Free Freaks Like Us by Susan Vaught

myself.
    “You think she went on her own—that she ran away?” That question came from the lawyer and I can tell Agent Mercer doesn’t like her butting in to his inquisition.
    “I don’t know,” I tell her, glad somebody’s asking better questions. Better questions might make me think and if I think maybe I can get past all the noise in my head and find the right answers.
    Would Sunshine run away? She had tons of reasons.
    Yeah, you’re one of them, you piss-poor excuse for a human being. Be, be, be, see, see, see, see-saw, back and forth and up and down. Maybe you’re not a human being. Maybe not .
    “I guess maybe I’m hoping she did run away,” I say, “because if she ran away, she might have left us a note.”
    “And if she left you a note,” Agent Mercer says, “it would be in her room?”
    “Yeah. Because we weren’t at school, so it couldn’t be in her locker, unless she planned stuff for a long time and left the note before we went home. There might be a note, right?”
    That sounded desperate. Sadness spreads across everybody’s face except Agent Mercer’s, because I don’t think he’s a sadness kind of guy.
    But if there was a note, it wouldn’t be in her locker orher room, would it? Sunshine would never leave words for other people to find. The only place she’d leave anything like that is where only I would find it, or maybe Drip, because she knows Drip would give it to me.
    I have to work not to go statue stiff and turn red as a strawberry.
    Drip was totally right earlier. Why didn’t I listen to him?
    I don’t need to be here listening to this man’s stupid questions. Sunshine’s been gone almost six hours. Six hours out of the twenty-four the FBI says she’s got before… before things get…
    Eighteen hours left.
    Drip and I need to go down to the river, to our spot, to our place—to Sunshine’s place—because whatever she left us, if she left us anything, it’ll be somewhere by the quiet, cool running water.
    And it’ll be private.
    Sunshine wouldn’t want anybody to have her words but us, least of all this jerkoff of an FBI agent who isn’t really trying to find her.
    We need to get a flashlight and sneak out of here.
    “Are we done?” I stand, already wondering how long it’ll take Agent Mercer to ask Drip the same questions twenty times. Maybe other agents are interviewing Drip. Maybe they’re already done. If they’re finished, he and I can—
    But—
    Everybody’s looking at me. Agent Mercer, the colonel, Dad, and the JAG lawyer. Nobody seems very happy, except maybe Agent Mercer.
    I don’t get mad much, but I’m mad now.
    “Do you have somewhere else to be, Jason?” he asks, nasty-nice, and that’s it. Really. Had enough of him.
    “Yes,” I tell him. “Outside finding my best friend.”
    Feeling hot, feeling cold, wanting out before stuff starts melting again.
    I turn before he can say anything else. The colonel’s calling my name and Dad’s telling her to stop and the JAG lawyer’s saying something to Agent Mercer and when I open the door and step into the hallway—Roland Harks is right there, right in my face with his serial killer eyes and his black hair and that smirk and he’s melting and the way he looks and the way he talks and why didn’t I think about him before? Why was I the one getting hammered when this monster was five feet away on the other side of the door?
    “What’s with you?” he mutters.
    I grab the front of his black rock band T-shirt with both hands and yank him right into my own face.
    “What did you do to her?”
    “Hey!” Somebody’s yelling. A woman. “You—what—let him go!”
    She’s right beside us like she slipped out of the shimmery melty air and she’s older, maybe a mom or a sister oran aunt but my brain pushes that away because it’s not natural for vermin to have family members.
    “Where is Sunshine?” I grip Roland’s shirt twice as tight and he grabs my wrists, frowning, pushing at my hands and