The Thrashers(32)

“Red Vines,” Lucy said immediately.

Paige must have been fighting with her mom again, because she asked for her nachos with extra cheese. Julian was fine with his spiked Diet Coke, but after eyeing his glassy gaze, Jodi asked for a popcorn bucket for them all to share.

Zack waved her off when she offered to go with him, so Jodi stretched out, lying on her stomach facing the screen, but not really seeing it. The angle was better this way for her to ignore the freaking clown and just focus on the game of Yahtzee she was playing against her Aunt Rosa. The music was giving her the chills.

They’d gone to the drive-in with Emily once. In March as soon as the weather turned. Julian drove his truck with Paige and Zack in the bed, and Jodi rode shotgun with Lucy, who threatened to put Emily in the trunk if she couldn’t keep still under the blanket in the back seat.

Jodi didn’t remember the movie, because Emily talked the entire time, asking personal questions, burrowing deeper. She wanted to know what concealer Paige used, Lucy’s favorite Olivia Rodrigo song, and whether Jodi liked Peanut M&M’s or Reese’s Pieces. The following week, Emily showed up to school wearing concealer two shades too dark. Her locker was filled with cut-out lyrics from “vampire.” Whenever Emily sat down next to Jodi, she whipped out a packet of Peanut M&MS, ripped them open, and said, “Want some?”

Whether Emily ignored Julian because he was also ignoring her, Jodi didn’t know. He was just shy of cruel with her—talking over her in conversation, purposefully miscounting to exclude her. He’d been that way to Jodi forever of course, but it was intensified and targeted when Emily was around. Would Jodi say that Julian was bullying Emily? Probably. But Emily was also unable to take a hint.

Something must have happened on the screen, because the people in cars started yelling and laughing. Jodi forced herself not to look, afraid she’d have nightmares for months, and instead her eyes were drawn to the lamppost on the other side of the screen, toward the highway. The bulb flickered to life, then sputtered out. Over and over.

A creak thundered from above. The sound wasn’t from the speaker in the truck. She came up on her knees, looking for the source of the sound of wood groaning, a crunching, grating. The film flickered, moving off the screen, up, up. Someone screamed in the distance.

It wasn’t the film. It was the screen. Coming forward.

“Jodi!” Paige’s scream pierced her ears.

The movie screen was falling forward, headed right for them. She froze, but something warm slammed into her back, sending her down hard on her chin. For a moment there was only screaming and the movie score, breath against her neck as someone pressed her down to the truck bed.

Then the earth rumbled. Glass shattered. Paige was screaming and where is Lucy and car alarms blaring.

She tasted metal on her tongue and listened to Julian’s heavy groan of pain. It was dark. She could only see the black truck under her. A delayed crunch, and something shattered behind them. Paige was still screaming.

A hundred people were.

Jodi couldn’t breathe. Pain throbbed in her ribs, her chin. She turned her head, her eyes wide and searching for anything. The screen was on top of them. Lucy’s shoe was two feet to Jodi’s left.

“Lucy!”

“We’re here. We’re fine!” Paige yelled.

“Julian?”

He took a shaking breath against her back. He’d covered her. Was he injured?

“Julian!” she tried more forcefully.

He shifted against her and yelled, “Fuck!”

A pop! like a gunshot to her right, and she jumped as the truck bed tilted. The tire had exploded.

“Can you get out?” Lucy’s voice shook.

She heard Paige whimpering. The shift of their bodies. Lucy whispering to her to move with her.

Jodi had her phone in her hand still. She opened her flashlight with shaking fingers and laid it facing up, giving them light. She could only tilt her head a tiny bit, but the screen was above, white and vast, angling up to the remains of the cabin of the truck.

The truck creaked, like it would give out and collapse at any second.

“Julian, let’s move, okay? Let’s get out?”

She felt him nod against her neck. Lucy was shimmying down the truck bed on her belly next to them, cooing softly to Paige.

Jodi shifted out from under Julian’s shoulders and was able to turn on her side to him. Behind her, Lucy thumped down onto the dirt. Jodi’s mouth was wet. She wiped her arm across her face and it pulled away bloody.

“What hurts?” she asked Julian. “Can you move?”

When he didn’t respond, she tilted her flashlight at him. His eyes were squeezed closed. His left shoulder was curved oddly, like a tennis ball was lodged underneath it.

Dislocated.

Paige slid off the truck bed, dismounting with a thunk and a sob. Jodi flipped over to them, about to make a plan to get Julian out. She felt dizzy when she saw them.

Blood matted Lucy’s hair, dripping down her neck to stain her shirt. She was lifting Paige up off the ground, crouched low under the screen. Paige hopped up on one foot, her ankle held gingerly in the air.

Lucy and Paige started for an opening out—light shining in from the highway in the distance, between the bottom edge of the screen and the dirt ground. It was about twenty feet away.

“Julian, you got her?”