No, she did like Hannah. She just didn’t like the attention the girl got, especially on her turf. But maybe she should just relax. After all, if she blew this, she’d have zero friends. She was lucky that Hannah was even giving her a chance.
Massaging the space between Piglet’s eyes, she tried to make her decision. Not only would she win points with Hannah, sneaking out would serve Miss Bitty right for paying so much attention to Hannah during dinner. For forgetting that Allie even existed. Yeah, maybe it’d just been for fifteen or so minutes, but still.
“Please? Puh-lease?” Hannah whispered, making a really pathetic face.
Allie sighed, knowing good and well she was doing the wrong thing. “Crap. Okay, okay. Fine. I’ll take you.”
“Yes!”
Half past eleven, the light in Miss Bitty’s room went out and the girls slipped into the woods.
Carrying the green backpack with Piglet in it, Allie hurriedly led the way. The night was still as they walked, crisp autumn leaves crunching beneath their tennis shoes.
For some reason the woods unnerved her tonight. Maybe because she knew the single mother had been murdered not too far away. But she pushed on and tried not to think about it.
It had become annoyingly obvious that Hannah had planned all along on talking Allie into going. After all, in her overnight bag she’d packed two flashlights whose beams were now trained on the ground ahead of them.
“What happened back there anyway?” Hannah asked.
“What do you mean?”
“At dinner. It was obvious you were pissed. Was it something I did? Seriously, why won’t you tell me?”
“Why do you think it had anything to do with you? Did you do something that would’ve pissed me off?” Allie challenged.
A slight pause. Then, “No. Of course not.”
In the darkness, Allie narrowed her eyes. Am I just paranoid or did I just hear something funny in her voice? “Maybe I’m just tired,” Allie lied. “I’ve had trouble sleeping lately.”
“Yeah, I noticed you kind of looked like shit tonight.”
Allie’s breath hitched. She pointed her beam in the girl’s eyes and scowled.
“I’m just kidding!” Hannah said playfully, shielding her eyes. “C’mon. Loosen up. Get the stick out of your ass and relax for once!”
Yeah, sure. I’ll get the stick out . . . and I’ll jam it in— The two walked in silence for a couple of minutes.
“I could swear that someone watches me while I sleep,” Allie heard herself admit. The urge to talk to someone, anyone at this point, about what had been happening to her was overwhelming.
Hannah froze in her tracks.
“I mean, not every night, but there’s been a bunch of them—and I have no clue who it is.”
“Wha-at? Watching you sleep? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Allie wished she were.
“Seriously, that’s, like, really freaky.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Wow. What if I get murdered by, like, some ax murderer just because I know you? Because you and I hang out?”
Allie bristled and shone the light directly in the girl’s eyes again. “That’s not funny.”
“Hey, it could happen.”
“Yeah and a sinkhole could just appear right now and suck up your insensitive California ass.”
Hannah seemed to think about it. “Yeah, but it’s probably not as likely.”
Hannah stopped and pulled something from her front pocket. A baggy. She plucked a few pills out of it and popped them in her mouth.
A twig snapped somewhere behind them.
Allie spun toward the sound and shined her flashlight but saw nothing but trees.
“What are you doing?” Hannah asked.
“You didn’t hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Nothing. C’mon,” Allie said and started walking again . . . this time faster.
“I hope Miss Bitty doesn’t worry too much if she finds that we snuck out,” Hannah said.
“Whatever. I do what I want,” Allie snapped, remembering the whole dinner ordeal. How the old woman had just ignored her. But even as she heard herself say the words, Allie knew she didn’t mean them. Although she wanted to spite the old woman for hurting her, she hoped to hell she didn’t find out.
She actually wished she was with Miss Bitty right now and not Hannah. Sitting on the opposite end of the couch, watching junk television with a blanket pulled tightly over her. Feeling secure, wanted . . . safe.
Not headed to the house of horrors from her past.
Since visiting the house the last time, she had made up her mind. There was nothing left for her there. Her brother was truly gone.
“If you didn’t care that she’d find out, why’d we wait until she was asleep?” Hannah challenged.
Allie didn’t answer. She didn’t have one.
“Well, I wish I had a Miss Bitty,” Hannah said dreamily. “You’re really lucky.”
Yeah, I am.
“Instead, I have an evil Claire.”
Yeah. I’m afraid you do.
Allie could smell rain in the air and hoped it would hold off for a couple of hours to give them time to get to the house and back.
For the next fifteen minutes of the walk, Hannah continued to babble, her words flying out of her mouth like they had before when she was high on her cocktail of prescription pills. She talked about books, living in California, her friend who had died texting and driving, about some other stuff Allie didn’t listen to at all . . . and then about how annoying it was that her mother and stepfather fought so much.
“How long have they been married?” Allie asked.
“Almost five years. I wish he’d just divorce her ass and take custody of me. Not like a court would ever let that happen, though,” she sighed.
“So you like him?”
Hannah hesitated, then: “Yeah—why wouldn’t I?”
“It was just a question.”
“Well, he might not be perfect, but I like him much more than I like my mother. That’s for sure.”
“Where’s your real father?”
“Who the hell knows. He walked out when I was a baby.”
Just like my father.
“So why do your mother and Ted fight so much?”