When the girls were lined up at their lockers, their chatter and laughter bounced off the walls and the flashes of color—someone’s brand-new fluorescent pink bra, the green of a Hawthorne High cheerleading uniform—cut through the overall grimness and made the room bearable. The scent of their perfumes, scented body soaps, and flowery deodorants almost masked the smell of mildew and wet cement. Now, the odor was almost overwhelming, and every step she took seemed to amplify into a grating smack of rubber flip-flop.
Brynna wrinkled her nose and picked her way around the long wooden bench that bisected the rows between lockers. It was the middle of the school day, and though it was an unintelligible din, she could hear students bustling about outside. She had snatched her cell phone before Evan had a chance to scroll through it, and Darcy had mostly agreed to keep her secret. There was no reason for Brynna to feel uneasy, but walking through the shadowed rows of the lockers, her heart fluttered and her hackles went up.
Brynna steeled herself and went directly to locker 127 where her gym clothes—a pair of yoga capris and the required Hawthorne Hornets green T-shirt—were wadded on top of a pair of last year’s sneakers. She yanked the T-shirt out of her locker, sputtering and coughing when something flew out with it.
Brynna looked down at her sweatshirt. It was covered in fine grains of sand. They were all over her jeans too and blanketing her toes, crunching underneath the soles of her shoes as she moved.
She looked back into her locker and took an involuntary step back. The blood started rushing through her veins as streams of sand flowed from her locker.
Brynna pulled everything out—yoga pants, sneakers, socks—and the rivulets came faster, pooling at her feet.
There was a mound of sand on the bottom of her locker; it was easily three feet tall.
Brynna could feel the prick of tears, the tight lump forming in her throat. What was happening? Who was doing this to her?
“Someone from Lincoln,” she whispered, trying to moisten her sandpaper lips. “It has to be.” She shook her head, dusting the sand from her sweatshirt and jeans. “Someone’s stupid idea of a stupid prank.”
But even as she thought it, her brain was working fast: someone from Lincoln would have to drive at least forty-five minutes to fill her Hawthorne locker with sand. That was a long way to go for a prank.
But it’s possible, Brynna pushed back. It’s possible.
The revelation did nothing to stop the tears that rushed down her cheeks; it did nothing to calm the thunderous pound of her heart.
Remember me?
The image of Erica’s words burned their way into Brynna’s eyes.
Remember me?
Was it a plea or a warning?
Suddenly, the sand, the locker room—everything—fish-eyed then blurred in Brynna’s vision. Her skin seemed to tighten, her bones threatening to break. She sat down hard on the metal bench, eye level with the base of her locker. Half the sand was gone now, exposing a tiny strand of purple. Brynna leaned forward, gingerly pinching the ribbon between thumb and forefinger. She gave it a subtle tug, rubbing the fabric between her fingers. But it wasn’t fabric.
It was a short length of deep purple crepe paper.
SIX
“Erica?” she whispered.
Feeling a shiver that cut all the way to her bones, Brynna tried to grip her locker door to smack it shut, but her fingers shook and her palms were slick with sweat. She tried to drop the crepe paper but it stuck to her palm. When she was finally able to move her hands, she yanked the paper from her skin and gaped, losing her breath. The bright, brilliant, Lincoln High purple of the streamer bled into her palm. A smear about the size of a quarter looked like it was burned into her flesh, like a spot of blood that could never be washed off.
“No!”
The word came back to her, echoing off the cinder-block walls and sounding more and more desperate each time it came back.
She thought she heard someone giggling.
“Hello?” What was meant to be a yell came out a tortured, choked sound. “Is someone in here?”
No response except the pitiful echo. Brynna stood statue still for what seemed like a millennium but must have been less than a minute. She pinched her eyes shut, trying to breathe deeply, trying to remember whatever the hell it was that Dr. Rother told her she was supposed to do. Her chest ached and her lungs popped with fire. She couldn’t pull in a breath, couldn’t force air between her lips. She felt like she was running a marathon while breathing through a straw. Sweat beaded at her hairline, shot like pinpricks all over her skin.
“Hello?” This time it was a barely a whisper, and Brynna immediately prayed that no one would answer her, that the bell would ring, that students would come flooding in. Anything to get her out of this moment, to get her out of this locker room where her feet felt cemented to the ground.
Footsteps sounded behind her—a shuffling, unsure sound—and Brynna whirled, the crunch of her sneakers grating against the spilled sand sounding a thousand times louder than it should have.