Ride and Die (Ridgemore #1)

21 Smash It All to Smithereens, Then Set It on Fire

21

Smash It All to Smithereens, Then Set It on Fire

T he scene of my friends and our parents stuffed into the hospital in the middle of the night, desperately waiting for updates, was unsettlingly familiar. This time, I’d had my own room, though I hadn’t occupied it for long. I did indeed have a bad compound fracture of my left shin that hurt like hell, but that was it beyond some superficial cuts, scrapes, and bruises.

When the attending doctor had insisted I remain overnight for observation due to the severity of the break and concern that I might develop an infection despite their heavy-handed administration of preventative antibiotics, I’d been too exhausted to fight her, especially since daylight hadn’t been that far off, and Griffin was in the hospital too. Even though I wasn’t able to see him from my room in an entirely different part of the hospital from the ICU, just knowing he was close— and alive —had been sufficient.

I was there, along with everyone else, when he was finally discharged five days later. The doctors argued to keep him longer, insisting no one should recover that well or that seamlessly from a broken neck. Our parents fought harder, spewing that it was scientifically proven that patients recovered better in the comfort of their own homes. They leaned into their PhDs, rattling off facts and quoting medical and scientific journals until the head of the department relented, probably to get them to shut up already. Since Griffin was in fact fully recovered and hadn’t even required surgery of any sort, his spine fusing back together all on its own, there was really no recovery to be concerned about.

Of course that was the only thing the parents and hospital staff talked about. Brady’s surgeon even stopped by to check out the new Miracle Kid, commenting that now there’d be a tie for the most miraculous case the hospital had seen that year. Though the man had laughed at his own lame joke, his eyes had been troubled. The same was true of the other doctors. It was obvious they considered Griffin’s and Brady’s returns from death impossible, despite having seen it more or less with their own eyes.

No way did our parents miss the lingering looks examining Griffin like he was some specimen they itched to study, and since Brady was there too, the doctors and nurses also ogled him.

By the end of the five days, our parents were as desperate to get out of there as we were. Plus, Bobo needed me, and the hospital wouldn’t allow him inside. Though I’d pleaded my case, even going so far as to call him a service dog, which he wasn’t, once Bobo was released from the vet, he was alone at home most of the time.

That simply wouldn’t do.

Since he had been discharged, Bobo had barely left my side. His surgery had gone extremely well. The break in his front right leg had been much less severe than mine. Once the vet got in there to set the bone, Bobo was getting better every day at a nice clip. He was still on mild pain meds, but the vet promised he wouldn’t need them for long.

In the meantime, he and I wore matching casts. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wear a cone of shame around my neck like he did, to keep him from messing with his leg. But so long as I was able to watch him, I took it off.

Like today ,while we hung out on the couch in the treehouse. Bobo lay on his back, pressed against me, his legs—cast and all—hanging loosely in the air as he snored softly. My own bum leg was stretched out onto the coffee table. Layla bent over it, an array of permanent markers clutched in one hand while she drew on my cast with the other.

“That one’s cool as fuck,” Brady said, standing over us from behind the couch and pointing at a long, undulating design Layla was putting the final touches on. It reminded me of vines creeping up my leg, if they’d taken a healthy dose of shrooms. Nothing Layla designed was entirely ordinary. Even the small flowers budding at the end of some of the vines suggested gateways to other worlds at their centers, like little open portals wrapped in petals.

“I’d tell ya I want that as a tat, minus the flowers of course,” Brady said, “except now that I know our parents let us get ’em as part of their grand science experiment, I’m not sure I want any more.”

There’d been a lot of that kind of reassessing of our lives over the last week, since we’d finally been able to disappear to the treehouse to have some time to ourselves. If our parents had been breathing down our necks before, they were like dragons now, always hovering, up in our business if we let them.

“It’s like I can’t stop thinking about everything they did and everything they told us,” Layla said, marker tracing winding lines, “but I still can’t finish wrapping my mind around it all.”

Hunt harrumphed from the table, where he sat with a textbook and notes laid out in front of him. Knowing him, he’d probably already mastered all there was to know for AP Chemistry.

“Try being the one who had the fucking bug up in their bedroom,” he said while twirling a bottle of microbrew in one hand. “I’ve asked my mom how long it’d been there, and she’s dodged the question every time.”

