“Where are the other letters?” he asks me.
“Back there. I don’t care. We have to go.” I grab at Josh’s arm and then look down at his leg. His immobile leg. Dread sinks through me. He can’t handle this hill. He can’t go.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper.
A second passes. Josh breathes. I see the pain cross his face and feel it land in my chest. How can I leave him here? What if Brecken loses it? Blames him somehow?
“Go with Kayla,” he says.
I open my mouth, but words won’t come. I want to say that I don’t want to go with Kayla, because he’s the normal one. He’s the only one that picked up on Brecken, and I don’t want to go down there without him.
“We should go,” Kayla says.
I shake my head. “I don’t—”
“I know,” he says softly, gripping my arms. “I know you don’t want to leave, but you have to. I’m okay. Go and get help. Go now.”
“But, Josh—”
“Take her,” he says to Kayla. He nods at her, firm and slow. He’s made up his mind. “Stay close together, and I’ll do what I can to hold him off.”
“I will send help,” I say. “I promise you, I’ll send someone for you.”
I climb over the guardrail and ease my legs into the snow. Kayla is right behind me. It’s shallower here, but steep. Maybe steeper than I thought. I scrabble down, feet sliding until I find traction. My steps are awkward and high, and I’m grunting with the effort. I hear Kayla behind me, her quiet gasps punctuating my own panting.
I find a clearing on the slope where the grade eases. It’s better here. Snow up to my ankles, but not as many trees. I keep my feet turned out and start moving down the hill, the sting of snow blowing into my eyes and the coldness burning with every breath.
I have to hurry. I have to get help for Josh.
But we’re getting there. We’re going to make it down into this valley. The houses are farther than I thought but I can see them. We are going to get help and we will be safe. I repeat this to myself over and over with every step.
We will be safe.
We will be safe.
We will be—
Something hits me square between the shoulder blades. I pitch forward, knees hitting the snow and my body slamming after. I’m falling, shoulders crumpling under as my body rolls over and down. I feel snow and sticks and pain. I spread my arms and legs, reaching for anything to slow my awkward tumble. My leg hooks over a small tree, and I stop with a jolt, my body aching at the impact, my head facing downhill.
I ease myself over to all fours with a groan, snow soaking through my jeans and gloves. I push up from the ground, trying to orient myself. I can’t get off my knees. Everything is shades of gray and white—the sky, the trees, the ground. Like my paintings. Like my mind.
I replay the thump between my shoulders and tense. I know what that impact was. I didn’t fall; I was pushed.
Adrenaline sings like fire through my limbs. I lumber to a crouch and scan the slope rising away from me. Trees. Trees.
Kayla.
She is tall and thin, her skirt billowing in the snow. Her face nothing more than hollows of shadow.
“I’m sorry,” she says again. Just like the bathroom, her voice shaking. “I needed—I’m sorry.”
All the breath is kicked out of me. Snow blows into my eyes, and by the time my vision clears, she’s halfway back up to the road. I see the back of her skirt and tangled hair. I don’t understand. I don’t—
Kayla reaches out near a small pine tree. Like she’s waiting for help. Or a gift.
I feel the blood drain from my face. Someone is on the hill with her. It’s hard to see in the darkness, but I see a hand reaching. Helping her?
No. Someone is handing something to her, a small, orange cylinder. And something else—something small and square.
“You asshole,” she snarls. “You took it.”
The dark figure shrugs. Kayla closes her fingers around the bottle of pills and looks at me one last time. I don’t understand. And then all the pins tumble into place and the lock opens.
She is holding a bottle of pills. Whoever that is, they just gave her pills—paying her off and returning her goods. Oh my God, he had help. Brecken paid Kayla with pills to help him. He was just looking for the opportunity. I scan the guardrail for Josh, terrified that I’ll see him injured. Worse.
I open my mouth to scream for Josh, but then Brecken steps out from behind the tree and I need to run. I have to stay away from him.
