by Marr,Melissa
Reid laughs and turns back to me. “See? You have a few cuts, but every guy here still wants you.” He lowers his voice until it’s barely a whisper and adds, “I think you’re even more beautiful now.”
Before I can figure out what to say to that, I see Robert coming to join us.
Reid glances at him, and then turns his attention back to me. His voice is at a regular volume again when he says, “You’re still you, Eva, and I’m not going to pussyfoot around you.”
I shake my head. I appreciate the sentiment, I suppose.
“Someday you’re going to say something stupid to the wrong person,” I tell him.
“Inevitably.” Reid swings his legs off the chair. “I’ll leave you to your guard dogs.”
As if he’s unaware of the at least half-dozen pairs of eyes fixed on us, Robert sits in the chair Reid just vacated. Unlike Reid, Robert isn’t slouching or throwing his legs over the arm of the chair. He sits like my father would, the picture of a stiff spine and correct angles.
“Are you okay?”
Robert shakes his head. In a near-whisper, he says, “No. Not really.”
“Me either,” I say just as quietly. “I’m so sorry that Amy—”
“Please don’t.” He pulls the chair right up to the sofa so we have some semblance of privacy. “I cared about her. You have to believe me, Eva. I won’t ever get to tell her how much, but I did. I just”—he shakes his head—“it seems stupid now. I lied to myself and to you. It was stupid, but I was so afraid of what my parents would say. Instead, I have to listen to them yell at each other, blaming each other and me, for the police, for what people will think, for what your parents will think.”
He reaches out and grabs my hand. I vaguely notice how clammy his skin is before I fall.
I open the medicine cabinet. My mother’s “nerve pills” sit there so innocently. My nerves are a mess, so it makes a strange sort of sense to me. I open the bottle, tap some of them into my hand, and then clap my hand to my now open mouth.
Carefully, I set the bottle on the edge of her sink. It’s one of those pedestal sinks. It’s a term I only know because of her. I also know that it only took one tab of the Vicodin she had for her pain after her face-lift and “tummy nip,” and she was knocked out. I weigh more, but I also took the other pills, so I’m not sure how many I should take. There are only five pills left, so I take four of them. I don’t want to use all her medicine in case she needs it.
I’m not trying to overdose. I just want to be calm enough to do this. I’m not sure how many pills that will take or how long they take to work. To be safe, I take another handful of the Xanax.
I already left a note, several of them, in fact. I labeled each envelope, and then I dropped them in the mail on the way home. Sending it by email wouldn’t give me enough time, and leaving the letters at home would probably mean the police would get them instead of the people who should get them.
Amy can’t get hers. I buried it at her grave though. Maybe that’s stupid, but I don’t know how the whole afterlife thing works. Maybe it’s the thought that counts or maybe the dead really do stay here on earth like ghosts. Better to be safe.
My hand wraps around the grip of my father’s snub-nosed gun. I don’t know what caliber it is. I’m sure he’s told me repeatedly, but I don’t like guns. They make me nervous. That’s why I needed my mother’s pills. They work, too. My hand is hardly shaking at all as I put the barrel between my lips. It’s cold, and it feels strange on my tongue. I squeeze the trigger.
I jolt out of Robert’s death, jerking my hand away, and whisper, “Don’t.”
“I would never hurt you or her,” Robert is saying, possibly repeating. “You believe me, don’t you? I couldn’t. Not you, or Amy, or Micki. God, Eva, you have to be—”
“Stop. Robert, just stop a minute.”
He looks like he’s going to cry, and I snatch his hand back and squeeze it so tightly that he winces. My earlier intentions about not seeming crazy have all vanished. I tug so he’s half falling into my lap and tell him, “You listen to me, Robert Anthony Baucom. I know you. You’re weak sometimes, and you shouldn’t have been unfaithful to me or Amy. But, so help me God, if you even think about hurting yourself, I’ll march myself right into Hell and drag you back. Despite what you did, you’re my friend, and I believe you. Your parents are being . . . well, being them, but you’re going to ignore their anger just like you have a dozen times before.”
