by Norah Wilson
“Brooke?”
Brooke turned to Alex. “What?”
“You are such an asshole.”
She grinned. “No, I’m a bitch. I thought we’d already established that. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go grab a nap. You know, so I’ll be nice and fresh when I cast—”
“Brooke!” Alex hissed, glancing toward the clump of adults who’d drifted over toward the fireplace.
“What?” She batted her lashes innocently. “I was going to say when I cast myself on my mother’s mercy. I need to persuade her to dump some more cash in my account.”
Holding back a laugh at Alex’s expression, Brooke headed for the stairs. She didn’t have to look back to know the other two girls were right behind her.
And she didn’t need to look at them to know something else. When it came to deciding if they would cast out tonight, Alex would vote against it. She would want to hold off. There was something hinky about that. Hinky as that whole straight-edge act Alex was trying to pull off. Hinky as the way she’d come in the other night, all quiet and withdrawn when Brooke and Maryanne had been bouncing off the walls. But Alex’s vote wouldn’t matter because it would be two to one. Maryanne would definitely be on board. If the girl actually did have dark depths, that’s where they lay, clustered around this casting thing. The prospect of casting out again was calling Maryanne as powerfully as it called to Brooke.
Brooke smiled to herself.
Get ready, Mansbridge. Get ready for the Hellers.
Chapter 14
Cracks
Alex
It was three o’clock in the morning.
Alex left her roommates fast asleep in their beds as she slipped out of the room. Both of them still smiling, no doubt, after the short-lived cast out earlier tonight. They’d outnumbered her. Outvoted her. And Brooke and Maryanne assured her they were going anyway. Casting out with or without her. So how could Alex not have joined them? But then, how could she possibly sleep afterward with the memories pounding?
One specific memory—oh God, she was almost certain—had actually broken through.
Yet that’s not what got her out of bed. She could have tossed and turned on that one and chewed on the almost-memory from beneath the covers. But instead she sat alone in the upper bathroom at Harvell House, door firmly locked, a thin towel between her nakedness and the cold floor.
It was day 47. Forty-seven days since her last period. She held her blood-soaked panties in hand and cried with the pain of it all. But this morning, she cried with the relief, too.
Though she’d never been regular, she knew she’d missed at least one period since the rape. She’d been so afraid that she was pregnant!
Not that she hadn’t taken measures to try to prevent a pregnancy. Even as broken as she’d felt, she’d known enough to do that. But she couldn’t face the idea of walking into the small local pharmacy and asking for a Plan B pill. Someone who knew her—or worse, someone who thought they knew her—would surely see her buying the over-the-counter emergency contraceptive. They’d say something. They’d talk about her. She might not have given a rat’s ass about what people thought before, but this time, about this one thing, she did. They’d snicker and judge and accuse. After what had happened, she just couldn’t handle that.
So the day after the rape, after she’d rubbed her skin raw in the shower, cried and screamed into her pillow and read from Connie’s diary until her eyes were sore, she’d walked to the bus station. With her head bent down and her hands tucked so far into her jacket they disappeared, she’d bought a return ticket to Fredericton—a pretty, tidy city of 50,000, just an hour away.
But even as she handed over the cash for the ticket, her mind had whirled with panic. What if he were watching her? Whoever it was who’d raped her, what if he were stalking her? What if he’d trailed her to the station? She wouldn’t know him! Couldn’t remember him! Her heart had been racing by the time she’d boarded the bus. She’d taken a seat alone at the back, put her knees up on the seat in front of her so she could slouch way down, and closed into herself as far as she could go.
Since then, she’d skipped school and taken the bus to Fredericton three more times. Twice to visit the sexual health clinic where she was screened for sexually transmitted infections. Well, all that she could be tested for. They’d done one HIV test, which was negative, but they’d explained it could take a while to develop antibodies in detectable volumes. She’d have to be retested in at three months, then again at six months, to be completely certain. And thank God for the kind nurses who worked there. They’d given her all the information she needed, without prying yet making it clear they were there for her if she wanted to talk. She hadn’t talked—God, she couldn’t—but she appreciated those nurses more than they would ever know.
