by Tara Kelly
“With what? A superpower?”
“Just stay there,” I hissed into the phone before hanging up.
The Deception Creek Trail was behind Alex’s trailer park, a half mile from here. I’d get there in three minutes, if I were lucky.
“Gramps, tell Mom I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said as I passed him in the kitchen.
He opened his mouth to respond, but I didn’t look back.
The Pacific View trailer park was silent, almost like a ghost town. No blasting music or laughter. Nobody outside drinking beer or watering plants. Just the sound of my breath, each inhale quivering more than the last. My tennis shoes dug into the gravel. I kept pushing myself harder and faster, despite my burning thighs and calves.
Blooming maple trees draped over the Deception Creek Trail sign, a dark and narrow trail that only locals knew about. It was one of my favorite places to run on a normal day. Rugged and unkempt, but always quiet. Now it seemed sinister, like it might swallow me whole.
I ran past a tree Alex and I had carved one of our “magic” symbols into when we were ten, and the lump in my throat grew. We’d spent hours in these woods, pretending we were fairies and tricksters.
The humid air clung to my skin, covering me in sweat. I imagined Alex on the ground, curled up in a ball, like I’d found him once in seventh grade. I promised him I’d never let that happen again.
Finally I heard a voice, what sounded like a yell. The trail became a tunnel, blurred on the edges, but clear in the center. No matter how fast I moved, it wasn’t fast enough.
I rounded the corner, preparing to see the worst. Alex on the ground. Matt, Jenika, and their friends kicking and stomping on him.
But that wasn’t what I found.
Alex and Matt were on the ground, their arms making fast, jerking movements. But Alex had the edge.
“Alex!” I ran toward them.
“Stay back,” he said just as Matt got him in the face. That’s when he started whaling on Matt, punching him again and again. Matt ended up on his stomach, trying to get away, but Alex got up and kicked him in the side.
Matt half groaned, half grunted, his eyes squeezing shut. His fingers dug into the dirt, knuckles pale and shaking. Alex stood over him, a hint of a smile on his face.
He was enjoying this.
My pulse throbbed in my ears, and my mouth went dry. Jenika and her friends, Tyler Lovejoy and Haley St. James, were watching, their lips parted. Tyler was making punching motions, as if he were following some kind of video game. There wasn’t a whole lot to do around here. Getting into fights, for the hell of it, seemed to be their favorite way to pass the time.
“You made your point!” I said to Alex.
He squatted down next to Matt, his fist balled up like he was planning on using it again. “That’s it?”
Matt gritted his teeth, his neck and face bright red. “Fuck you,” he said. Spit and blood were running down his chin.
Alex rose and walked away then, rubbing his fingers against his knuckles. He didn’t even look at me as he passed. His face was like stone, no hint of emotion.
Haley and Tyler were kneeling next to Matt now, helping him sit up. Jenika stared after Alex with an odd expression, shock maybe.
I followed Alex down the darkening trail, back toward the trailer park. Cold raindrops pinched my cheeks.
“Talk to me,” I said, staying a couple feet behind him.
“You weren’t supposed to be here,” he said softly.
“Yeah, well. I am.”
He stopped and turned, shoving his hands into the pockets of his shredded jeans. Blood had welled up under his nose. “I need to be alone right now. All right?”
I caught up to him. “At least let me—”
“I’m okay.” He reached out, touching my arm. “Promise.”
“But—”
“Nova…” he whispered, his face inching toward mine. His breath was quick and uneven.
I closed my eyes. A damp breeze lifted the hair away from my face.
His lips pressed against my forehead, lingering for only a second. “Let me go.”
Monday, June 23
You keep asking why you, like you’re some kind of victim. You are not a victim.
You have everything, and you’re still miserable. You think you’re better than me. You’re a shallow, petty bitch. You’ll do anything to bring someone down. Even believe a half-baked story meant to get you alone.
Who’s laughing now?
Chapter Six
Mondays at the diner were unpredictable. It was either chaos or a graveyard, no in-between. But one thing was certain—Monday nights always brought in the worst kind of crazy.
Tonight that crazy came in the form of Paul Cross, town hermit. One of them, anyway. This was the Pacific Northwest.
Paul had five dogs and a whole lot of whiskey to keep him company. Sometimes his dogs got loose and roamed the town like a pack of thugs. That’s when you knew he’d passed out and left his door open.
Alex was usually the one to round the dogs up and take them back to Paul’s trailer—they lived right across from each other.
Paul was anxious tonight, more so than I’d ever seen him. He sat up at the counter, his blue eyes buggy and red-rimmed. Bits of banana cream pie were stuck in his gray beard.
I considered running to the back real quick and giving Alex a call. But I was the only person here, outside Gramps. Plus it never failed that someone came in right before closing.
Every time I called Alex’s house he wasn’t there. He didn’t answer his email, either, but their computer was older than dirt, and his grandma was always clicking on bad links and giving it viruses. Megan told me she hadn’t seen much of him, either, that he’d been out looking for a job.
