Free King of Forgotten Clubs by Jennifer Recchio Page A

window.
    I pushed the cardboard closed behind me. Papers covered the walls, along with a tangle of red strings vainly trying to connect relevant ideas together. I’d been working on the plan for weeks, but now… It just looked like a bunch of old paper.
    I ripped it down, piece by piece. Sheets fell in a flurry, coating the floor until I was up to my ankles in trash and thumbtacks. I collapsed onto my bed.
    There. No more plans. No more plotting. No more trouble.

    And who can forget Exhibit C? I chose a girl over security.

    The universe had a funny sense of humor. Since I wouldn’t go to trouble, trouble came to me. Trouble, as usual, showed up in the form of a girl.
    She crashed through the window at 3:35 a.m., which I knew because I’d been up for the past hour, staring at the clock on the wall.
    I jolted up. We stared at each other. Her eyes were unreadable in the dark. Her hair looked muddy blond in the glare of the streetlights behind her. I wondered, for a moment, if I was hallucinating.
    “Don’t scream,” she whispered.
    “Just someone breaking into my room in the middle of the night. No reason to panic there.”
    “Please.” Her dark eyes were wide. “They’ll kill me.”
    Either she was crazy, or someone was messing with me. “Is this a trick? Did Birdie put you up to this? Reformed, my ass.”
    She shook her head, darting glances out the window. “They’ll be at your door in a second. You need to say you never saw me. You need to say it, okay?”
    The girl was terrified. If this was a trick, it was about to become the only home video where someone won an Academy Award for acting. “Okay.”
    She nodded rapidly.
    Someone knocked on the door. I froze, listening for another sound. It occurred to me that if this wasn’t a trick, someone was actually trying to kill this girl. If I helped her, they could come after me, too.
    “That’s them,” she said so quietly I could barely hear her. “Go.”
    I went. I still don’t know why, but I went. My roommates were passed out on the floor and draped across the couch. I could barely remember how to breathe as I made my way around them and opened the door.
    A man wearing khakis and an old T-shirt stood in the hall. He smiled as if knocking on doors at three in the morning was a perfectly ordinary thing to do. “Are you the resident here?”
    I didn’t answer. My brain spun without producing a single thought. I tried to play it off as grouchy to fit with my half-asleep look.
    “I’m looking for a girl.” He pulled out a badge. Underneath a golden tower on silver backing were the words LOS ANGELES POLICE .
    Of course she was running from the police. Because “harboring a fugitive” was the one criminal offense I was missing. Come to think of it, I should start playing rap-sheet bingo.
    “I haven’t seen anyone. I’ve been asleep.” I probably should have turned her in right then, but… Please, they’ll kill me .
    I didn’t think he believed me. His eyebrow raised, and he looked over my shoulder. “Are you sure? Blonde, about five-five, pierced nose, wearing a soccer uniform? Rather hard to miss.”
    “As I said, it’s hard to see anything with your eyes closed.”
    He studied me with blue eyes like stained glass. “I’ll keep looking, then.”
    “Good luck.” I closed the door, slumped against it, and cursed my luck. I walked back to my room. Empty.
    There wasn’t much space to check, but I sifted through the piles of paper as if she might be hiding under a sticky note. I crumpled back onto the floor.
    She was gone. She might as well have been a dream.
    Not like I needed the trouble, anyway. I pushed yesterday’s clothes off the bed.
    Something that definitely wasn’t mine fluttered to the ground. I picked it up—green shorts, like the kind a girl might wear to run, with a fourteen printed on the side.
    The bitch had stolen my pants.

CHAPTER TWO
How to React

    Exhibit D: I try to follow through but follow the girl instead.

    I paced