Kill Me Once, Kill Me Twice

by Clara Kensie

  His breath catches, like a hesitation. Then he exhales, and it sounds like a whispered word carried away in the wind: “Lily.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Lily ~ Eighteen Years Ago

  My dad was gone, and my mom was sobbing in her sleep. There was only one person I wanted to talk to right now. Only one person who could make me feel better.

  I called, but he didn’t answer. “Call me, Will,” I whispered into the phone. “I need to talk to you.” I lay with my head on the phone for over an hour, but he didn’t call back. I considered sneaking out of the house and running over there, but I didn’t want to leave my mother alone. I’d see him tomorrow at school.

  After a sleepless night, I called one of my mom’s friends to come stay with her. Then I went to school and waited for Will. I leaned against his locker, hugging my books to my chest.

  I saw his white-blond hair curled around the bottom of his maroon baseball cap first. As he came down the hall, he didn’t appear to see me. He was staring straight ahead, not really seeing anything, like he was dazed. He bumped into a girl with a French braid and barely mumbled an apology as he walked to his locker.

  “Will!” I called out. My voice sounded strangled, but I didn’t care. I was tired of holding it together, and now that I saw him, all I wanted was for him to

  hold me tight

  in his arms.

  He looked up, and the vacancy in his gaze became solid and dark. His lips tightened into a frown and his cheeks flamed. He strode over to me in four steps, then made a fist, flexing his hatchet tattoo, and pounded the locker right next to my head. I flinched. “What the hell did you do, Lily?”

  “What are you talking about?” Why was he so angry?

  “You told your dad that we were bankrupt?” He pounded the locker again. Heads turned and the hall grew silent at his outburst as the crowd looked over.

  “So he could give you money—”

  “He gave us money all right. A lot of money. More than enough to pay our debts. More than my parents have made in the past ten years combined.”

  “But that’s—that’s good, right?”

  “It’s not good!” His nostrils flared, his face was red. “He gave us the money in exchange for our land. My land. My farm.”

  “But—But he told me—”

  “That’s what this whole thing was about, wasn’t it?” He brought his face up close, his face sneering like he was something evil. “You made up that whole story about Neal being murdered, that whole ridiculous past lives thing. The things we did together”—he swiped his lips with his forearm, wiping away all the kisses I’d given him—“it was all just to get close to me, get in my house, and snoop around.”

  I gasped. “Will! No!”

  He threw his fist back and hurled his fist into the locker just inches from my head. “You ruined my life, Lily! What the hell am I going to do now?”

  “Your parents were going to lose the farm anyway,” I said.

  “They could have held on for a while longer!” he roared. “I had a plan! I was going to turn things around!”

  “You don’t know that,” I said, but logic wasn’t calming him. I put my hands on his chest, trying to draw him close. “Will, I’m sorry. I would never, ever do anything to hurt you.”

  He jerked away. “Don't touch me again,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Don’t you ever speak to me again.” He stalked off with wide strides.

  “Will!” I chased after him, not caring that everyone was watching. “Will, wait!” I grabbed his shirt. “I love you! I love you.”

  He made a face like my words sickened him. “Stay away from me.”

  I stood frozen as he pulled away and stormed off. Only when someone jostled me did I move again. I passed the day in a daze. I

  loved

  Will, and he

  hated

  me. My heart literally

  hurt

  inside my chest.

  At some point Diana asked me if it was true; did the Dustons really sell their land to my dad. “I guess so,” I said, numb.

  “Will’s pissed. He says it’s your fault.”

  I looked at my best friend. I wanted to tell her that Will broke up with me, and I needed her to comfort me the way I had comforted her the countless times she and Brandon had broken up. But Diana didn’t even know that for a short time—a beautiful, wondrous, glorious time—Will and I had been together. She didn’t know that I was in love with him. “Diana, Will and I—”

  “Brandon, stop!” Diana shouted down the hall. “We’ll talk later, okay?” she said to me, already rushing off. “I have to go talk to him. Brandon!” She pushed through the crowd toward him.

