“It vibrates?”
He burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, you just—the way you jumped.” Josh couldn’t seem to stop. “I’m sorry,” he gasped again. “It scared the bejeezus out of me when I flipped it on the first time, too.”
“It’s not a problem.” I gave Josh a moment to compose himself and then asked, “So you said something about dinner?”
“Oh, yeah!” he exclaimed, tilting up his chin as if he’d just remembered something. “Right. So I was thinking, the food at these things is never any good. Mostly just hot dogs, and if we’re lucky Chris remembers to bring buns.”
“That’s okay. I’m not picky.”
Josh’ shoulders raised in a shrug. “Well, obviously. You agreed to come with me after all.” He flashed his teeth at his self-deprecating remark. “But I’m kind of hot-dogged out.”
“Umm . . .” My gut clenched. This was a date, right? Or did he just mean he wanted to hang out again as friends? Oh God. What if I’d misread the entire situation?
No. He’d definitely asked me out on a date. Surely, he would pay for my meal.
But what if he didn’t? Would he notice if I just ordered water? What if he wanted to split something? If tonight ended with me washing dishes to cover my meal . . .
“So I thought, why not drop by my dad’s restaurant?” His blond hair fell into his eyes as he gave me an embarrassed look. “I know that seems really cheap of me, free food and all, but my parents cut my allowance in half because I got a ‘B’ in social studies on my last progress report.” He rolled his eyes. “Can you believe it? I haven’t had a chance to study since the season started. They shouldn’t punish me for having dedication.”
Free food. My shoulders unknotted. “You guys have had a pretty tight schedule this year.” We had a pep rally for every football game, and lately there’d been at least one, if not two a week. “You have practice, like, every day, right?”
“Well, you know, they shortened the school year, so that kind of pushed everything together.” His legs moved as he changed gears, and the car made an alarmingly loud noise. “So . . . is Worthington’s okay?”
“Oh, yeah, of course.” I worked to relax my grip on the seat and prayed he didn’t notice my foot pressing against an imaginary brake as he sped along the highway.
He gave me a sideways glance. “You haven’t become one of those girls who only picks at salads or whatever, right?”
“Salads?” I shook my head. “Still hate them with a fiery passion.”
“Good.” Josh laughed. “I can’t tell you how many dates I’ve been on where the girl just, like, picks at her food while staring at whatever I’ve got on my plate.” He shook his head. “I hate that. I mean, gah, just order what you really want already.”
My smile froze on my face as a memory of Ainsley sobbing in the girl’s bathroom resurfaced.
“What’s wrong?” he asked when the car filled with an awkward silence.
“I’m disgusting,” her voice whispered in my memory.
“Nothing,” I lied. What was I doing here? Why had I said yes to going out with him after the way he’d treated her? The way he’d treated all of us.
“No.” He looked at me for an alarmingly long time for someone behind the wheel of a moving car. “You have a . . . look on your face. What did I say?”
I watched pine trees whip by as we barreled down Highway 5 toward Jasper.
“Come-ahhhn,” he urged, a smile stretching across his face, enjoying the game of getting me to talk too much to notice my discomfort. “What is it?”
I let out a slow breath. “Do you remember when you guys used to moo at Ainsley whenever she walked down the hall?”
He blinked and cracked his knuckles against the steering wheel. “God, Ainsley. I’d forgotten about her. But, uh, yeah. I remember.”
“Why did you do it?”
He shrugged. “Seemed funny at the time.”
“Why?” I pressed. “What about her made it funny?”
He shifted, as though uncomfortable speaking ill of the dead. “You know, she was . . . huge. Why?”
Anger churned within me. “So you call out girls who don’t fit your standards, and you ‘hate’ when they do something to remind you that maintaining them actually takes effort?”
He drew back, his eyebrows arched in offense. “I was just trying to give you a compliment.”
“At someone else’s expense.” My cheeks heated. “Which makes me wonder, what flaw of mine are you going to use to ‘compliment’ the next girl?”
