Rosary girls

PART FOUR
5 9

The drug nearly took off the top of her head.

The rush slammed into the back of her skull, ricocheted around for a while, in time to the music, then sawed at her neck in jagged up and down triangles, the way you might cut the lid off a pumpkin at Halloween.

"Righteous," Lauren said.

Lauren Semanski was failing two of her six classes at Nazarene. If threatened with a gun, even after two years of algebra, she couldn't tell you what the quadratic equation was. She wasn't even sure the quadratic equation was algebra. Maybe it was geometry. And even though her family was Polish, she couldn't point to Poland on a map. She tried once, landing her glitter-polished nail somewhere south of Lebanon. She had gotten five tickets in the past three months, both the digital clock and the VCR in her bedroom had been flashing 12:00 for nearly two years, and the one time she tried to bake a birthday cake for her little sister Caitlin, she had nearly burned down the house.

At sixteen, Lauren Semanski-and she might be the first to admit this-didn't know a whole lot about a whole lot of things.

But she did know good meth.

"Kryptonite." She dropped the tooter on the coffee table, leaned back against the couch. She felt like howling. She glanced around the room. Wiggers everywhere. Someone cranked up the music. Sounded like Billy Corgan. Pumpkins were old-school cool. Zwan sucked.

"Low-rent!" Jeff yelled, barely audible above the music, using his stupid nickname for her, ignoring her wishes for the millionth time. He air- guitared a few choice licks, drooling on his Mars Volta T-shirt, grinning like a hyena.

God, what a queer, Lauren thought. Cute, but geek-a-roni. "Gotta jet," she yelled.

"Naw, come on, Lo." He held out the tooter to her, like she hadn't already snorted an entire Rite-Aid.

"I can't." She was supposed to be at the grocery store. She was supposed to be picking up a cherry glaze for the stupid Easter ham. As if she needed food. Who needed food? No one she knew. Still, she had to fly. "She'll kill me if I forget to go to the store."

Jeff made a face, then bent over the glass coffee table and ripped a line. He was gone. She was hoping for a kiss good-bye, but when he leaned back from the table, she saw his eyes.

North.

Lauren stood, gathered her purse and her umbrella. She looked around the obstacle course of bodies, reposing in various states of hyper- consciousness. The windows were blacked out with construction paper. All the lamps held red lightbulbs.

She'd be back later.

Jeff had enough for all tweak-end long.

She stepped into the street, her Ray-Bans firmly in place. It was still raining-would it ever stop?-but even the overcast sky was a little too bright for her. Besides, she dug the way the sunglasses made her look. Sometimes, she wore them at night. Sometimes, she wore them to bed.

She cleared her throat, swallowed. The burn of the meth at the back of her throat gave her a second charge.

She was way too gakked to go home. Anyway, it was Baghdad there these days. She didn't need the grief.

She pulled out her Nokia, trying to think of an excuse she could use. All she needed was an hour or so to come down. Car trouble? Seeing as the VW was in the shop, that wouldn't fly. Sick friend? Please, Lo. Grandma B would ask for notes from the doctors at this point. What hadn't she used for a while? Not much. She had been at Jeff's maybe four days a week for the past month. Late almost every day.

I know, she thought. I've got it.

Sorry, Grams. I can't make it homefor lunch. I've been kidnapped.

Ha-ha. Like she'd give a shit.

Ever since Lauren's parents had done the real crash test dummy scene last year, she had been living with the living dead.

Fuck it. She'd go deal with it.

She window-shopped a little, lifting the sunglasses to see. The 'Bans were cool and all, but man were they dark.

She cut across the parking lot behind the stores at the corner of her street, steeling herself for the onslaught that was her grandmother.

"Hi, Lauren!" someone yelled.

She turned around. Who called her? She glanced around the lot. She didn't see anyone, just a handful of cars, a couple of vans. She tried to place the voice, couldn't.

"Hello?" she said.

Silence.

She backtracked between a van and a beer delivery truck. She took off her sunglasses, looked around, turning 360.

