Chapter 2

THE GONER

Wednesday

I'm a zombie, and Andrea Coles is a brain smeared across midnight roads. I guess you could say that's kinda creepy, but it works. For us, it works.

We go way back, two and half years. The voices were intense back then—not as bad as now, but still a pain. Aunt Linda was my guardian. Then she went ahead and committed suicide. She'd left this world in a nutshell, left me to deal with nightly beatings and a drunken foster brother.

Andrea doesn't know those parts. The holes in my story make her squint with scepticism, or perhaps unseeing eyes, too rocked by the high for it to register.

I'd stolen the neighbour’s bike, as usual, and crashed into a community Christmas party out of town. That's where Andrea came in. I will never forget the look on her face when she saw me come head-on with the bushes, just outside the window of the building: shock and concern. I wasn't accustomed to the concern. Not much. We talked by the frozen lake after she lent me her oversized coat, and she hugged me underneath it.

After she'd moved to Brampton, we'd reduced to emails and late night phone calls.

I had run away. Used the money from drug dealings to get to her. Was homeless for a year.

"Enjoy the high, Sean," she says, then smiles a vacant smile.

I suppose I'm caught up in the mess of my past, sitting here in the cafeteria. But who cares? It's my mind to do with as I please. There are clusters of kids here and there, but nowhere near as many as usual. A few loners spot the rest of the room, minding their own.

"Did you hear Mrs. Morphosi today?"

I jump, turning to Daniel Prevro as he steps over the seat of the bench next to me.

"Daniel, hey," Andrea says, reaching over the table to bump fists with him. Her hair is long, dark, silky. It smells like pot and vanilla, her bangs covering her eyebrows, curling over sunset mahogany eyes. She looks at me, and I force a smile.

"Dude," Daniel says, patting my arm. "Miss was too crazy, eh? She saw me flip her off for you and I got into mad shit."

A lazy titter escapes me as I tune out, trying my best to enjoy the high. Andrea is now riled up, engaging in a conversation with Daniel. I try to smile, but the voices are here. The atmosphere darkens, thickens. Hear me, Sean. There's a creakiness to it, reverberating my skull. Hear what you are. You . . . are . . .

#

The pit of my stomach whirls, a sensation I'd been plagued with all day. It started as a barely passable anxiety attack, but now it feels more like a warning. With my beanie sandwiched between my cheek and my desk, I dip into thought. Something's wrong, and whatever it is has attendance chopped in half.

“Yeah, it's weird,” one guy whispers to another. “I asked around, called her place, nothing.” I know what he's saying. The missing kids, everywhere, like flies in winter—once buzzing, now nowhere to be found.

Elsewhere, some chick says something, “I'm gonna go to his house after school today, see what's up. I'm worried. He hasn't answered my texts in days.”

“Maybe he's just sick.”

“Maybe there's some kind of underground club we didn't hear about."

“Or an alien abduction,” a pizza-faced kid adds with a smirk.

The dismissal bell cues the class to collect their things and trickle into the hallway, but I remain a lethargic pile of curiosity and dread.

Coming to face me, Daniel shoves my shoulder, scattering my reverie. "Class, eh?" he says, having spent its entirety in a small group at the back of the room, all giggling, whispering, and flicking tiny balls of paper at a group of nerds. “Gonna get up?”

I respond with a groan.

Daniel tugs my beanie from under me and whacks me in the face with it, causing me to perk up and snatch it back. I rub my face, annoyed at everything. I'm not ready for reality and its ugly form, especially with school and how strange everything had become. Pulling my hat on, I stand on two tired feet.

Mrs. Morphosi is organizing the papers splayed atop her wide oak desk, her thin hands trembling, veins protruding. “Did you have a nice dream, Sean?”

I feel the burning disapproval etched in the tight wrinkles of her face. I can almost see a thin trail of smoke pluming from her papers. Those laser eyes are her trademark.

I meet her expectant glance with a glare. “I don't dream, Miss." I don't regret my mouth, even under her flustered gaze. Sleep brings nightmares of my parents and, what gets me: vivid executions.

"Don't you get smart with me," she says, shaking her head. "And take that darned hat off.”

My reluctant hand slips off the hat, dishevelling my hair, and then I lead Daniel to the door. Mrs. Morphosi has it in for most students, but I feel like the biggest target.

#

“What a hag," Daniel says, once caught up with me. "You didn't even do shit. She's too old to be teaching.”

I smirk through a layer of tiredness. “She's too old, period.”

