Free Equilibrium by Lorrie Thomson

offering Darcy an I-know-how-you-feel frown, like she’d shared something deep. “ ’Kay. So you’d like me to stay clear of the laundry room on Sunday?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    Aidan flashed her a toothy smile. “Why didn’t you say so?”
    Mom shifted Aidan’s laundry basket off her hip.
    How was she going to get out of—?
    “Darcy?” Mom said.
    “Fine.” Darcy ripped the basket from Mom’s hands. She hoped her voice dripped with attitude.
    Troy tilted his bowl in front of his face, slurped down the last of his milk, and came up grinning. “What’s so funny?” Darcy asked.
    “You are.”
    “Listen, dork, I don’t s—”
    “Hey, Troy, know a decent bike shop around here?” Aidan said. “Looking to replace my tires.”
    “Road or mountain?”
    “Road.”
    “You planning on riding on ice?”
    “Nah, I’m counting on an early thaw.”
    Troy set his bowl by the sink. “Souhegan Cycleworks on the Milford Oval.”
    “You wanna come along to navigate, if your mom doesn’t mind?”
    “Take him,” Mom said, her voice practically chirping.
    Why should Mom care whether Troy got along with her newest buddy Aidan? He wasn’t related to them. Mom used to play at tearing her hair out of her head whenever Troy and Daddy argued. Darcy had kind of liked it. No matter the issue, she was always on Daddy’s side. Right now, she liked being on Troy’s side about Aidan.
    “What d’you say, Troy?” Aidan asked. “Want to come along?”
    Troy gave Aidan one of his long looks. Aidan spoke one of Troy’s two languages: geek and jock. Come spring, her brother sprouted wheels for legs and biked to school and back without breaking a sweat. He’d started riding a two-wheeler at age four, Darcy’s, not his. After watching her struggle without training wheels, he dragged the kitchen stool outside, hopped on her pink banana seat, and pedaled down the street. Still, Troy wouldn’t—
    Troy nodded. “Need a few things, if you don’t have any plans.”
    “That is the plan,” Aidan said.
    “Cool. I’ll go get dressed then.” Troy breezed out of the room and jogged up the stairs, leaving Darcy dazed, holding Aidan’s laundry, and staring at Troy’s empty cereal bowl. The geek. The jock.
    The traitor.

Chapter 6
    S ometime after eleven that night, Laura noted her mind drifting off into sleep, and she spiraled down into a nightmare.
    Her bedroom door sprang open. A shot rang out. Blood splattered the walls. Jack’s blood webbed between her fingers.
    Laura was awake, upright, in bed, a gasp caught between her teeth.
    She flicked on the overhead light, and the brightness scared away the nightmare along with the shadows. Her circulatory system pulsed madly. She held a hand to her chest, waiting for the drumbeat’s retreat.
    A nightmare had hijacked her memory, forcing her to relive the worst day of her life.
    She gathered her hair away from her perspiring neck, fashioned a loose braid, and cool air whispered over her nape, sending a shiver down her bare arms. She slipped into the cream-colored satin robe at the foot of her bed and headed for the relief of the hallway, a place where spectral blood did not splatter.
    In the bathroom, she considered taking either the Valerian drops Maggie had given her as a sleep aid or the prescription sleeping pills. She’d tried each of them exactly once, and she’d hated herself exactly twice for having needed mind-altering medications.
    Thanks, but no thanks.
    No sound from Darcy’s room. Laura pushed the door open with one finger, stepped inside, and listened for the cadence of her daughter’s breathing. Well, it sounded as if her daughter were fast asleep, but Darcy had fooled her before.
    The Union Leader sat on Darcy’s bedside table, the newspaper still folded open to the apartments for rent Darcy had shown Laura she’d circled for Aidan. She’d even “borrowed” Aidan’s rental agreement and knew they could ask him to leave within thirty days. But Aidan wasn’t the