The Negotiation. Tyler Anne Snell

black hair, dark, always-questioning eyes and a mouth more than ready to voice one of his many opinions. The latter was one of several reasons he was at the bottom of the school’s popularity totem pole. He talked too much, listened too little and had almost no filter. This, plus an ingrained aversion to authority figures, had earned him dismissive attitudes from most of the teachers. Rachel wasn’t one of them, though most of the staff had assured her that if she had more than one art class with the boy she’d think differently.

      The boy standing next to him, however, was completely opposite in that respect. Teachers and students alike seemed to love Jude Carrington. Even for a seventh-grader, he had charm and was clever enough to know when to speak, what to say and how to hide all the devious things most kids that age did. His hair was a shock of red, his skin was covered in freckles, and he wore thick-framed glasses. Yet, according to Mrs. Fletcher, who had him in her homeroom, he seemed to be the leader of the seventh-grade class. Instead of being the stereotypical outcast from an ’80s movie, he was Mr. Popular. With a side of bully when it came to Lonnie.

      Which was why Rachel wasn’t shocked to see the two of them there, though she was surprised their guardians had opted for Saturday detention instead of after school. Darby Middle rarely implemented what she called the Breakfast Club punishment. Yet here they all were.

      “You want us to draw for detention?”

      What I want to do is to find out what’s going on with Jon Snow from Game of Thrones, she wanted to say. Instead she decided to go with a more stern response.

      “Unless you really do want to write a five-page essay about why you’re so sorry about what you did, I suggest you show a little enthusiasm. It wasn’t exactly easy to convince Principal Martin that doing art projects was punishments for you two.”

      “It is when it’s on a Saturday,” Jude interjected.

      Rachel nodded and grabbed one of the buckets.

      “That’s what I told him.” She took out a thick piece of white chalk and sat in the middle of the empty rectangle. The blacktop was warm but nowhere near as hot as it would be by midday. If they didn’t get it going now, the heat would force them inside and she’d be the one coming back in the morning to finish it alone. Rachel loved her job, but she wanted at least one day off before having to go back to it.

      “This is our fall-themed mural, but I was thinking we could make it more Halloween-y. Do a bigger collage of doodles like we did in class last week to help make this slab look a bit more fun. Then, after we’re done here, we’re going to go inside and cut out a few hundred leaves, pumpkins and maybe some bats from construction paper. Then we’re going to go hang them.”

      Despite his constant need to charm the adults, Jude actually groaned. Lonnie kept scowling. Rachel adopted a look caught between the two.

      “Unless you want me to go inside and tell Principal Martin that you actually want to write an essay explaining why you two said what you did and how you two are going to work together in the future?” She shrugged. “I could always do this later.”

      For a second Rachel was afraid they would decide to go for the essays. It was fall, but in South Alabama that didn’t mean much. They’d all be sweating after a few minutes. The air-conditioning inside might be enough of a draw to sway the boys from the manual labor of arts and crafts to tackling papers. Though she hoped that wasn’t the case. Gaven, the principal, had mostly agreed to her suggested punishment activities because they were projects she had volunteered to do out of the goodness of her heart.

      No sooner had she thought that than Rachel acknowledged it was a lie.

      It hadn’t just been something she’d felt she needed to do to better the school or to help raise the spirits of those who attended it. No. She had needed a distraction.

      One that would keep her mind away from the one place it had been traveling recently. A place she didn’t like to visit often.

      “Whatever,” Lonnie finally said. Rachel breathed an internal sigh of relief as he took a seat on the bottom line of the taped-off empty mural. Jude followed suit but as far away from Lonnie as was possible while staying near the chalk.

      Rachel tried to clear her head as it started to fill with sorrow. She smirked. “Glad to see we’re on the same page.”

      Despite Rachel’s not wanting to be at school on a Saturday, the next half hour that went by did so with little fuss. The boys drew white, orange and red bats and spiders and skeletons with surprising skill. Rachel had seen both of their drawings before in class, but there was more precision and focus in their actions today. After Lonnie made a jab at Jude and then Jude returned that jab before Rachel could step in, she realized their new passion to do a good job on the mural was probably because they were trying to outdo each other. Meanwhile she filled the center of the blacktop with a giant spider web. It was oddly soothing.

      “Why don’t we see what Principal Martin thinks about it before we start on the inside work?” Rachel said, stretching out her long limbs when they were done.

      Lonnie rolled his eyes.

      Jude perked up. “Can I go get him?” He was already turning in the direction of the school’s front doors. “Is he in his office?”

      Rachel nodded but held up her index finger.

      “Go straight there,” she warned. Jude gave her a wide smile and was off. Lonnie looked after him, scowl back in full force.

      Now it was time to try to distract someone other than herself. “I think the mural looks really good, don’t you?” She pulled out her cell phone. “I’m going to take a picture. Maybe I can post it on the school’s website the week of Halloween.”

      “Whatever,” Lonnie muttered. He turned on his heel. Goodness forbid he act interested. Rachel pulled up the camera app and was readying to take the picture when he spoke up again. His tone had changed. It was like night and day. Immediately she knew something was wrong.

      “Who are they?”

      Rachel heard the car doors shut before she turned to see a van at the front of the parking lot a few hundred yards from them. A tall, broad-shouldered man met her stare with a smile. Sandy hair, cut short, and broad, broad shoulders. She didn’t recognize him. Nor the man who had gotten out of the vehicle behind him. He wore a full set of overalls. He didn’t meet her eyes.

      A cold feeling of worry began to swish around in Rachel’s stomach. It should have been the warning that sent her inside. However she held her spot, only instinctively taking a step forward so Lonnie was just behind her elbow. Whoever was driving the van didn’t get out or cut its engine. She couldn’t see the driver’s face through the tint from this distance.

      “Hi there,” she called out to the man in front when it was clear he only had eyes for them. “Can I help you?”

      The man, who she guessed was a few years older than her thirty-one, didn’t lessen his stride over the curb and onto the grass. He was coming straight for them, his friend at his back.

      “Yes, ma’am, you can,” he answered, voice carrying through the air with ease. “I’m looking for someone.” His eyes moved to Lonnie for the briefest of moments. “Maybe you two can help me out.”

      That cold in Rachel’s stomach began to expand to the rest of her. She tightened her grip on the phone. Her gut with it.

      “Maybe you’d like to talk to the people inside,” she responded. Her voice had climbed to an octave that would let anyone who knew her well enough realize something was off. She was trying to tamp down the growing sense of vulnerability, even around her lie. “They’d probably know better than anyone who’s around. We’ve been outside all morning.”

      The only people inside the school were Gaven and Jude, but at the moment, all Rachel wanted to do was to curb the men’s attention. Darby Middle was nestled between one of the small town’s main roads, a wide stretch of trees that hid an outlet of houses and an open field for sale that had once been used for farming. This being