The cliques in high school weren’t as big of a deal here as they were in books and movies. We were able to mingle with almost everyone, with the exception of the few people who chose to ignore the loose borders between groups and try to seem like they were more important than those around them, and as an excuse to start drama. Some members of certain groups chose to cause a friendly stir between teams. Field hockey players had shirts that said ‘If field hockey was easy, they would call it football.’ The cheerleaders would pull a few pranks on the swimmers every now and then for being open about their thoughts on whether cheerleading was a sport or not by hiding a few of their swim bags before they could head out to our local recreation center for practice. Shady Rec held a pool, a small gym with equipment that nearly everyone in town used, even the football players, and an indoor basketball court.
I enjoyed the loose borders that formed our small groups because it allowed me to flow freely between people. Even though I was typically alone, I had an easy time transitioning between one conversation to another with a different person. Everyone was accepting, except to new people. Even if we didn’t have anything in common, we had all grown up together, and we knew everything about each other. For the most part, we were a part of each other’s family drama. In towns as small as Shady Hallows, nothing stayed secret for long, especially not scandalous tidbits and marital issues.
There had been a student in a relationship with one of our teachers, but once the news had gotten out the girl’s family relocated out of state, and the teacher was promptly fired. He left town not long after. I think his reputation around town was starting to get to him, and he couldn’t handle the sideways glances. The other main juicy tidbits that went around were relationship information. When there were affairs, the news spread like wildfire. It was almost as bad as having our mayor paint a scarlet A onto their backs and sending them on a walk down Main Street. Everyone knew about their infidelity, but we all pretended that we had no knowledge on the topic.
I walked past a few of the straggling cheerleaders who hadn’t made their way to the gym yet. A few smiled at me while others ignored me; the fluidity of social groups showing within each group. I waved as I passed, and headed for the main entrance to the school just as the football players began to clamor for the ball that was flying through the air. Judging from the yelling, the ball had come into contact with the principal. I left through the main doors as soon as the threat of being pulled from the homecoming game sent the players into silence. That was the one thing our town really looked forward to during the year. Well, that and the Fourth of July. Anything they could make a big party out of was celebrated. The homecoming game was a huge event for the football players because whoever played in the game was not only cheered for but showered with attention and affection from every townsperson. No one missed the homecoming games. There was a huge tailgate before, and a bonfire afterwards to celebrate our win since we typically played a team we knew we could beat for that game.
It was a pity that all the other sports fell short compared to the football team. At least the cheerleaders could cheer during the game and stole the show during halftime, but their cheer competitions were empty with the exception of family and close friends.
It just wasn’t the same, I thought as I proceeded down my normal route home. The town was returning to the normal swing of things. My walk down Main Street today included saying hello to Mr. Woodward, who was hard at work in the hardware store fixing someone’s mailbox that a group of drunk teens had smashed during the weekend. I didn’t see Mrs. Kinkus, though the food market was open. I think her son was running the store today since Mrs. Kinkus had been struck by the news of the murder. She had grown up here, and never thought something so horrible could happen in our quaint little town.
Some stores were closed until further notice. Most owners were still home with their families, but the ones who had to have their stores open, like the food market and the hardware store, were open. Unfortunately, the bookstore wasn’t seen as a necessity. I could do with getting lost in a new book instead of noticing all the police officers patrolling the town. They never stopped because they were looking for someone they knew, someone they never thought would kill, but had.
After walking down another block, I noticed Mrs. Poling, the go-to chef in town, about to walk into her restaurant. Soon enough, everyone in town would be flocking to her restaurant. Her food was known as comfort food, which was exactly what this town needed right now. Hell, it was what my own family needed. I knew my mom would appreciate me picking up a meal so she wouldn’t have to cook dinner tonight. She loved Mrs. Poling’s chicken Alfredo, French onion soup, and broccoli and cheese casserole. Anything I picked up for tonight would be perfect, and my dad would eat anything, so I surely wouldn’t hear any complaints from him. John, on the other hand, always complained no matter what it was, even if he liked it.
I laughed to myself before I glanced up and down the street. Only a single car was on the road, and it had just turned onto the street, so I had enough time to cross. I imagined what food Mrs. Poling would have today as I stepped into the street, hoping to be the first one into her restaurant for a fresh batch of whatever she was making. My laughter was cut short when I heard the revving of the car’s engine. I turned just in time to see the black car speeding toward me. It was too close now for me to react in time, yet too far for anyone else to notice the danger. My body tensed, my eyes shut tightly, and just before the car was going to hit me something shoved me to the ground hard. I hit the asphalt, landing on my backpack while another body landed on top of me just as a blast of hot air rushed past us.
I laid there for a moment, disoriented, with my eyes still shut until I heard a rough voice. “You should really be more careful. I shouldn’t have had to save your life twice in the span of two months.”