He’s nodding, and he’s staring at me like he’s seen something horrible and wonderful all at once. “How did you know I was going to—”
“Doesn’t matter. I do know, and you better promise me that you won’t do it.” I squeeze his hand harder. “They’ll catch him, and I want you to promise that you’re going to be sitting in the courtroom with me. For me and for Amy. You have to be there at my side for her. I need you to be here. We’ll be friends again, but you can’t . . . you may not try to kill yourself.”
He swallows. “The detective asked questions that made it seem like she thinks that if it wasn’t me doing it maybe it was my fault. If you both got hurt because of—”
“They have to look at every possibility.” I wish there were reassuring things I knew to say, but there aren’t words that make this any better. I’m not even sure I can tell him that it’s fairly obvious that the killings are connected to me. All I can think to say is: “They’ll figure it out, though, and they’ll catch him. You promise me you won’t hurt yourself.”
“I promise,” he says.
For a moment, I stare at him, trying to see if he’s lying. I’m not comforted by the fact that he apparently lied to me successfully for almost a year, but I can’t do anything else right now. I add, “We’re friends, Robert. That’s what you asked me to be. I’m willing to do it, but friends are honest, okay?”
He nods, and we sit quietly for a few seconds. Then he says, “Thank you. I don’t know how you knew I was . . . but thank you.”
“You gave me your word,” I remind him. “Don’t break it this time. Swear it. You call me or come here or something if you need to, but if you kill yourself . . . I won’t forgive you.”
“I swear I won’t do it,” he says. He leans closer and kisses my cheek, and I don’t see his death. I wouldn’t this time though: I still have his hand held tightly in mine.
I let go, and he stands and walks away. Any doubts I still had about my ability are gone. Robert confirmed that he was suicidal after I saw him in my vision. I don’t know why or how I can do this; I don’t know if it’ll fade as I finish healing. All I know for sure is that I have a way to help save my friends. I just need to make sense of it.
I think I stopped Robert’s death. Now, though, I need to figure out how to save Piper. Even though I can’t see faces in the visions, I can see enough details to make a difference. I need to use them to figure out who the killer is—and I need to do it now.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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DAY 14: “THE PROOF”
Eva
I LOOK AROUND THE room for Nate. Not surprisingly, he’s watching me. All it takes to beckon Nate over is a slight incline of my head. Once he’s at my side, I share my new idea: “I need you to stop hovering. It makes some of them nervous. Help me find excuses to have them touch me. Tell people to check on me to see if I need help or to come over and hold my hand to let me know that they’re not freaked out by my slasher-chic look.”
“Don’t say shit like that.” He brushes my hair back from where it had fallen on my cheek, exposing the worst of my scars in the process. “If any of them are making you feel like—”
“It’s not them,” I interrupt. “I know what I look like.”
Quietly, Nate says, “Obviously, you don’t. You’re the most beautiful girl in the room.”
Part of me wants to yell at him; the rest of me wants to kiss him unt
il he admits that he’s an idiot for thinking we can’t date. I can’t do either right now, so I settle on telling him, “This is that boundary thing I was talking about. You can’t say things like that and then push me away.”
He stares at me, but instead of arguing, he nods. “Piper says she’ll stay until everyone else goes home. I tried to talk to her—not about that, but just talk. We were . . . civil.”
“Thank you.” I glance around the room, noticing more than a few gazes on us. I don’t want to say anything that can be overheard. “I saw her.”
“With him?”
I nod. Tears threaten to fill my eyes. The visions have been awful from the beginning, but now that I know without a doubt that they are real, they seem more horrific. The murderer will kill Piper. I don’t see any details I can ask her to change to try to prevent it—other than the fact that she was at home.
“We’ll figure it out,” Nate promises.
He waits until I give him a small smile and a nod, and then he calls out, “Hey, Madison, hold up a sec.”
