I can feel my face grow hot as I stand in the center of my room, watching her fingers dart over the screen.
Stupid, I think. It was stupid to tell her that I don’t have any friends. Maybe she’s looking up my name online. Maybe she’s found the posts—the ones the school didn’t force people to take down because it turns out that their zero-tolerance policy only covers what happens on school grounds. My heart hammers in my chest as my stomach ties itself into knots. I don’t know what to do, so I just stand in place. Waiting.
Skylar nods to herself and then slips her phone back into her bag. “There. That’s sorted.”
“What’s sorted?”
“I texted Joey. He and Chase are coming over. We’re having a movie day. We can kick them out later—except, I guess, for Aidan because he lives here.”
“I thought Joey wanted to work on his script?”
“He does, but he said he can work on it later. He’s going to pick up Chase, and they’re going to hit the video store.”
“I don’t really know if I feel like watching a bunch of horror movies,” I say tentatively.
“Me neither,” says Skylar. “I mean, I love the genre, but after the other night . . .” It’s warm in the room, but she shivers. “Joey has very strict instructions. No horror movies. Nothing heavy. Nothing scary.” A thought flashes across her face, and she hauls out her phone a second time. “Maybe I should tell Chase, too.” Her thumbs skate across the screen. She texts like she drives: very fast and very furious. “Should I text Aidan?”
I open my mouth to point out that Aidan lives down the hall and then jump when a masculine voice says, “Text Aidan what?” from just behind me.
I curse under my breath. “You make less noise than the cat.”
Aidan leans against the doorframe. He’s holding a ball of blue twine—like the stuff Aunt Jet has been using down in the basement—and he tosses it lightly from hand to hand as a cocky grin spreads across his face. “Want me to start wearing a little bell?”
“Oh!” Skylar takes a step forward. “I have a collar you could put it on!”
Because of course she does.
“Joey and Chase are on their way over,” she tells him. “We’re having a movie day. And then a sleepover.”
“Great. It’s been forever since I’ve seen your boyfriend in footie pajamas.”
Skylar crosses the room, not so much walking as skipping. She plucks the ball of twine from Aidan’s hands. “I will be sleeping over. With Cat. The rest of you can do what you want.”
“Touché.” He hits the bottom of her hand, sending the twine bouncing up in the air. He catches it, easily, and then turns his back on us and heads down the hall.
I call out after him. “Where are you going?”
“Gonna order a pizza. If I do it now, they can pick it up on the way over.” A second later, his bedroom door clicks shut.
When I glance at Skylar, she’s watching me with a curious expression on her face. “He doesn’t have a girlfriend,” she says.
“Who?”
“Aidan.”
“Why would I care if Aidan has a girlfriend?”
She smiles and shakes her head. “No reason.”
Nineteen
JOEY AND CHASE SHOW UP WITH THREE SUPERHERO FLICKS, one buddy comedy, and some thirty-year-old Japanese cartoon about a reincarnated princess who fights monsters by night and is a normal high school student by day. I can’t figure out what logic possibly went into that choice—until I see the expression on Skylar’s face.
“I love old anime,” she says, taking a seat on Aidan’s bed and settling in. “It’s literally the best.”
Joey doesn’t comment, but I’m pretty sure I see him smile—once, quickly—as he gets the first movie ready. It really is kind of hard to dislike him when I see him around Skylar. Maybe he doesn’t mean to come off as arrogant and dismissive. Maybe he’s just kind of awkward.
Somewhere between the end of the anime and the start of the second superhero flick, Jet sticks her head in and asks if we want her to order Chinese for dinner before she leaves for work. Everyone’s still full of pizza, but no one says no.
I duck out of Aidan’s room and trail her down to the kitchen. “Are you sure?” I ask. “You don’t have to order us food. You don’t have to spend the money.”
Jet stands on her tiptoes to retrieve a take-out menu from the top of the fridge. “I’m glad you’re making friends,” she says. “What do you think? A couple of different combo plates and maybe an extra container of rice?”
