Float

Original Edition: Chapter Fourteen

There is a long list of things that a person can do to get themselves a one-way ticket to hell. 

Or, if you aren't religious, a one-way ticket to county jail.

Lighting other people's houses on fire, for example, happens to show up on that list of things. So does punching puppies. And while I wasn't committing arson or animal cruelty, I still felt like God and every member of the Holden police department had a good reason to hate me. 

Why? Because I was sitting in the back seat of my aunt's car (a car that, technically, I'd just stolen) with a sleeping baby.

"Would you stop doing that?"

Blake's voice made me jump nearly a foot into the air.

He had offered to take the wheel because I didn't know where Ethan's house was. Not to mention, I didn't think he felt comfortable having me behind the wheel; I was shaking with terror, and kept glancing out of the car through the rear window. I was expecting a police car to be trailing behind us, ready to pull us over and demand to see our paperwork (and inquire as to where we'd gotten the infant).

"Doing what?" I asked, one hand gripping the seatbelt across my chest so tightly that my knuckles were turning a faint shade of purple. The other hand wrapped around Isabel's tiny pajama-clad foot.

"Shaking your leg," Blake snapped.

I looked down to see that, indeed, my left leg was trembling ever so slightly. It was one of those nervous habit things, I guess. I took a deep breath and pressed my foot down against the carpeted interior of Rachel's neon Volkswagen.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled.

Blake sighed as he pulled the car onto a street lined with large white houses.

"We're not going to get in trouble," he stated matter-of-factly.

"Sure," I snorted.

I could already picture our mug shots taped up on an announcement board in the lobby of the Holden police station. Great. Blake and I would forever join the league of arsonists, murderers, thieves, and puppy-punchers.

"Look," Blake continued, giving me a sideways glance before returning his gaze to the dark road ahead, "this will take ten minutes, tops. All we need to do is find Alissa, get her in the car, and drive her home. Then we'll go back, put Rachel's car keys on the kitchen counter right where we found them, and you can go back to babysitting in peace."

"But what if—"

"Chloe and my dad aren't coming home for at least another two hours," Blake interrupted before I could finish protesting, "and Rachel stays down in Marlin Bay until like eleven o'clock doing that mural thing. She'll never even know we borrowed her car."

My leg started shaking again.

"But—" I started.

"Waverly," Blake said, "you'll be fine. And if something happens..." he trailed off for a moment before sighing and saying, "I'll tell Rachel the truth."

"The truth?" I repeated, looking over at Blake's profile. The hard angle of his jaw was intensified by the faint bluish glow of the lights on the dashboard. I watched as he frowned for a moment, his dark eyebrows pulling together, before nodding.

"I'll tell her I made you come with me."

He'd take the blame for me?

I mean, he totally deserved it. But still.

I hadn't expected him to agree to take the blame.

"Thanks," I mumbled.

I wasn't sure if Blake heard me, and he didn't give any indication that he had. I decided to drop the subject and focus on keeping my left leg still as Blake weaved through the streets of Holden. We pulled up to a stop sign, and suddenly I could feel the road shaking. For a second, I thought that there was an earthquake. Then I realized that the rhythmic thump of the ground was perfectly in time to the bass of a Katy Perry song.