Except it isn’t Brecken. The shadows swallow his features, but I’d know that silhouette anywhere. My throat closes up, my mouth curdling around the shape of the name.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Josh.
It’s Josh standing on the hill. I can see the bulk of his jacket. The shaggy edges of his hair. And his crutches are nowhere in sight.
Numbness is a gift. That’s what the nurse told me, and I believe her now. Because for one blissful breath I feel nothing looking at Josh. He stole our things. Wrote me letters. Pushed poison pills into Kayla’s outstretched hand. He did all of this, and now he is hustling down the mountain without the vaguest hint of a limp. He is walking and I am back on my knees, watching this all unfold like I have nothing to do with it at all.
I take a breath. It smells like Christmas in this forest.
Get up.
My instinct overrides my stupor, launching me to my feet. I’m wobbly. Shivering. And it’s too late. He’s on me.
“Do you see me now?” he asks. “Do you finally remember?”
I open my mouth, but I have no idea what to say. I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything, and I don’t understand what he’s asking. I’m frozen, rooted into this ground like one of the evergreens towering over me.
His laugh is a cruel joke, and it’s clear I’m the punch line. “Aren’t I the fool to believe you’d be smarter than this?”
“I…” No words feel right, so I trail into nothing.
“Do you really not remember me? I was wearing this same damn brace when I bought your coffee. I made everything better for you in that moment. You wept, Mira!”
His words are a hodgepodge of sounds that don’t belong together and hold no meaning for me. And then something begins to coalesce, the dark impression of a truth. Someone did buy me coffee. The night that Phoebe died, in the hospital, I forgot my money and someone bought my coffee.
But it wasn’t Josh! He had a beard. He didn’t…
My thoughts strangle themselves to silence because I don’t remember enough to be sure of anything except this: someone did buy me coffee. And I cried. Not because of coffee but because of Phoebe.
Because I was breaking to pieces.
“Oh, are we done playing games now?” he asks. “Done pretending you don’t know me like you did in the gallery that day?”
Oh my God. The gallery. So many people talked to me at the gallery. By the end, I just waved and smiled and nodded no matter what they said. He steps close and I stumble back, almost tripping again. Adrenaline bursts into my legs and I turn to run, but he catches my sleeve, pulls me close enough to see the intensity in his eyes, and then the glint of metal in his hand.
“Time to go,” he says, taking my arm and hauling me to my feet.
“Go where?” My voice is shrill and panicked.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll be together. We’ll be away, and you’ll see. I know you’ll see.”
I try to pull myself free, and he tugs back. We struggle in the snow, and I push against him with all of my might. My foot slips and I drop back to one knee. He slides around with a grunt, grabbing my other arm. I see that metal again.
The knife. Oh, shit, he has the knife, and it’s pressed right against my arm.
I arch my back and kick at his knee
s, but he easily avoids me, his fingers biting into my arms like teeth. The snow is so slippery. Cold. I writhe like a cat being held under water. I have to get him loose. Get him off me. I have to get away.
“Stop fighting me, Mira. Stop fighting this.”
I fight twice as hard. Three times. I kick and flail and jerk and then—I fall. We both do, the thin sheet of glazed-over snow cracking under our impact. His body is on mine—heavy and hard. I want him off. Off!
“Don’t fight me!” he cries.
I scream, using every bit of my energy to haul my body over to one side. Something pierces my bicep as I roll, and my scream could shatter glass. Josh loosens his grip, but the pain is an electric shock. Heat follows it, wet fire that pulses with my heart. I pull my uninjured hand up to the wound. My sleeve is wet. Snow or blood, I have no idea.
But Josh’s ashen expression tells me there’s at least some of the latter.
“Mira,” he breathes.
I kick him between the legs. Once. Twice. He’s down, keening when I kick him again, somewhere in the face. My arm is throbbing from shoulder to fingertips. My fingers are wet. Dripping dark splatters into the snow.