Once he walks away, I fix a smile on my face and look around the room. Bailey sees me and comes to join me on the sofa. A few minutes later, I discover that she’ll die of breast cancer decades from now. It’s not a subject I can figure out how to mention casually. “Never too young for self-exams?” or “Did you know that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer?” aren’t sentences that fit neatly into a conversation about whether lowlights would be too daring for her personal style. I like Bailey, but she’s determined to only talk about surface subjects right now. I think it’s her way of avoiding the things we don’t want to think about: classmates’ murders, my giant facial scars, and how terrifying it is that our friends are dying.
The next hour is a mix of conversations and deaths. I discover that Laurel dies of something heart related, and Grayson dies in a car. I’m not sure if that means he’s a potential victim or not. Micki died in a related car crash, but drunk driving is a definite possibility with Grayson. He moved away too quickly for me to see much. I try a second time to get back to his death, but just when I finally convince him to rub a knot in my shoulder, Piper swats him away. She’s watching me curiously. I’m tempted to point out that grief and TBIs both make people act out of character; instead my attention drifts to Nate, who is talking to Madison again. It reminds me of parties when I watched him flirt with girl after girl. This time, though, Piper isn’t gossiping at my side.
I wave at Jamie. Unlike Reid and Grayson, he’s always been a bit standoffish. It’s not that he does anything rude. He just doesn’t seem to know what to say or do around me. His father has worked at the winery for our whole lives, just like Reid’s mother, but I think that detail makes Jamie nervous around me.
“Are you . . . did you need something?” Jamie asks as he comes toward me. He doesn’t sit, and I wonder how to convince him to touch me. It’s frustrating that they have to initiate the touch for me to get the visions.
“I’m just bored.” I try a flirtatious smile.
Jamie nods. “Because you’re on crutches.”
“Yes,” I say patiently. “And because I’m here by myself.”
He frowns. “Everyone’s here. You’re not alone.”
“Here on the sofa alone,” I clarify.
At that, he nods again, but he doesn’t join me. He stands staring at me silently until I’m ready to throw something at him. “Do you want to sit down with me?”
He shakes his head. “I’ll go find Grace or Piper for you.” Then he walks away.
So far I’ve only eliminated CeCe, Laurel, Robert, and Bailey as victims. That leaves Madison, Jamie, Jess, Reid, and possibly Grayson as potential victims. The boys are less likely, I think, but I still need to be sure.
Piper comes over as soon as Jamie leaves me.
“Hey,” she says as she flops down next to me.
This is it, my chance to talk to her, to try to figure out how to keep her safe. I smile at her and decide to go for as close to honest as I can be without telling her about the visions. She’s my friend, and I trust her in a lot of ways. I also know her well enough to know that this isn’t something I should share with her. She’s melodramatic on her best days.
“The killer is fixated on me,” I say bluntly.
Her mouth gapes open, and she blinks rapidly.
I barrel on, “He tried to kill me. He did kill the girl who was sleeping with my boyfriend. I think that means that he’s more likely to attack people closest to me, and Piper, you’ve been one of my closest friends since before we were even in school.”
“Jesus, Eva . . .” Her voice is breathy.
I grab her hand and squeeze. “I’m scared, Piper. I’m scared for all of us.” I look past her to the room full of our closest friends. “You and Grace, you’re the ones closest to me. Everyone at school knows that.” I look back at her. “Ask your parents to let you go stay with your grandmother down in Charleston. Stay at Bailey’s or somewhere else tonight. Explain it to them. They’ll listen to you.”
She squeezes my hand so tightly that it hurts. “And what about you?”
“Between the police passing by the house constantly, Nate at my side like a bodyguard, and the monitored alarm system, I’m safe here.” I meet her gaze and add, “The police can’t watch all of our houses constantly. I know they’re trying, but—please—leave right away. Tonight. Go see Grandmother Eliza for a few weeks.”
She stares at me for a moment before agreeing. “I’ll call my mom. She’ll let me go if I tell her I’m scared.” Quickly, my hand still in hers, she leans forward and wraps her other arm around me. “It will be okay.”