  Instinctively, I looked for Will so we could roll our eyes and wonder if Diana and Brandon had just gotten back together or if they had just broken up again. But then I remembered that Will wasn’t there. I loved him, and told him so, but he hated me. I ruined his life.

  My dad’s car was in the driveway when I got home from school on Friday. I found him in his office, packing some things in a white corrugated banker’s box. “Hello, sweetheart.”

  He held out his arms for me and had a pitying look on his face, but I didn’t move. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I came to see you. To explain.”

  “There’s nothing to explain. You left us,” I said, not even trying to hide the disgust in my voice.

  “I left your mother, not you.”

  “You don’t want me.”

  “Of course I do, Lily. I love you more than anything.”

  “If that’s true, then don’t leave Mom. Figure out how to make it work. Do it for me.” The venom in my voice turned to pleading. “Daddy, please. How could you do this to her?”

  My father sighed. “Your mother will be very well taken care of. I’ve instructed my lawyer to let her keep the house, her car, and the time share. I’m offering her a very generous settlement, plus monthly alimony. Enough that she won’t have to get a job. Your mother can continue living as she did before.”

  “Except she’ll be alone.” I swiped away angry tears before they fell.

  He looked like he was about to cry himself. “Your mom and I have been having trouble for a long time.” Unable to look at me, he dumped more files into the box. “I tried to make it work. I even suggested counseling, but she wouldn’t go. She thought it would look bad. Now we both have a chance to be happy. It’s a relief. Your mom will realize that soon. And you’ll be happier because your parents are happier.”

  I couldn’t say anything to that. Of course my mother would think going to a marriage counselor would look bad. We’d all been pretty miserable. And right now, my father was so sad, so defeated. I almost felt sorry for him, but then I remembered. “You lied to me.”

  He looked startled. “I’ve never lied to you.”

  “You said you would give the Dustons money.”

  “I did give them money. A lot of money.”

  “Yeah, but the deal was that in return, you wouldn’t take any more of their land. But you took all of it! Their entire farm!”

  “I couldn’t just give them all that money. I needed something in exchange. I need to expand the plant if Agri-So is going to remain competitive. Buying Duston Farm was cheaper than building a new plant outside of town. This way I can keep our employees in Ryland, and I can hire even more. This business deal is good for the whole town. Don and Sandra Duston know that. That farm was bleeding money for the past decade. Now Don is back at Agri-So and he has a steady income for the first time in fifteen years. Quite a good one at that. They can afford to send Will to college now.” He blinked at me, hopeful. “They were pleased, Lily. They’re happy about this.”

  “Will’s not happy. He’s never going to forgive me. You don’t know what you did, Dad. You ruined everything for him. And for me,” I added.

  Dad put the final file in the bankers box and hoisted it into his arms. “I know it seems like it now,” he said, �
�but I’m not a bad guy, Lily. One day you’ll see this is all for the best.”

  I thought of my mother, collapsed on the floor, sobbing in despair. I thought of Will, betrayed and furious. I thought of my acceptance letter to CFGU, crumpled up in my globe.

  “I’ll die before that happens,” I told him.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Ever ~ Present Day

  Keith comes over extra early on Friday morning to escort me to school and gives me a bouquet of red roses and a long, wet kiss. Then I remember: it’s April 5th. My birthday. I’m eighteen years old today.

  Before we leave, my father calls from the road to wish me a happy birthday.

  “Are you almost home?” I ask him, hoping Keith doesn’t hear the desperation and hopelessness in my voice.

  Keith doesn’t react, but Dad must hear something. He says yes, he’s been driving straight home since the moment he got the call about the carbon monoxide leak, and he’ll be here by lunchtime today. We’ll celebrate my birthday tonight. He’ll call someone to check the furnace. He won’t accept overnight hauls anymore so he can be home with us from now on. Before he hangs up, he promises that everything will be better.

  I don’t know how he can keep that promise.

