Still smiling, he undid his seat belt and twisted around in his seat, fumbling with something behind his chair. Brynna’s heart started to pound, and she cut her eyes back to the car door.
“This.” Teddy righted himself in his seat and presented Brynna the coffin-shaped plastic box he had carried into her house. A tiny white spray of baby roses and electric green fern was nestled in iridescent shredded paper in the back of the box, and Brynna grinned, feeling sheepish. He popped open the box and slid the corsage over Brynna’s wrist.
“Sorry,” he said as he straightened it. “I thought you said you were going to wear a white dress.”
Brynna glanced down at the corsage and grinned at Teddy, pecking a quick kiss on his lips.
“Now we’re ready to dance!”
???
The Hawthorne High School gym was draped with tulle and twinkle lights, and rented silk plants spilled between fake pillars and spires. The look would have been magical if suspicion and fear weren’t still thrumming through Brynna’s veins.
She tried to brush everything off and just be happy for the moment, but she heard every sound, every person creeping through the darkened gym. Were they watching her?
“Are you cold or something?” Teddy asked after they’d finished their first slow dance.
“Why would you say that?”
He ran the back of his fingers over Brynna’s bare arms, the touch so soft and sensual that Brynna forgot what she was supposed to be afraid of. “You have goose bumps.” He held her a tiny bit closer. “And you’ve been shaking.”
Teddy clasped his hands behind Brynna’s back and pulled her toward him, her chest crushing up against his. She couldn’t move, but she liked the feeling of being cared for, that someone was holding her near enough that nothing bad could happen. For just a millisecond, she was able to let her guard down, to melt into Teddy’s warmth, to listen to the powerful, steady beat of his heart against her.
“This is nice,” she murmured.
She felt him nod then rest his chin on the top of her head. “You don’t have to be afraid, Bryn. I’m never going to hurt you.”
Brynna wished she could believe that, but his saying it stiffened her spine again and she was filled with ice. She broke the embrace and stepped away. “I’m going—I think I’m going to get some punch now.”
She left Teddy standing, dumbfounded, in the middle of the dance floor while she went to the refreshment table, swishing a paper cup through the bowl of ice-cold punch. She took a big glug, and the second the liquid passed her lips and went coursing down her throat, she knew exactly what it was: spiked.
The alcohol hit her stomach with an enveloping warmth, and Brynna tipped the cup again, finishing it in a second gulp. She glanced across the gym to where Teddy was standing, watching her, hands in pockets. He turned when Darcy approached him. She dipped her cup in a second time and finished that serving, focusing her eyes on the swirls of light in front of her. She took a step and smiled as she felt the booze work its way through her system—nothing really, just a comforting little blur as she stepped.
She spied Evan in the corner and paused, sucking in a breath. Their eyes locked, and his were cold and dark. Every time Brynna turned, someone else was turning their back to her. She slugged her cup through the punch again and closed her eyes.
When she opened them, Erica was sliding out of the gym, her dress—the exact same one that Brynna was wearing—shimmering under the disco lights.
SIXTEEN
“No,” Brynna murmured to herself. “Erica is dead.”
But the crash of the door crashed Brynna to reality and she dropped her empty cup, shoving past the couples on the dance floor, making her way toward the door.
“Bryn, wait!”
She vaguely heard Teddy call to her, vaguely felt his fingertips brush across her bare skin.
She needed to find Erica.
She was groping blindly through the darkened hall, unsure which direction Erica had gone but somehow certain too. Something drove her forward, and she stumbled over her own feet, mumbling.
“Erica, please come back!”
Brynna’s words were slurring and her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. Her whole body broke into a cold sweat, the stiff fabric of the dress itching against her moist skin. Behind her, she heard the double doors smack shut as Teddy came into the hallway, calling out for her again.
“Brynna!”
The edges of his words were blurred and seemed to bounce off the locker-lined walls around her. Brynna stumbled and blinked, trying to bring the hallways into focus, but the linoleum, the lockers, the cheerleader-made GO! FIGHT! WIN! posters swirled and fish-eyed around her. Her head felt like it was in a vise grip, and everything around her seemed bigger, brighter, and sharper. She could smell the scent of seawater on the air. She pushed forward and, catching her heel, crashed to her knees in the hall. The faint glimmer from the emergency lights caught it before Brynna did: the faint, wet outline of a footprint.