I reach for the knife that’s skittered a few feet away from him. My hand is slick with blood, but I grab it anyway.
It’s colder than ice in my grasp and the pain—oh God, the pain is nauseating. It rolls through me in Technicolor waves, sending stars across my vision with every beat of my heart. Josh snags my foot, and I’m down, knees hitting the snow and pain spiking like I’ve been stabbed all over again.
I feel my vision going gray but I will not pass out. I will not. I kick with both feet, catching him in the jaw with the heel of my right boot. He flops back and slides a few feet down.
Go. Go now. Go fast.
I crawl away while Josh groans on the ground. Rise to my feet even as my pulse throbs in the wound, a frantic, agonizing rhythm that blurs my vision. I walk anyway, dragging my legs up and up and up as fast as I can.
Josh is still groaning. I hear him shifting in the snow. But he’s not getting up. Not yet. I use every muscle I have and every muscle I don’t. I heave myself one eager step at a time until I’m at the guardrail, and haul myself over. Dark drops spatter the snow as I retrace my own tracks to the car. Whimpering. Crying.
Kayla is gone. No sign of her either direction, but Harper meets me halfway across the road. Brecken is behind her, and it’s clear they’ve been looking for me.
It’s also clear that Harper is terrified.
My breath is ragged and fast. The knife drops into the snow, a gruesome splash of red against the pristine white. Harper’s eyes drag to that bloody blade and then to my face.
She raises her shovel high.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Stay back,” Harper says.
“Harper, no,” I say. I can barely get out the words. The pain and my breathlessness steal half of everything I want to say. “Josh—it’s Josh—no crutches… There are letters.”
“Where’s Kayla?” she asks. “Where is Josh?”
I point, feeling sick and dizzy. “Down. Down there.”
But Kayla isn’t down there. She’s gone. God, why did she help Josh? How could she? And when?
No.
The gas station. I remember them talking. They were alone, and she was sick then. Feeling terrible. But she got better. He must have given her a little then. More at the bar. He dangled her along because he knew the one and only thing she cared about. He’d planned it that way.
“Did you push them?” Brecken asks. “God, Mira, what did you do?”
I shake my head vigorously. Too vigorously. My head swims and I droop, propping my good hand on my leg. Harper tightens her grip on the shovel.
“Letters,” I pant out. “Look at the letters. Trunk.”
I hear Brecken’s swift steps retreating to the car. I stand upright and stumble. Harper swings the shovel forward a little in warning.
“I said stay back!” Harper warns.
“The letters,” I say, still breathless. “He was—watching me. For months. Kayla helped him.”
I hear the rip of paper in the background. Brecken is either opening the envelopes or tearing them to pieces. My heart throbs. A beat-beat-beat in my wound. I sway on my feet, and Harper lets out a frightened yelp.
“Back!”
“Harper, run!”
Josh. It’s Josh telling her to run. My blood runs cold as I turn, head spinning. He can’t be here already, but he is. He’s found one crutch and that limp is back. Blood trickles from his swollen lip. Was that me? Did I do that?
I wish I’d done more.
“Stay away from her, Harper,” Josh croaks. He is utterly convincing. “She pushed us. Me and Kayla. Kayla’s hurt. We have to help her.”
“No,” I shake my head hard. “Not true.”
“She needs help.” Josh drags himself forward, pain etched into his features. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe him. If I hadn’t seen him loping down that mountain. Coming for me.
“Where is she?” Harper asks.
“She’s not down there,” I say.
“Mira came at me,” Josh cries. “She had that knife. She might still have it.”
“Oh my God,” Harper says, her eyes dragging to the crimson-stained snow.
“He’s lying to you,” I cry.
He’s on us now, and I’m trapped between Harper with her shovel and Josh with his lies.
Fresh panic flares through my middle. Where is Brecken? Because Harper is a lost cause, and I can see thoughts falling over Josh features. He’s going to use her worry. Her kindness.
