Page 58 of Electricity

I was out on the street at ten-fourteen, knocking grass off my knees and pulling it out of my hair, after having made an only somewhat graceful exit through my window. Lacey’s car pulled up, she barely braked, and I hopped in—her face was flush by the dashboard lights and we didn’t say anything.

Mason’s dad’s shop was on the other side of town, where he profited from working not only on cars, but also on the forklifts that they used to move pallets at the chemical plant.

It was more of a fortress than a store, with chain-link fences on all sides topped with razor-wire, but the gate was open, and only one truck was parked inside—in front of a mural of a bison. We parked three spaces down from it.

“We’re really doing this,” Lacey said. I didn’t know if it was a statement or a question, it could’ve gone either way.

“Yeah, we are,” I agreed, and got out of the car.

Mason got out of his truck, big and blue beneath a streetlamp, and walked over as Lacey got out. Watching him see Lacey there was like watching someone see a ghost.

“You said alone—I thought you meant it,” he stepped back, so that he was cast in shadows.

“I said privately. I never said alone.”

“I—I don’t—” he started, and I got scared that after everything we’d done still he might go.

“It’s okay,” Lacey said from beside me, barely audible.

“Really?’

“Yeah.” She let go of a long breath and then sank back into her car. “I’ll wait out here.”

“Okay.” I snapped my attention back to Mason. “Let’s talk.”

He pulled out a keyring, walked into the garage, and I followed him at a deliberate pace.

Mason turned on the lights and kept walking, while I stopped near the door.

The garage smelled like metal and oil. There were pits and hoists, racks of tools, drills, compressors, gauges, and an entire machine shop at the back, with huge grinding wheels and metal plates.

One wall had a stack of tires leaned against it, and behind that I could tell there was another mural of a bison, just waiting to be revealed.

“What I want to know is where the hell you got a stingray from. Did you blow a cop or what?” He stopped when he reached the back and I stopped looking around, focusing on him.

“What?”

“A stingray. The thing that cops use that mimic cell-phone towers when they’re doing wire-taps. You got it, and you don’t know how you’re using it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, watching him nervously pace.

“Well I’m here, aren’t I? What do you want? For the guys to stop harassing you? I’ll see what I can do.”

“Photos,” I said sharply. “All of them. Everything you’ve got. We’re going after Danny.”

“What? No,” Mason laughed nervously, like this couldn’t be happening to him. “I’ll delete them, but I’m not giving them to you.”

“You’ve been cheating all year long in history Mason.

And unless you give me what I want, I’m going to administration with proof.

You’ll fail, you’ll get expelled, and all your baseball scholarships will disappear.

” I opened one hand like I was letting a bird go. “Poof, there goes Mason’s entire life.”

His nervous pacing switched to stalking-tiger energy, as if I’d flipped a switch. “How’d you get it? Who told you? I beat the shit out of Jeremy, and he swears he didn’t talk.”

Crap—I didn’t mean for anyone else to get hurt—then regrouped. “It doesn’t matter who told me. What matters is it’s true.”

He slowed down and turned toward me, attempting to be suave. “I just can’t turn him in, Jessie. Surely we can make some other arrangement.”

“Like what?” What on earth would be the price of my pride and friendships?

“My dad gets good cars through here, now and then. Your mom’s car’s a beater, right? I mean, look at you, of course it is.”

My jaw dropped and what was worse was that he actually thought it’d work. “So in exchange for you not bullying me anymore, I should let you and your rapist friend go free for…what. A used Volvo? You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“I’m not kidding you! Come on!” he shouted. “Don’t you realize what you’re asking? Danny’s been my best friend my whole life!”

“Then you’ve been best friends with an evil person,” I said, voice calm. “Give me the pics.”

Mason threw his hands up. “I didn't even do anything! It’s not fair!”

I took a step closer. “Am I supposed to…be feeling sorry for you? Because you stood nearby while a crime was being committed instead of doing it yourself—and then you had proof —which you didn’t turn in—is that supposed to somehow make you the good-guy? Are you shitting me?”

His jaw clenched but he didn’t answer.

“Its pictures or you fucking fail—you fucking failure.”

In hindsight, I should’ve left off the last three words—I think those were the ones that broke him, and then broke me.

He shouted incoherently and ran at me.

I screamed and ran backwards, hit the wall and fell to the ground in surprise, curling up in a ball, expecting to get hit or kicked. My body went into tornado mode on muscle memory, hands protecting my neck, elbows my head, breathing fast into the shallow space between me and my cleavage.

Which was why I didn’t hear it at first—I was too busy panicking, my own blood echoing in my ears. But when I realized I wasn’t getting pummeled, I relaxed and dared to feel.

Stationary drills zeeeeered and grinders spun and compressors hissed out fits of air like spitting cobras.

The fact that my powers were rapid-cycle failing made everything even more fearsome, it was like being stuck in the strobing part of a haunted house.

Mason looked around for an accomplice and finding none, stood above me, staring down in abject horror.

I uncurled, pressing my hands against the wall for strength as I stood. My head was pounding, my vision swirling.

“What the fuck,” Mason whispered, dancing back as a lightbulb burst overhead, showering us both in broken glass.

This was it—the bottom of the well—the last few sputters of my powers. I had to make it count. “I don’t need a stingray, Mason,” I whispered. “You’re going to give me your goddamned pictures, or I’m going to get you expelled and then come to your house and steal them from you.”

Something at the back of the shop inflated too far and popped. “Okay! Just—stop this, okay? I can get you a USB tomorrow.”

The next time my powers flicked off, I left it there. The sudden silence was even creepier than the sounds had been, and Mason looked over his shoulders again.

“Tomorrow,” I threatened.

“Yes. But not at school though—no one can see us together.”

“I’ll text you somewhere safe.” As soon as I figured out where that might be. I walked toward the door of the garage, my strength ebbing, and heard Mason lock up behind me. Then I saw him run to his truck, peel out, and miscalculate, scraping the side of his truck on the open gate.

Lacey got out of her car and rushed over. “How’d it go?” she asked, and the very last thing I heard was, “Are you okay?”