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  So, I continued, “And isn’t that what makes the universe so beautiful? It’s expansive. And if that’s the case, then, isn’t that what makes us beautiful too? We have limitless options and we can choose any one of them at any time.”

  Kimberly looked at me, her mouth open and her eyes wide.

  “You’re saying we don’t have to choose one thing to be?”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged as if I believed this. “I mean, sure, teachers and parents tell us we’re supposed to decide, right now, what one thing we want to spend the rest of our lives doing- but they’re wrong. That’s not the way we’re supposed to live. And trying to makes us feel lost. But we don’t have to subscribe to their standards. We can choose to live by our own rules.”

  I felt like I was beginning to ramble, so I stopped talking. But Kimberly didn’t seem to mind the rambling. In fact, she grinned and sat up straighter in her chair.

  “You’re so right,” she said. “I don’t have to do what he says. I don’t have to follow his plan for me. It’s my life and …” she laughed and lifted her hands towards the sky, “And I want to be like the freaking universe!”

  I laughed as Kimberly screamed with delight and then gave me a high five.

  Before I knew it, she was hugging me and whispering, “You’re so smart, Libby. I’m glad we’re friends.”

  Her breath reeked with beer, but I grinned. “Me too.”

  All at once she gasped and released me. “You know what we should do?”

  I laughed and shook my head. “If you say, get more beer, I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “No,” she giggled. “We should make sure my dad can’t hamstring this universe.”

  I searched Kimberly’s face for some kind of explanation. All I got was a huge smile and more laughter.

  “What does that mean, exactly?” I asked.

  “When I tell him no, he’s going to try and make me stay here and get a degree in business and it’s going to be so terrible. It’s like, the way you hamstring a horse- that’s me. And my universe.”

  I nodded. “I get it. So, how do we make sure he can’t do that to you?”

  Kimberly’s face lit up and she clapped her hands in delight. Grabbing my hands, she pulled me to my feet. Swaying unsteadily, she led me to the driver’s side of her Range Rover and reached into her pocket, retrieving her keys.

  “Kimberly, what are we doing?” I asked, unsure of how to handle whatever it was she was doing.

  I didn’t want to join her in some kind of angry ‘get back at daddy’ rich-girl drama, but I didn’t want to outright ditch her.

  She opened my hand and dropped her keys into my waiting palm.

  A mischievous gleam in her hazel eyes, she smirked and said, “You drive and I’ll show you exactly what we’re going to do.”

  Chapter Five

  Kimberly’s Range Rover smelled like new car, expensive perfume, beer, and weed. It was not the world’s greatest combination, thanks to the beer and weed. But it was still a million times better than the odor permeating the inside and outside of Jasmine and Jen’s trailer.

  I glanced at Kimberly as she sat in the passenger seat and pointed right.

  “Turn right, onto Dutch Highway,” she said, her voice slurring.

  I did as told and turned right onto one of Sunnyville’s main roads. As soon as I did, I realized where we were headed.

  On our first day in Sunnyville, when Mom and I headed to the grocery store on Dutch Highway, we’d passed a used car lot with a giant chicken balloon out front. I think it was even called “Chicken’s Cars.” That first day, Mom had pointed to the place and said, “We’re staying far away from that one. No heists allowed there.” And when I’d asked why, she said, “Too obvious. Never try to pull a fast one on entrepreneurial country bumpkins. Chances are, they pull fast ones on all of their customers. They’re the folks who’ll blow your cover, turn you in to the cops and then call some NPR reporter and get your story all over the yuppie news.”

  Now, I turned to Kimberly and said, “So, your dad owns Chicken’s Cars?”

  She burped while nodding.

  As we moved along Dutch Highway, the lights we passed –emanating from neon signs, streetlamps, and billboards- shed all kinds of colors on Kimberly’s face, showering her in blue, then green, then red. The changing light made her look otherworldly, especially now that her huge hazel eyes were so dilated.