My eyes snapped open as images flashed through my mind of John’s old friends pushing me into the fifteen-foot hole in the middle of the woods. I cried for help as they walked away laughing. I was slowly losing my grip on the branch, and I knew I couldn’t hold on forever or the branch could’ve broken at any moment causing me to fall into the abyss.
That was when Sophie and Mason came to the rescue. Right on time, a hand wrapped around my wrist and pulled me over the edge, where we fell onto the ground. Similar to how Mason and I were now.
Breathing heavily. Blank stares. Once again, a misspoken apology.
“You saved me?” I said, when I should have said something along the lines of, “Thank you for saving me from getting hit by a speeding vehicle.” As fast as the car was going, I could have ended up dead and having to be scraped off the pavement.
Mason sat up, removing his weight from over me, but I noticed that he didn’t move far. He let out a breath of air before inspecting a raw, red burn on his arm from where he hit the ground. “I saved you the second day we moved to this town, and now again. Are you danger prone or just stupid?”
Once again I focused on him. His brown hair was swept over his forehead, shading the green eyes underneath. He flashed me a small hint of a smile, which showed off his defined jawline and let me know that he was kidding. Then he tore his eyes away from mine and looked around at all of the people who had stopped to watch the incident. Unlike them, Mason had sprung into action and saved me from becoming road kill. Someone I didn’t know had jumped in to save my life, not once but twice.
I bit my lip, watching as he ran a hand through his hair, and breathed heavily. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I was almost sure he could hear it slamming up against my ribcage from our short distance from each other.
Ignoring his rhetorical question, I looked at him until his eyes met mine, and I said, “Thank you,” in the most sincere tone that I could muster up. I was truly thankful for his help, and I wanted him to know that. Everyone was so hung up on how Sophie’s death was affecting our town, but Mason had lost his sister, and instead of walking around with his head down, hating the world
, he was here saving me.
His only response was a tight nod. All signs of playful, slight smiles were gone from his handsome face. He pushed himself up, and then reached down for my hand to help me. I took it, feeling the warmth of his large hand as he helped me to my feet. Once I was up a few people rushed forward to check on me. I quickly brushed them away, telling them I was fine, and that I was just going to get some food from Mrs. Poling. They were fawning over me, each trying to get a word in. No one had seen the near accident, rather they had heard the brakes, and then rushed over and saw Mason and I laying on the ground. Fingers were being pointed at Mason, but I mentioned multiple times that he had saved me. No one listened. Finally after I had managed to convince everyone that I was fine, I turned to look for Mason, but I didn’t catch him in time. He had left the scene. I felt a pang of sadness sweep through me as I stared at his retreating back. Everyone ignored him and his heroic action because of the rumors about his involvement in his sister’s murder. I knew now for sure that he had no part in that. He had saved me on his own, which proved to me he was a kind person. Murderers weren’t kind or heroic, and if he was one he wouldn’t have hesitated to let me get hit by that car.
He saved me all on his own. Maybe he is worth whatever trouble he brings with him.
Chapter 6
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
My mom was heading to town to meet with the other unofficial gossip club members while my dad wanted to run some errands in town so we could finally fix a few things around the house. I couldn’t remember the last time we had all gone to town together, and was just happy to tag along. Normally Dad was busy with work, either on his phone in his home office with the door shut, or a forty-five minute drive away in his actual office. There were some days I wished he would just take a day off, but even his days off were filled with work. He often would travel to job sites to look over foreclosed homes or construction sites. His phone was never off, yet he chastised me every time I even so much as glanced at my phone while we were at the dinner table.
My family wasn’t the closest, but when it came to hard times we were there for each other. With all of the police officers in town lately, my parents had set a curfew for the house, and by house, I meant me. The murder had really affected my mother, and my dad was worried that the murderer might have a preference for young blondes, which meant that I needed to stay in public places until the sicko was behind bars. John had even promised to keep an eye on me despite the fact that we never walked home from school together and didn’t even hang out in the same circles.
Dad had taken the weekend off for the first time in months, and surprisingly enough he’d even left his phone at home. Mom, while she was only coming to gossip about the news reports and try to pry something out of Mrs. Dawson, was here with us and encouraged us to spend time together since “we never knew when it would be the last time.” It wasn’t the cheeriest topic nor the best outlook on life, but it was true. We had learned from having Sophie turn up dead at the age of fifteen that life was just too short. We never knew when our last day would be, so we just had to surround ourselves with the people we loved while we could. Sophie’s death had made us all sentimental.