“They’re not really my friends,” I say, leaning against the counter.
“Maybe not yet,” says Jet. “And even if that turns out never to be the case, I still think it’s good for you to spend time around other people. I know coming here wasn’t what you wanted, but I would like this summer to be good for you. I like having you here.”
“I kind of like being here,” I say, surprising myself. I reach for the menu. “Maybe combo A and B?”
Aunt Jet smiles, and I slip back upstairs.
I flop down next to Skylar on the bed as, on screen, two extremely bulky men duke it out—destroying what looks like an entire city in the process. “Which one is the good guy?”
“I think they’re both bad,” says Skylar sleepily. She’s curled up on her side, and she’s using her cardigan for a pillow. She perks up, though, when Aunt Jet delivers the food.
We keep up a running commentary through the rest of the movie and improvise our own dialogue for the dramatic scenes.
By some sort of unspoken agreement, no one says anything about what happened that night by the bridge, and for the first time in days, I start to feel almost normal—or at least as normal as I ever do.
As the credits roll, Aidan claims the last egg roll. “You know,” he says, grinning at Skylar and me, “I’ve heard tales of boys who manage to get two girls in their bed.”
Skylar rolls her eyes. “Cat and I are not in your bed. We are merely on your bed.” She grabs her cardigan and throws it at his head, but he just pushes himself back, the wheels of his desk chair carrying him out of range.
“Joey, your girlfriend attacked me.”
Joey shrugs and gets up to examine the contents of Aidan’s bookshelves. “Given what an asshole you can be, I’m amazed more people don’t give throwing things at you a try.”
“Je ne m’excuse pas pour ce que je suis.”
“Your accent sucks.”
Chase lifts the cardigan and peels the Jesus Loves Me sticker from the bottom. He presses it to his shirt, right over his heart. He gives the sticker one last pat and then glances at Skylar. “What did your parents say? You know—after.” Everyone seems to go still. “I know we’re all acting like nothing happened, but . . .”
“They were really freaked,” says Skylar. “And mad about the whole trespassing thing. My father yelled for almost two hours. I timed it. I’m pretty sure the only reason I’m not grounded is that the officer who drove me home after it all happened told them we were heroes and that Rachel would probably have died if it hadn’t been for us.”
“No one told me I was a hero,” says Chase. “Jensen just showed up the next morning and asked me a ton of questions.”
I sit up a little straighter. “Like what?
Looking slightly uncomfortable, Chase says, “Like how well do I know Rachel and was it my idea to cross the bridge. Oh—and why I left you behind and went to the highway. He acted like I had some sort of choice, like the 911 operator wasn’t the one who told us that someone had to go meet the police and the paramedics.” He shakes his head. “What did he ask you?”
“A lot of the same stuff,” I say. Which is more or less true. “He wanted to know if I had volunteered to stay behind with Rachel. He thought that was weird. That’s about it, really.”
Aidan raises one eyebrow a fraction of an inch but stays quiet.
Part of my silence is down to fear of Jensen. He was so adamant that I not tell anyone about
the medal, and he probably has the power to make my time in Montgomery Falls a living hell if he were to find out I blabbed. Maybe he’d even take things out on Aunt Jet—a possibility that doesn’t seem all that far-fetched given how they’d been yelling at each other.
But that’s not the only reason I don’t say anything. I like Skylar and Chase—and even Joey might actually start to grow on me given enough time—but I don’t know them. Not really. If I tell them about the medal, it’ll just invite a ton of questions. Questions about how I know it was Riley’s and why I’m so sure he wouldn’t have just given it to anyone.
“I really didn’t want to leave you behind, you know,” says Chase.
“It’s okay,” I say, “someone had to stay.”
He shakes his head. “Whoever attacked Rachel could have still been out there. They could have gone for you.”
Skylar pushes herself to the edge of the bed. “So none of us are buying the lost-in-the-woods story?”
“No way,” says Chase. “Even if Rachel had gotten lost, that wouldn’t explain how she ended up in the river. And it doesn’t explain all those cuts.”
