Red Heart Tattoo by Lurlene McDaniel Page B

held him. “You’re cold as ice.”
    “Yeah. Cold climb. Maybe I could get under the covers with you.”
    Tempting. “Can I trust you?”
    “Babe! You wound me. Of course you can trust me.”
    She scooted over, but snuggling up to him proved difficult because it felt so strange to have him in her bed. “How are you doing?”
    “Hanging in.”
    “Sad about Mark, huh?”
    Trent said nothing.
    “Did you know Kelli was pregnant?”
    Silence.
    “Trent, talk to me. Tell me what you know.”
    “He didn’t love her like I love you.”
    He always knew the right thing to say and what she needed to hear. “When this is over, when my bandages come off and we go back to school, how will Mark and Kelli … I mean, how will they …?”
    “Let’s not talk about them,” Trent said, his voice soft in her ear.
    She didn’t really want to talk about them either. She wanted the warmth and comfort of Trent’s arms around her. She was afraid to ask him for too much physical contact because one thing could so easily lead to another, so she said, “If I fall asleep, please don’t let my parents catch you in my room with me.”
    “It’s a promise.”
    Her brain was growing fuzzy and sleep was coming for her. She hugged something close to her chest and with astart realized it was Bingo, the stuffed dog Roth had given her. His image unfolded in her mind’s eye. Roth, darkly dressed, full lips and amazing blue eyes, looking as if he wanted to kiss her. Guilt shot through her like a cannonball. What was wrong with her? How could she be lying under the covers with one boy while her memory was clinging to another?
    “I’m bored.” Apocalypse stopped shooting fire bursts at the demons on the TV screen and tossed aside the game controller.
    “Why? Because I’m winning?” Executioner asked.
    “I’ve won ten rounds to your three,” Apocalypse said. “This is such baby stuff after setting off a real bomb.”
    They were alone in the house, parents at work, nothing to do without school to attend. Outside, an early December storm had turned the world and landscape white with snow.
    Executioner was bored too, having been visiting and gaming since early that morning. But also scared. It had been ten days since the bomb, and cops and FBI were sniffing around and checking out people all over town. The explosion was all anyone talked about. It had made national news shows, but the cameras and crews were gone now, so only the local stations were left to keep the story alive.
    “They’re going to interview everybody who goes to Edison, you know,” Executioner said.
    “So?”
    “What if they want to interview us?”
    Apocalypse gave Executioner a cold hard stare. “Don’t be such a
girl
. If you get hauled in, you lie. Got that? You do know how to lie, don’t you?”
    Executioner colored under the other’s withering stare. “I’m just saying that maybe we should be doing something to make them ignore us and home in on somebody else. That way they’d never get to us.”
    Apocalypse started to say something, stopped, gave Executioner a thoughtful look. “An intervention. That’s not a half-bad idea.”
    Executioner almost fell over from the faint bit of praise. “I was thinking it over last night. Thought of a few names. Kids who get into trouble regularly.”
    Apocalypse studied the ceiling. “It wouldn’t take much to turn the cops on to someone. They really want to solve this and haul someone’s ass away.”
    “Yeah. That’s just what I was thinking too.”
    Apocalypse flashed an expression that said,
I doubt it
, but Executioner saw the wheels of mischief were turning in the other’s head. “We need a list.”
    Executioner leaned back feeling pleased. Very pleased indeed.
    Max put Roth to work in his shop just as soon as Roth grew too restless to stay put at home. He was bored and wanted to see Morgan again. She had invited him to come by her house, but he had stayed away, unsure if she had really meant the