Then she’d taken the bus to Fredericton one more time, when she was sure her period was late, to buy a pregnancy test kit. She’d ended up buying three of them at the first pharmacy she came to.
She’d rushed to the small mall’s bathroom and peed on a stick right then.
It read negative. Alex held the stick up to the small bathroom light. She took it outside and sat in the small park across from the mall and looked at it in the sunlight. Yes, still just one negative line. But still there was little relief in that, for the blood had yet to come.
Desperate to know, she’d visited an after-hours clinic in Mansbridge—the kind that dealt with sniffles and sore throats—and got the doctor to order a blood test for pregnancy, which she knew was more reliable than the urine tests. That too came back negative, along with a lecture from the doctor about the perils of unprotected sex.
Alex had sat through it. Silently, with tough-girl, screw-you attitude written across her face while she screamed inside what she didn’t dare scream outside:
“I was raped!”
And now it was three o’clock in the morning. And she sat bleeding on a towel.
She’d felt bad all day, with cramps way down in her stomach—heavier than normal. When Brooke and then Maryanne had insisted it was the perfect night for casting out, her inclination had been to say no, but they’d pressured her. Alex didn’t trust Brooke to stay out of trouble, and she didn’t know what the hell was up with Maryanne that she would be so damned persistent. But if anyone caught them—if anyone found out—then they’d find out about Connie’s diary.
They’d find out about her.
It had to be all three of them when they cast out. There was safety in numbers, though she knew there was danger too.
At least Brooke hadn’t insisted on heading over to Walker’s farm tonight. Alex wasn’t persuaded that Brooke’s obsession with Seth Walker was abating, but this night, the three girls had contented themselves with simply racing through the fields, soaring through the treetops, and scaring a murder of crows from their slumber just to hear their cawing in the night. But they had soared too close to a few darkened houses, and breezed past some bedroom windows in the Mansbridge night.
Windows. They shouldn’t have done that.
Alex had felt bad for Kassidy earlier when she’d screamed and claimed she’d seen yet another peeping Tom. Everyone had heard these claims from Kassidy before, of course. Anyone who had spent any length of time with the girl knew she craved attention. But it seemed different this time. This time when Kassidy had cried wolf, there was something about that cry that had a ring of truth to it. There’d been a tremor in her high-pitched voice.
And Alex had been afraid. Afraid for Kassidy. Holy hell, afraid for herself.
What if it was him Kassidy had seen looking in the window? The one who’d raped her? What if he was outside Harvell house, looking for another victim? Or to make Alex a victim again?
Kassidy couldn’t describe what she’d seen when Alex questioned her. A figure. A shadow. But something. The other girl’s frustration had shown, and not just because no one believed her. Kassidy had gotten all excited because Alex was finally talking to her again
after all these weeks, but then she’d quickly realized that Alex only wanted to pump her for information. Kassidy had turned her frustration and anger on Alex then, but Alex couldn’t really blame her. She’d talked to Kassidy and Leah individually, but they just didn’t get it. Or more accurately, they just didn’t want to accept that Alex was trying to change.
Alex hooked a hand on the sink and pulled herself up to her feet. Blood trickled down her leg as she stood. She used a washcloth to clean herself, then gathered up the towel from the floor where she’d sat. Quietly, running the water at a trickle so as not to wake anyone, she filled the basin with soapy water and tossed in the soiled underwear, the washcloths and the hand towel. As they soaked, she donned fresh underwear and a fat pad to deal with her flow before pulling on clean, dark PJ bottoms and a fresh sweatshirt. She’d have to do a laundry after school. Sighing, she released the stopper in the basin, wrung the stuff out, balled it up with her towel and her old PJs, and shoved the whole works into her laundry bag. With a last look around the now clean bathroom, she snapped the light off.
