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This
is
a
bad
idea,
Kenny muttered as I strode up the walk to Jeff Dean's front door.

Whatever. I rang the doorbell.

Jeff was happy to see me. “What the hell are you doing here?” He leaned against the door, his hand pressed to the back of the glass, a furious scowl hanging off his face.

“Need to talk to you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, man. Seriously. I came to talk to you.”

“Yeah? Well, I got nothin' to say to you. Get the hell off my porch.”

Shouldn't have wasted our time.

The door would have crushed my nose if I hadn't planted my foot in front of it. “Five minutes, Dean.”

He crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “If this is about Brandon, I—”

“It's not. It's about you.” That wasn't a lie.

Okay, not
entirely
.

He stood in the doorframe, glared, while a vein pulsed in his neck. “This should be good.”

I decided to ignore that. He stepped outside, wearing nothing but sweats and a T-shirt, and joined me on the large porch that extended the entire width of his house. He cocked a hip, leaned against one of the porch uprights, and waved his hand, impatient for me to get to my point.

“You need to talk to Brandon.”

He angled his head, smirked a little. Heh. Seems like Jeff was smarter than I thought.

“Really?” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You're pathetic. You really are gay for the little dick, aren't you?”

I folded my arms and let that one go by. “Dean, I came here because there's a bigger picture than you're able to see. Did you know Brandon—”

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Don't divulge all the kid's secrets, dude.

Crap. Kenny was right. I was about to tell Jeff how frightened Brandon was, so I started again. “Did you know Brandon believes you're out to kill him because you think he killed your mother?”

Jeff flinched, pushed off from the porch post, his eyes dark. “You're about to cross a line, Ellison.”

I held up my hands, surrender-style. “Dean, I'm not here to make trouble. I'm here to stop it. You keep coming after Brandon, you'll end up in the system, and trust me, it's not a place any sane person wants to be.”

With his hands on his hips, he sniffed. “Yeah? What do you care if I do?”

I met the challenge in his eyes directly. “I wouldn't wish it on anybody.”

Jeff broke eye contact first. “So it's true? What everyone's saying about you?”

My stomach pitched, but I hid it. “Yeah, it is.”

Jeff thought that over for a moment. “How long?”

“Um. Almost a year.”

He swallowed hard, waved a hand at my midsection. “That's where you got all—”

“Yeah.”

“And where you learned to fight so…so—”

“I think the word you're looking for is
viciously
—and yes.”

He nodded, still thinking.

“You guys used to be friends once. You really hate him that much? Enough to risk juvie?”

Jeff lifted one wide shoulder. “Maybe I do.” He kept his eyes fixed to me, waiting for my reaction.

The words sent a chill racing up my spine, but I managed not to shiver. “You don't really believe he hurt your mother, do you?”

I saw a flash of grief and then it was gone, replaced with fury. “My mother died of cancer.”

I waited a beat and then shrugged. “So what's that got to do with Brandon?”

Jeff paced barefoot down the porch away from me, then whipped back. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. So run back and tell your boyfriend your little talk didn't work.”

“Brandon doesn't know I'm here.”

“Yeah, right.”

I raked the hair from my face and blew out a frustrated breath. “Okay. Look. The only reason I'm here is because I don't want to see either of you do something you can't take back.”

Jeff's lips twisted into a grimace. “Can't take back? Really? That's funny, man. Real funny. Why don't you talk to the guy who told my mother I was a drug addict the day before she died.”

“I know he ratted you out. But he swears he was trying to help you.”

“Help me?” Jeff echoed, his voice dripping in sarcasm. “Brandon
told
her, man. He fucking
told
her. I went to visit her, and she told me she was disappointed in me—” Jeff broke off when his voice cracked. “That was the last thing she ever said to me.”

Holy
crap.

I ignored Kenny and shut my gaping mouth. Jeff's admission hung there for a moment, suspended in the air, waiting for one of us to give it the attention it deserved. He walked to the porch steps and sat. After a moment, I sat beside him.

“The pot was hers,” he said with a swish of his hand. “It's supposed to help with the side effects of chemo or something.” He shook his head. “It didn't. So
I
tried it. And you know what? It helped. For a little while at least.”

I cleared my throat. “I'm sorry, man. For what it's worth, I know Brandon never meant to get you in trouble. He was just trying to be a good friend, but you shot him down and, worse, took the whole school with you.”