In another moment, she’s released me and is walking out of the room, her phone already in hand. I hope that’s enough. I hope she goes away tonight. Maybe I should tell everyone to get out of town.
I start to feel a little panic-stricken as I look around the room. I don’t want anyone to die. How many of them are at risk? So far, Robert and Piper were at risk in different ways. Who else here is? I need to know. I need to be sure they’re all safe. I start ticking names off my list and seeing who’s nearby.
Reid is standing to the side watching Nate and Madison talk. I need to check both Reid and Madison. She’s not even looking my way, so I catch Reid’s eye and call out, “Reid?”
He pulls his attention away from them and looks at me in what I think is gratitude. I didn’t ever notice him having an interest in Madison, but with the way he’s staring at her and Nate, I think I must’ve missed it. He looks left out. Maybe he can help me keep watch over her. Maybe that’s the key: I can ask friends to start sticking close to other friends. Not everyone can leave town. I know Reid can’t. He’s lived with his grandmother most of his life. His parents passed away when he was pretty young.
“What do you need?” Reid asks.
“Company?”
His dark expression fades completely. “As you wish.”
I can’t help laughing. Robert’s friends are all so different from one another. Where Jamie is aloof, Reid is impulsive, and Grayson is simply . . . nice. He’s friendly, but not particularly memorable. Sometimes I think they’re friends for the same reason Piper and CeCe are: a lifetime of habit and parental influence.
Reid drops down to the floor in front of me, and apparently decides that the most natural position is stretched out flat with his head aligned with my feet. “Sometimes I wish we had a joker hat to pass around,” he announces.
“Because I’m bored?”
“No. Because I’m bored. If we had a joker hat, we could pick someone to entertain us. I’ve spent half the parties this year talking to”—he waves his hand loosely from side to side, taking in the whole of our friends—“them. Sometimes, I find it all very depressing.”
I think about the nights Robert and I talked about feeling trapped by our families, confused by sorting out what we want from what we know we’re expected to do, and how stifling life in Jessup can feel. I c
an’t say I’m surprised that Reid feels the same way. I’m only surprised that he’s admitting it. We’re friends, but not of the let-me-confess-my-fears-and-doubts sort.
As much as I suddenly want to just talk to Reid, I need to finish what I set out to do. I failed with Jamie. I won’t fail here too. I dangle my foot over the edge of the sofa in the hopes that Reid will brush up against it. Instead, he slides farther away. I can’t think of any other way to subtly get him to touch me. That’s when I realize that I’m being foolish: of all the people in the room, he’s the one least likely to look at me oddly for anything I do or say.
I reach down, extending my hand toward him, and say, “Put your hand on my pulse for a few seconds.”
He stares at me for an extra moment, but then he sits up and does as I asked.
A girl is screaming; another girl is yelling, “Stop it!”
I can’t believe that this is happening to me. I did everything right.
I hear a car coming toward us. The road is dirt and gravel, and I hear the wheels crunch over it.
Someone is hitting me, trying to hurt me. I turn to try to look at her though. I’d die to protect her, to keep her safe. I step backward, but before I can turn to see her, I feel a sharp burning pain in my chest. There’s a moment between the feeling and the realization, but I know then: it’s a bullet. I’ve been shot.
I fall to the ground. I want to go to her, tell her that I love her, but I can’t move.
I gasp as I return to the now. Reid is on the floor, his hand on my wrist. “It’s fast,” he says, and I realize that he’s talking about my pulse. “Are you feeling sick . . . or something?”
I shiver. “No.”
He’s watching me intently, but all I can do is offer him a weak smile and an even weaker explanation. “There’s just so much going on lately, you know?”
“You’re safe now, Eva,” Reid says. He’s still holding my wrist and staring at me. “I don’t think you have anything to fear.”
I pull away. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . .” My words fade as I try to figure out what to say. Sorry I just saw you become another victim? I swallow as I stare at him. How do I save him? There has to be something I can do. I think about the details of the vision, but I don’t have any immediate solutions.