He blinked and pulled into Worthington’s parking lot. “You used to be a lot quieter.”
Maybe I should call Derrick. No. I was already going to get a lot of grief for saying yes to this stupid date. If he had to bail me out, I’d never hear the end of it. “And you used to be a Samurai. Guess some of us changed more than others.”
He burst out laughing. “I completely forgot about that. Do you remember those swords you made us out of . . . what was it?”
“Wrapping paper rolls.”
“That’s right.” He chuckled and threw open his car door. “My mom was so mad when she found all those piles of wrapping paper. Oh, man.”
I found myself smiling at the memory as I followed him into Worthington’s. Maybe tonight wouldn’t completely suck. Besides, he didn’t need to be a saint. It was just a night out. What was the worst that could happen?
Chapter 4: Derrick
Thursday, September 8th
DERRICK . . .
My binoculars clattered to the deck as I bolted upright, heart slamming in my chest. Did I drift off? I glanced at the red shadow covering the moon. I’d missed half the show.
My hair prickled on the back of my neck. Stiffening, I fought down the irrational idea that someone, something stood behind me. A sound caught my ear, something between a hushed breath and a sob. I spun around. Nothing. I was alone on the wooden porch.
Derrick? The wind whispered my name in voiceless desperation. Derrick!
Needles of white-hot pain slammed through my skull with so much force, I hit the deck with a strangled cry. The voice wasn’t in the wind; it was inside of me. Pain washed over me in waves, then just as quickly faded. I crouched on the splintered boards, breathing hard, cradling my head in my hands.
“—the hell?” I muttered. What was I doing hunched over on the porch? I stood, surprised to find myself shaking. Dampness drew my hand up to wipe my nose, and I started at the sight of blood glimmering darkly on my fingers. “Did I just have a stroke?”
The doorbell rang. I glanced at my phone, still fuzzy with confusion. It was just after midnight. Who would be ringing the doorbell this—Mom. Did something happen to Mom?
I rushed into the house, nearly tripping over the threshold in my haste. In a matter of seconds, I reached my front door, fumbling with the latch, and suddenly I was right back in the moment when everything changed—two deputies at the door, my mother’s wail, and the thud of her falling to the floor.
I glanced through the peephole, but there were no deputies on my front stoop. Just a slim girl, whose shadow I’d recognize no matter how dark the night.
“Tess?” I flung open the door, unable to keep the aggravation out of my voice. First, she’d ditched me for Josh Worthington, then she’d nearly given me a heart attack knocking on my door and bringing back all that—the sarcastic greeting I had prepped fled from the tip of my tongue.
She was covered in blood.
Covered in blood. I’d heard the expression before but never really considered what it looked like. Her dress was matted to her body, and her face, arms, and legs were slathered in red flakes, like skin that got sunburned and peeled into those clumps that brushed off. Most of the gore looked dry, but some wet patches glistened in the porch light.
“Derrick,” she sobbed. “Please.” Her voice sounded different, like she was speaking from somewhere far away. “I couldn’t get in my house.”
That snapped me out of it. “What happened?” I pulled her through the doorway, my shocked brain registering the way her clothes squished under my palm. Bits of dried matter flaked off her and onto my entryway. “Are you okay? Hang on, I’ll call Mom at the—”
“No!” She clutched at my shirt with clawed hands. “You can’t call anyone. It’s not . . .” She swallowed hard. “It’s not mine.”
“Then whose is it?” Since when were her nails this long? Where were her shoes? What did any of that matter? Why did I keep noticing all these stupid details while puddles of gore dripped on my floor? Could one person produce all of this? I glanced out to the street, confirming what I already knew. No car. “Tess, was there a wreck? Did Josh’s car—?”
She shook her head, clinging to me with an anguished moan. “They kept screaming. I didn’t mean to do it, but they just kept screaming.”
