The Bad Crowd

I had meant to walk home. Four times, I made the decision, and four times I found myself heading back toward the school. My feet had their own plans. Twelve days before my thirteenth birthday, after getting caught with a pocket knife, I’d been kept in detention, like that was supposed to teach me some kind of lesson. I should have gone straight home. I really tried to. So why was I staring at a sign, letting the sun edge toward the horizon behind me? The "School Zone: Fines Doubled" sign wasn’t all that interesting on its own. It stood on the corner, wrapped around its own pole like a bear had stood on its hind legs and given it a big, friendly hug. Nobody could read the thing anymore. The only reason I knew what it was supposed to be at all was because of Ray. It was his idea. We’d go around trying to make the weirdest story we could to explain what had happened to it. “Nah, man, that wasn’t it. I bet some skater kept trying to kickflip over it, and every time he caught the corner, he f****d it up more.” “Who the hell kickflips over a stop sign?” “It’s not a stop sign, dipshit. Stop signs are red.” “Maybe that’s why it didn’t work! I bet that’s how it got f****d up. Who stops for a yellow stop sign?” “Nobody! Because it’s not a stop sign!” A scuffle, down in the dirt. Insults nobody believed, curse words we barely knew how to use. I stubbed my toe toward the spot at the edge of the sidewalk where a furrow of gravel still held the memory of one of those fights, where Ray had knocked out one of Keith’s baby teeth on the edge of a fencepost. I knew if I ran my thumb over the side, I would find the notch where they hit it. Instead, I looked back toward the sign, trying to imagine a new story. “Maybe… The principal got so mad at one kid for chewing gum that he picked up the whole sign and chewed it to assert dominance. Kid barely made it out alive!” I shoved my hands in my pockets, feeling a warm kind of silly for saying it out loud. I tried to imagine if Ray would laugh. Probably not. He’d probably come up with something way funnier. He was so much better at it than I ever was. I glanced toward the sky, the first stars beginning to show. I wasn’t supposed to be out here. I knew it was dangerous, the closer to dusk it got, but something in my gut cemented me to the spot. “What is the deal,” I muttered, leaning against the sign’s rusted post. As if the universe was answering me, the crunch of gravel caught my attention. Yes, something inside me whispered, and my breath caught. This is what I was waiting for. My fingers instinctively tried to close around my knife in my pocket, and a flicker of panic twisted in my chest when I realized again that it was gone. Right. As soon as the pitch-black Pontiac Firebird rolled around the corner, the dull throb of fear evaporated. None of that mattered - not my knife, not Ms. Carthage depriving me of it, not the darkening sky, and not my friends - because that little something was right: This was what I was here for, and I needed to know why. The car pulled up to the curb, and as the window rolled down, I stopped breathing. Nocs. I knew it as soon as I saw that angular, narrow face. The long blond hair. Those golden eyes, rimmed with dark eyeliner, fixed on me. Nocturnals were the reason we weren’t supposed to be out at night. From what my mother had told me, they were vicious hunters. I wasn’t sure about that, but Miss K next door was adamant that her little poodle had been snatched by one. I squinted at the sky. It wasn’t even dark yet. If curfew was supposed to keep us safe, how the hell were they even there? A part of me was terrified, but not a loud enough part. Most of me felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. When I looked back at the car, I couldn’t imagine the man snatching dogs or… really hurting anyone, honestly. I was so busy thinking about how his hands were beautiful, that they should be on a piano somewhere, that I didn’t even notice the window rolling down in the back seat. Nobody said anything at all until- “Hey, kid!” The man in the back seat laughed when he saw me jump, and my cheeks heated. “Who- what, me?” Wait, no, that sounded like s**t. “I’m not a kid!” I said, hoping it sounded more threatening than indignant. “Oh yeah?” the second man said, leaning about halfway out the window. He paused, glancing over his shoulder, then flashed an apologetic smile and looked back at me. His teeth were abnormally white on his square-jawed face. His dark eyes glittered with mischief, somehow both brown and blue at the same time. I glanced past him to a kid in the front seat, realizing he wasn’t a kid at all. His