He’s making a new plan, right now.
“We have to help Kayla,” Josh says. He’s scanning the ground.
Oh God. The knife. It’s right beside him.
“Stay away from me!” Harper says. Josh overplayed his hand, and now she’s afraid of us both. She’s holding the shovel at each of us. Josh raises one hand, his brows sad.
“I won’t hurt you,” Josh says. “I just want you safe. Stay away from her, Harper.”
He groans like his knee hurts, leaning down awkwardly.
I see it in slow motion, and I know what this is: he’s going for the knife.
I lunge, but the snow is deeper than I thought. My foot catches and I’m down, but I push myself forward, reaching. Trying to grab it before Josh.
Everything happens at once.
My palm grazes the cold blade. Harper cries. Josh’s face is there. Right there. He’s so close, a wolf’s smile on his mouth as he takes the knife’s handle, jerks it so hard the blade slices across my palm.
I scream in fresh pain, my body curling toward the new injury. Something moves in the corner of my eye. It’s long and dark and coming fast.
Thunk.
Time stops. My breath turns cold and still in my lungs as my eyes lock onto Josh. I see a terrible painting in front of me. The wideness of Josh’s eyes. The knife slipping from his hand.
The long dark line across his temple.
The line widens. Drips.
And Josh falls.
I scuttle back from his body, but he doesn’t move. The shovel drops, and I look up.
Brecken. Brecken had the shovel. He hit Josh. Letters litter the ground around him. Opened letters. Brecken wasn’t ripping them up. He was reading them. My eyes catch on a line I hadn’t read.
You didn’t see me.
I try not to look, but he’s right there, sprawled in awkward angles and face turned toward the sky. Josh doesn’t see me because Josh is gone. His eyes remain, empty vessels staring up into the night as the ivory snow continues to fall.
Chapter Thirty
It is a familiar hitchhiker in a yellow cap who finds us first. Irony, it seems, will always find its way. We are huddled
by the car, on the other side of the body.
Because it is just a body now. There’s no breath, no voice, no Josh left. Not that I knew Josh. Everything I thought I knew about him was undone by the stack of bloodstained letters in my backpack.
My instincts were wrong. Brecken wasn’t a monster. Harper wasn’t calculating some master plan. And Josh wasn’t a nice guy. He was delusional. A stalker. He invented a relationship over a cup of coffee in a hospital. And I never saw it at all.
The rugged SUV that stops at the corner of the two roads is as sturdy-looking as the driver. The man in the yellow hat jumps out, but the man driving only rolls down his window, phone pressed to his ear and his body language full of mistrust. He doesn’t care for his passenger and seems to care even less for the nightmare we’re presenting: blood and death smeared on fresh Christmas snow.
The man in the yellow hat seems unperturbed. He tromps heavily toward us, swearing softly at the sight of the dead boy on his back.
“God Almighty,” he says, taking off his hat to reveal thinning hair. He peeks under the sweatshirt I used to cover Josh’s face and shakes his head slowly.
“God Almighty,” he repeats, “what happened here?”
I think he’ll be suspicious, too, like the driver, who’s still waiting on the other road, safely ensconced in his warm, likely blood-free, Ford. But the yellow hat man touches my shoulder with his withered fingers, and I begin to cry.
“He tried to…” My words break off in a sob and I cover my mouth.
“He was trying to take her. Or hurt her,” Brecken says calmly. “We had no idea. We thought we all met at the airport, but he met Mira earlier.”
“We just wanted to go home,” Harper says, stone-faced.
“But he wanted her,” Brecken says. He sounds angry. “He stalked her here and used us to try to take her. There are letters. It’s all in there.”
I shiver. I still haven’t read all the letters. Looking at Brecken’s stricken face now makes me wonder if I’ll ever be able to stomach reading them.
“This boy followed her from the airport?” the man asks.
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