“So it was there longer than she’s willing to admit to,” Griffin said from the other side of Bobo. Though nearly two weeks had passed since Clyde went over the side of the road, a rush of tingles still swept through me at hearing his voice. I’d almost lost him. Though I still hadn’t decided what, if anything, to say to him about his I love you and my lack of response.

“Yeah, my thought too,” Hunt said with a mock shiver—or maybe it was real, I couldn’t tell. The violation of his privacy was definitely real. “Good thing I don’t do pervy stuff in my room like Brady does.”

“Hey,” Brady protested right away, making Layla chuff with a hearty chuckle. “I don’t do pervy shit.”

Layla snorted, glancing up at me. I smiled back.

“Maybe you don’t do much pervy shit,” she said, “now that you know Mom and Dad are sniffing your undershorts.” She grimaced. “Damn. Why didn’t I think that all the way through before I said it? Yuck.”

“I don’t do pervy shit,” he insisted. “And you never think before you speak, like, ever. But the point is I should be able to do whatever I want in the privacy of my own room, for fuck’s sake. Hunt too.”

“No doubt,” I said, pointing an accusatory glare at the table leg next to Hunt, where one of the two bugs our parents had planted in the treehouse used to hide. We’d taken every listening device we could find and smashed it to smithereens before setting the pieces on fire. Brady carried around the RF detector in a visible holster everywhere we went, and he wasn’t shy to use it. It was unlikely our parents would try to eavesdrop on our conversations again, what with the way Brady brandished the detector right in their faces, but we erred on the side of caution, checking our rooms and hangouts on the daily. We’d never trust their lying asses again.

Bobo snorted awake, suddenly alert, eyes pinned on the closed door at the front of the large room.

“What is it, boy?” Griffin asked, drawing Brady’s attention to the rigid pittie.

Still wiping a towel over his neck from his sweaty workout, Brady stalked toward the door, pulling it open—revealing Celia about to walk up onto our porch, the rest of our parents trailing behind her.

“Mom,” Brady said stiffly. “What are you guys doing here?”

Griffin slid to the edge of the couch, ready for action, while Celia stopped a foot away from her son. Hunt drank from his beer, eyes pinned on our uninvited guests. Layla capped her markers and set them on the table.

I sat up straight, watching closely, but couldn’t do much more. I needed crutches to get around. I was already dreading the rehab I’d need to get back in shape after this long lack of mobility. Beside me, Bobo awkwardly shifted onto his side, injured leg sticking straight out, ears perked.

Celia stared at her son for several beats as if debating what to say. Eventually, she frowned. “Last I checked, none of us need permission to go wherever we want on our own property.”

“Well, if that’s what this is about, then we’re all happy to move out and leave you to do your spying in peace.”

We hadn’t actually talked about moving out. Despite our distrust of our parents, I didn’t think we wanted to deal with figuring out jobs along with exactly what we might be. Priorities and all. We needed to get a handle on what was going on with us before we considered any other major moves.

As I was certain Brady had anticipated, Celia huffed, cocking out a hip while scowling at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. We don’t want any of you to move out.”

“Besides, none of you are eighteen yet,” Porter chimed in.

Layla’s smile was cold. “But we will be very soon. All of us will.”

Celia turned to glare at her husband before considering us again. “Ignore him. This is your home for as long as you want it, which I personally hope will be a very, very long time. I’m not particularly eager to send any of you out into the big, wide world when someone’s figured out who you are and what you’re capable of.”

My mom waltzed past Porter, Celia, and finally Brady, who reluctantly stepped out of the way for her to enter. Once she did, she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against an empty patch of wall between a poster of Bruce Lee mid-flying kick and one of a Shaolin monk balanced on the edge of a staff in a monkey-going-up-the-tree move .

“That’s why we’re here. Your little act of ignoring us is over. There’s too much serious shit on our plates right now to be dealing with your games. It’s been almost two weeks since the accident—and let me amend that to say the most recent accident—and you’ve barely spoken a single word to us.”

My spine was rigid while I stared at my mom. She’d never been overly maternal or soft, so her attitude wasn’t entirely new. But accusing us of playing games when they’d lied to us over and over again? Oh, hell no. My jaw clenched.