Jeff stared at his bare feet.

I stood. “I don't know if this matters to you, but I'm worried Brandon may do something, you know, permanent.”

Jeff's head snapped up. “What? Like suicide?”

I nodded. “Yeah, you think you feel guilty now, try living with that.”

Why
don't you just write down your social security number while you're at it?

Jeff looked away but said nothing, so I headed down the walk.

“Hey, Ellison.”

I turned and waited.

“Julie's not your friend, man.”

My vision reddened, and I took a threatening step. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He stared at me, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “You know what? Just forget it.” He walked inside, closed the door.

That
went
well.

I wish. The truth was it hadn't gone well at all. Instead of helping, my talk with Jeff made things worse. He amped up his efforts to harass Brandon—the latest being a classic shove in the corridor that had sent Brandon sprawling like one of the bowling pins he'd taught me to knock down.

That was three days ago, and nobody had seen Brandon since. He wasn't in class. He wasn't online. He was off the grid.

Mom and Dad kept telling me to stop worrying. Julie, of course, kept trying to see the bright side, telling me Brandon wasn't sad and lonely, the way he was in the first semester.

And she was right. He wasn't.

He was
mad
. And his mad was a simmering, festering thing that swelled and got hotter along with the weather as the days piled up into weeks. I had a bad feeling Brandon wasn't going to take it anymore.

Turned out I was right.

Duty to Respond

By June, I couldn't take it anymore. Everyone was psyched about graduation, the prom, and signing yearbooks. But there was a buzz under all that usual stuff, an undercurrent of tension so potent it had its own pulse. I couldn't find Brandon, and by dismissal time, I practically shot out of my seat, ready to hog-tie him to the luggage rack on my car.

Paul stopped me at the school's main exit as I was heading to my car.

“It's Dean, man. He's coming for Brandon.” He waved a hand in the direction of the parking lot. “Now.”

I strode toward the cars. It shouldn't have surprised me, and it didn't, not really. I'd really hoped Jeff would understand, would stop before he got himself so deep into trouble he couldn't escape it. Like me.

“Is Brandon here? You seen him?”

Paul shook his head. “No, not since Monday.”

Where the
hell
was he?

Dude, heads up.
Kenny jerked his head to the north end of the student lot, where Jeff and some of his friends were getting loud.

“Dan?” Julie called to me from the bus stop, worry making the line in her forehead deeper. I smiled for a second or two.

I liked that she worried about me.

“Julie, it's okay. Go home,” I said when she reached me.

“Not leaving you.”

Kenny flashed to my side.
Move
away. Put distance between you and her. Jeff's a few feet behind you.

I took a few steps back. “Have you seen Brandon?”

“Um. Yeah.” She pointed toward a side door the teams used that led from the locker rooms to the athletic field. “He was there a minute ago.”

Awesome.

I turned to keep an eye on Jeff. He nudged one of his pals and jerked his head. It was a look I'd seen many times while I served my time. Alpha dog just gave the pack the command to flank and prepare for attack.

“Paul? Walk away.”

Paul whirled, followed my gaze, and shook his head. “You're outnumbered.”

“Paul, I can handle this.”

Paul's eyebrows shot up. “You can handle four on one?”

Paul's words took me back to the night Kenny was…um…well,
born
, I guess. Suddenly, I was back in the dingy bathroom in the New Jersey juvenile facility I'd called home for almost a year. I remembered it all. The bad florescent bulb flickering in the farthest light fixture. The cracked tiles behind the faucet. The sour odor of piss and sweat mixed with soap. The hint of mildew that defied the industrial-strength cleaners clinging to the air, forcing me to take shallow breaths as four of my six usual tormentors surrounded me. I gulped when I saw Kenny. Saw
me
…standing beside me. Me, but…not me. The other me lunged and then he was
in
me, screeching like a wild animal until blood filled the cracks in the tiles and splattered the floor, the ceiling. And the only odor in the air was the rusty smell of it. All four were scattered on the floor, writhing, crying, bleeding. Except me. Both of me.

I swallowed hard. Yeah, we knew how to handle four on one.

The guys tried to look intimidating as they approached and fanned out. You almost had to admire their nerve.

Move
away
from
Paul
, Kenny reminded me.
They'll use him against you.