On tiptoes she stepped out into the hall and quietly closed the bathroom door behind her. She walked softly down the hallway, past the rooms of the other girls. Outside her own room, she paused, listening to the sound of Brooke’s soft snores. Then she glanced down toward the end of the hallway and the door to the attic. The door no student was ever supposed to enter. The one with the broken lock.
She could go to bed, or she could go face what she might find up there. She was shaking, and her heart was practically pounding out of her chest. But the new memory pounded too.
God, she just had to know.
Placing her laundry bag inside the door of her bedroom, she continued down the hall to the attic door. It opened soundlessly. She climbed the thirteen steps again to stand on the attic floor. She’d been here just a few short hours ago, lying almost paralyzed on the floor with Maryanne and Brooke while their casts had flown away free. The Madonna’s eyes greeted Alex again as she looked over to the window. Alex hadn’t a flashlight or even a candle with her, and the moonlight coming through the glass was scarce. But she didn’t need the extra light to know where she was going. To find what she sought. The dresser stood out—a big, black, square box—in the grey attic light.
The bottom drawer. Alex sunk to her knees to access it, and swallowed hard as she did. If this almost-memory that had come back to her was real, she’d find what she was looking for here.
She eased the drawer open. The gasp caught in her throat. Her eyes filled with hot tears. Angry tears. And yet, sorrowful tears—she had to allow those too. She pulled her ruined jeans from the bottom drawer of the old dresser. The ones she’d been wearing the night she was attacked. The ones with the rip in the right back pocket where he had hooked a hand to grab her when she’d tried to scramble away. When she had tried to fight him off. She remembered hearing the rip of the pocket, like thunder tearing through her life. He’d fallen on her—she remembered—knocking her down—face-first—to the floor.
That was it. That was the memory she’d returned with on this last cast out. That, and the tear-blurred image of a man’s back as he knelt to stash her jeans in the dresser.
Why had he done that?
The answer came instantly—so you’d be naked when you woke, unable to find your jeans to cover yourself. He’d wanted her humiliation to be complete. Knowing her memories would be blasted by whatever drug he’d given her, he wanted to leave no possible doubt in her mind that she’d been violated. So she wouldn’t imagine she’d gotten hammered and come here for consensual sex. A consensual partner didn’t take your clothes and leave you naked and exposed.
Bastard!
She would remember more. Next time, when her cast shot back into her body, it would bring another flash of illumination. Another terrible memory fragment her attacker imagined would stay forever shrouded in that drug-induced blackout.
She had to remember! She needed to know more.
And yet, those memories terrified her.
She sank to her knees, gripping the jeans tight, and cried and cried and cried.
And when she was done, she wiped her eyes.
“I’ll get you.” She whispered the vow raggedly into the silence. “I swear, when I remember who you are, I’ll get you, you son of a bitch!”
With an angry shove, Alex pushed the dresser drawer closed again. Something rattled around inside the now empty drawer. Curious, Alex opened it again.
A candlestick holder!
She reached in and pulled it out. It was only about three inches high, but heavy. Solid. She knew it had to be silver. And Alex knew something else. It had to—just had to—be Connie Harvell’s.
Chapter 15
Where’s the Love?
Brooke
She waited until Bryce left to make her move.
And no, she hadn’t counted on serendipity to make sure her path to Seth was clear. She was never that lucky. But as it happened, she’d overheard Bryce making plans with Nikki Brewer to catch the early movie at the pitiful little Cineplex in the town’s pitiful little mall. That bit of information is what gave her the idea in the first place. Seth would be rounding up the horses to lock them in the barn for the night.
She started her car when she saw Bryce turn out the long Walker driveway in his father’s humongous F250 pickup. As their vehicles passed, Bryce didn’t even look sideways at her in the generic grey Intrigue her mom had leased for her for the year. Sometimes it was good to be invisible.
