I struggled with the latches on the window. I got the first one unhooked. I thrust my weight behind the second, which seemed as if it must not have been opened for ages. Finally, it budged. My hand hit the glass with a loud clap.
“Is someone in there?” A fist pounded. “Screw you, guys. Who’s in there? Is this some kind of prank?”
Lena’s joints had come unlocked as soon as the window did and she helped me pry it open.
“I’m coming around,” Tate yelled. “Don’t be bastards.”
“Go, go, go.” I practically pushed Lena out the window. She landed softly on the grass below. I jumped down next to her. I took a final glance back. Together, we sprinted around the side of the house, disappearing into the next-door neighbor’s lawn just as I heard the front door open and shouting spill out into the night.
I followed Lena, my arms flailing and hoodie fanning out from behind me like a cape. She twisted the key and jumped into the driver’s side. I bobbed on my toes while I waited for her to pop the door on the passenger’s side. I climbed in and let out a whoop of triumph.
Lena fumbled with the ignition and it sprang to life with a roar. Her forehead dropped to the steering wheel. Her breathing heavy. Her back rose and fell. I watched the ridges of her back arch, my own chest heaving.
“Two … down…,” Lena wheezed. She turned her head and looked at me across the dark cabin.
I let my own head loll to the side. Lena’s bangs swept sideways and I wondered if I was about to kiss her again.
“One to go,” I said.
TWENTY-ONE
Cassidy
There was a soft knock on my bedroom door. “Cassidy?” came Honor’s voice. This morning’s sun was already blasting through my window. I closed my eyes and buried my head into the pillow. It was a school holiday, although even as I thought it, I realized that I probably wouldn’t go to school, holiday or not.
A few seconds later, I listened to muffled footsteps on the carpet and then the covers were pulled back just enough for Honor to slide in. I felt the warmth of her body next to mine. She shuffled closer like she used to do when she was a kid.
“Are you sick?” she asked with concern. “You’re soaked.”
I felt the length of my sticky body to where my tank top clung to my ribs like Saran Wrap. Moisture glued strands of hair to my forehead. I rolled over to stare up at the ceiling, feeling weak and twisted but impossibly heavy all at once.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”
She turned into me, her freckled face inches from my cheek. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Cassidy. About what I did, what I said, all of it. I was an idiot.”
I sighed. “No, you weren’t. You were just … I don’t know … young.”
She tilted her head and rested it on my shoulder. “Thanks,” she said. And that was all she had to say because we were sisters and I would love her from now until eternity no matter what she did or who she became. I wanted to be someone that Honor could be proud to call her older sister, the way she used to be, but it seemed that every single thing that I tried failed. I was losing hope and options.
The only sliver of optimism available to me was the fact that another line had not appeared on my wrist. There were still only two. That was something.
“Do you want to know something crazy?” she asked.
I doubted anything that she could tell me would top any of the crazy confessions I could make, but “sure,” I told her.
“My friend Meghan said that Teddy Marks was rushed to the hospital yesterday.” If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a waver of something that sounded suspiciously like a giggle in her voice.
“Yeah?” I tried to keep my voice neutral, but my mind raced. The pictures. The poison. These memories, unlike the ones that had been played back to me, felt more like my own. Bright and real. And yet what had come over me? Had I really poisoned a sophomore?
“People are saying I cast a voodoo curse on him. I know they’re kind of kidding, but can you believe that? Me? It’s funny. Sort of. I mean, don’t you think?” She reached for my clammy hand, laced her fingers between mine, and squeezed.
“Probably not to Teddy,” I said.
Honor let out a soft one-note laugh. “No kidding.”
I lifted my chin. “Is he going to be okay?”
She wriggled free of me. She sat up and flipped her hair back behind her shoulders. “Yeah, he’s fine. Just some abdominal cramping, vomiting, you know that kind of thing. Meghan said he’s supposed to come home from the hospital later today.”
I exhaled a long breath of relief. That was good news. I was lucky. Teddy was fine. Maybe it hadn’t been such a bad thing that I’d done then after all. My sister saved some face. Teddy believed he’d gotten a karmic smackdown. He didn’t have to know that karma actually came in the form of a junior at his high school.
It wasn’t so bad. At least not this part.
I cracked a sort-of smile. “Well, at least he won’t try that again.”
I rubbed my temples with my knuckles.