“I don’t remember any cuts,” says Skylar slowly. “Maybe they were scratches or something?”
I shake my head. “That’s what Jensen tried to tell me, but they looked too perfect. Too neat. When I told him that, though, he got pissed.”
“You told the chief of police he was wrong about something?” Joey whistles thinly through his teeth. “Bet that went over well.” He stares at me curiously. “What did you think the cuts looked like?”
“Like small crosses, maybe. Like something . . . deliberate or . . .”
“Ritualistic?” supplies Aidan.
“I was just going to say ‘planned,’ but sure: let’s go straight to the ultracreepy.”
Skylar shivers. “This whole thing is so weird.”
“Yeah,” agrees Chase. “Everyone’s still trying to get used to the Riley thing, and now this.”
“Don’t forget about the pets,” interjects Joey distractedly as he pulls a book from the shelves.
“Pets?” I ask.
“A bunch of dogs and cats went missing in December. They found a few of them near the school. They’d been disemboweled.”
My stomach does a slow flip. Suddenly, all the takeout seems like it might not have been a great idea.
“There were articles in the paper,” explains Skylar for my benefit. “We started keeping Baxter—my basset hound—inside except for bathroom breaks. He was not happy.”
“If the cuts you saw on Rachel Larsen really did look ritualistic,” says Joey, “then the police should take another look at the pets.”
“You think it’s connected?” I ask.
“I think it’s a pattern. Three months between the pets and Riley Fraser.” Joey counts the time on his fingers. “Three months between Riley going missing and Rachel turning up in the river. I think something is using Montgomery Falls as a hunting ground.”
“You mean someone,” corrects Chase.
“No. Something.”
“Like an animal?”
“Worse.” Four pairs of eyes stare at Joey blankly. “What if something came across the border?”
“Like an American?” asks Chase uncertainly, like it’s a joke he hasn’t quite worked out. He glances at me.
“Not an American, idiot. A monster.”
For a very long minute, the only sound in the room is a slight whirring noise from Aidan’s DVD player as the movie spins, forgotten, inside. The longer the silence goes on, the more awkward it gets. I wait for someone to laugh, but no one does.
Skylar breaks the silence just before it hits a truly unbearable level. “You think monsters are queuing up at the border stations to cross into Canada?” she asks, using the kind of gentle, measured tones reserved for people on the verge of losing it.
Joey rolls his eyes. “Using the border stations would be ridiculous. And a complete waste of time when everyone knows sneaking across is a joke. My cousin did it last month.”
“Your cousin tried to float across the Saint John River on an air mattress,” corrects Aidan. “And he had to be rescued by the Americans when he got caught up in the current.”
“My point stands. Jesus, guys. Do you not realize that Derry is only a few hours from here? A few hours is nothing.” He holds up the book he had taken from Aidan’s shelf so we can see the cover. Stephen King’s It.
“Derry doesn’t exist,” says Aidan calmly. “And before you say it, there’s no Castle Rock, either. There is a pet cemetery out near the trailer park, but I’m relatively certain nothing has ever come back to life after being buried there.”
Joey ignores the Pet Sematary crack. “Maybe Derry and Castle Rock don’t exist as literal towns, but do you think all that shit just comes out of one man’s head? He gets those ideas from somewhere.”
I suddenly want to steer the conversation elsewhere. Because Stephen King doesn’t just write about zombie pets and monsters lurking in sewers. Sometimes he writes about girls who seem a lot like me. I force my voice to sound light, teasing. “And you’re saying what? That the monsters are real and have made the trek here of all places?”
The words aren’t any worse than anything Aidan said, but if a look could strip skin, the one Joey levels at me would flay me alive. Skylar stands and walks over to him. She puts a hand on his arm. “Joey . . .”
He ignores her. “Do you have any idea how many horror movies I’ve watched? How many books I’ve studied?”
“You know the definition of ‘fiction,’ right?”
“And you know all stories originate somewhere, don’t you? Or didn’t your hotshot writer father ever tell you that?”