  “Yep. That’s the place,” she quietly said. “A dump if there ever was one. My dad bought it with my Uncle’s money. A loan he never had to repay. Supposedly.”

  I thought about Mom’s warning. My mom was usually right about who to target and who to leave alone. That’s how she’d managed to evade suspicion for the past four years. She was an expert and I trusted her a million times more than I trusted a stoned teenager with a grudge against her dad.

  I frowned. “What are we, um, going to do there?”

  “You’ll see.” Kimberly pointed ahead. “There it is, up ahead. But don’t pull up there. Turn right here, into these apartments.”

  I pulled into a shady apartment complex at our right. It looked like the kind of place Mom and I had to live in right after my dad lost his mind. A six months I wish I could erase from memory.

  As we exited the Range Rover, I fell in stride beside Kimberly, determined to get her to ditch her plan, whatever it was.

  “That pizza guy never did show up. Aren’t you hungry?” I asked. “I’m starved. We should go to that place and demand our pizza.”

  “Yeah,” Kimberly said. “After this, let’s do that.”

  “What if we did that first?” I was hoping that by the time we sat down and ate, Stoner Barbie would completely forget about her anti-daddy plan.

  “No,” Kimberly shook her head, a slow odd-looking movement. Then again, every move she made seemed to be in slow motion. She headed for the sidewalk in front of the gross apartment complex where we’d stashed the Range Rover. “This is too important. It has to happen first.”

  I rolled my eyes and followed Kimberly for the next two blocks and I would have kept trying to dissuade her, but for some reason she suddenly turned into Miss Talkative.

  “I didn’t always live here, you know.”

  I nodded and said, “Oh really?”

  The words had barely left my lips and Kimberly was already responding, “When I was eight, I moved to a boarding school for girls all the way up in Virginia. I begged my parents to let me go there. My mom was totally against it. But my dad said I could go, and in our house his word is law. So, Mom shut up and let me.”

  Kimberly pointed to a building across the street from us on the other side of the highway. It’s sign said it was called ‘Sunnyville Event Center.’ It was a large structure that looked like it had been designed by the world’s laziest architect. Three stories tall, perfectly square, and brick- it was basically a large red brick box with an ornate sign out front.

  “The school was three times as big as that place,” Kimberly said. “Huge. Especially to an eight-year-old. But I liked that it was big, because I wanted to get lost in a crowd. Before I’d found out about the school, I’d even thought about running away to New York City. It seemed like the perfect place to get lost.”

  Kimberly sounded so wistful that I gave her a second glance.

  She tucked several loose strands of hair behind one of her ears and continued, “I loved it. It was exactly what I needed. I loved it so hard I got suspended three times and finally, when I was thirteen I set a classroom on fire and got myself expelled. Crazy, right? After that, I had to come back here. And for the past four years, I’ve been itching to set something else on fire.”

  Chills ran up and down my arms as I wondered if Kimberly was planning to scratch her pyromaniac itch tonight.

  We were now approaching Chicken’s.

  I looked at the huge used car lot, thought about my mother and made a decision.

  I came to a halt and gently touched Kimberly’s
shoulder. “We shouldn’t do this.”

  She smiled, but her eyes were sad.

  “Do you know why my dad let me go to school in Virginia? And why he didn’t say a word when I wasted thousands of his dollars and got myself expelled?”

  With this, Kimberly reached into her pocket and took out a lighter.

  I eyed it, my stomach churning with nerves.

  She turned around and walked towards Chicken’s.

  “Kimberly!” I started after her.

  “He didn’t say anything,” she said, her gaze on the used car lot and her right fist wrapped around the lighter, “Because if he did, he knew I would. And the last thing he wanted me to do was talk.”

  “Kim-”

  “If I did, I would’ve told someone what happened the day I turned eight,” she continued. “I would’ve told someone what my Uncle did to me during my own birthday party. And I would’ve told someone that even though my dad knew, because he walked in on it, he didn’t love me enough to even care. He loved the money more. The loan was more important than his daughter.”

