Chapter
TWENTY-ONE
“JD? JD, are you there?” Em shouted into her phone. She wasn’t even sure if he’d picked up yet. That thing in the hospital . . .
she couldn’t get the image out of her head. Ready for your turn to pay, Em?
Terrified thoughts lashed like eels squirming in her head.
Sasha was dead; so was Chase. He was dead because his actions had led to Sasha’s death.
Now Em was going to pay. She was going to pay for something she’d done: an eye for an eye.
An eye for an eye makes the world go blind. She had heard that somewhere.
“Em? Hello?” She heard JD’s voice faintly in her ear.
“JD!?”
“Em, are you okay?”
“Oh my god, JD.” She was crying now. “I saw her.”
“You saw who? Em, what’s going on?”
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“I can’t . . . I can’t explain. I’m going to pay—I don’t know what it means.” She was hysterical now, gasping and gulping.
“Em. Calm down. Just come over here and we’ll talk.” JD’s voice was soothing, like cream applied to a burn.
“Okay. Okay. Okay.” She repeated the word, trying to convince herself.
“Em, I’ve never heard you like this. Do you want me to come get you?”
“No. No. I’m fine. I’m coming.” She turned on the car and eased it slowly into drive, thinking only about getting to JD’s and collapsing into his arms.
She turned on the classical station, hoping the music would steady her racing thoughts. Em knew that there was only one thing she’d done recently that would be worth paying for. The only transgression for which revenge made sense: Zach. What she’d done with her best friend’s boyfriend. How she’d felt about him. How little control she’d had over her own emotions—how little control she’d wanted to have. Those were sins, definitely.
She swallowed back the feeling that she was going to be sick.
Thou shall not covet thy best friend’s boyfriend.
As she mulled it over, biting on her lower lip, compul-sively pushing her hair back from her forehead, she saw a car approaching behind her. It was surprising; she’d decided to take the usually deserted back road, the Peaks Road route, to her house. It was slightly quicker, if you knew how to hug the turns. You had to be careful at the downhill stretch, though.
Especially in wintertime.
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The car was coming faster than it should have been. And when it got just a couple of car lengths behind her, it started flashing its brights. It was like a disco ball in her rearview mirror, nearly blinding her in the dark.
What the hell? Em sped up slightly. No change, the blinking continued.
And then in the split second between the flashes, Em had her own moment of flashing terror: It was blond, scary, bloody Ali, who’d been stalking her for weeks.
The one who had first given her the flower, she now realized—the one who had probably left her that note inside her coat pocket.
As soon as the idea came to her, she knew. She was being hunted. And this time she would end up like Chase. She would be the one to pay.
Acting on sheer panic, Em took a quick left, down Old Mark’s Lane. Then a right onto Pemaquid Road. The car was still behind her, even closer now. In a panic, Em pulled around Pemaquid’s hairpin turn and then back onto Peaks. The car tailed her, coming closer even when Em thought there was no room between their bumpers. She was taking short little breaths now, eyes wide, shoulders hunched. And then, as the two cars approached the steep slope of Peaks Road’s most dangerous stretch, the car slammed into her from behind at a slight angle. From the moment of impact, it was like slow motion, like watching a cue ball hit the eight ball at just the right spot.
Em felt the car moving straight toward a low snowbank. And then, with a horrible jolt, it was embedded there.
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There was no time for making sure that she was all in one piece. In a mad dash, she tumbled out of the car and into the night. She was desperate. Willing her feet to move even as they dragged heavily along the ground. Sobs racked her body.
“Leave me alone! Stop! Stop!”
She got about twenty feet before she realized that whoever was following her was also shouting.
“It’s okay,” a girl’s voice called out. “It’s okay! It’s Drea!
From school!”
Em slowed down, but only a little. She turned around, but kept moving backward, stumbling over branches and rocks, the breath still rasping in her throat.
