made me think a little more than usual too. He seemed to be into the game, really moving his chair as he played.

  Suddenly he hit the pause button, but he didn’t take his eyes off the screen.

  He was silent for a moment. “How did you not freak out?” His gaze stayed focused on the frozen game.

  “I was terrified, but I couldn’t let her scare everyone else,” I said quietly, lying because I wasn’t that terrified. “I did what had to be done. Same as you.”

  “I didn’t have a choice. I….” He finally looked at me and sighed. “If I’d said no, it would’ve been so much worse.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  I wanted to do something. He looked so uncomfortable. “You saved my life. I don’t know what to say to that. I’ve thought about it—a lot. Thank you seems too little.” More silence, but he still looked at me. “I don’t know.”

  He looked away again and rubbed his hand over his slightly scruffy cheek.

  “You would’ve done the same.”

  “I hope so. But I honestly don’t know. Sometimes terror paralyzed me, even trying to get the machine to blow up. There are blank spots. Things I don’t remember.”

  Hopefully I was going to say the right thing. “You know I got snatched off my bike last fall?”

  He nodded.

  “That was terrifying. Guys in masks, with guns. Why were they after me? I didn’t know what to do. But then Eddie showed up because I’d called him and told him something felt off. He risked himself for me. And I found the courage to use his distraction to get away. You did what you had to do to get out of the situation.”

  He fidgeted with the controller, and it seemed like he was going to speak, but he didn’t.

  “You have no idea how scared I was to be shoved into that van. I think I’ll always have a thing against vans,” I continued. “Are you talking to anyone about all this?”

  “Yeah, the school’s got me a counselor to talk to and Mom’s making me go. Don’t you have to do it too? I thought the whole team had to do it.”

  I smiled. “I already was. Since the abduction I’ve been seeing someone. This is just one more thing for us to talk about. It helps to talk it out with someone who wasn’t involved.”

  “I see bits of it when I go to sleep. Sometimes it doesn’t end like it did.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  “Who’d have thought that competition could end so messed up.”

  “Right? At least we ended up with the prize—it was cool of the sponsor to do that.”

  “Yeah. They did right by everybody. It’ll help me get to college for sure.”

  I paused. I’d rehearsed this in my head most of the day, but I didn’t want him to get pissed off.

  “I’ve talked to my advisor at MIT, told him about the skills I’ve seen and that I think you’d be great for the program. He’d love to meet you.”

  He broke out in a laugh. “Even with the prize money, I could never afford MIT. My grades aren’t good enough and that means no scholarship.” The laugh abruptly stopped. “Plus my family could really use some of that money. I appreciate what you tried to do, but I think I’d waste his time. I’m looking at Roxbury. They’ve got Information Science courses. It’s about all I can afford. If I can get my grades up, maybe I can get a scholarship later.”

  “If there’s anything I can do to help….”

  He nodded.

  “Get back to the game?” I gestured at the frozen screen that waited in front of us. I didn’t want to push him any more than I already had.

  “Yeah.” He turned back to the screen, but then looked at me. “Ready?”

  I got positioned to play again and gave a curt nod. He clicked the pause button and we were playing again.

  Thirty-Three

  Bizarre.

  That was the most accurate description for it. I’d never watched a McKinley game from the stands. I’d hated watching the Denver championship game last fall with my parents and Eddie, and this was about a zillion times worse. I hadn’t known the Denver team well because it’d been thrown together the day before the tourney began.

  My team was playing, and I should be out there with them. In the few times I’d missed school games, I hadn’t come to watch. Last week it’d been easy to skip because it was an away game and I’d only been out of the hospital a couple of days. Tonight we were playing at home, and I wanted to show my support. It might’ve been a mistake. Even though the Tigers were winning, it gnawed at me that I couldn’t contribute for my teammates. I did my best not to show my disappointment as I yelled and cheered with Iris and Eddie.

  Coach Daly tried to simplify everything—do the rehabilitation and get a full season for my senior year. He then put it all into perspective, telling me to be proud that I’d likely averted a national catastrophe and shouldn’t sweat a few games.

  He was right.

  It didn’t change my unhappiness on the sidelines, especially since it was where I’d be for several weeks.

  Eddie put his hand on my knee and brought my attention back to the rink.

  “You okay?” He looked concerned.

  “Yeah. Why?” I hoped to play off the fact I’d been too in my head.

  “You missed Mitch scoring.”

  “Shit. Sorry. I was busy beating myself up.”

  He nodded and gave me a slight smile.

  “Please don’t say ‘It’s not your fault, Theo.’”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Eddie was in a ridiculously good mood, and with the teasing tone he used, I was eager to hear what else he had to say.