  Since I made that deal with Chief Paladino, I’ve done what I’m supposed to do: I go to school, I go home. I take care of Joey. I’m devoted to Keith. I help Courtney with her plans for the Little Warriors Training Camp. I don’t contact Ash, and he doesn’t contact me. I don’t try to find Lily’s killer. I don’t try to save Vinnie Morrison.

  Principal Duston knows. He called me “Lily.” He knows I used to be her. He must have killed her. I was right about him all along. Chief Paladino probably knows too. His patrol car circles around my block every night.

  Today is my birthday. I was born eighteen years ago on April 5th at 9:48 p.m. A few seconds before that, Lily Summerhays was murdered.

  What else happened on this day eighteen years ago? What was Lily doing? Did she feel it, some sense of doom, that it would be her last day alive? Did Vinnie Morrison have a feeling that it would be his last day of freedom? What was Paladino doing? Principal Duston? What was Lily’s real killer doing on this day?

  I’m the age Lily was when she was murdered. Eighteen. A part of me hoped, on the anniversary of her death, that I’d remember more of her last moments, that some kind of portal would open up and allow me to remember more than the terror, the rumbled words “You left me no choice,” and the teary, blurred sight of the hatchet tattoo and the pink diamond paperweight. Even a few extra seconds. Even one extra second.

  But no, try as I might, despite opening myself up to the deathpain and embracing it, I have no new memories.

  Vinnie Morrison is going to be executed by lethal injection, just after the clock strikes midnight, exactly one week from today.

  Guilt punches me in the gut when I see Ash in the hallway at school. I’ve been avoiding eye contact with him, but I can’t help looking at him now. He glances at me expectantly, like he’s hoping I’ll talk to him, but when I don’t, he slips into his physics classroom.

  I try to squelch the guilt. Ash is smart. Really smart, when he isn’t being a stubborn jerk. He’ll figure out how to save his dad. He’ll just have to do it without my help. He has to understand that I have to keep Joey safe.

  Later, as I pretend to listen to my AP Lit teacher, my phone vibrates. Keith, probably, checking on me for the sixth time that day, or Courtney. But I’m relieved to see it’s a call from an area code I don’t recognize. Spam. A spam call is better than having to force cheerfulness and lies into my voice every time Keith calls me. I ignore the call.

  During our lunch hour, Courtney presents me with a birthday cupcake and a promise of a girls-night-in next week, then drags me outside to the baseball field. Now that I’m back with Keith, it’s like our fight never happened. The Little Warriors Training Camp is tomorrow and she wants to double-check that we have everything ready to go. “I took your idea and invited all of the former state champions to play in an exhibition game,” she says. “A lot of them are coming. The ones who live close by, anyway. I didn’t give the out-of-towners enough notice. Maybe next year. We’ll be in college, but you’ll be living at home, and I’ll try to come back for it.”

  She’s so excited, chatting away, but I’m dreading the training camp. I’ll be surrounded by multiple state champions, all with a crossed-hatchet tattoo on their wrist, and any one of them could have killed Lily. And to keep Joey safe and Ash out of jail, I won’t be able to do anything about it.

  I’m helping Courtney straighten the banner on the right outfield fence when I see a man in a suit rushing over. As he gets closer, I see the dimple in his chin, and I immediately go rigid.

  Seth Siegel, my dad’s boss, and the one who told Paladino that he saw Ash and me break into Miss Buckley’s house. What is he doing here, at the high school, in the middle of the day?

  Instinctively, I look for a place to hide, but we’re out in the middle of the baseball field, surrounded by a chain-link fence. He’s heading straight for me. “Hey! Ever!” he shouts, waving and picking up his pace.

  “What does he want?” Courtney asks, blowing the bangs from her eyes. “Why is he calling for you?”

  He jogs over to us, breathless. “Found you,” he says, putting his hands on his knees, panting. “Finally. Your father—I’m sorry to have to tell you—”

  My heart drops to my feet. “My dad? Did something happen?”

  He exhales. “Accident. Drove into a viaduct. Fell asleep behind the wheel, they think. The cops saw Siegel Freight on the truck and called me.”