“It’s me, Drea Feiffer. There’s something wrong with your car.” Drea stepped into the beam of her headlights, revealing herself fully. Standing there, her clothes the same color as the night, all black and gray and silver. She’d buzzed one side of her head, leaving black strands to fall asymmetrically over her left cheek. She was holding up her hands, as if to prove that she came in peace. “I was behind you on Peaks when I noticed something leaking from your car. I was worried it might be brake fluid.”
Em was relieved and also, suddenly, furious. Was this chick for real? She’d run Em’s car off the road because she thought it was leaking brake fluid?
“Really. My friend Crow taught me about cars. I saw you were going for the downhill part and I was worried that you wouldn’t be able to stop. I had a weird sixth sense about it. So I bashed you. Gently. It was a gentle bash.”
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“You rear-ended me because you thought there might be something wrong with my car?” Em shook her head, trying to make sense of it. With a shudder she remembered where she was coming from. The hospital. Sasha’s room. Sasha was dead, and Drea didn’t know it yet. Em softened, unballing her fists and pushing her hair away from her face.
“Let’s check it out. If I’m wrong, I’ll have Crow fix your car, no charge.”
“And just how are we going to check it out?” Em leaned over, putting her hands on her knees to catch her breath. The world was still spinning a bit.
“I have a toolbox in my car.” Strangely, Drea stuck out her hand toward Em. “I’m really sorry I scared you. You look like you just saw a ghost.”
Em turned her face away, stomach lurching. She didn’t take Drea’s hand. “Let’s just get this over with, okay? It’s freezing out here.” She jogged a bit, partially because she was cold, partially as though to shake off the way Drea was looking at her searchingly.
Em hung back a few feet while Drea grabbed a flashlight and poked her head under the hood, muttering to herself. Em crossed her arms and hopped a little from one foot to the other, feeling the freezing air sear her lungs with every breath. The woods on the left side of Peaks Road were thick and deep, part of the Galvin Nature Preserve, where the boys played ice hoops.
She squinted, trying to make out the pond, but she could barely see through one layer of brush.
Drea rattled and cursed under the hood and emerged look-268
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ing shaken. Then, with an air of resignation, she lay down on the salty, slushy road and slid herself under Em’s car.
“Do you, like, need a hand?” Em asked helplessly. But then Drea was shoving herself back up onto her knees and walking over to where Em was standing. She wiped her hands on her black jeans.
“It really was the brakes, Em. The line looks like it was cut clean.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Um, that you would have died if you’d gone down the Peaks stretch,” Drea said with a shudder. “You would have just kept picking up speed. Like a roller coaster without a way to stop.” An owl or something hooted in the distance.
“But . . . but . . . how did it happen? I just got my car serviced and everything.” Em’s cheeks burned in the cold. She wasn’t wearing a hat.
“I don’t know how things happen, I just know how to fix them.” Drea smiled grimly. “Jeez. I owe Crow a beer. And you owe me, like, an entire bottle of vodka, or your homecoming crown or whatever. I just saved your life, Winters.” She got quiet suddenly. Em watched Drea’s guard fall, just for a second, as she turned away, squinting into the dark. “Maybe my track record’s getting better.”
Em thought again of Sasha. “What did you say?”
“Nothing.” Drea turned back to Em. The walls were back up. “I’m just kidding about the crown. It would clash with my snazzy movie-theater vest.”
Em just stared, not really at Drea, not really at her car, just 269
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at the unfocused blackness in front of her. The brakes had been cut clean. Suddenly she felt hopeless, resigned. Something bad was going to happen. Something bad was already happening.
There was no way to stop it.
Drea snapped her fingers closer to Em’s face. “Earth to Em.
Can I give you a ride home or something?”
“Sorry. Yes, thank you. I’ll just be a minute, I need to grab my purse,” Em mumbled as she bent into the car to retrieve her bag. It didn’t even seem like Drea was listening anymore—too focused on packing up her metal tool kit—but as Em came back toward Drea’s little Honda Civic, Drea froze.
Em looked behind her, half expecting to see a moose. But Drea wasn’t looking past her. She was looking at her.
