I’m terrified to find out what “it” is exactly. Especially when it sounds like Mayor Busch is one of our “targets.” And I’m pretty sure targeting a public official is a felony. I lick lips shriveled dry. “Remind me what we have against the mayor?”

“He’s a friend of my dad.”

“Nope. Not a good enough reason.” Not by a long shot. I get it; Arden has no love for his dad. But me? I’ve learned enough about him through Julio to have a hearty respect for him, even if I’ve never met him. Julio says he’s to be feared—so I definitely fear him.

Arden smirks. “So we need a reason to terrorize people?”

“If we don’t, then we’re just jerks like that guy at Destin Commons.”

He laughs. “Well, it just so happens that Mayor Busch is nothing less than a douche.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better about whatever it is you’ve concocted tonight.”

“No, I’m serious. When I went in to talk to Miss May, he was eating breakfast there. She says he comes in every single day, runs the waitresses ragged, then leaves two quarters on the table as the tip.”

It sounds legit, but I scrutinize his face in the moonlight. He seems sincere. Slowly, I nod. “You’re right. He sounds douche-y.”

“So here’s what we’re gonna do.”

I watch in horror as this lunatic rolls down his window, places a Black Cat in the slingshot, lights the firecracker, waits a second for the fuse to burn, then shoots it out the window and into the woods. It explodes before it hits the ground, the glow of which illuminates a nearby fern. It dies out on the ground in an unimpressive string of orange ash.

“Oh, no way, I’m not doing that,” I say, taking the slingshot from him and testing the weight of it in my hand. I roll down my window without realizing it. Then I pull back on the slingshot and pretend to aim at something in my side of the woods.

Arden hands me a Black Cat. “After you light it, count to three, then shoot it.”

“What if I wait too long?”

“Just going out on a limb here, Carly, but I think it will actually explode in your hand.”

I take in a deep breath. I don’t want to do this at all, but at the same time, I want to do it so much that my hands are almost shaking. “Give me the lighter.”

I watch the flame dance for a second, then let it go out.

“Just do it,” Arden says, as if auditioning for a peer pressure commercial.

I strike the lighter again and, without letting myself think about it, hold the fuse to the flame until it ignites.

One.

Two.

Three.

The slingshot snaps in my hand, startling me. The Black Cat hits the inside of the door and bounces down, glowing on the floorboard between my legs. It makes a sizzling sound that resonates all the way down to my stomach. “Oh no!” I scream, throwing myself across the truck cabin into Arden’s ready-but-surprised arms.

Crack!

I squeeze my eyes shut, expecting pain on my legs or my ankle, a burning sensation bleeding through my jeans. But it doesn’t come. Slowly, I open my eyes and they bring into focus Arden’s amused face—about an inch away from mine.

“So, next time,” he drawls, “you’ll want to aim outside of the truck.”

It’s the first time I’ve ever noticed how Arden smells, and I don’t know why I’m disappointed to find that he smells excessively good. Excessively male. Mortified with my new line of thought, I disentangle myself from him and reclaim my seat, trying to keep my feet lifted up in case the Black Cat has any spark left. The smell of smoke wafts up at me from the floor board, tickling my nose.

And that’s when I laugh. So hard that my stomach aches and my breath comes in wheezy gulps. Soon Arden is bent over the steering wheel gasping for breath himself. Even when it isn’t funny anymore, it’s still funny.

I pick up the slingshot again. “Let’s go to town. But not to the skate park. Only Mayor Douche’s house.”

Arden puts the truck into drive.

Fourteen

Arden pulls into his uncle’s driveway, knowing he won’t be awake at the ungodly hour of seven o’clock in the morning. He probably won’t even remember that Arden promised to come over today to help out with the hedges and the driveway. Arden doubts Cletus will wake up before it’s time to pick up Carly from her first day of work.

He takes a big swig of the to-go coffee Miss May made him when he dropped off Carly just an hour before. Miss May had put him on the spot, asking if he liked it black, and he’d felt obligated to say yes, because black sounds more manly than the concoction of cream and sugar he prefers, and she’d asked in front of Carly.

And for some reason he still can’t explain, he’d felt the need to appear manly at that moment in his life.

His cell phone rings then, and he’s satisfied that the ring tone is sufficiently masculine. “Hey, Mom, what’s up?”

There’s a pause on the other end, and Arden wonders if it’s a faulty signal or if his mom’s meds are slowing down her response time. “Arden, sweetie, are you going into town today?”

“I can. If you need something.”

Another lapse. She sniffs. “Do you mind running to the drugstore and picking up my prescriptions?” She must be having a bad day. She’s probably calling him from Amber’s room. She always goes in there when she runs out of pills; it’s like she starts thawing into a live human being again, capable of emotion and memory and even genuine affection. But mostly just grief.