  “Really?”

  “Not at all. It’s totally your fault.” On the other side of Eddie, Iris shot him a shocked look he couldn’t see since he faced me. “You got involved in the very dangerous sport of computer-science competitions, and you’ve paid the price.”

  Eddie said it so earnestly that I chuckled.

  “Edward Cochrane, what a horrible thing to say!” Iris slapped his shoulder several times, and the chuckles escalated into big laughs.

  And then it was hysterics I couldn’t control.

  I hadn’t busted out this hard in a while, and it felt great. The movement irritated my shoulder, but it didn’t matter. Iris looked at me like I’d gone mad, and that only made me laugh more. Eddie, however, smiled—a truly sweet smile. He’d just done more for my mood than anything else had in days. It didn’t matter that people around us turned to see what was so funny; I relished the moment.

  As my laughter died out, I leaned into Eddie so my head rested against his shoulder. “You’re awesome.”

  “You might need to tell Iris that.” He kissed the side of my head. “I’m glad it didn’t backfire.”

  “I loved it and I needed it.”

  The second period ended about five minutes after Mitch’s goal, and we led three to two.

  “How about some hot chocolate?” I sat up and looked at Eddie.

  “And maybe one of those snickerdoodles if they have any?”

  “Oh yeah.” We stood up, but Iris stayed seated. “Want to come?”

  “Nah.” She smiled at us. “You two go on. Bring me back a coffee, though?”

  “Will do,” Eddie said.

  We made our way out of the aisle, down the stairs, and out into the lobby. People seemed to have burned out their questions. When Eddie and I had arrived, a lot of parents asked how I was, if I’d play again this season, and so on. It’d only been a few days since the questions stopped at school, and I wasn’t prepared to face them all over again. That’s probably what sent me into the funk.

  “Thanks for that.” I held Eddie’s hand while we stood in the concession line.

  “Anytime. I was surprised you drifted away. You’ve seemed to be managing okay.”

  “It really hit me hard being a spectator and that I’m not going to be out there again for weeks. I’ve tried to focus more on the idea that this,” I said, pointing at my sling, “got us more time together—and that’s never a bad thing.”

  “I like when you talk about more time together.”

  My phone vibrated in a TOS pattern. The phone was in my right pocket, which bumped up against Eddie’s leg, so he felt it too.

  Eddie squeezed my hand, and I knew it was a plea to ignore the phone. It stopped, having gone to voicemail. It was difficult to not pull away to check it, but I didn’t. It hadn’t been a priority ring.

  “Can we skip the team party and do something else? Just us?” I asked. “Maybe go to the café and chill?”

  “My parents are at some… I don’t know what… but shouldn’t be home until around midnight.”

  “Why are we even here, then?”

  Eddie laughed. “It’s what we do. Cheer for our friends.”

  I smiled. “That we do.”

  After we paid and were waiting for our order, I took the moment to get my phone and see who’d called.

  “I knew you wouldn’t be able to keep away from that too long,” Eddie said, his disappointment crystal clear.

  “It’ll just take a second.”

  “You say that, and then you disappear for hours.”

  I stayed next to him to show I wasn’t going anywhere. I read an email from the person who called. It was an analysis on the attack on my phone that happened at Eddie’s swim meet along with the virus from Eddie’s thumb drive. Two documents were attached. She’d been busy. She said she could walk me through the findings when I was ready. That could wait until morning.

  “See. I’m already done.” I pocketed the phone when our order came up.

  His expression remained clouded, troubled. He had more to say.

  “I’m sorry,” I said softly.

  “I know.” He picked up the cookies and put them in his jacket pocket. I took my hot chocolate while he took his and Iris’s coffee. “You’ve got responsibilities. I knew that when we started going out. More keeps piling on, though.” He looked at me and gestured over to an empty table. “There’s only so much time in a day, and it feels like the amount of time there is for us gets less and less.”

  The words hurt more than the bullet had. Unfortunately he wasn’t wrong. He usually got the leftovers on my schedule. It wasn’t fair. Mom and Dad always wanted to make sure I was having a life, and being a teenager. I manage everything pretty well, except the guy I love.

  “You’re right.” I fought the urge to look away. “I need to reprioritize.”

  “I’d like that. But I’m not sure it’s fair for me to ask you to do it.”

  With my good hand, I lifted one of his hands from his cup and held it.

  “You’re not asking. I’m saying it. I want more time with you, and it’s up to me to make the time. My injury gives us some.” I held his gaze. “I’m going to create more time for us.”