She drove right past the house to the horse barn. As she suspected, Seth had already called the horses in and settled them in their box stalls. She stopped just inside the doorway and waited for her eyes to adjust to the relative dimness inside. There he was. Three stalls down, he was inspecting his father’s prize broodmare. Damn, he looked good. She hated that she still wanted him so much. Still cared for him.
She made her way quietly down to the stall, her heart pounding. What to do now?
“Hey, Seth,” she said.
He just about leapt out of his skin, which caused the horse to snort and dance away. Cursing, he scuttled out of the mare’s way.
“Dammit, Brooke! What the hell is wrong with you, sneaking up like that? The horse could have trampled me.”
Oh, crap. “Sorry. I didn’t realize she’d spook like that.”
“Horses spook at anything. I’ve told you that before.” He seemed to catch himself at that mention of their previous relationship. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought I saw the last of you after that performance in front of my friends.”
Brooke grimaced. “Yeah, the HPV thing. Sorry about that.”
“You’re sorry?” He laughed bitterly. “That’s nice. Real nice. Meanwhile, I’ve had doctors swab me from stem to stern. I’ve endured them going over my junk like they were looking for the Hope-freakin’-Diamond. Sorry doesn’t cut it.”
Brooke bit her lip. “But you had to have known I was just messing with you. You know, because you bailed on me.”
“Of course I knew.” Seth let himself out of the box stall, latching it behind him. “But that’s hardly the point, is it? I had to prove I was clean for—”
“Your new skank,” Brooke finished.
“Melissa is not a skank,” he retorted. “Unlike some people I could mention.”
The words slid into Brooke’s heart like a hot knife going through butter, straight and sure and devastating. The pain shocked her, even though she knew it shouldn’t. She’d known Seth resented her for giving it up to someone else, and hadn’t he been avoiding her like the plague? But somehow, she’d been unprepared for it. The armor she’d been building around her heart should have provided more protection. Guess she’d have to work on that. Starting now.
“Unlike me, you mean?” Brooke smiled, letting it cover the hurt. “Well, that’s okay. I seem to remember you liking my skankiness just fine.” She stepped forward and laid a hand on his chest, and was rewarded by
how hard his heart pounded. “Come on, admit it, Seth. You liked what we did together.” The words were bitter in her mouth. “You want to do it again.”
She tugged his t-shirt out of his jeans and laid her hands on his skin beneath, and he tipped his head back and groaned. The sound suffused her with a sudden sense of power, and she grabbed at it. Anything to push back the pain, the self-loathing. She did have power over him, with this.
He didn’t even make a token resistance. When she pushed his shirt up, he tugged it off. Then they were making out like crazy. At some point, he broke it off long enough to lead them to the relative privacy of what served as an office. All the while, Brooke reminded herself this was what she wanted, but nothing felt right. It didn’t stop Seth from getting off, though.
Afterward, he tossed her clothes at her and started to dress again. So much for tender afterglow. It didn’t matter, though. She’d won. Buh-bye, Melissa.
When she’d shimmied into her jeans and was working on her shirt, he said, “So, what now? Do you want to do this regularly?”
What the hell kind of question was that? “Hey, you know us skanks and the sex thing. Can’t get it often enough.”
Her sarcasm blew right by him, as usual.
“Great! And this is a good spot. But next time, call first. Bryce helps with the chores most times.”
Brooke’s hands stilled on her buttons. “You want me to come here to the barn for... dates?”
He snorted. “I wouldn’t exactly call it a date, but yeah. How else are we gonna keep it on the downlow?”
It clicked then. She hadn’t won anything. He didn’t want to get back with her, at least not publically. And he wasn’t going to give Melissa up. He just wanted her for a piece on the side.
“You are such a jerk, Seth Walker.”
He looked up, genuinely astonished. “What?”
“I am not going to be your fuck buddy in private while you date Melissa in public. While you and your friends laugh about me. It’s not gonna happen.”