The longest we’d ever gone without talking was seven days, after I’d started dating Zach. Alex saw it as a betrayal, even though Zach never did anything to him. He was still Christian’s best friend, one of them. I didn’t listen to Alex when he told me Zach wasn’t any different from the rest. I should’ve.
“Hey.” Paul Cross slapped the counter with his meaty palm. “Isabella!”
That was what he called me, despite being told my actual name a thousand times. The only explanation he ever gave was—you should’ve been an Isabella.
“What’s up, Paul?” Unfortunately for me, he was the only one here. Usually he got bored and left when we were busy dealing with other customers.
“You were in my dream last night.”
Oh, no. Not another one of his psychic dreams. Last month the mega-quake we’d all been waiting for was going to strike, and a tsunami like the world had never seen would wipe us out.
“How about another piece of pie?” I asked. “We’ve got triple berry.”
“You died.” He said it just like that. Deadpan.
“What?”
“Your eyes were wide open, just starin’ up at me.”
I shuddered, seeing that deer all over again. Paul had been spouting off doom and gloom since I could remember. He’d just never made it personal before.
He grabbed my hand, squeezing so tight my bones hurt. “I told him to look out for you.”
“Who?” I yanked my hand out from his grasp.
He studied me like I was nothing he’d ever seen before.
Two middle-aged women came through the door, their heels clacking against the tile. They wanted to sit in a booth. Then they wanted to sit at the counter.
By the time I got their menus and came back, Paul was gone. He’d left five crumpled one-dollar bills and two pennies in his place.
“Can we get some coffee?” one of the women asked in an impatient tone.
I didn’t know how long I’d been frozen, staring at Paul’s empty stool. Apparently too long.
He was a crazy old man. It didn’t mean anything.
“Sure thing,” I said. But I still had goosebumps.
Both women looked like they ran in the same circles as Zach’s
mom. With their designer purses and two-toned hair, the styles just edgy enough to make them appear five years younger. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d seen them at Zach’s house last summer.
“This place is such a hole,” the blonde one whispered. “Great pie, though.”
They both gave me quick, tight smiles as I set two coffees in front of them.
The brunette’s phone vibrated. She looked at the caller ID and sighed. “It’s Rose again.” She lowered her voice as if Rose could hear her. “I have no idea what to say to her. It’s killing me.”
“Me neither.” The blonde took a hesitant sip of her coffee.
“I’d go to pieces if Holly didn’t come home one night.”
“She and Amber are best friends, right?”
I grabbed some empty ketchup bottles and began refilling them. There weren’t many Ambers or Hollys in this town.
“Yeah,” the brunette said. Holly’s mom, I assumed. “At least they were this month. It changes.”
“Sometimes I’m so glad I had boys.”
One of them was tapping a spoon against her cup. It was incessant. Headache-inducing.
“I’m lucky, though. Holly tells me everything.”
Did she tell you she got drunk and painted “whorehouse” on my window the other night?
“You know…” Holly’s mom lowered her voice again. “Amber ran off last year with some guy she met at a concert. Holly said he was twenty-five.”
I turned to face them, wiping away crumbs from Paul’s pie.
The other woman exhaled. “I hate to say it, but she’s always struck me as a little…”
Their elbows rested on the counter and their heads were bowed together, like a couple of teenagers. Clearly Amber’s sex life was more interesting to them than the fact that she was apparently missing.
Maybe my mom was right. High school never really ended.
“I’m betting Zach knows where she is,” the brunette said.
“He claims he doesn’t. The thing is…those kids don’t go a day without posting on SayIt and all that. She hasn’t posted anything since Saturday.” Holly’s mom threw her hands up. “Nobody saw her leave the party. Nobody’s seen her since? It’s scary.”
“Yeah, well, kids lie. Someone knows something.”
The last time a teen girl went missing around here, they found her at the bottom of the cliff. She’d jumped.
But Amber didn’t seem like the suicidal type.
“Rose is jumping to worst-case scenarios,” Holly’s mom continued. “I would be, too. It doesn’t help that there’s some psychopath chopping up animals.”
“I heard about that!” The brunette glanced over at me, finally taking note of my existence. She leaned closer to her friend, talking quieter. But not quiet enough. “This place breeds people who aren’t right in the head. The isolation. No jobs. Just look at the meth problem.”
The way summer residents and tourists talked, you’d think the entire town was filled with zombie tweakers. Sure, we had our share. But no more than a lot of other places.
I tuned them out after that. Listening to their ignorance did nothing but piss me off, and I wasn’t too good at hiding it. Besides, all I could think about was Amber.
They were right about one thing—that girl lived on SayIt. Two days without posting was a long time for her. When Zach and I were going out, I’d look at her page all the time. Mostly because he was always replying to her, sharing memories and inside jokes. Alex told me I was torturing myself—and I knew I was—but I couldn’t help it. My curiosity got the better of me every time.
The week after Zach broke up with me, she’d posted: Everything is right again.
Those words haunted me for too long.
When I got home, I took my laptop to bed and went to Amber’s SayIt page for the first time since last summer. I half expected to go on and see her back and posting every hour as usual.
But the last post was still from Saturday night—It’s over, it said.