I took a few steps and angled my body to protect Paul, watching as three of the boys hung back, making way for their leader. I didn't recognize these dicks, probably teammates.

“Didn't listen to a word I said, did you?” I tried to sound intimidating.

“Where is he?” Jeff ignored my question.

“Who? Brandon? No idea. I haven't seen him in days.”

“He's here. This was his idea.”

My stomach fell. “Dean, you have to let this go. You don't know what—”

“Oh, waaah!” He pretended to knuckle away imaginary tears. “I don't know what Brandon's going through?” Jeff's fake pout changed to a wide grin. “I don't care.”

I didn't have time for this. I needed to find Brandon, figure out what he was planning. “What do you mean this was his idea?”

“He sent me an email. Said he was done trying to talk and that we should just do what we had to do.”

Fuck!
Kenny shouted in my head.

This was it—zero hour. I spun around. “Brandon Dellerman! Did anybody see him?” The crowd of spectators all looked at each other, looked confused, or looked disappointed. But a few looked toward the same door Julie pointed out just a few minutes before. “Go home, everybody. No fight today.”

I ran toward that door, Jeff on my heels.

————

I burst through the door, found myself in the gym corridor right outside the boys' locker room. “Brandon! Brandon, you in here?”

“What a little pussy. He didn't even show up,” Jeff sneered.

Okay, that's it! I've had enough—

Not now, Kenny!

“Go home, Jeff.”

“Fuck that.”

I searched the locker room, up one row, down another. No sign of him. Why the hell would he intentionally goad Jeff into a fight and then not show up for it?

Bro
. Kenny stopped me with a hand on my arm. I followed his gaze. Brandon crouched beside a bench over his backpack. I watched and waited, my pulse hammering a staccato rhythm in my ear before it skidded to a complete stop when I saw what Brandon took out of his pack.

It was a gun. Holy God in heaven, it was a .22-caliber handgun.

Jeff snorted.

“Brandon.”

He snapped upright, the gun clutched in both hands. “I don't want to hurt you, Dan. This is between me and him.” Brandon never looked at me.

Jeff's lips twisted in a smirk. “You're not gonna shoot me. You don't have the balls.”

My God, did he have no brains in that hard head? “Shut up, Dean!”

Brandon stepped closer and released the safety, leveling the gun at Jeff's heart. With dead eyes and a cold voice, he said, “Get on your knees.”

When Brandon racked the slide, Jeff's sneer evaporated. He shook his head slowly. “Please. Don't.”

“I said…on your knees!”

Jeff sank to the floor, tears filling his frightened eyes. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

Kenny was back.
Door's open on the locker behind you. Kick it closed.

What? Oh, right. I lifted my leg behind me, slammed the locker. Brandon jolted, and I leaped before I could think twice, snatched the gun out of his hands, ejected the clip and the round—Jesus, the round he had in the chamber. I stowed everything in my pocket and then grabbed him.

“Are you out of your friggin' mind?” I took his elbow, led him away from Jeff, ghost white and still kneeling on the floor.

“Leave me alone.”

“That's the last thing I'm gonna do,” I managed to squeeze out of my clenched teeth. “Come with me. Now.” I manhandled him through the room, out the rear exit, but he wrenched out of my grasp.

“Back off! This isn't your fight!”

“Brandon, don't—”

He broke into a run, and I was right on his heels. He ran around the school. I chased him around and back toward the visitor lot. I spotted Julie and tossed my keys to her. “Car!” She nodded, and I kept running. Was he planning to run all the way back to his house? At the edge of the school's property, I lost him. Squealing brakes, honking horns, and a stream of obscenities told me he'd run into the main road that bordered the high school. I stopped running then.

I was trying to keep him alive, not kill him myself. I stood hunched over, hands braced on my knees, and tried to stop panting. I heard the car behind me, climbed in the passenger side. “Go home. He's got to show up sooner or later.”

“What the hell happened?” Julie drove slowly, cautiously.

“Julie. Jesus.” I scrubbed my hands over my face, still unwilling to believe it. “He had a gun.”

She was strangely silent. I glanced over at her, wondering what the rigid expression on her face meant. “What are you gonna do?” she finally asked.

I pulled in a deep breath, caught Kenny's eye in the side mirror, and grimaced. “Squeal.”