“We’ve tried to be patient and understanding and give you guys the space you needed,” she went on. “Two of you have actually died over the last couple of months, and we realize that kind of trauma takes a toll. And not just on you, on us too. But it seems like you’ve forgotten how to think of anyone but yourselves.”

Did I think I didn’t want to move out? Scratch that. I wanted to get the hell away from all of the parents, stat. From the way Layla was chewing on the inside of her lip like it was bubblegum, I guessed I wasn’t alone in my thoughts.

The other adults filed in, standing here and there around my mom. Brady frowned, still hanging on to the open door as if to say, No one invited you in .

“We get that the news we shared with you came as a shock.”

“You didn’t share news with us,” I said. “Who knows how long you would’ve kept your secrets if we hadn’t found you out? You only told us because we caught you red-handed.”

My mom looked at me for a moment before saying, “We’ve already explained ourselves. We did things the way we thought was best for you. That’s our job as parents. You might not always agree with our decisions, but you don’t have to. Everything we do is to protect you. That was the best way we knew how to until you were ready to find out.”

“And what exactly were you waiting for to decide we were ready?” Hunt asked, his tone more biting than I’d ever heard it. “Layla’s right. We’re almost eighteen.”

“Was it going to be our big birthday party reveal?” Layla added with a sneer. “Hey, happy motherfucking birthday. Oh, by the way, you might not be fully human, or whatever.”

The or whatever part hadn’t stopped tormenting any of us since we first found out.

“We hadn’t figured that part out yet,” Alexis said with a regretful glance at Hunt. “But believe us when we tell you we were doing our best. It’s not like there’s a handbook for how to deal with your kids having paranormal healing abilities.”

Hunt met his mom’s waiting eyes. “We’re never going to trust you again.”

Alexis flinched as if slapped, and I almost felt sorry for her. Then I recalled the listening devices and how they’d suspected we weren’t fully human our entire lives without telling us. The temptation to feel sorry for her vanished.

Orson stepped into the middle of the room, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Look, we obviously disagree about how we handled things, so let’s move on from that and deal with the urgent problems. Just remember that we were suspicious of your abilities when you were young children, and in our eyes, you’re still our kids. It’s hard for parents to see their children as adults capable of handling the same things we can.”

“I thought you said we were moving on,” Griffin said tightly. “Agree to disagree and all.”

“Right, yes. Well, we do have to.”

“We definitely have to,” my dad said as he slid down the wall to rest against it, kicking his legs out in front of him, apparently settling in for the long haul.

I barely restrained a groan, sharing a loaded look with Griffin.

“Brady’s situation sounds like it was actually an accident,” Dad went on. “But what happened with Griffin and Joss definitely wasn’t. I know as much about cars as I do about how to put on makeup for prom”—he was the only one to laugh at his joke—“but I do know you guys have those cars figured out, front to back. Someone poked a hole in the brake line and cut the cable to the emergency brake. That’s not something that just happens on its own.”

Dad glanced at Griffin, who nodded subtly. Clyde was finally back home, parked in Griffin’s driveway, undriveable until we got around to fixing the brakes and all the damage from the roll down the ravine and then the cutting open to get him out. As soon as the local police had released the car from the investigation, Griffin had been there at the impound lot, supervising the tow out of there.

“We pulled some strings and got the case closed,” my dad said.

“What?” Brady barked. “But we still have no idea who cut Clyde’s brakes! That’s like attempted murder or something.”

“No doubt it is.” I’d never seen my dad look so serious. “But we can’t have the police poking around any more than they already have. Our contacts only reach so far, and we’ve already had to run crazy interference to keep your lab tests under wraps at the hospital.”

“Exactly,” Alexis said. “We can only do so much at once.”

“And we can’t have anything distracting us from the most pressing issue,” Mom said, “which is to keep you safe. We need to find out who the hell knows about you, what they know, and how to shut them down.”

“And by shut them down, you mean…?” Hunt asked.

“I mean, we’ll do whatever we have to do to keep you safe. Whatever it takes.”

No wonder my mom didn’t enjoy being a domestic Suzy Homemaker. She was a ferocious—possibly murderous—scientist awash in secrets.

A foreboding shiver rolled through me.