You’re Next

by Kylie Schachte

  “Do you really think she knows anything about Dorsey? None of the people at your school did.”

  “I don’t know,” I admit, “but Molly’s the only one who might be able to tell me the full story of what happened that night.”

  I glance at Olive, and she gives me a reassuring smile. Her eyes go wide. They’re fixed on something over my shoulder.

  I turn in slow motion. We’re in the middle of an intersection, waiting to turn.

  A large white van barrels straight toward us.

  Everything stops for a moment. It’s me and the van. Staring each other down.

  The whole world zooms back.

  I step on the gas. I swerve the wheel. The explosion comes anyway.

  A screeching blast of glass and metal and smoke and noise. Louder than anything I’ve ever heard.

  I reach for Olive, but I’m a rag doll flying through the air, taken over by the brutal, awesome power of physics.

  A second explosion. Even louder than the first.

  A knockout blow shatters into my jaw. The airbag. All the sound is sucked from the car. There’s ringing in my ears, and nothing else.

  Are we moving? Are we stopped? I can’t tell.

  White dust from the airbags covers everything. It filters through the air, dancing in the light. It coats my eyelashes, my nostrils, my lungs.

  I blink in slow motion. The world goes dark, then light again.

  More dust. The smell of burning chemicals.

  I blink again. A cinematic slow fade in and out and in again. Can I move? I try. Every part of me hurts.

  Blink. Cough a cloud of snowy dust.

  It’s as though someone else operates my limbs. Forces me to unbuckle my seat belt. Grasp the door handle. The door makes the same smooth, electronic chime as always when I open it. The ordinariness of that sound is absurd enough to cut through the ringing silence in my ears, but the rest of the world is soundless as I stumble from the car. A fog of airbag dust billows out of the open door with me.

  The street is a mess of shredded metal and broken glass. The sun is too bright. Brighter than usual. People rush to help. A man says something. I watch his lips move. It’s so bright out here. I try to look left and right, but the muscles in my neck scream and tear in agony.

  Where is it? Where is the van? So bright. I can’t find it.

  The man says something again. No sounds make it through to me. I shake my head. A woman. On her phone. Her lips move pointlessly, too.

  The man looks over my shoulder. I turn.

  Olive has not gotten out of the car.

  The front passenger side of the car is smashed against a telephone pole. That was the second explosion.

  All my sound comes rushing back.

  Yelling. The woman on the phone asks for an ambulance. Honking horns. Traffic rushes by, as though life goes on.

  The next bit is a series of disconnected images.

  I scream and pull at Olive’s door handle.

  Blackness. Silence.

  Someone drags me away from the car by my shoulder. It hurts.

  The void.

  An ambulance. A fire truck. I think I’m still screaming. I should stop. I can’t.

  Olive, limp and broken in the arms of a firefighter. Her skin is a color no human skin should be. That insidious white dust streaks through her red hair.

  Stillness.

  Olive is on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance. I force my way in. The ambulance races to the hospital. Someone tries to tend to the cuts on my fingers. We hit a bump in the road. Olive’s head lolls sickeningly on the stretcher.

  This is all my fault.

  The hospital hallway is doing the Alice in Wonderland thing. It stretches on and on forever, then contracts until I’m about to run into the far wall. Purple-black-green spots float in and out of my vision, like that moment right before you pass out.

  As soon as we got here, a swarm of ER doctors descended on Olive’s stretcher. They rushed her off without a second glance in my direction. I was left in the care of a nurse, who bandaged me up.

  Olive is unconscious, but all I have are scratches. A bad bruise where the airbag hit me in the face. A welt on my shoulder from the seat belt.

  I hear myself asking a nurse for Olive Calhoun’s room. Hear myself choke out, “She’s my sister.”

  Once my wounds had been tended, I had to talk to the police. A man and a woman. I couldn’t remember if I knew them or not. From our conversation, I was able to piece together what happened. I swerved away from the van. It’s a rookie mistake. Something teen drivers often do in accidents. Turning the wheel makes it easier for the car to spin off the road. The van hit the back of the car and pushed the tail around. Olive’s side smashed into a telephone pole.