#

The bell marking the end of fourth-period lunch rings, and Daniel pulls out his Smartphone with extra caution because of the teachers who roam the halls. Cell phones aren't allowed on school grounds. I stop at my locker and enter the combination. Daniel rests against the adjacent locker, eyes glued to his phone.

I grab a couple thick textbooks from my locker, drop them at my feet, and step up. Reaching behind a chip bag and half-empty Coke can for my knapsack, I try to ignore the voices. They want me to lose my footing and break my skull wide open, my blood pooling for everyone to see.

I lift my knapsack out. “No point in going to last class," I say. "We should skip, take a goddamn adventure.”

“Seems to be everyone's plan these days."

My gut whirls deeper than earlier. I throw the textbooks back in the locker and slam it shut.

Daniel looks at me with judging blue eyes. "Andrea wants me to give you a kiss."

I laugh. "Excuse me?"

He shrugs, then leans in with puckered lips and shut eyes. I shove him back, and then chuckle, getting the knapsack strap into a comfortable placement on my shoulder. He's nuts.

"Why don't you just date her?”

“It's not like that between us.” My tone suggested otherwise, which is surprising: she doesn't feel that way about me. Her playful attitude is a dead giveaway.

“Uh huh, so tell me you didn't get laid last night.”

The moment drags its ass along the hallway floor.

“So you guys are friends with benefits, then.” It wasn't a question.

“Na, dude, shut up. It's complicated.”

Daniel focuses on his phone, unconvinced.

"You should be more worried about the important things,” I tell him. “Like, oh, all the absences." I regret the words once they've left my mouth. I shouldn't make a big deal out of it. I shouldn't care, it's not like me.

“Yeah,” Daniel says, raking his dirty blond hair. “Man, dude, shit's been sketchy. Just don't think about it.”

The second bell rings and students rush to class.

C-c-c-coward! I squeeze my eyes shut. That's how I know to get rid of the voices. Shutting my eyes, removing myself from the world.

“You okay, man?”

My eyes fly open, adjusting to the light. “Yeah, yeah, I'm good. We going or not?”

Daniel gives my arm a backhanded pat as we head for the side doors. Assessing my surroundings from under my eyelashes, I try to crush the anxiety. The voices—or perhaps all the weed—bring that. I never used to be this shy, even with the voices. It's been getting worse.

Just as I get close enough to reach the doors, someone grabs my hand. Unfamiliar muscles clench deep in my core—Andrea?

I turn.

It isn't Andrea standing there. It's Faye Gourmont.

I don't know her well or anything, but she stands out. She looks like she'd come out of a Barbie box—with the exception of unkempt, yet gorgeous, blond hair, cheek piercings and gray sweatpants. Faye is an outgoing addition to Crawley Heights Secondary school. I can tell she's a prissy know-it all by the way she chews her gum. Probably annoying too.

Daniel keeps walking, flicking his thumb along the screen of his phone, too engrossed to notice I'd stopped.

“Hi, Sean!” she says, blinking. Her voice is high-pitched, which made my insides crawl.

I glance between her and the others approaching. Gordon Stolz and Rose Holland. There's a third one, who'd stopped by a locker to chat with a friend. Adrenaline spikes in me.

At Faye's side, her friends size me up. Gordon is reserved, his chin-length black hair covering one eye. He's lanky, hunched, and pale, like a vampire. Rose is preppy, like Faye, but less slutty.

I shut my eyes at the foreign voices whispering incoherent things in my head. When I reopen them, Faye's examining me. I swallow hard, taking note of the demeaning curiosity in her eyes.

“Who's he?” Rose asks, examining me too. I feel like a specimen.

“Apparently someone important,” Faye says.

I look over my shoulder, remembering the plan to skip.

Daniel is gone. The fence across the way is split and curved toward the row of houses beyond it, patches of his clothing snagged on the gnarled wire. I scan my field of vision, my heart skipping. A warm, unwelcome itch gathers behind my ears and neck, rising, tingling. What the—

“Hello?” Annoyance coats Faye's tone.

Turning back, my eyes avert to the boy now standing beside her. They look a lot alike, standing side-by-side, scrutinizing me with piercing green eyes.

“Sean Winston?” he says.

I hold my ground. I'm better than some freshman, I tell myself. I'm a senior, it's my job to be better.

“You don't remember me, buddy? It's me, Charlie.” He throws his arms out at his sides, grinning. “Faye's brother.”

There's something in the air, stifling, warning me to run.

But my feet are stuck to the floor.