  She came to a halt and met my eyes as she said, “My Uncle gave my dad a loan to open Chicken’s. My dad never had to give him a cent back. Because he gave him me.”

  I stared at Kimberly, completely numb.

  There are some things people tell you that have the exact same effect as Novocain. And in that moment, my heart was a dead weight, numbed by Novocain.

  But my brain worked, and it told me that Kimberly had every right to be angry…

  I glanced down at the lighter in her hand.

  …she also had the right to see justice served.

  “I am a vegetarian, but I would love to see that chicken,” I said as I pointed to the giant fake chicken in front of the lot, “flame-broiled.”

  Kimberly nodded and headed towards it.

  My decision made, I squared my shoulders and followed her.

  Chapter Six

  The fire started innocently enough, tiny orange flames dancing and waving in the dark.

  I handed Kimberly an old, crumpled receipt that happened to be in my jacket pocket. She used her lighter to set it on fire and then set it beside one of the strings that tethered the giant chicken balloon to the lot.

  Baby sun-colored flames crept up the rope.

  It was a decently cool night, and there was no wind or moisture in the air. Within minutes, the fire was no longer creeping, but running up the length of the rope, racing towards the balloon.

  I took a careful step back and looked around.

  The lot was devoid of people and the nearby streets were, likewise, quiet.

  “We should go,” I whispered.

  Kimberly was smiling, her face glowing in the reflection of the dancing orange flames.

  “One more thing, and then we can go,” she said, turning on her heel. “Follow me.”

  I bit down on my bottom lip, conflicted.

  Kimberly’s dad deserved this, but we didn’t deserve to get caught.

  I just hoped her plan -whatever it was- wouldn’t end with us getting handcuffed and shoved into the back of a Police car.

  “Come on,” Kimberly called as she turned around, walking backwards, towards the small office in the very center of the lot.

  I looked up at the fire. It blazed across the underside of the giant chicken, turning the orange and yellow balloon into a blackened and torn mess. It was like something out of a nightmare.

  It was also very hard to miss. Within minutes, some late night driver was bound to see the giant, burning chicken and call the police.

  Muttering a few choice words under my breath, I turned away from the sight of our destruction and jogged towards Kimberly.

  “Whatever you’re going to do,” I said. “It’d better be quick, because someone’s going to see that chicken and call the cops.”

  She beckoned me forward. “Then hurry up, let’s get in there.” With this, she ran in between cars, headed to the office.

  Just outside of the office’s large, glass door she came to a halt and turned to me with an opened palm. “My keys?”

  I handed her the keys she’d given me when she’d asked me to drive.

  Kimberly used a small gold key to unlock the front door.

  The air now smelled of fire. While Kimberly ducked into the office, I turned and glanced at the chicken- the fire had shred it to bits and in the distance, on the other side of the four lane highway, I spotted a car pulling over and someone getting out, their gaze on the giant burning bird.

  My stomach turned.

  “Hey,” I said as I stepped into the office. “People are starting to stop and-”

  Whatever I’d been on the verge of saying left my lips as I watched Kimberly retrieve a small black gun from the bottom drawer of a large desk a few feet in front of me.

  “What are you doing?” I gasped.

  “This.” Grinning wickedly, she swept past me and positioned herself just outside of the office.

  She aimed the gun upwards and I followed the line of fire to a small black security camera pointed at the car lot.

  She squeezed the trigger and I jumped as the shot sounded, shattering the night’s stillness.

  Within seconds, the camera fell from its perch above the office door, and completely broke as it hit the cement, its parts scattering into three distinct pieces.

  Kimberly hummed an old Katy Perry song and sauntered back into the office. I glanced over my shoulder to check out what was happening across the street. Three more cars had pulled over and people were getting out, clustering together and pointing at Chicken’s.

  My pulse sped.

  “Kimberly,” I said, as I stepped into the office. “We need to go now. There’s a crowd of people standing outside, watching Chicken’s and I’m sure at least one of them has already called the cops.”