  The van drove off before anyone could get its plates. I don’t bother telling the police that it’s him. It’s Dorsey. He did this. They wouldn’t believe me anyway.

  I’m outside a gray door that looks like every other gray door in the building. I push my way in.

  My grandfather looks up. He’s here. No one took him. He’s not dead in an alleyway somewhere.

  Before I can say a word, he crosses the room and wraps me in his arms.

  “You’re here,” he says, almost to himself. “You’re alive.”

  All my scrapes and bruises ache in his arms. My tender jaw is smashed into his chest. I don’t pull back. I want him to take care of me for one more second.

  But Olive’s in that bed, and I’m the one still standing. I swallow my tears and step away.

  His gaze lingers on my bruised chin. “I came as soon as I got the call. I was having coffee with a friend, I didn’t hear my phone.” The ragged apology in his voice makes me feel infinitely worse.

  Olive’s red hair fans across her pillow. Her freckled skin is covered in a delicate, grisly web of yellow, purple, black, blue, red, and green. The crisp white bandages on her arms and jaw and legs are too pristine in the dingy fluorescent light. Looking at them hurts my eyes.

  The van aimed for me, but I swerved, so I’m only scratched and Olive is unconscious in that bed.

  “Flora?” He brushes a stray hair from my forehead. The tenderness of the gesture hurts. “Are you all right? Please talk to me.”

  “It’s my fault,” I whisper. “I did this.”

  He steps back. “No.”

  My bones ache like they might burst through my paper skin. “It is. I’m the reason she’s hurt.”

  “No.” He turns to face the wall. Away from me.

  “Yes.” I step back into his field of vision. He needs to look at me while I say this. “I’ve been getting threats. Dorsey has people watching the house. Watching all of us. I knew about it, and I didn’t tell you. It’s my fault she’s in the hospital.”

  “No!” he shouts, then reels himself back in. He rubs a hand over his face. “It’s mine. It’s my responsibility to protect you. Both of you. I let this happen.”

  “Then we both failed.” My voice rises. “If it’s your fault, then it’s mine, too.” An overwhelming emotion bubbles out of me. Anger, or sadness, or some combination.

  “Stop.” He straightens Olive’s bedsheet. Her fingers are curled around the top edge. Even those are bruised.

  “No, look at me. Get angry! Blame me!”

  My grandfather sits down in the chair beside the bed. He closes his eyes. For the first time in my life, William Calhoun looks truly old. There is something about hospital lighting that illuminates the saddest versions of us all.

  I stand there, panting, hurt inside and out, waiting for him to say something.

  He does not open his eyes when he speaks. “Every time I look at you, all I see is my failure. You’re a child, and I failed you. It’s my fault.”

  “I’m not a child. I haven’t been since Lucy MacDonald.”

  Now he looks at me with ancient, sorrowful eyes. “No. Horrific things have happened to you, but that pain did not turn you into an adult. You’ve never grown up at a
ll. You are the same child you were when you put your running shoes on that morning. It’s my fault that I did not take care of you, then and now.” He turns his attention back to Olive.

  Of all the cruel words my mother ever said to me, none ever hurt as much as this.

  I wait and wait, but he doesn’t look at me again.

  I pause with my hand on the doorknob, but I can’t bring myself to look back at him. At that bed.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. For him. For Cass. For Olive.

  “Don’t leave the hospital,” he says. That’s it.

  I turn the handle and go.

  I wander the hallways. Eventually I’m too weak to keep walking, and I sit. I sit and stare for a long time. I don’t know how long.

  “Flora?”

  I look up. Max Sawyer stands a few feet away, looking confused. Some instinct or muscle memory led me to the third floor.

  He inches closer. His eyes run over my various bruises and bandages. “Are you hurt? Why are you crying?”

  I didn’t realize I was until he pointed it out. I wipe the tears from my face. “It’s complicated. Is your sister okay?”

  “Yeah.” He beams. “She’s awake. She’s really tired, even though she’s been sleeping for a long time.”

  “That’s good. Good she’s awake.” My voice breaks.