“Whoa . . .” Aidan stands, holding his hands up, playing peacemaker. “It’s not a contest.”
“No? Maybe it should be. Maybe someone who doesn’t know anything about monsters shouldn’t be here. And maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to jump to her defense just because you’ve suddenly got a thing for chubby Americans.”
“Joey . . . ,” says Skylar again, at the exact moment Chase says, “Too far, dude.”
My face flushes. On the one hand, it’s the second time one of Aidan’s friends has implied he might be into me. Despite my determination to keep people at bay, the idea that a guy like Aidan might be interested in me is kind of nice—not to mention flattering. On the other hand, the way Joey’s voice twisted around the word “chubby” makes it pretty obvious that he’s the kind of guy who thinks it’s an insult.
I’m not insulted—not by the word “chubby,” at least—but that doesn’t mean I’m not angry. Someone who doesn’t know anything about monsters, huh? If I told Joey half the things I’ve seen—the things that have been done to me when I’ve been pulled into other people’s wants and fears—he’d probably piss himself. “Let me guess: You think you’re going to be the big man who swoops in and saves the town with his extensive knowledge of movie plots?” I snap. “This isn’t your stupid screenplay. Even if there was a monster, how would you find it?”
It’s not a serious question, but Joey takes it seriously. “We talk to Rachel. Find out what she saw.”
“And I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to answer your not-at-all-crazy questions.”
“Have you even read a single horror novel? It starts with the pets and Riley and Rachel. It doesn’t end there. We have to talk to her.” Joey’s voice is getting steadily, disproportionately louder.
“Joey . . . Rachel wouldn’t talk to us. She hates me, and she thinks you’re a freak.” Skylar tries to slip her hand into his, but he brushes her off. “I’m sorry. But she does.”
Joey turns to Chase, who promptly says, “Can’t be me, dude. I hooked up with her last year.”
“Cat?” We’ve all been so focused on the mini-standoff that not one of us heard the bedroom door open. Noah stands in the hall, looking uncomfortable and out of place. “The guy who answered the door downstairs said you we
re up here.”
His hair is tussled, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept since the last time I saw him. His expression is distant and guarded as it sweeps across the room, making him look more like the boy I saw outside the drugstore than the one who sat across from me those first few minutes at the diner. For some reason, the change makes me sad.
I stand and take a few steps from the bed, then pause, uncertainly.
Skylar’s gaze darts from Noah to me and then back. People in town have made Skylar’s life miserable over what happened with Riley. Given that, it’s possible I should have told her I knew the Frasers. Then again, it’s not like there’s been a natural opportunity. It’s not like Skylar herself has ever told me just what happened.
Chase pushes himself to his feet and crosses the room. Noah is still standing in the hall, but Chase extends his hand over the threshold. “I’m sorry about Riley. We were on the basketball team together.”
“Thanks.” Noah shakes Chase’s hand. As he does, his guarded expression slips—just a little bit. He glances at me. “I wanted to talk to you. I didn’t realize you weren’t on your own.”
Skylar grabs her heels from the floor next to Aidan’s bed and slips them on. “Joey was just going.”
This is clearly news to Joey, who scowls. “I wasn’t done talking.”
“Yes,” says Skylar, grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the door as Noah stands aside to let them pass, “you were.” She shoots me a confused, slightly hurt glance before they both disappear down the hall.
I’m guessing the sleepover is off. I try to tell myself that it’s for the best, that I don’t really want to get too close to Skylar or anyone in the squad, but I still feel a pang of disappointment.
Chase sighs. “Joey’s my ride, so guess that means I’m out, too.”
He follows them, leaving Noah, Aidan, and me alone.
Part of me feels like I should apologize to Noah for avoiding him, but I’m not entirely sure I have anything to be sorry for. “I thought you were away until tomorrow.”
He glances at Aidan. “Plans changed. I can come back, if it’s not a good time.” His voice is carefully blank. Polite but detached. Given that I’ve been dodging all of his calls, I guess I can’t blame him for keeping his guard up.
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