  Kimberly had a small towel in one hand and the gun in the other. Maybe it was all the beer and weed she’d consumed, or the fact that she was severely traumatized. Either way, she didn’t seem worried at all. She just kept humming as she used the towel to wipe down the gun.

  “Kim-”

  “Open the top left drawer,” she said interrupting me. “But don’t use your fingers. Like, cover your hands with your jacket or something, so you don’t leave prints.”

  I stood there, quietly seething, as I breathed in the ever-increasing smell of smoke and watched her return the gun to its place in the bottom right drawer.

  I hate being told what to do. Especially when the person doing the bossing is either a hundred percent unhinged or drunk or all of the above, and doesn’t seem to care that they might get us both arrested.

  But after hearing what Kimberly’s dad and her uncle had done, I couldn’t just abandon her.

  Rolling my eyes, I covered my right hand with the sleeve of my jacket and opened the drawer.

  Three thick stacks of cash stared back at me.

  “Jesus, Kimberly,” I said. “Why does your dad just keep cash in here, and not in a safe? That’s pretty dumb.”

  “He doesn’t,” Kimberly said. “I moved it there this afternoon. Every time I come here, I take a little cash out of the safe and put it somewhere I hope it’ll get stolen. Cause you know, he’s a human turd. And he should lose everything.”

  I looked at the cash, dreading what I knew she wanted me to do.

  “Put the cash in your jacket pockets and let’s go,” Kimberly said as she pulled her lighter out of her pocket.

  I shook my head. “I can’t, I’m sorry. I’m not a thief.”

  Sirens sounded in the distance.

  My breathing shallow, I backed away from the desk.

  “It’s basically my money,” Kimberly said as she placed the tip of her lighter against the corner of the large wooden desk. In seconds, a small glowing flame was dancing on the desk. “This whole place is mine when I turn 21. So, technically it’s not stealing if we’re taking what’s mine. Besides, ask me what we’re going to do with the money
. Go on, ask me!”

  “Kimberly,” I hissed. “We really need to get out of here, we don’t have time to-”

  “Do you want more women to get hurt the way I did?” Kimberly shouted.

  I blinked back at her. “Of course not. But I don’t see how stealing your dad’s money is going to stop child molesters from, you know… from molesting other people.”

  The sirens were getting closer, and the fire on the desk was spreading like crazy. Smoke wafted up from the burning piece of furniture at an alarming degree.

  Kimberly grunted and shook her head as she grabbed the three stacks of cash and forced them into my jacket pockets.

  “Hey!” I shouted and tried to push her away.

  Surprisingly strong, she grabbed both of my hands and tugged me along as she ran for the door.

  Once we were outside, she released me.

  I reached into my pockets and started for the cash, ready to dump it and let it burn with the rest of Chicken’s.

  “No!” Kimberly shouted and pointed to my pockets. “Leave it! I’m donating it to a women’s shelter. It’s my money and that’s what I want to do with it. OK?”

  The sound of police, ambulance, and fire sirens were so near they hurt my ears.

  Kimberly turned around and ran out of the lot.

  I didn’t know what to do, but I knew the one thing I couldn’t do was stand still.

  My pockets full of cash, I ran after Kimberly, following her out of the car lot.

  Chapter Seven

  Until that night, I thought I’d experienced some pretty hardcore antics in my sixteen years.

  When your mother is a professional con artist, you get used to bending rules. It becomes second nature, for example, to go by a different alias every time you move, or to pretend you’re your mom’s little sister instead of her daughter, and you become alarmingly skilled at lying to her boyfriend, Ted regarding her whereabouts when she happens to be out with her other boyfriend, Fred. And, somehow, you don’t even get their names mixed up.

  But that night, as I drove Kimberly’s SUV to the bad side of Sunnyville, a sinking feeling pervaded the pit of my stomach and the air in the SUV, stale and reeking of smoke- was beginning to make me nauseous.