  He sits down next to me on the bench. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  This is what my life has become. The only person left to comfort me is a ten-year-old.

  I don’t have the energy to lie to him. “Not really.”

  “What happened?”

  “I messed things up with my family. Now my sister is hurt.”

  “I’m sorry.” Max gives me an understanding look. Despite my best efforts, my tears break free again.

  He pats me on the back. “It’ll be okay. She’ll be all right, even if it takes a long time.”

  I bury my face in my hands and cry sticky, snotty tears onto my palms. “I want to help her, but everyone else wants me to stop, and I don’t know what to do.”

  Max continues to give me awkward pats on the back. “You should help your sister. Sometimes sisters say they don’t want help, but they really do. That’s why I talked to you about Molly.”

  “It’s more complicated than that.” I sniffle and scoot away from him.

  “Okay.” He folds his hands in his lap. “Well, can you come talk to Molls? She needs your help, too.”

  I lift my face from my hands and look at him. I can’t say no.

  Max leads me to Molly’s room. She looks worn, but she’s sitting up in her bed. The skin under her eyes is deep violet. The TV is on in the background, but it’s muted.

  She looks between Max and me, and there’s something fierce in her expression, like she would leap out of bed to defend him in a heartbeat, despite the gray bloodlessness of her lips. She twists her hospital bracelet round and round on her bony, frail wrist.

  I sit down at her bedside. “Hey, Molly. I’m Flora. I’ve been making friends with your brother.”

  “So he says.” Molly takes in all my cuts and scrapes with leery exhaustion. “Who are you, exactly?” Max sits sideways on his sister’s bed. Molly reaches out and grabs his hand without taking her eyes off me.

  Molly’s protectiveness, even after waking up from a coma, makes my chest constrict. This is the kind of sister I’m supposed to be, but Olive always ends up taking care of me instead. Now she’s in a hospital bed.

  “My name is Flora Calhoun,” I repeat. “I’m investigating the murder of Ava McQueen. I think you knew her?”

  Molly’s eyes go big and round, and she looks very young again. “Ava was murdered?”

  I nod. “About a week ago.”

  Molly bites her lip but doesn’t cry. After a moment, her face evens out. All emotion gone. I guess she’s used to hiding that stuff, too.

  I wish Cass were here.

  I try again. “Molly, I know about the Basement. I think Ava’s death was related to your accident, and I think you’re in danger now. You and Max will be safer if we catch the people who did this. Please tell me what you know.”

  “Why am I in danger?” she fires back. “Max says I’ve been here for three months. Why now?”

  “Because of me,” I admit. “When I started asking questions about Ava, I think someone got nervous that I would figure out what happened to you. And then it started looking like you might wake up.”

  “So this is your fault, and you want me to tell you all the stuff they would kill to keep quiet?” Her hand tightens around her brother’s. “No. Not happening.”

  “Molly, these are bad people. They already killed one girl. Do you think they’re going to risk letting you live now that you’re awake? You could talk at any time.” I hesitate. What I’m about to say is a low blow. “It’s no secret why you fought. The person running the fight club will know exactly how to hurt you most. Killing you might be the least of your problems.” I look meaningfully at Max.

  Molly glares at me like she might kick me out. Then: “What do you know already?”

  I run through the basics that Paige shared about their fight.

  Molly nods. “That’s true, from what I remember. I wasn’t totally under, though, not at first. It was like…” She closes her eyes to remember. “The world kept fading in and out. First I was in the ring, but the lights were so bright. I shut my eyes. It felt like I only blinked, but when I opened them again I was somewhere else. A car. Nice one, leather seats and stuff. I heard people arguing, but it was hard to make out. Like, first it sounded really far away, and then loud, and then quiet again.”

  This is way more than I hoped for. If Molly hadn’t been totally unconscious, she might be able to ID Dorsey.

  “What were they arguing about?” I ask.

  Molly’s eyes are still closed. She winces, like she’s straining her brain to think. “Even when I could hear them, it was like I only understood pieces. But I recognized one of the voices. Ava. She said they needed to get me to the hospital, and the other person didn’t want to do that. They wanted to make it look like an accident, because otherwise they’d get in trouble.”

