Ruby’s eyes softened, and inside, Parker cheered. Outside, his face was dead serious, his jaw set in a firm line.
“No, I don’t like this.” Juniper was hovering by the doors. “We can’t just hide in here all night.”
“Why not?” Ruby pulled tweezers out of her purse, along with her keys. “In the morning, we’ll be able to search our cars for anything suspicious. But right now, it’s pitch black out there, and the yard is filled with hedges carved into monsters. There are dozens of places to hide, and if this person is dangerous—”
“This person is dangerous! They knocked Gavin out! We can carry him between us—”
“What if we get attacked? We can’t defend ourselves if we’re carrying a person, and if we set him down, we’ll be leaving him defenseless.” Ruby looked mournfully at Gavin. “I’m sorry, Junebug, but this is the right choice.”
Parker’s chest swelled. This, more than anything, was what he loved about Ruby Valentine. She was a queen. And as long as she stayed in her castle, Juniper would stay to protect her.
Just like Brett would stay to protect him.
“See, this is why you’re my defense team,” he said to the girls. “You’re always thinking of ways to defend the group.”
“Defense team?” Ruby’s brow furrowed. “And what does that make you, exactly? Offense?”
“Yep.” Parker lifted a poker from a stand by the fireplace. “I figure a two-pronged approach is best. Brett and I will track this asshole down while you girls stay here, keeping Gavin safe.” He smiled, like he was so damn proud to see Ruby sitting there, clutching her tweezers like a weapon. “Honestly, I feel bad for the idiot who tries to take you on.”
Ruby swallowed, taking her lip between her teeth, and it was all Parker could do not to push her against the wall. Lift her up, and feel her legs wrap around him. There was a bedroom right upstairs with their name on it, a fantasy palace with satin sheets and a four-poster bed. But Parker told himself to wait. By the time the third victim got hit, Ruby would be begging him to lock her up in that room.
And then . . . bliss.
Still, he told himself it would be okay to take one little taste, and he sidled up to her. “If I don’t make it back—”
“Stop.” Her voice was cold, but she was leaning into him. This rudeness was just a game she played, that hard-to-get fuckery that made him want her more. “You’re coming back. You told me it wasn’t dangerous.”
“I did,” he agreed. “But I’ve been wrong before.” It was the first time he’d admitted it. The first time those words had ever come out of his mouth. “And I want you to know, I would die a thousand times for you.”
“That’s easy to say—”
“Well.” He backed away, looking wounded. “Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll get your way and I’ll prove it.”
“Park.”
He turned, stalking to the doors before she could stop him. He’d thought it would be good to leave on a sappy note, but honestly, this was so much better. Now she’d spend the entire time feeling guilty. She’d spend the entire time thinking about how horrible it would be if he died before she could take back her words. By the time he returned, she’d be desperate for him.
With Brett’s help, he inched the coffee table away from the doors and peered into the hall. Finding the coast clear (surprise, surprise), he slipped outside, letting Brett follow him. Then he closed the doors with a click.
14.
KARMA POLICE
When Parker closed the doors behind them, Brett stared straight ahead. He was shaken, more shaken than he’d been in a long time, and the words on Gavin’s skin were only the tip of the iceberg. As Parker turned to him, a concerned look in his eye, Brett realized this partnership had nothing to do with Parker wanting his company. Clearly, he could see Brett coming undone at the seams and wanted to do damage control.
“Relax,” Parker said, so easily. As if panicking was only a choice, and not the result of a lifetime of suffering. A lifetime of guilt. Parker’s voice was powerful, and Brett could feel warm honey sliding over him, soothing the broken parts. He had this beautiful moment where he thought that everything was going to be okay, no matter what they’d done or what had been done to them. Then a flash of movement caught his eye, and fear slammed into him at full force, stealing his breath. He lifted a hand, pointing toward the entryway to the kitchen.
“I saw something,” he said.