It seemed manipulative to me, as if she’d put time and thought into those two little cryptic words. Or maybe that was my disdain for her talking.
Her earlier posts were completely different.
Christian and Ben killed our fire. She’d included a blurry and—thankfully—dark image of what appeared to be Christian and some other guy peeing on a fire.
I’m so buzzedd.
I love my HoHo! Amber and Holly were cheek to cheek, smiling wide for the phone cam.
Don’t ever get a sunburn on the backs of your thighs. :(
SayIt had this uncanny ability to make people become caricatures of themselves. It seemed like everyone was afraid to post something real, something worth saying. Then again, talking about your innermost feelings on social media had its drawbacks. I learned that the hard way when I’d written cryptic lines about Zach last summer and people had re-posted them on his page, mocking me.
I scrolled through her posts for the last few days. I knew what she ate—she’d even posted pictures. What shoes she bought. Who she hung out with. The last movie she saw (she hated it). There was nothing that even hinted at her being unhappy. Except for that very last post. It’s over.
What the hell happened at that party?
Something tapped against my window, just once. It was no louder than a gentle whisper. My lace curtains had somehow become parted again, letting a couple inches of darkness peek through.
Maybe it was in my head, a reaction to everything going on. But goose bumps erected every hair on my forearms.
I slid my computer off my lap and leaned toward my window to take a quick peek outside. A high-pitched scratching sound made me freeze. It was like a zipper or leaves brushing against the house.
Alex came to my window late at night sometimes, when he didn’t want to risk waking up my mom or Gavin. But he would’ve knocked by now.
I ripped the curtains open, revealing a square shadow in the center of the glass. Another envelope. I cracked the window, just enough to curl my arm underneath and reach around the outside. The dim light of the half moon showed only the top of our apple tree.
Someone could be using the dark for cover, quietly watching. Waiting to get off on my fear like a coward.
“If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face,” I called out, ripping the envelope off the glass and tossing it on the lawn. I slammed the window shut, locked it, and pulled the curtains back together, my hands shaking.
For all I knew, it was Amber playing some sick game. She seemed to think Zach was still into me—maybe that was what it’s over meant. Her and Zach. What if she’d completely lost it?
But vandalizing my house while drunk and bragging about it where I worked showed she was hardly a mastermind. These letters took planning. Patience. Someone who enjoyed the anonymity.
Or maybe I’d read too many psychopath biographies.
Chapter Seven
I barely slept through the night, jolting awake at every sound, real or in my head. My gaze kept finding its way to the window, hunting for shadows.
I gave up tossing and turning around nine and parted my curtains, the pale yellow sunlight a welcome presence at first. But my throat tightened as my eyes adjusted to the light. Another purple envelope, or maybe the same one, was taped to the window.
I’d stayed awake for over an hour after turning out the light, hoping they’d take the bait. If they’d come back then, I would’ve heard them. Which meant they’d waited quite a while… Pretty dedicated for a prank.
A chill ran down my bare legs. I threw on an old pair of jeans and Alex’s army jacket before grabbing a Ziploc bag and a pair of disposable rubber gloves from the kitchen. Gavin was in the living room, completely focused on his five hundredth viewing of the final Harry Potter movie. Mom’s voice echoed from her bedroom, most likely on the phone with Eric. They talked at least three times a day.
I headed outside, shutting the back door softly behind me, and made my way over to my window.
; The envelope I’d thrown on the ground last night was still in the grass, seemingly untouched. I slipped on the rubber gloves, ignoring how ridiculous I felt. Maybe the whole CSI thing was overkill. But what if this escalated? It’d be better to have at least one letter that didn’t have my own fingerprints all over it.
I opened the envelope taped to my window first, carefully tearing the side. There was just a folded piece of paper this time—no surprises.
Not everyone is out to get you, it read.
The hairs on the back of my neck seemed to buzz, as if someone were sneaking up behind me. I whipped my head around, only to see our elderly neighbor, Mrs. Zimmerman, walking by our house with her white terrier. She kept her gaze straight ahead and her chin tilted up, as always. She’d only spoken to me once, the day Alex and I had found a stray kitten. We’d followed it into her front yard, a maze of rosebushes and summer shrubs.
“Stay out of my yard, please,” she’d said from her porch. Her voice was calm, almost polite, but her eyes were icy blue slits. Witchy, I called them.
She was the kind of woman who took frequent peeks out her window, but I doubted she’d tell me if she saw anything last night.
The second envelope was soggy with dew, but there was a bulge inside. My breath froze in my throat as I opened it up and dumped out the contents.
A conch shell hit the grass with a soft thud. The inside had a pale blue tint, almost violet. Sand coated the outside, as if it had just been plucked from the beach.
I pulled out the typed note. Someone once told me you can hear the ocean through this, it read. I still believe that. Do you?
I did…it was one of the few bits of magic I still believed in.
Part of me wished these letters contained insults or obviously fake secret admirer proclamations. At least then I’d have a pretty good idea where they were coming from and how to react.
I headed to Alex’s after breakfast. He still hadn’t called me back, and I’d gone from concerned to pissed. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about the fight with Matt. Too bad. We were going to talk about it.