Four of Clubs

10

"Hey, Mads, get down here! Your school is on the news!" My dad's voice called me from the living room, the words causing my brush to freeze in my hair. 

I quickly abandoned the task of getting the tangles out of my hair, snatching my phone from my bed and bounding down the stairs, trying to ignore the way my stomach felt like ridding itself of last night's dinner. 

"What is it about?" I feigned ignorance, taking wide steps to the living room, where my dad stood in front of the TV watching a commercial for toothpaste. "Did I miss it?"

"No, they cut away to commercials right after announcing the story," he said, shaking his head. "Typical. They said it was about some vandalism that happened last night, that's all I know so far."

"Wow, I wonder what happened." I feigned ignorance, hoping my acting was convincing enough. "I'm gonna make some breakfast, let me know if it comes back on."

He nodded, not taking his eyes off of the screen. "Gotcha."

I headed off to the kitchen, my stomach growling despite the fact that it felt like whatever I ate might decide to come back up. I grabbed some bread and popped it in the toaster, taking the jam jar out of the fridge as my mind wandered to pact we made the night before. I was going to have to be careful-- we were all going to have to be careful. As if it wasn't hard enough to worry about my own slip-ups, I had four other people to be paranoid about.

The name Four of Clubs was something none of us could ever be affiliated with. Our agreement was great and all, but mistakes happen. What if one of us decided to get a little drunk at a party and ended up mentioning what we did? We'd all be done for. Or if someone couldn't handle the weight of the secret and babbled to their parents to clear their guilty conscience? We could kiss our lives as we knew them goodbye. 

I tried to stop the next thought from entering my mind, but it persisted-- Daniel was undeniably the one I was most worried about. I still hadn't talked to him about the pact. Would he even want to be in our group anymore, now that we had another member? He was supposed to graduate that year and go off to college in the fall, and if the truth ever got out... Being attached to something like this could ruin his future. If ratting the rest of us out was what it would take for him not to get in major trouble--

I flinched as my toast popped out, a black tinge around the edges of the crust. I slathered it with butter and jam before heading back to the living room, plate in hand. There was no need to finish my previous thought. Worrying about maybes wouldn't help me, especially if they made me wary of my own boyfriend.

"Anything yet?" I asked, standing next to my father as I took a bite of my food.

"Nope." He pursed his lips. "Hey, did you knock something into the fire pit last night?"

I stopped chewing and swallowed heavily. "Oh, yeah. Sorry. Did it smell?"

"Smelled like you were burning whole tires out there," he joked. My appetite was suddenly back to zero.