“That,” Drea was saying, pointing at her bag. “Where did you get that?”
Em looked down and blood rushed to her head. Instinctively, her hand stretched out, as if to protect herself from the orchid’s glow. She had kept the second one, which Ali had pressed on her in Harvard Square, afraid to throw it away again.
Afraid Ali would come back. Drea was staring at it fixedly.
“This flower?” Em felt her breath getting shallow again. “I don’t know. Some girl gave it to me. It’s weird.”
“Weird how?”
Em blew warm breath onto the tips of her freezing fingers.
“Weird because I can’t get rid of it. The first time I . . . I watched it get crushed under a train. And then this girl gave it back to me. I’m not even sure who she is . . .” She trailed off, wondering if this was when people got committed to the insane asylum.
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But Drea didn’t scoff, as Em expected her to. Instead, she wordlessly grabbed the orchid from Em’s bag. With her other hand, she dug into her black jeans for a Zippo. And then she set the flower, with its many folds, on fire.
She threw it on the ground once its entire body was aflame.
It smoldered there.
Drea looked back at Em, the tiny fire casting a candle-like glow on her face. Em had never noticed that Drea’s eyelashes were so long and curled. That, combined with her strong nose, made her really pretty, in an unexpected way. Her prettiness certainly didn’t go with her badass reputation. Em found herself wondering, randomly, whether or not Drea had ever been in love.
“What did you do?” Drea’s voice was soft but forceful. Em realized that she had never before seen Drea Feiffer look scared, not even the time in fifth grade when Carey Wallace threatened to beat her up for being a freak.
“What?” Em swallowed back the sudden dryness in her throat.
“They won’t just show up. What did you do? Why did you get a flower?”
Em was so surprised by the questions, she couldn’t respond at first. She didn’t like the way Drea was staring at her. Had Drea heard something around school? How could Drea Feiffer know anything about her life? “I—I didn’t do anything.”
Drea pursed her lips, cocked her head to one side, and studied Em. Then she shook her head as though she had come to a decision about something. “Pretending won’t do any good, 271
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Em. When you’re ready to talk, find me.” Then she was in her glove compartment, rooting around. “In the meantime,” Drea said, backing out of the car with something in her hand. “This might help.”
She took Em’s hand and closed her fist around a small gold snake charm—a miniature version of the one Em had seen Drea wearing for years. Then Drea jerked her head, motioning for Em to get in the car. Em looked at her, waiting for more explanation, but Drea was quiet. Other than the pulsing music coming from the car speakers, they drove home in silence.
“Thanks for the ride,” Em said a bit sheepishly when they pulled into her driveway. She knew she wasn’t going inside—it was way too dark in there to be alone, and she knew JD was waiting across the yard.
“No problem.” Under the motion-sensor driveway light, Drea’s eyes pierced hers. “Don’t forget. Come see me when you want to talk. I might be able to help.”
Em didn’t answer as she got out of the car.
JD was frantic when he answered the door. His hair was sticking up at so many crazy angles, it looked like he had been electro-cuted. “What happened to you? What took you so long? Are you okay?”
Em whispered fiercely in response: “Are your parents home?”
“Yeah, they’re home. Seriously, Em. What’s going on?”
“What are they doing?” She shouldered past him, dropping her voice to a whisper. She didn’t feel like dealing with Mr. and 272
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Mrs. Fount tonight and their inevitable questions about school and SAT prep.
JD raised an eyebrow. “They’re upstairs watching a documentary about blue whales,” he mock whispered back. “Now will you tell me what’s going on?” He tugged at his sweater and looked at her over the tops of his glasses. “You sounded crazy on the phone.”
“I think I am going crazy,” Em said, dragging him toward his basement door. She kept talking as they descended his stairs; down in the rec room, there was a ratty sofa that JD called his therapist couch. “My brakes are f*cked up. Drea Feiffer rescued me. I think someone is stalking me. I think there’s a ghost stalking me.” The statements came out in rushed staccato, but she stopped rambling at the bottom of the staircase.