I wiped a bead of sweat from my head and pulled my shirt away from my sticky body. It was nearly autumn, and yet the weather was unbearably hot. The sun was unobstructed while in the main area of town, everywhere else was shrouded with shadows due to the large trees, and mostly unaltered forest. Unfortunately, they cut down a lot of trees around Main Street, leaving it wide open to the unforgiving sun. I was sweating in places that I had never sweated before, and it was disgusting. Thankfully I had pulled my hair up into a high ponytail or I would have had it stuck to the sides of my face. I fanned myself with my hand and walked next to my parents until Mom came to an abrupt stop.
“Oh, there’s Mrs. Dawson,” she cried before she waved goodbye and raced across the street after a hurried glance each way to check for cars. Last night she had spent about an hour berating me on looking both ways before I crossed the street while my dad sat watching. Like always, news had spread fast through our small town. In a matter of minutes it seemed everyone knew about the car almost turning me into road kill. I wasn’t even surprised when Mom had gotten a phone call after dinner last night about what happened. I was just surprised it didn’t happen sooner.
My dad placed a hand on my shoulder and steered me down the street. “Guess it’s just us, then, kiddo.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I knew she was going to ditch us eventually.”
He chuckled, seeming to agree with me. “It was only a matter of time. Maybe we can get more done without her, though. You know she likes to talk with anyone and everyone. At least we can get in and out quickly and only have to pull her away from Mrs. Dawson at the end.”
I nodded, thankful that we only had one conversation to break up instead of twenty. My mom always found someone to talk to. No matter where we went, even if it was out of town, or on a trip, she’d find someone to strike up a conversation with and it would take an hour for her to finish. Every single time.
We walked down the street and around the corner to the hardware store where my dad needed to do his shopping. Everyone we passed said hello to my dad and me, and we only stopped once for him to catch up with a fellow town member before we made it to the store. From what I understood he was someone my father had gone to high school with, and they were talking about their time on the football team. Both were excited for the homecoming game at the end of the month, and my father hoped the weather would be a bit cooler when the time came. That’s what I liked about living here, everyone was friendly and there was a history between them.
They said a quick goodbye, and we were once again on our way to the hardware store. As we entered, a little bell on the door sounded, alerting Mr. Woodward of our presence. He looked up from his position behind the register, his glasses hanging off the end of his nose, and smiled. He waved hello before he turned to watch the weather report on the small television he had set up on the counter. We smiled and waved back before Dad dug deep into his pocket to get his list.
“Want to help me search for stuff, or do you plan on walking aimlessly around the store until I’m ready?” He smirked down at me, shaking his head. Whenever we went shopping I preferred to roam the stores, just walking and looking at random stuff. Whenever I had a list of stuff to find, I could never actually find it, and I usually ended up getting stuff that wasn’t on the list in the first place.
I smiled sheepishly. “You know me so well, Dad.”
He shook his head and laughed before grabbing a small wire cart and heading off into the store. He disappeared down the aisle as Mr. Woodward sat forward and turned the volume up on his small TV. While he was still relatively young, an accident had caused him to become slightly deaf in both ears. My father said it happened in high school when they were blowing up some of the fallen rocks in the rock quarry, now the fifteen-foot hole I had almost fallen into. When the explosion went off Mr. Woodward had been too close. Any closer and he would have fallen in the hole when the ground caved in underneath it.
Marissa Merriweather’s voice rang loud and clear as she came on screen after the weather report, saying, “No further information on the death of young Sophie Peters can be released to the public at this time. Police Chief Dawson has declined to talk to the press at this time, as have the other officers and members helping in the investigation. Speculations are being made about what happened to Ms. Peters, but nothing can be confirmed until after the body undergoes an autopsy. We have been told that will be happening soon, but we don’t know when the information will be available to the public. One thing’s for sure, they are keeping the information close to their chest until they figure out exactly what happened.”
I shivered at the thought of Sophie’s body laid out on a metal table being dissected. Once they placed her on the table, she was no longer a person, rather she was just a body to them, empty of the soul that had
made her who she once was. Now she was lifeless and cold. The image of a man in a white lab coat leaning over her body with a scalpel poised to cut into her flesh filled my mind. The ease of his tools slicing through her skin. I almost gagged.
I made my way over to the register, leaning on the counter so that I could see the small television screen. Mr. Woodward turned the box slightly so I could have a better view of the monitor. The picture of Sophie remained at the bottom of the screen. Marissa took up the rest of the screen. She had a pretty chestnut skin tone, and thick brown hair which was styled immaculately into a medium bob cut. Not one hair was out of place, and she was perfectly put together despite the horrifying topic she was discussing.
“The people of Shady Hallows are abuzz about the discovery of one of their own’s body in their usually quiet town. Tonight we are hitting the streets to talk to the residents of the town and see what they have to say about this horrific, tragic experience.” Marissa looked off screen to her left and waved her hand, gesturing for someone to join her on screen.
Deadly Hallows (The Dead Ringer Series Book 1) Page 4