  “An accident?” My voice is high and squeaky, and I can’t possibly be hearing him right.

  “Is he okay?” Court asks.

  “He’s alive,” he says. “But unconscious. Lost a lot of blood. Broken bones. Internal injuries. They took him to a hospital in Quincy, Illinois. He’s in surgery.” He reaches out his hand for me. “You should be there. Come on, I’ll take you.”

  And that’s when I see it peeking out from the sleeve of his suit: a crossed-hatchet tattoo.

  I back away, shaking my head. “I don’t believe you.” This is some kind of trap. It has to be. He turned Ash and me in to the chief. He’s got a hatchet tattoo. Did he kill Lily Summerhays?

  “Ever, what are you saying?” Court asks. “You need to get to the hospital.”

  Mr. Siegel comes closer, palms up in innocence. I step back until I hit the fence. Cornered. “I don’t believe you,” I say again.

  “Why don’t you try calling him?” Courtney says. “Maybe there was a mistake.”

  I nod. Yes. Good idea. My fingers are trembling a little, but I pull out my phone and dial Dad. It rings and goes to voice mail.

  Then I remember that he said he’d be home by lunchtime today. It’s lunchtime now. Maybe he got home a little early and turned off his phone so he could sleep. I call our landline, but it rings and rings until the answering machine picks up.

  There’s a little voice mail icon in the notification bar on my phone. From the call I got today from the unknown area code, the call I assumed was spam.

  My vision tunnels. “No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” I force my fingers to behave and play my voice mail.

  “Ever Abrams, my name is Vonda Richards, and I’m calling from Mercy Hospital in Quincy, Illinois. You’re listed as the emergency contact in the phone of a Mr. Benjamin Abrams. He was brought in this morning…” The bored, nasally lady repeats the same information that Seth Siegel just told me. Accident. Unconscious. Broken. Blood. Surgery.

  Courtney takes the phone from me. “It’s true,” I tell her. “He was in an accident, a bad one, and he’s in surgery. I have to go.”

  “Come on,” Mr. Siegel says, reaching for me again. “My car is waiting. Let’s go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I say. He was truthful about my dad, but that doesn’t erase his hatchet tattoo. He could be
Lily’s killer.

  “Ever, he’s just trying to help.” Courtney throws Mr. Siegel an apologetic look. “I think she’s in shock. I should get my dad. He can take her. Or her boyfriend, Keith.”

  I nod. Anyone but Seth Siegel and his hatchet tattoo. Keith will take me to the hospital in Quincy. He has to. Keith is sticking to me like glue.

  I try to make a mental list, but my thoughts are scrambled, tumbled, muddled. “How long will we be in Quincy, I wonder? How long is the drive? I have a test on Monday. Do you think I’ll miss it? Oh no, the training camp is tomorrow! Should I…” What was I about to say? I don’t remember. “I need to get Joey.” My breath hitches. “He’s only five. He can’t lose both parents—”

  “He won’t. Your dad will be fine.” Courtney grabs my arms. “Don’t worry about the training camp, don’t worry about your test. Go get Keith. He’ll take you to your dad. Everything will be fine, I promise. Now go.”

  I give her a hug, a tight one, and then I run.

  It’s fifth period. Keith has geometry fifth period. I race inside to the mathematics wing and find myself at the opposite side of the building, in the science wing. The AP Physics classroom.

  I burst inside and immediately head to the only person I want. The only person I need. I ignore the teacher’s shout and dash to the back of the room, to Ash, and sob.

  “My dad,” I blubber. “After the gas leak, he promised me that he wasn’t going to accept any more overnight hauls—”

  “Gas leak?” Ash says.

  “He was supposed to be home tonight and every night from now on”—my breath hitches, and I sob—“and he drove all day and all night to get home, that’s why he fell asleep behind the wheel”—another sob—“and now he’s in surgery and it’s bad, and I need to get to Quincy now, right now!”

  I heave another sob, and through my tears, I see Ash stand, slowly, his expression grim. “Okay,” he rumbles. “Let’s go.”