Chapter 54

Chapter Fifty-Four

BEFORE

TOM

Slug has been watching me.

I don't know how long he's been standing there, but he definitely heard at least part of my conversation with Daisy. And he doesn't look happy.

"I can't believe you got Daisy to meet you," he says. "She must really be wild about you."

I look up at Slug. When we were little, we used to be the same height, but in the last couple of years he shot up so that he's a lot taller than me. That said, in a fight, I might be able to take him. He's so skinny, it looks like a strong breeze could carry him away.

Of course, if he has a weapon, that changes everything.

But I don't want to fight Slug. In spite of everything, he's my best friend. When we were in grade school, nobody wanted to hang out with either one of us. Slug was more obviously weird and creepy, but I had trouble making friends too. For some reason, I couldn't relate to the other kids. Whenever I talked to them, I felt awkward.

I wasn't like that around Slug though. We were outcasts together . He never judged me about my alcoholic dad, and I never made fun of him for eating bugs or the fact that his parents were as old as most grandparents. Most years, when we had birthday parties, it was just him and me. Nobody else used to show up, even when we passed out invitations to the whole class.

I wonder if Slug and I will celebrate our next birthdays together.

Somehow, I don't think we will.

"Are you following me?" I ask him.

"What if I am?" he grunts.

"That's a shitty thing to do."

I push past him out of the Driscolls' backyard. Whatever else, I can't be caught back here. That wouldn't be good for either of us. Slug doesn't make any moves to stop me, and in fact falls into step next to me.

"Alison talked to her," he points out.

Damn. He heard our conversation. I had been hoping he didn't. "It's fine. I explained it all to her."

"And you think she believed it?"

"Yes."

"You mean the way Alison believed it when we told her we had hamburger meat in the trunk?"

I don't have anything to say to that.

"Daisy is a problem," he says.

I shiver. It's the same thing he said about Alison, just hours before she was murdered.

"She's not a problem," I say. "I'm going to handle it."

"Right. The same way you handled Alison."

I don't like his sarcasm. He doesn't know for sure Alison would have turned us in—and the way he "handled" things made it all much, much worse. "Look, I'm going to talk to her. It'll be fine."

Slug's angular features look almost skeletal in the moonlight. "Right. Whatever you say."

"Slug," I say firmly, "I want you to stay away from Daisy, okay? Will you do that?"

His jaw tightens. "You're my best friend, Tom, but I'm not going to jail because you can't manage to do what needs to be done."

With those words, Slug stalks off, leaving me alone on the street.