narrow frame and soft brown eyes made him seem far younger than the others, but if he was a Noc, if they all were, then that didn’t mean anything. They are, that gut feeling told me, with absolute certainty. I pressed the tip of my tongue against my canine, trying to let the subtle pain ground me a bit. I would have dug my knifetip into my fingers just to feel the sting, but I didn’t have that option right now. I pushed off the sign, crossing my arms in an attempt to appear less rattled than I felt, but the terrified animal part of my brain was pretty sure it just looked like I was hugging myself. Again, my feet moved of their own accord. My mother’s warnings were far away, whispers, not the screams I was pretty sure they wanted to be. I cleared my throat. "So what are you guys doing here? Aren't you a little old to be in grade school, or did you just get held back a bunch?" “We’re picking up a friend’s all,” the loud one said, laying his chin in the crook of his elbow. None of them had taken their eyes off me for more than a few seconds. I wanted to get closer, maybe even get into the car. I didn’t, but maybe only because they didn’t offer. “Friend?” I seriously doubted that. "Well, alright, brother of a friend." He waved his hand from side to side as if to say 'semantics, who needs 'em?' "It's Jack's little brother. Maybe you've met him? His name's Colby." We both stared at each-other a beat, and I could see the dare in his eyes. He wanted me to call him out. I swallowed a snicker, shaking my head, and his smile somehow grew. “You expect me to believe you have a friend named after cheese?” “Yes,” he said with full confidence. The kid shot him a glare, and square-jaw let out a groan, “Ah, goddammit, where’s my manners?” He stuck out a hand. “Name’s Manny.” My feet moved. I closed the gap without thinking, my hand in his before I could even register that I wasn’t next to the sign anymore. The corners of his mouth seemed to eat up his cheeks and a deep unease spread through me. What was wrong with him? Why were his eyes so... triumphant? I pulled back slightly, but his fingers tightened. What if he didn’t let go? Instead, after another infinite second, he just laughed and clapped a hand on my shoulder before releasing me. He gestured toward the front seat like nothing had happened, but I could tell it had been a power play, and I had lost. "The pretty one's Andy, and the quiet one's Jack." He pointed to each as he named them. Jack just nodded at me, his eyes appraising, but belying no actual emotion. I couldn't tell if he approved of me. I hadn’t decided if I wanted him to. When I looked at Andy, I froze. He was staring at me. The way his eyes fixed on mine, it made all of my mother’s stories seem plausible. Poodles? Maybe not. But people? He looked like how I imagined cats looked to mice, and something in me roiled at the implication that I was the mouse. Then, without warning, he relaxed. The spell was broken. Jack had put a hand on Andy's arm. That was all it took. I wanted to find out why. I wanted to understand them so much it hurt. It wasn’t normal, but then, nothing about this entire afternoon had been normal. Andy’s face bloomed into a smile, much less manic than Manny, and my heart started beating again. His smile, I thought, reminded me of a caring teacher. Comforting. My lungs hurt. Had I been holding my breath that whole time? I pulled in a breath, trying to be subtle about it but pretty sure I’d gasped audibly. Everything felt floaty. I had to look around to affirm not only that I was in the same place, but that the clouds were still basically up in the sky where they should have been. They were, but the sun was also a lot closer to the horizon. I couldn’t remember why that mattered. I couldn't think. Every time I tried, my mind slipped sideways a little. “We are acquainted, it seems,” Andy said, his voice rolling from his tongue like melting darkness, and all I could think was about how beautiful it sounded. “But we still do not know your name.” My own voice felt stupid and clumsy on my tongue when I said, "Eric." Andy tilted his head, and there was something feral in his eyes again. "Eric." He said, and I couldn't help but think he somehow said my name better. "Well, Eric... We'll see you later. Soon, I'm sure." I heard a mutter from the back seat, "Geeze, Jack, how much did you hit him with? Wait, seriously?" But I wasn't even sure I'd heard it because then Manny laughed, startling me again, and said "Yeah, sounds like we have a date all planned up!" He clapped, then leaned forward and looped his arms over the seat in front of him. “Onward, stallion!” And then they were gone.