I slammed the door, my hand leaving a wet print on the gleaming white paint. “Didn’t mean to do what, Tess! Who was screaming? Your mom?” I pulled her toward the window, yanking aside the curtain to look across the narrow gravel street to her house.
All the lights were off, and her mom’s car wasn’t in the driveway.
“N-no. I-I tried to stop it.” She wrapped her arms around me, trembling like an autumn leaf, red and cracked and frail. “I tried, Derrick, you have to believe me. You have to help me.”
“I believe you.” I held her tight. Her breath came in sharp gasps, tickling my neck in the same spot my pulse pounded. “And I’m trying to help you, but you have to let me call somebody.”
“No!” She flinched like I’d struck her. “You can’t, Derrick. Promise me, please!”
“Why not?” I demanded, then took a breath and tried a calmer approach. “You’re hurt.”
“I told you, it’s not mine!”
“Then clearly someone else is hurt. Just . . . tell me what happened, and we’ll figure out where to go from there. Start with the bonfire.”
She went rigid in my arms at the word bonfire, and I drew back. “Tess? Is that it? Did something happen at the bonfire?” She couldn’t walk all the way from the bonfire. Not at night. Not barefoot. Could she? “Tess!” I grabbed her shoulders. “Come on. What happened? Who was screaming?”
A feverish light gleamed in her eyes. “Everyone.”
A chill went up my spine when her lips split into a blood-soaked grin. “Tess?” My voice turned hesitant as the girl I knew better than anyone in the whole world transformed into something I didn’t recognize. Her expression, that smile, those eyes, all filled with gleeful malevolence. I fought the urge to push her away from my house and lock the door.
In a flash, her expression morphed to terror. “No, no, no, no!” She moaned, pushing away from me, hands leaving damp impressions on my shirt. “I couldn’t help it. I didn’t mean to. I can’t—” Tess clutched at her head, fingers hooked into claws. “Help me,” she gasped, before she collapsed.
“Tess!” I caught her on impulse, grimacing at the almost sweet smell of salt and copper. What was I supposed to do? Call 911? I looked around, trying to figure out what to do, where to set her down, but she was so slick in my arms anywhere I put her would—why didn’t she want me to call anyone? Had she done something? Hurt someone? My mind flashed to her maniacal grin as I considered something worse. Could Tess kill someone?
Never. I took a deep breath and considered what I knew. This was Tess. The girl who used to cry after every class trip to the library because she hadn’t caught on to the fact that every animal in every children’s book died. Tess, who crossed the street to my house when she saw a cockroach. There wasn’t a violent bone in her body.
She’s in shock. The smart thing to do would be to tell my mom. Tess probably needed medical attention and—
Her voice echoed in my head. It’s my fault. All my fault. I didn’t mean to.
I froze. Move, do something! But I couldn’t seem to commit myself to an action. If I called Mom, would Tess say something incriminating to Mom’s deputies? They didn’t know her as well as I did. Her grin flashed into my head, and my throat went dry. What if she did do something?
But what if she was in shock? Josh, and anyone else who’d ridden with him could be bleeding out right now while I stood here like an idiot.
Wait. If she was in shock, then she could actually be hurt. I rushed into the bathroom, laid her in the tub, yanked the first aid kit from underneath the countertop, and set to work searching for an open wound.
There’s no way she’d still be alive if she’d lost this much blood. My fingers probed at her skin as though a wound big enough to be responsible for this much bleeding could be subtle. Arteries? No, any of the major arteries would’ve bled out before she knocked on the door. I didn’t even find a paper cut. Unless . . .
I swallowed hard and pulled her weird, dress-like thing over her head. What was this thing, anyway? She’d never worn it before. And um . . . wow, why wasn’t she wearing anything else under it?
Okay, back on task. I couldn’t find a wound to explain all the blood. My hands shook as I draped a towel over Tess’s middle. In any other situation, I’d kill to see Tess naked, but there was nothing even remotely sexy about this.
