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Something he said made me panic. I looked up. He was staring straight at me. Did he know my secret?
"Everything here is backward," Melissa complains.
"Yeah," Zach agrees with a laugh.
My hackles rise. Was Melissa always this anal?
"Maybe it's you that's backward," I say. Melissa and several of the others turn and stare at me. Then their eyes glaze over as if I'm not here.
"Did you hear something?" Melissa says to the girl beside her.
The girl shrugs. "No, just a weird buzzing sound. Street noise, I guess."
They turn their backs on me—as if I care.
"One more thing," Stike called as I mounted up. "Keep your eyes open."
"Huh?" Keep them open for what? What did he mean?
"We had a kid last year who ran into some trouble. Some crew didn't appreciate his cleanup. They waited for him one morning and jumped him. Kid ended up in the hospital." He grinned at me as if he were telling me about some fond memory.
"Watch the watchers," he said. "If you think you're attracting some of the wrong attention, you let me know. Crews don't scare Stike."
I had the feeling that not much scared Stike. But the thought of getting jumped by a gang sure scared me. I began to wonder if Dave Marsh had done me a favor after all.
Without thinking about how scared I was, I dove. It was like diving into cold midnight. My ears roared as the water closed over my head.
I kicked downward, blindly reaching with my hands. My clawing fingers raked the outside wall of the cabin. I followed the wall down to where it met the deck. If the ax was still on board, that's where I would find it.
Just as I was about to run out of air, I felt the smooth long handle of the ax. I grabbed it and pushed upward.
