His words froze me. I knew that tone—it was like every cliffhanger in every drama ever. He was about to drop a bomb.
“Yes?”
“Be careful who you show that to. They’re still not sure what happened to Jane, and I’d hate for you to get involved in this mess.”
I swallowed hard and nodded.
It wasn’t until I was halfway down the hall that I realized what he’d been implying. He must have seen inside the studio. He knew I’d drawn her exactly as she’d been found. And I had a terrible feeling he knew what it entailed.
? ? ?
“Kaira!”
Chris’s voice cut across the commons. I paused outside my dorm and turned to see him jogging toward me. I’d spent the last hour and a half in the silversmithing studio for class, and my stomach was grumbling.
“What’s up?” I asked, walking toward him to close the space between us. I was acutely aware of the way he smiled when he neared, but the smile slipped after a second.
“Not much.” Clearly a lie. “Are you busy?”
“Not really.” Another lie, because if I didn’t eat soon I would become hangry, and that was not a place I wanted to be today.
“Cool. Wanna walk?”
“Sure.”
Without another word, he took my hand in his and started leading me toward the Writers’ House. The fact that I didn’t let go surprised me more than it should have.
After a few seconds of silence, he chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
He squeezed my hand. “This. You’re not immediately telling me to back off.”
I sighed dramatically. “What can I say? You’ve tired me out. I’ve given in to your animal appeal.”
“Really?”
“Something like that,” I admitted. “What’s up anyway?”
He bit his lip and tore his gaze away, looking out to the forest. Even though it was noon, the sky was heavy and gray, making dark shadows in the undergrowth.
“I wanted to talk . . . about last night.”
Of course. My stomach plunged to my feet.
“What about it?”
He sighed, squeezed my hand again. Stop enjoying that sensation.
“It . . . it looked familiar.”
He was too busy staring at the trees to notice the terrified look I shot at him. I had to carefully compose my face and voice before answering.
“What do you mean, ‘looked familiar’?”
He shook his head like he was fighting off some inner monologue—a tick I knew all too well—and glanced at me.
“I mean, it’s come up before. After my sister died.” He sighed and tilted his head back to the clouds and stared up like he wanted to scream or wake from a nightmare. “I can’t even believe I’m telling you this. You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Doubtful.”
“Promise?”
“Mostly.”
He laughed without humor and looked everywhere but me. A clear sign this was killing him.
“After she died . . . I started having these nightmares. They were pretty much all the same, but I could never remember them entirely. The one thing I did remember was finding her in the sand, just after the tide. It was so. Fucking. Vivid. Her lying there with her hair in a halo and starfish and clams twined about her like constellations. It sounds beautiful when I say it like that but it was horrifying. Her face was so white, her lips so pale, staring up at the sky with pearls for eyes. And around her was this circle drawn in the sand, and no matter how many waves lapped against her, the circle stayed.
“The psychiatrists said it was just stress imagery. My subconscious’ way of finding resolution or some bullshit like that. That’s why I never told them about the rest.”
“The rest?” I asked. I hadn’t realized we’d stopped walking until then. He stood before me, still looking at the woods, both of my hands somehow now in his and the silence around us deeper than a tomb.
“I haven’t told anyone. How could I tell anyone? But this is all so insane. . . .” He looked at me. Tears welled and froze at the corners of his eyes. “The week before we went to the beach I was playing in the front yard. Just kicking the ball around. The ball flew out into the street and I ran after it because I was young and stupid and didn’t see the car. It didn’t see me either.”
He shuddered.
“I remember how it felt. When it hit me. It was like falling in a dream, that thud when you hit the bottom and then wake up. It struck me head-on. I felt the impact. And there was a shock, like I was hit with a lightning bolt, and then I was standing on the street like nothing had happened. The car didn’t even stop. Like it never happened. But I know it did. I felt it.” He pressed our hands to his heart. “I felt my chest explode from impact. And then I was fine.”
A tear fell down his cheek. I half expected it to turn into a snowflake as it caught in the stubble on his chin.
“I thought I’d made it up. Daydreams or something. Nearly forgot about it after my sister died. Until the nightmares. Every time. Every single fucking time, right before I woke up, I heard a voice. Your debt has nearly been paid it said. And I knew she died because of me. My sister died because I was supposed to live. And now it’s happening again.”