Okay, you’ve established she’s not bleeding out. Now it’s time to call someone. The thought was buried almost before it surfaced, my hands moving on autopilot to scrub the dry, hardened crust off her skin.
What are you doing? Call for help! But I didn’t. My mind fell into some kind of dumbfounded stupor as I focused on the task with an almost clinical dispassion. Scrub, rinse, repeat until the sanguine water ran clear.
Time passed in a weird haze, vanishing like the space between exiting a parking lot and arriving home. Intellectually, I knew there’d been steps between, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember them. Every now and then, common sense would surface, screaming at me to call for help, but the thought kept slipping away before I could act on it.
Shock, I rationalized. It’s gotta be shock. Or a dream, maybe. That would explain the fragmented disconnect I kept fighting.
If this is a dream, when you wake up, tell Mom you need some serious therapy. In the meantime, get under her nails.
I scraped the congealed gunk free from beneath her fingernails. That . . . was flesh. My stomach lurched, and the fog in my brain fled with a burst of adrenaline as her bloodstained lips and fingernails took on a new light. She’d fought. Tess used her teeth and nails to struggle against . . . what? I hadn’t found any sign of bruising. No cuts, no scrapes. Nothing to indicate whatever she’d fought against struck back.
“What happened, Tess? Please, please just wake up.” I begged.
What am I doing? I sat back on my heels, hands shaking as I dropped the marred washcloth, abandoning her fingernails. She should be in a hospital. She’s unconscious. That alone warrants a 911 call.
Her pulse felt steady, her breathing even. If she got worse at all, I’d call for help, but otherwise. . . . I covered my face with my hands. What had I done? Could I get in trouble for not calling the police? What would that go down as? Tampering with evidence? Aiding and abetting? Who the hell knew?
Say you were in shock. That you weren’t thinking at all. You’re on the honor roll, your mom’s a public figure. They’ll believe you. I looked to Tess. I knew what people said about her when they didn’t think I was listening. The assumptions people made because of her mother, the way she looked, because she was poor, because she missed a ton of school, because of her grades. The list of strikes against her was miles long. If something happened at the bonfire, and any student there was to blame, the Josh Worthingtons of the world always walked away scot-free. The news proved as much, t
ime and time again. Girls like Tess made great scapegoats.
No, I wasn’t calling the cops until I found out exactly what happened. Some part of my brain resisted that plan enough to know it didn’t make sense, but I ignored it. This was too much. I’d been pulled from sleep into some kind of crazy nightmare. Something horrific had happened to my best friend, and I was sitting in a bathroom that looked like a crime scene straight out of a slasher film. My brain couldn’t handle logic. Couldn’t listen to my voice screaming in my head that she might be hurt in a way I wasn’t qualified to diagnose. That she might not wake up if I didn’t get her help right now.
Instead I followed a list rattling off in my brain of how to make all of this disappear. I scrubbed beneath her nails, then everywhere else. When I was sure she was clean, that not a speck of blood remained on her body, I bleached everything we’d touched, chased it with hydrogen peroxide, stripped out of my clothes and scrubbed myself down. Check. Check. Check. Moving on autopilot, I tossed everything I’d interacted with into the wash and finished off the bottles of bleach and hydrogen peroxide.
I almost threw her dress into the washing machine then thought better of it and stuffed the garment into a plastic bag. We might need it later for evidence.
Of what?
Instead of giving into the temptation of thinking, I moved on to the next item on the list.
Bone-weary and sick from fumes, I opened every window and turned on every fan. The house wasn’t forensic proof, but it would fool Mom. I’d have to close all the windows later and throw the clothes in the dryer, not to mention replace all the stuff I’d used before Mom realized her bulk purchase of cleaning supplies didn’t last the entire year. But for now, I could rest.
Exhausted and numb, I sat on the chair next to my bed and studied Tess. Her chest rose and fell, so at least she was breathing.
Blood and Other Matter Page 3