“We need to leave,” Cal interrupts, his voice tight. “What if whoever did this decides to come back?”
I feel weirdly certain that’s not going to happen; like the person, or people, who targeted Charlie’s house have already moved on. But before I can follow that thought to its logical conclusion—moved on where?—Ivy says, “Good point. We can go to my house.”
Charlie’s slumped against the wall now, eyes narrowed. “Are you guys even real?” he asks thickly. He extends a hand and pokes Ivy in the arm, frowning. “Huh? Are you?”
Ivy blinks slowly. “Mateo, did you hit him in the head?” she asks.
“I don’t think so,” I say, although I’m honestly not sure.
“Cal, could you help Charlie get to the car?” Ivy asks. “He seems too disoriented to make it on his own. Stop that,” she says to Charlie, who’s still poking at her arm. “Mateo, can you walk okay?”
I stagger to my feet. “Sure.”
Ivy winces at the spatters of dark red blood I left behind on the light carpet. “Oh God, the rug is a mess.”
“Eh.” Charlie shrugs, shaking his bangs out of his eyes. “Trevor Bronson puked in that exact spot last weekend, so, you know. It’s seen worse.”
“Ew.” Ivy springs to her feet, wrinkling her nose at the patch of carpet where her knees just were. “I really wish you hadn’t told me that.”
Despite everything that just happened, it’s such a classic Ivy reaction that I almost laugh. But I can’t, because at some point soon—probably once Charlie and I are less bloody—Ivy and Cal are going to start asking questions about why Charlie’s house got ransacked. They’ll ask, naturally, what somebody might have been looking for.
And I’m afraid that I already know.
* * *
—
Soon after, I’m seated on a stool in Ivy’s first-floor bathroom while she roots through the medicine cabinet. She opens an industrial-sized bottle of Tylenol and takes out two, filling a cup from the edge of the sink with water. “How do you feel?” she asks.
“Fine,” I say. It’s mostly true. My shoulder is a little sore from where Charlie whacked me with the club, but other than that, nothing hurts except my head.
“You’re lucky. It could’ve been a lot worse.” Ivy hands me the cup and the pills, and waits for me to wash them down. “Why didn’t you leave when you saw what had happened at Charlie’s house?”
I buy a little time by finishing my water, but ultimately, there’s no good answer. “Why didn’t you?” I counter.
“Because you were there,” she says.
The ache in my chest that only Ivy ever seems to cause returns, making me feel like I lost whatever compass was helping me navigate this conversation. “You were supposed to wait in the car,” I grumble. Ivy crosses her arms. I know I should apologize, or thank her, or both. Definitely both. But all I can manage to add is “Where’d you get the baseball bat?”
She takes the empty cup from me. “Cal had it in his trunk.”
“So you were gonna—what? Take a swing at someone?”
“Worked for Charlie, didn’t it? Up to a point.” Ivy opens a door built into the wall behind us, revealing shelves of neatly stacked towels. The bathroom looks almost exactly like I remember from when I used to hang out at Ivy’s house, except it’s now painted a cream color instead of blue. Ivy pulls a facecloth from the cabinet and turns the tap back on, wetting it and folding it in half before turning back to me. “I’m going to clean your cut now. It might hurt a little.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I force myself not to wince as she starts to dab at my temple. Her hair’s come partly out of her ponytail, and when it swings in her face, she makes an annoyed noise and pauses to tuck it behind her ear. I must be feeling better already, because I was a second away from doing it for her. “Thanks for this,” I finally say.
“You’re welcome.” Ivy resumes cleaning, her golden-brown eyes roving across my temple. “This doesn’t look so bad after all. There’s just one cut, and it’s not very deep. The bleeding is already slowing.” She steps back to rinse the facecloth beneath the tap, then bends over me again. The return of the cool cloth, and Ivy’s light touch, is a relief. “You know, you don’t have to do everything on your own.”
“What?” My eyes are following hers, and my ears need a second to catch up.