Soul Screamers, Volume 1

I laughed, and my anger melted like Sophie’s makeup in July. In fact, I almost felt sorry for her—but not too sorry to dangle that little nugget of information in front of my cousin the next time she flirted with Nash in front of me.

The quad was actually a long rectangle, surrounded on three sides by various wings of the school building, with the cafeteria entrance on the end of one long wall. The fourth side opened up to the soccer and baseball practice fields at the rear of the campus.

Emma had claimed a table in the far corner, mostly sheltered from the wind by the junction of the language and science halls. I sat on the bench opposite her, and Nash slid in next to me. His leg touched mine from hip to knee, which was enough to keep me warm from the inside out, in spite of the chilly, intermittent breeze at my back.

“What’s with the dance team?” Emma asked as I bit the point off my slice of pizza. “They came through here a minute ago, squealing and bouncing around like someone poured hot sauce in their leotards.”

I laughed and nearly choked on a chunk of pepperoni. “They won the regional championship on Saturday. Sophie’s been insufferable ever since.”

“So how long will they be squeaking like squirrels?”

Holding up one finger, I chewed and swallowed another bite before answering. “The state championship is next month. After that, there will either be more irrepressible squealing, or inconsolable tears. Then it’s over until May, when they audition for next year’s team.” Regardless, I would mourn the end of the competition season right along with Sophie. Dance-team practices took up most of her spare time for several months of the year, giving me some much-coveted peace and quiet while she was out of the house.

And, as spoiled and arrogant as she was, Sophie was totally dedicated to the team. She gave the other dancers more respect than she’d ever seen fit to waste on me, and the dedication and punctuality she showed them were the only evidence I’d seen in thirteen years that she had a single responsible bone in that infuriatingly graceful body.

Plus, most of her teammates could drive, and someone always seemed willing to give her a ride. After the state championship, Sophie would go back to daily ballet classes, and now that I had a car, I was fairly certain her parents would make me drive her to and from. Like I had nothing better to do with my time. And my gas money.

“Well, here’s hoping we all go deaf either way.” Emma held her bottled water aloft, and Nash and I clinked our cans into it. “So…” She screwed the lid back on her bottle. “Heard anything new about that girl from Arlington?”

Nash frowned, his brows lowered over eyes more brown than green at the moment.

“Yeah.” I dropped the remains of my pizza onto my tray and picked up a bruised red apple. “Her name was Alyson Baker. Happened just like Jimmy said. She fell over dead, and the cops have no idea what killed her.”

“Was she drinking?” Emma asked, obviously thinking about Heidi Anderson.

“Nope. She wasn’t on anything either.” Nash gestured with the crust of his first slice. “But she has nothing to do with the first, right?” He glanced my way, brows raised now in question. “I mean, you didn’t predict this one. You never even saw her, right?”

I nodded and took the first bite out of my apple. He was right, of course.

But there was an obvious connection between the two girls: they were both dead with no apparent cause. The local news knew that. Emma knew it. I knew it. Only Nash seemed oblivious. Or at least uninterested.

Emma pointed at him with the business end of a plastic fork, her porcelain face twisted into an equally beautiful mask of disbelief. “So you don’t think it’s weird that two girls have dropped dead in the past two days?”

He sighed and pulled the tab from his empty soda can, watching it, rather than either of us. “I never said it wasn’t weird. But I don’t get this morbid obsession you two have with those poor girls. They’re gone. You didn’t know either of them. Let them rest in peace.”

I rolled my eyes and peeled the vendor’s sticker from my apple. “We’re not disturbing their rest.”

“And it’s not obsession—it’s caution,” Emma countered, aiming her water bottle at him like a conductor’s baton. “No one knows how they died, and I’m not buying the coincidence angle. That could be either one of us tomorrow.” Her gaze turned my way, clearly including me among the potential victims of…um…dropping dead for no reason. “Or any one of them.” She nodded toward the cafeteria, and I turned to see Sophie and several of her friends bounce down the steps in the company of half a dozen jocks in matching green-and-white jackets.

“You’re totally overreacting.” Nash pushed his tray away and twisted on the bench to face us both. “It’s just a weird coincidence that has nothing to do with us.”