Parker didn’t question him. That was the beauty of their relationship, the thing that always kept Brett coming back. He could say anything, literally any ridiculous thing, and Parker would accept it. It was the exact opposite of his life at home, where everything he said was wrong. Or nonexistent. He couldn’t count the times his words had been entirely ignored, as if, the moment he walked through the door of his father’s apartment, he lost the ability to make noise. His dad looked right through him, but his friend simply nodded.
“Let’s do this, then,” Parker said, clutching the poker he’d stolen from the living room.
Together, they hurried to the kitchen. The white marble island was deceptively cheery, the appliances glistening as if they’d been recently polished. Everything about the room was exactly as they’d left it, with two exceptions: their cell phones were gone from the tray, and a freestanding chalkboard, the kind restaurants used to list their daily specials, had been set up against the far wall.
Parker reached the chalkboard first, muttering, “Was this here before?”
“If it was, I didn’t notice it. But either way, someone’s been in here since we left.” It was obvious now. Brett couldn’t blame the flash of white on a trick of the eyes. Someone had been in here seconds before them, writing each of their names on the little specials board. Each of their character names. And now, the Invisible Man had been crossed out.
“It’s true, then,” Brett murmured. “Someone’s coming for each of us. It couldn’t be Shane, but what if—”
“Oh my God, Brett.” Parker was smiling, like, actually grinning while Brett’s heart thrashed about in his chest. Slamming and slamming against him. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
“Figured out what?” Heart pounding. Hands shaking. God, where was his flask? Even as he thought it, he knew he couldn’t succumb to the craving. After what he’d done in his bedroom, he needed to keep his wits about him.
He leaned into the counter, facing away from the specials board. He was not some delicacy to be sliced up. He was not the Iron Stomach. He was a boy. A boy who’d gotten mixed up in some very, very dark shit last year and had been paying for it ever since.
“Come on.” Parker jogged into the dining room. The sixth character card was sitting at the end of the table, and he snatched it up. “We’ll need this, if we’re going to fill in the blanks. Got a pen on you?”
“You’re still playing the game? After everything that’s happened?” Brett stepped closer, softening his voice. “After everything we did?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Parker snapped. “All I did was hold the guy while you . . .” He shook his head, leaning in. “You’re going to be fine. I’d never let anything happen to you, all right?”
Brett nodded, that honey-gold voice washing over him. All of his muscles relaxed. At first he didn’t react to the sight of the girl standing on the other side of the glass, so ghostly pale she could’ve been an apparition. Lips so dark, they looked like a gash. Like someone had slid a knife across her face and made her mouth out of blood and scars.
She lifted an object in her hands.
“The rope,” Brett said, pointing to the glass.
Parker spun around. But as suddenly as she’d appeared, the girl was gone.
Brett blinked, rushing to the patio doors. No trace. No glimpse of white. Just cold, cold darkness. “She was holding a rope.”
“Who was holding a rope?”
“It was . . .” He couldn’t even put it into words. That girl, well, she’d looked familiar. He’d seen her upstai
rs. Except the girl upstairs had been made out of porcelain, and this one was made out of flesh and bones.
“Brett.” Parker broke into his thoughts. “You see something?”
“I saw . . .” Her, Brett wanted to say, but he was afraid. Admitting it would make it real. It would take things out of the realm of impossibility, and reality would come rushing into him the way a fist rushes into a body, over and over again, knocking the breath from a dark-haired boy until blood blossoms on his lips.
“I told you,” Brett stammered, sweat clinging to his neck. “It wasn’t Shane Ferrick. It was—”
“Doll Face.” Parker held up her card. “My name is Doll Face. My weapon is the element of surprise because no one will see it coming. My greatest secret is—”
“I am already here,” Brett finished for him. “Park, I saw her upstairs. Juniper touched her shoulder, and her eyes popped open, and . . . she had his eyes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Shane Ferrick’s eyes. Shane Ferrick’s rope. Come on, I have to show you, or you’ll never believe it.”
“Dude. You’re freaking me out,” Parker said, following him to the stairs. For once, Brett took the lead, and it felt good to be in charge of his destiny. To be solving problems instead of creating them.
