The Pact Read online

  Chris's Jeep left at six-fifteen. Emily watched the headlights disappear down Wood Hollow Road until she could not see them anymore. She imagined where Chris would be taking Donna DeFelice on a Friday night. She did not have to imagine what they would be doing.

  Disgusted with herself, she sat down at her desk and tried to concentrate on the English paper she had to write by Monday. But she only got as far as sliding the paper clip from the pages she'd drafted. She stared down at the words, reading none of them, and bent the clip back and forth, letting friction work up a heat until it broke apart.

  At eleven, when Chris was still not home, Emily's mother knocked on the door and let herself in. "How are you feeling, honey?" she asked, sitting down beside Emily on the bed.

  Emily turned toward the wall. "Not good," she said thickly.

  "We can go to the doctor in the morning," Melanie offered.

  "No ... it's not that. I'm all right. I just ... I just want to stay up here for a while."

  "And does this have to do with Chris?"

  Amazed, Emily whipped around to face her mother. "Who told you?"

  Melanie laughed. "It doesn't take a graduate degree to figure out that you two haven't called each other all week."

  Emily ran a hand through her hair. "We had a fight," she admitted.

  "And?"

  And what? She certainly wasn't going to tell her mother what they'd been fighting about. "And I think I made him mad enough for him to stay away." She took a deep breath. "Mom," she said, "what do I do to bring him back?"

  Melanie looked stunned. "You don't have to do anything. He'll come around."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Because you're two halves of a whole," Melanie said, then kissed her daughter's forehead and left the room.

  Emily glanced down at a sharp pain in her forearm to find that she was still holding the jagged edge of the paper clip. Curiously she drew it over her skin, scratching the surface. The red line grew brighter when she traced a second time, and a third. She dug deeper and deeper until she was bleeding, until Chris's initials were carved hard enough into her arm to leave a scar.

  CHRIS'S JEEP GOT HOME shortly after one in the morning. Emily watched him from her bedroom window; he turned on light after light as he worked his way through the kitchen and up the stairs. By the time he entered his own room and started to get ready for bed, Emily had thrown a sweatshirt over her nightgown and stuffed her bare feet into sneakers.

  The ground, considerably softened by the recent weather, was damp and soft, and pine needles that had been sleeping beneath snow squelched under her feet. Chris's window was directly over the kitchen. It had been years since she'd done it, but Emily picked up a thin twig and tossed it at the panes of glass. It landed with a light snap, and bounced back toward her. She picked it up from between her feet and threw it again.

  This time, a table lamp flared on and Chris's face appeared at the window. Seeing Emily, he opened the sash and stuck his head out. "What are you doing?" he hissed. "Stay there."

  Seconds later, he eased open the kitchen door. "What?" he demanded.

  There was much she had imagined in this reunion, but anger had never been part of it. Remorse, maybe. Joy, acceptance. Certainly not the look that was on Chris's face right now. "I came to ask," she said, her voice trembling, "if you had a nice time on your date."

  Chris swore and rubbed a hand down his face. "I don't need this. I can't do this right now." He turned on his heel and started back into the house.

  "Wait!" Emily cried. Her words were thick with tears, but she lifted her chin and crossed her arms tight over her chest to keep from shaking. "I, um, I have this problem. I broke up with my boyfriend, you see. And I'm pretty upset about it, so I wanted to talk to my best friend." She swallowed and looked at the black ground. "The thing is, they're both you."

  "Emily," Chris whispered, and pulled her close.

  She tried not to think of the unfamiliar scent of him, something perfumed mixed with something else lush and ripe. Instead Emily concentrated on the way it felt to be next to Chris again. Two halves of a whole.

  He kissed her forehead, her eyelids. She buried her face against his shirt. "I can't stand it," she said, and she was not certain what she was talking about.

  Suddenly Chris grasped her wrist. "Jesus," he said. "You're bleeding."

  "I know. I cut myself."

  "On what?"

  Emily shook her head. "It's nothing," she said. But she let Chris lead her into the kitchen and sit her down while he retrieved a Band-Aid. If he noticed that his own initials were on her arm, he was wise enough to keep silent. She closed her eyes while he touched her with all the care in the world, and she started to heal.

  NOW

  December 1997

  Chris had thirty-five square feet to himself.

  His cell was painted a strange shade of gray that sucked up all the light. The bottom bunk had a pillow and plastic mattress, and the blanket he'd been given. Beside it was a toilet and sink. His cell was sandwiched between two others, like a tight row of teeth. When the barred doors of the cell were open--most of the day, except for mealtimes--Chris could stand on the narrow walk that ran the length of the pod. At one end was a shower and a phone, where he could make collect calls. At the other end was a television, strategically placed on the free side of the bars.

  Chris learned a great deal his first day, without ever asking for information. He discovered that from the moment you entered jail, your slate was wiped clean. Where you wound up--from the security level to the position of your bunk--was not determined by your charged offense or behavior prior to incarceration, but by the way you acted once you got there. The good news was that the classification board met every Tuesday, and you could petition for a change of locale. The bad news was that today was Thursday.

  Chris decided that he would simply go for a week without speaking to anyone. Then, next Tuesday, he'd surely be moved out of the maximum security section, into medium security.

  He'd heard that upstairs, the walls were yellow.

  He'd just finished a meal, served in his locked cell on an insulated plastic tray, when two inmates came to the door. "Hey," one said, the man he'd spoken to yesterday. "What's your name?"

  "Chris," he said. "You?"

  "Hector. And that's Damon." The unfamiliar man with long greasy hair nodded at Chris. "You never did tell me what you're in here for," Hector said.

  "They think I murdered my girlfriend," Chris muttered.

  Hector and Damon exchanged a look. "No shit?" Damon said. "I had you pegged for a narc."

  Hector scratched his back against the bars. He was wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt, with rubber thongs. "What'd you use?" Chris stared at him blankly. "Knife, gun, you know."

  Chris tried to push past them. "I don't want to talk about it," he said. He broad-shouldered Damon, only to feel the larger man's hand on his shoulder. He glanced down to find a makeshift knife in Hector's hand, a razor blade pressed against Chris's ribs. "Maybe I do," Hector said.

  Chris swallowed and backed off. Hector slipped the knife inside his shirt. "Look," Chris said carefully. "Why don't we try acting rationally?"

  "Rationally," Damon said. "There's a five-dollar word."

  Hector snorted. "You sound like a fancy-ass college boy," he said. "You from the college?"

  "I'm in high school," Chris said.

  At that, Hector crowed. "Actually, college boy, you're in jail." He rapped his hand against the bars. "Hey," he yelled out. "We got us a genius down here." He cocked one foot up against the lower bunk. "Tell me this, college boy. If you're so smart, how come you got caught?"

  Chris was saved from answering by an officer walking down the length of the barred catwalk. "Anyone want to go to the exercise room?"

  He stood up. Hector and Damon also started toward the door at the end of the pod. Damon turned around and whispered, "We're not done, man."

  They filed through a corridor dotted with cameras.