Free Wicked Game by Jeri Smith-Ready Page B

sure all the doors were locked.”
    “So?”
    “So then she started checking windows, even in the middle of the winter when they hadn’t been opened in weeks.” She sits cross-legged on the floor, oblivious to the layer of dust and dead bugs. “Then all the smoke detectors had to be tested.”
    “Every night?”
    Lori nods. “Over the years, she kept adding more, and she had to do everything in order. If you interrupted her, she’d start all over.” She wipes her wrist across her forehead. “By the time she got help, her bedtime routine would start at three in the afternoon.”
    “What kind of help?”
    “Medicine, therapy. At first they told us just to play along with her ‘truth,’ as they called it. We were already good at that. Then little by little, we helped her find a new truth.” She smiles. “I know, it sounds all mystic and existential. But it worked, and we got her back. Mostly.”
    “I’m glad.” I squeeze her shoulder. “How come you never told me?”
    Lori tugs at the collar of her shirt. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.” When I don’t let her off the hook, she says, “I felt bad complaining about my mom when yours is, you know … ”
    “Yeah.” I look away, blinking hard. She probably thinks it’s tears, but really it’s just the dust.
    She clears her throat. “Have you heard from your foster parents lately?”
    “Just a few days ago.” I smile at the memory of the two normal years of my life. “They just got another new kid, which makes it eighteen total.”
    “Which one were you?”
    “Number thirteen.”
    She laughs. “But you weren’t unlucky to get them.”
    “I don’t believe in luck.”
    “You don’t believe in anything.”
    “Not true.” I angle my head. “I believe, for instance, that you’re sitting on a cockroach.”
    Lori squeals and leaps to her feet, frantically brushing her butt. She looks at the floor and sees nothing larger than a ladybug.
    “Just kidding.”
    She smacks my arm. “Just for that, you’re buying tonight.”
    “You’d make a poor little orphan girl buy her own dinner? Heartless wench.” We get back to work, laughing.
    Like all my friends, Lori thinks that when I was sixteen, my real parents died, when in fact they just took a ten- to fifteen-year hiatus from my life. I never thought I’d have friends long enough for Mom and Dad to inconveniently reappear, but the possibility looms.
    Because there’s always parole.
    It’s after sunset when Lori and I finally stumble from the sidewalk into my dark stairwell.
    “Sorry the light is still burned out.” I shift the Chinese takeout bag into the crook of my arm so I can hold the banister on my way up.
    At the top of the stairs I unlock the door and push it open. The light in my bedroom is on.
    I never leave it on.
    I freeze. Lori runs into me from behind. “Ciara, what the hell?”
    “Someone’s here,” I whisper, though it’s too late for stealth.
    “Oh my God, are you sure?”
    From my bedroom comes a familiar rattle of plastic, along with the faint thrum of a Liz Phair tune.
    “You have got to be kidding me.” I stalk down the hall.
    Shane sits cross-legged on my bedroom floor, an island in a sea of CDs. He brightens when he sees me. “Hey, Ciara.”
    I smack down my unwanted delight and try to replace it with indignation. “How did you get in here?”
    His innocent head-cock is almost convincing. “You invited me.”
    “No, I—” I stop, realizing he means I invited him in a general sense, in a vampire sense.
    I turn to Lori, who just crept up beside me. “Give us a minute.”
    She eyes Shane with surprise. “Hey, it’s the guy from the bar last night.” She scowls at him. “Why did you break into her apartment?”
    “Lori, it’s okay. It’s just a misunderstanding.” I hand her the food. “Chopsticks are in the silverware drawer.”
    She takes the hint. “Yell if you need anything.”
    I step into the bedroom and slam the door. “How did you really