Her voice caught in her throat as she saw what JD had prepared: a plate of homemade nachos, two cupcakes, and a little pillow fort on “her side” of the couch.
“JD . . . this is so nice.”
“Well, I’m telling you, I really thought you were going to be carted away. I was worried.” He shrugged, running his hands through his hair. He ducked under a low beam and came over to the couch.
Em collapsed on the couch, breathing in its familiar scent and feeling its knobby pills against her forearms.
“This couch is so uncomfortable,” she said, pulling at one of the little balls of wool.
“Do the ghosts think so too?” He looked at her with a quizzical smirk. “What were you saying?”
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“JD, listen. Can I tell you something? Can I tell you everything?” She tried to take a bite of her cupcake but couldn’t.
“Yes.” He hadn’t sat down yet. He was hovering.
“Something weird is going on,” she said, biting her lip.
“Very informative, Em. A lot of weird stuff has been happening around here. Can you be a bit more precise?” he asked, stuffing his hands into his smoking jacket’s pockets.
He was teasing, but she resented it. She fluttered her hands, like she did when she was looking for the right word. “I’m trying, JD. Give me a second.”
“Okay, okay.” He held up his hands, motioned for her to continue.
She put the cupcake back down and stared at him. “Someone has been following me.” She pointed vaguely to the basement window, as though that would help clarify her story.
“Remember that day in Boston? She was there then.”
“Who was there?” JD sat down now, looking at her with concern.
“This girl. This girl named Ali who’s been showing up in windows. And on the T, in Boston that day. She’s stalking me, I think, because of something I did . . .” Em trailed off when she saw the way he was looking at her. She’d seen him look at Melissa this way, when she was going on about how Tess Hoover and Brian Rinaldi had cut the line together at the seventh-grade trip to the amusement park and how that meant that they must be boyfriend and girlfriend. Indulgent. Amused.
Like . . . aren’t these kids so cute?
“You don’t believe me, do you?” she said dully.
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JD sighed. “Em, I know this is hard for you.” The pity in his eyes had only gotten deeper. “I don’t know what you’re talking about with this stalker stuff, but I know you’re upset about Chase. I know you’d been talking and hanging out a little bit, but you have to remember that none of it is your fault.
You couldn’t have changed anything.” He put his hand on her leg and patted it. She jerked away, as though his touch were scalding.
“No. That’s not what I’m talking about. That’s not what this is about.” Em shook her head violently.
“Look, people’s imaginations go into overdrive after a trag-edy, you know. I read that somewhere. So if you want to tell me your stories, I’ll listen. I just don’t want you to scare yourself like this.”
“JD. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to blame this on my over-active imagination,” she said, her voice tinged with anger now.
“It’s not that. It’s more than that. I mean, it does have to do with Chase, but . . .” She broke off, trying to collect her thoughts.
JD leaped in. “Exactly. This all just goes back to Chase.
Dying. Probably even Sasha, too. It’s been a f*cked-up time.
No wonder you’re freaking out.”
“No, JD. I’m freaking out because I keep seeing the same girl over and over and because she gave me a regenerative red flower that happens to be the same thing that was in Chase’s hand when he died and because someone just cut my brake lines and apparently sorry’s not enough and that’s why I’m freaking out.”
By the time she finished her diatribe she was halfway up the basement stairs, fighting back tears, struggling to put on her 275
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coat with dignity, which was difficult when her vision was so blurry she couldn’t even see the arm holes.
JD looked blindsided. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going home,” she spat out. “I’m going home. At least my pillows aren’t condescending.”
But those couldn’t protect her, either; she knew that. She’d have to do that herself.
She heard JD running up the stairs behind her, and she whirled around at the front door.
“Em,” he said. “What did I do?”
“You judged me, as usual.” She glared at him. “Why don’t you try having a life of your own before you make decisions about other people’s?”
“I have a life,” he said quietly, his face dark.
“Right. Driving me around everywhere and telling me what to do. Nice life,” she said, feeling the cold air hit her face as his front door slammed behind her.
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