The next thing she knew, there was a hand over her mouth. At first she thought it was Jeff, but even Jeff wouldn't take a joke this far. This was so not funny. She struggled to get herself free, but whoever was playing this (not at all) hilarious joke on her was strong. Really strong.

She felt a needle in her left arm.

Huh? Oh, that's it,fucker, she thought.

She was just about to go Vin Diesel on this guy when, instead, her legs wobbled, and she fell against the van. She tried to stay alert as she slid to the ground. Something was happening to her and she wanted to catalogue everything in her mind. When the cops busted this fucker-and bust this fucker they most assuredly would-she was going to be the best witness ever. First of all, he smelled clean. A little too clean if you asked her. Plus, he had on rubber gloves.

Not a good sign, CSI-wise.

The weakness made its way up to her stomach, her chest, her throat.

Fight it, Lauren.

She had taken her first drink at the age of nine, when her older cousin Gretchen had slipped her a wine cooler at the Fourth of July fireworks at Boat House Row. It was love at first buzz. Since that day she had ingested every substance known to humankind and a few that may have only been known to extraterrestrials. She could handle whatever was in that needle. The world going wah-wah pedal and rubbery around the edges was old shit. She once drove home from AC while she was one-eyed drunk on Jack and nursing a three-day amp.

She blanked.

She came back.

Now she was on her back in the van. Or was it an SUV? Either way, they were moving. Fast. Her head was swimming, but it wasn't a good swimming. It was like that three in the morning and I shouldn't have done the X and the Nardil swimming.

She was cold. She pulled the sheet over her. It wasn't really a sheet. It was a shirt or a coat or something.

From the far reaches of her consciousness, she heard her cell phone ring. She heard it chime its stupid Korn ring tone and it was just in her pocket and all she had to do was answer it like she had a billion other times and tell her grandmother to call the fucking cops and this guy would be so busted.

But she couldn't move. Her arms felt like they weighed a ton.

The phone rang again. He reached over and began wiggling the phone from her jeans pocket. Her jeans were tight and he was having a hard time getting the phone out. Good. She wanted to grab his arm, to stop him, but she seemed to be moving in slow motion. He worked the Nokia out of her pocket, slowly, keeping the other hand on the wheel, every so often glancing back at the road.

From somewhere deep inside her, Lauren felt her anger and rage begin to grow, a volcanic swell of fury that told her that if she didn't do something, and soon, she wasn't going to get out of this alive. She pulled the jacket up over her chin. She was so cold, suddenly. She felt something in one of the pockets. A pen? Probably. She took it out and gripped it as tightly as she could.

Like a knife.

When he finally got the phone out of her jeans, she knew she had to make her move. As he pulled away, she swung her fist in a huge arc, the pen catching him on the back of his right hand, the tip snapping off. He shrieked as the vehicle swerved, left, then right, tossing her body against one wall, then the other. They must have gone over a curb, because she was abruptly thrown into the air, then came crashing back down. She heard a loud click, then felt a huge rush of air.

The side door was open, but they were still moving.

She felt the cool, damp air swirl around the inside of the vehicle, bringing with it the smell of exhaust fumes and just-mowed grass. The rush revived her a bit, tamed the rising nausea. Somewhat. Then Lauren felt the drug he had injected her with grab hold again. She was still flying on the meth, too. But whatever he had shot her up with made her mind swim, dulling her senses.

The wind continued to whip around. The earth screamed by, just beyond her feet. It reminded her of the twister in The Wizard of Oz. Or the twister in Twister.

They were driving even faster now. Time receded for a moment, then returned. She looked up just as the man reached for her again. He had something in his hand this time, something metallic and shiny. A gun? A knife? No. It was so hard to concentrate. Lauren tried to focus on the object. The wind blew dust and debris around the inside of the vehicle, clouding her vision, stinging her eyes. Then she saw the hypodermic needle coming at her. The needle looked huge and sharp and deadly. She couldn't let him stick her again.

Couldn't.

Lauren Semanski summoned the last scrap of her courage.

She sat up, felt the strength gather in her legs.

She pushed off.

And found that she could fly.