  I lean forward. “And you didn’t recognize that voice?”

  Molly hesitates for a moment, then shakes her head. “No. It was hard to hear them at all. I knew Ava pretty well, so it took me a while, but I figured out it was her.”

  “Was it a man or a woman? Old or young? Any identifying features at all?”

  “No.” Molly shakes her head. “I was fighting to stay awake at that point. All the sound was fuzzy. Then I went under, and I woke up here.”

  I try not to look disappointed, even though I still don’t have an ID on Dorsey. Molly can confirm that she got hurt and someone tried to cover it up. If I can get proof that Dorsey was the one in charge, Molly’s testimony will still count for a lot.

  “Thank you.” I put all my sincerity into those words. “I know you have a lot to lose, and I’ve already asked for so much, but if it comes down to it, will you say all this stuff to the police?”

  Molly hesitates. Looks at her brother. Nods.

  “I need more evidence,” I tell her. “I want the cops to have no choice but to believe you. For now, stay here, stay together, and call the police and then me if anyone tries to come in this room. I’ll be back as soon as I have what I need.” I stand and turn for the door.

  “Hey, Flora?” Molly calls.

  “Yeah?”

  Her expression goes fierce again. “You sucked us into this mess. I’m trusting you to keep my brother safe.”

  I find myself knocking on the one door that will still let me in.

  Valentine opens the door. “What happened?”

  I happened. “It’s Olive,” I whisper. “They got to Olive.” I walk past him into the apartment. I know Gramps wanted me to stay at the hospital, but I couldn’t bear it anymore.

  Valentine follows half a step behind me. As I take off my jacket, his eyes skim o
ver the bruises on my jaw, the bandaged cuts on my hands.

  “What did they do?”

  I bite my lip. My whole existence narrows to the feeling of my front tooth digging into that soft, wet flesh, the sharp pain of it the only thing holding back my tears. How do I have any left at this point?

  “Car accident,” I tell him, hating the pathetic tremble of my voice. I keep my face turned away. As scared as I am, I know exactly what those words will mean to him.

  “A car accident,” he repeats, his voice flat.

  “A hit-and-run.” I pick at the bandage on my left hand. It’s clean, no blood leaking through. Just a scratch.

  That bloody, beet-colored bruise creeping across the right side of Olive’s face like a stain.

  Valentine is completely still.

  “They were heading right for me,” I tell him. “I-I swerved. I’m okay, but Olive…” I suck in a rattling breath. My hands are shaking again. “Olive hit a telephone pole. She’s in critical condition, and I—” My voice gives out on me.

  I look up at him, finally. Valentine’s eyes are closed. One hand makes a fist, and it’s shaking, too. Like mine.

  “She wasn’t supposed to be in the car with me.” I can hear the plea for forgiveness in my voice, but I’m talking to the wrong person. “She shouldn’t have gotten hurt. It was supposed to be me.”

  Whatever tether Valentine had on himself snaps as he screams and punches the wall. His fist comes away bloody. He breathes in sharp, harsh pants. He clenches his mangled hand, squeezing his eyes shut tight.

  “Please look at me,” I say.

  He does. I shouldn’t have asked. This is why he wears the mask. The pain, the terror—this is what he’s been hiding.

  I collapse on the couch with my face in my hands. As I stare into the blackness of my palms, it all becomes real. I’m more alone than I’ve ever been, and I’m nowhere near a resolution.

  This is how I felt in the last days of Matt Caine. He was slipping through my fingers, and I knew it, but I couldn’t stop. I wrecked everything. Lost Mom. All because I couldn’t stop.

  Have I learned anything?

  “I think,” I start, and it physically hurts to say the next words, hurts like I might double over, but I force myself to say them anyway. “I think it’s over.” I bite my lip again and taste blood. “I can’t beat him. Dorsey. I keep thinking I’ve got him, that I’m one step ahead. Today, it was Olive. Tomorrow it’ll be Cass, or you, or me. I-I’m scared of him. And he’s not scared of me.”