He took the stairs two at a time. He was leaping tall buildings in a single bound. Passing the girls’ bedrooms in a blur. As he passed his own door, his heartbeat spiked. There, in his peripheral vision, he could see the confetti covering the floor. The sheet he’d draped over the headboard to hide what had been written there. That headboard was curved like a tombstone, and the sheets were a stony gray. When Brett had stepped into the room, he’d thought about just lying down on the bed, seeing how it felt to disappear.
But he hadn’t disappeared, and now he could hear the brass knuckles clanking against the inside of his pocket, soft and comforting. A reminder that he was still here. He was still fighting, in his own way, and he would make it through this nightmare.
He would survive.
Then, as Brett entered the fifth bedroom, his stomach dropped out beneath him. In the right-hand chair, where the girl had been sitting, there was nothing. No girl. No doll. Brett’s gaze swept to the left. There the boy still sat, dressed in an ebony suit, but his jacket had been torn away. And on every exposed surface of his skin, someone had written words in bright red marker.
Shithead. Deviant. White trash.
Here, on the boy with the startling blue eyes, the words made a certain kind of sense, but not because Brett agreed with them. How many times had Parker leaned in, in the hallways of Fallen Oaks High, and made snide comments about that “white-trash asshole?” How many times had he begged Brett to destroy the “shithead” who’d danced with Ruby Valentine? At first Brett was resistant, because Shane Ferrick had seemed sweet. Thoughtful. The kind of guy you’d like to know. Then, the morning before Dahlia Kane’s Christmas party, a video of Ruby had surfaced at school.
And Brett’s perception had shifted.
“I did this,” he said, gesturing to the doll. “Juniper lured him into the pool, and Gavin wrote on him, but I destroyed him.”
“No.” Parker’s jaw tightened. “He destroyed Ruby, and you got him back.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.” Parker held out a hand. Brett’s stomach churned, and his vision blurred, but his fingers did what they always did when his friend reached for him. They made a connection. “No matter what happens tonight, I need you to remember one thing,” Parker said.
Brett nodded, studying his eyes. He was searching for the gold among the green. The emeralds crackling with light. But Parker’s eyes were dark as he whispered, “You did the world a favor.”
15.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
There was something wrong with Shane Ferrick. Parker knew it the day that kid came blowing into town. It wasn’t that Shane had arrived in a storm, or that his hair was disheveled and his clothing was torn. The people at this school were throwing themselves at him, and it made Parker sick. Oh, it was subtle, girls offering to walk Shane to class, boys asking him to share a smoke in the park, but Parker saw what the others didn’t: Shane Ferrick was a creep, playing on people’s sympathies and manipulating them.
He just needed to prove it.
Then Parker was given a gift. It happened on Monday in AP Bio. The task of the day involved slicing up a suffocated frog, and Parker entered the classroom with excitement. He’d been waiting for this, waiting for the hands-on approach to learning that so many teachers claimed was important, but so few actually followed through on. And maybe he was looking forward to slicing something up, just a little. It wasn’t as if the thing could feel pain. It was dead.
But Shane Ferrick took one look at the green-gray amphibian, sprawled out like the contents of a mad scientist’s bottle, and freaking cried. A tear slid down his cheek and splashed on the table. Warmth spread throughout Parker’s stomach and slid into his limbs. Finally, after a week of putting up with this guy’s bullshit, Parker wouldn’t have to hear about the fascinating Shane Ferrick anymore. That kid had revealed himself for what he was.
Pathetic.
Parker cracked his knuckles, waiting for the laughter to start. But something strange was happening. The girls in the classroom were turning to look at Shane, their eyes widened in concern. When one of them hurried over to Shane’s side, wrapping him up in a hug, Parker’s fingers encircled a glass beaker. He envisioned the glass shattering, like it always did on TV shows when someone was furious. The beaker held. In that moment, he felt this was a perfect metaphor for his existence: Parker was full of passion, full of fire, and there was nothing he could do with it. He was powerless.
