Raise the Stakes by Megan Atwood

Author:Megan Atwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group

CHAPTER 9

The guy’s backpack was empty, so Colin couldn’t learn anything from that. He stashed it with the bike behind the dumpster in the tiny parking lot behind the store. Someone could come along and steal it again by morning, but Colin had bigger problems to deal with.

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?”

As soon as Colin walked into the apartment, his mom practically tackled him. She looked scared—really scared. As scared as he felt. Which was weird, because she wasn’t the one caught up in the Contest.

“I’m sorry, Mom, I really am—”

“I called Matt’s, he said you weren’t there. I called your phone, you didn’t answer.”

“I—”

“What is going on, Colin? Just tell me!”

She looked like she’d been crying. A lot. Colin had a sinking feeling in his chest. His mom never cried in front of them. She might get mad, she might worry, but not like this. He hadn’t seen her this close to a total breakdown since his dad died.

“Are you OK, Mom? Is everybody OK?” If something had happened to Danni . . .

“No, I’m not OK! You disappeared! It’s almost two in the morning, and I couldn’t get hold of you—”

Danni came running out of her room. She looked at Colin and sighed with relief. But then gave him the stink eye as she turned toward their mom. “Mom, don’t do this right now. Let’s all just get some sleep and talk things through in the morning.”

To Colin’s relief, Danni looked fine. Other than the black eye, which was fading. And the glare she was giving Colin. “Go back to bed, Mom. We’ll deal with it in the morning.”

Danni managed to coax Mrs. Burnett back to bed, but when Colin started to go to his own room, Danni grabbed his arm.

“Mom’s freaked out because she found a threatening note at the store. She thinks it was for me.”

The note. Hadn’t he thrown it away? He remembered crumpling it up. But he must’ve left it on the counter. The words were burned into his brain: Do not displease us again. Or it will be the last nail in your coffin. Vague enough to mean just about anything.

Danni was looking hard at Colin. “So. Are you going to tell me what you’re doing?” She sounded eerily like their mother.

“I—it’s a long story.”

The look on Danni’s face was one Colin had never seen there before. Disappointment, mixed with something like anger mixed with something like fear. “Well, you’d better come up with something better than that by tomorrow morning.”

*****

Colin got maybe two hours of sleep. Maybe. In the morning he told his mom he’d lied to her. Which was true. Just not for the reasons she thought.

“Look, Mom, the thing is—I kind of have a girlfriend.”

His mom and sister stared at him across the kitchen table. For a minute Colin thought they didn’t buy it.

Then Danni broke into a grin. “Are you serious? Why didn’t you just say so?”

Colin shrugged. “I dunno. It wasn’t, like, official till last night. Didn’t want to jinx it, I guess.

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