Read Online Narc by Crissa-Jean Chappell - Free Book Online Page A

rock. “This is an old chimney,” she explained, as I moved beside her. “A hermit built a house here. Then a hurricane laid waste to the coast. This is all that’s left of his humble abode.”
    “Which hurricane?” I asked.
    She shrugged. “Back then, they didn’t have names.”
    We sat on the slab of coral, our feet dangling above the foamy tide. I was staring at the ground, at the plastic six-pack rings and rusty soda cans, the bleach caps and Bic pens. Even a naked Barbie doll buried in the sludge, her hair splayed out like seaweed.
    Morgan’s fingers slid inside my T-shirt, digging their way across my ribs. “Aaron,” she murmured. “Aaron,” she said again. “Aaron.” She breathed against my neck.
    I gently moved her hands away.
    “What’s the matter?” she asked.
    “Nothing. It’s just that … I’m not into this right now.”
    Another lie.
    Without a word, Morgan jumped up and walked toward the car. For a second, I thought she was going to take off without me. She was still sulking when I got in. Morgan cranked the engine, and it stalled with a jerk.
    “God damn it,” she said, slapping the dash so hard, the glove box door popped open. Inside was a Ziploc stuffed with weed and beside it, a few rubber-banded stacks of cash. We didn’t say anything for a moment.
    “Morgan, why are you doing this?” I asked.
    “Doing what?”
    “You know what.”
    She still wouldn’t look at me. “Why do you care?”
    “It’s not like you’re hurting for money. I want to know why.”
    “Why not? It’s fun.”
    “Fun? Don’t you realize you could go to jail?”
    Now I was starting to talk like a cop. If I wasn’t careful, I could lose everything.
    “Nobody’s going to throw me in jail,” she said. “I’m not even eighteen. The worst I could do is juvie. But you’re forgetting one very important thing.”
    “What’s that?”
    She looked at me now. “I’d have to get caught.”
    We cruised down the unpaved street. My teeth clattered with every bump. Soon we were meandering past bright windows and circular driveways. Back to civilization. On the horizon, a power plant gushed mounds of smoke, pale against the night sky, thick as shaving foam.
    Morgan drove in silence. I cracked my window, just to fill the space between us.
    “Where do you live?” she asked in a monotone, after what seemed like forever.
    I was hoping to crash at Skully’s place and find a way home in the morning. Now I was stuck. I couldn’t think of anything else to say except the truth. “Downtown.”
    “That’s like, an hour away. I’m not schlepping over there.”
    “I didn’t ask you to.”
    “Fine. Just sit there and don’t talk to me.”
    “There’s nothing you want to talk about?”
    “Not really,” she said, fixing her gaze on the road.
    We crossed US-1, which hummed with traffic, even at this hour of the night, past the Taco Bell where kids parked and drank from paper bags until the cops kicked them out. I kept thinking about Skully, wondering if she was okay. I closed my eyes and saw her teetering on the seawall, the wings tattooed into her skin.
    “We should call Skully. Make sure she’s alive,” I said.
    “I texted her already,” Morgan snapped. That was the end of it.
    We pulled up to a gate. It jerked aside with a wobble and we drove through it, past one sprawling house after another, with fountains gurgling on the front lawns, and fences spiked like medieval drawbridges.
    Morgan grabbed a remote control from her sun visor, punched a button. Another gate slid away. The driveway was packed with fancy cars. There was no room for the Explorer, so we parked on the lawn.
    I got out first and stood next to the car. The sign on the gate said Bad Dog , with a picture of a snarling Doberman. A baby swing dangled from a mango tree. Newspapers wrapped in yellow plastic dotted the yard. Morgan reached the front door and turned around.
    “You going to stay there all night?” she asked.
    Not exactly an