I open my mouth, unsure how to respond.
She steps into the hall, pulling Gretchen’s door firmly closed behind her. “I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.”
The air is thick. For a split second, I imagine her scratching out my face, slipping the photo into my locker. But that’s ridiculous. She hasn’t even been in school. I step back, guessing we both just want out of here, but then she reaches out and touches the fabric of my dress.
“I don’t think I’ve seen this before.”
My cheeks flush. I wonder if I should have worn something of Gretchen’s after all, but when I tried a few things earlier, they still seemed wrong. “I borrowed it from Dina.”
I study her more closely, the gray suit a little too loose in the hips, a tiny bit too flat in the chest. The way she swept her hair back is really pretty, but a bunch of pins are showing. She looks like a sad little girl playing dress-up in her dead sister’s clothes.
“Are you doing okay, Kirsten?”
She gives me a small smile, then surprises me by slipping her arm through mine, guiding me down the hall, away from Gretchen’s room. “We should probably get back downstairs.”
I turn to face her on the landing. “I mean it. I’m sorry we left you at the party. I was the DD, I never should’ve let that happen.”
“You were just doing what you were told.” She shrugs. “Like always.”
I wince at the accusation, wishing it wasn’t true. “It was wrong—anything could’ve happened to you.”
Her blue eyes darken. “Maybe it should have.”
“No.” My face goes hot. I grab her hand, clutching it as if she was Gretchen. “I just keep thinking that if things had been different, the whole night might’ve gone another way.”
Kirsten parts her lips, her voice barely a whisper. “But then it might’ve been you instead.”
FOURTEEN
I’M IN THE TREES, SURROUNDED by a darkness so thick it blankets the air like wool. The only sound is my breath being carried in, then out of my lungs.
And the rush of water.
I pick up my pace, walking faster, though I don’t seem to actually be moving. Everything just gets blacker. Footsteps come up behind me, crunching into the earth. I break into a run, but I’m no longer touching the ground. The trees close in like predators, first brushing me with their leaves, then tearing into my flesh and clothes with branches of blades.
I crash suddenly to the earth, and now I’m pinned by the weight of my body, paralyzed beneath the brush. I can’t close my eyes, let alone blink. All I can do is listen for something.
Coming for me.
I bolt upright in my bed.
By the time I’m calm enough to lie back down, I’ve scrawled six names on a notepad: Marcus, Kevin, Tyrone, Reva, Kip, and Kirsten.
FIFTEEN
“. . . AND IN LOCAL NEWS, a service for seventeen-year-old Gretchen Meyer, daughter of TechCorp mogul Carlton Meyer, was interrupted Friday in Hidden Falls when the girl’s ex-boyfriend, eighteen-year-old Marcus Perez, appeared unexpectedly at Grace Community Church.”
The camera cuts away from the sober-looking anchor to a shot of Marcus struggling with deputies outside the service until Kirsten approaches the sheriff, shaking her head. I watch, confused. The next shot shows Marcus walking to his own car. Maybe there was something to the rumor of Marcus and Kirsten hooking up. I can’t think why else she would get involved.
“Members of the congregation, including sheriff’s deputies, assisted in removing Perez without incident. The teen was briefly considered a person of interest in Gretchen Meyer’s death, but official charges were never filed. It is unclear what his intent was in disrupting the service.”
The screen goes blue and the number for Crime Stoppers appears beside Gretchen’s picture.
“There is a reward of up to fifty thousand dollars for any information leading to an arrest in the case.”
I switch the channel to a morning show doing a spot on viral pet videos. Conversations slowly resume around the diner, but the tension never completely dissipates. If I don’t leave for school soon, I’m not going to make homeroom, but Dina’s having car trouble and asked me to cover till she gets in. All I want is to start this week with some sense of normalcy.
My mom comes downstairs, tying her apron, as I hurry back to the kitchen.
“Dina called. Sounds like she’ll be stuck at Wilson’s Garage all morning.”
I stop in my tracks. “But she was going to let me take her car to school when she got in.”
“Aunt Elena will give you a lift as soon as she drops Felicia off.”
I nearly crumple my order. “But the elementary school doesn’t even start till nine.”
“When I was in school I would’ve been glad to miss a class.”
I’m in no mood to discuss her life as a teenager versus mine. I take off my apron. “I’ll walk.”
“You will not.”