That morning, while half the student body yammered about how sensitive Shane Ferrick was, how sweet, he must have an old soul, Parker skipped third period to go to the grocery store. He picked up apples and cheese and a wicker picnic basket, and yeah, he felt like a total douchebag buying that. But he also purchased a bottle of expensive-as-hell champagne, using the fake ID he’d had since he was fifteen.
Ruby was going to be thrilled.
Twenty minutes later Parker swung into the school parking lot, tires screeching and engine roaring and hair looking fantastic. He swaggered out of his classic Mustang like the king of the universe. Except, you know, a king who carries a cute little picnic basket. But hey, if that was what the girls at this school found sexy, Parker would do it.
He’d do anything to get what he wanted.
He rounded the fat, sprawling oak in the center of the courtyard and spotted Ruby sitting among a cluster of girls. She didn’t look up as he approached. She was mesmerized, staring into the eyes of a blue-eyed boy and lifting a grape to his lips. But as the grape neared Shane Ferrick’s mouth, he shook his head and moved away. The girls giggled.
Parker cleared his throat.
Ruby glanced up, blinking like the light was too bright to see him. “Park?” she said, her eyes narrowing. “What the hell are you holding?”
This time the girls erupted in laughter. There was nothing sweet or subtle about it. While Shane brought them delight, Parker obviously brought them amusement. He could feel his face reddening. What was happening at this school? Only a month ago, any one of these girls would’ve thrown themselves at his feet.
It was like Shane had cast a spell over them.
Finally, through all the giggling, Parker found his voice. “I thought I could treat you to lunch,” he told Ruby. He was making a point to avoid Shane. He’d never believed in magic, but there was something entirely off about that boy. Something unsettling. Parker didn’t want any part of it.
Ruby popped the grape into her mouth, chewing slowly. After an eternity, she swallowed. “I already have lunch plans.”
Parker’s teeth clenched, his muscles tightening as Shane craned his neck to look in the picnic basket. “Looks like you’ve got some good stuff in there,” he said. And those
girls immediately shifted focus to Parker’s basket, oohing and aahing over the selection of cheeses, whispering about how to open the champagne without being caught. Parker stared at them, trying to understand this sequence of events.
Then, as if in answer, Brianna Ferrick walked by.
She was wearing a white dress. Brianna always wore white, like the lady in that story who’d been stood up on her wedding day and never bothered to take the damn thing off. Parker couldn’t remember the specifics, but he remembered the chick was unstable. And Brianna was unstable too. He could tell just by looking at her. She wore about a dozen necklaces, each with a different charm. Crystals and pentagrams and all sorts of devil worship creepery. Every time he saw her, Parker wanted to wrap his hands around those necklaces and pull.
As his gaze followed Brianna across the courtyard, he heard a familiar voice, and he turned. Ruby was giggling, leaning into Shane. “Okay, so you don’t like grapes. But I bet you love apples.”
Parker blinked as she lifted an apple to Shane’s lips. The apple from his basket! Was she trying to hurt him, or was she actually under a spell? She’d told him she loved him just months ago. Stared into his eyes, so breathless, as she leaned in for a kiss. Now she was chasing Shane with an apple, and Shane was pretending to fight her off, and all of them were laughing so hard, like they couldn’t believe how funny it was.
Breathless.
Parker tilted his head, staring at Shane with newfound curiosity. Maybe Shane really had done something to Ruby; maybe he had actual power over her. It sounded ridiculous, but what was more ridiculous—the idea that Shane was manipulating her, or the idea that this gangly-limbed nobody could amble into town and steal the love of his life without even trying?
Shane bumped Ruby’s arm, saying, “I told you, I only like strawberries,” and Ruby blushed, like they were talking about something else. Something personal. Parker fumed. For a minute, he thought about opening the champagne and then telling the principal he’d seen them drinking. He could blame the whole thing on Shane. But no. He was going to do something much bigger, much better than that. He was going to expose Shane for the freak that he was.
This Lie Will Kill You Page 9