by Hannah Jayne
But Cooper and Ryan were standing on the sidewalk, their angry faces illuminated by a slice of yellow streetlight.
“Did you see anyone?”
Cooper shook his head. “There’s no one around here.”
“We found this, though.” Ryan held a tire iron and Sawyer’s stomach lurched when she saw the black-red blood staining the metal.
Chloe’s blood.
“What was he doing out here? Breaking into Chloe’s car?” Sawyer scanned the makeshift parking lot in front of the Rutgers’ house. Cars were scattered everywhere, each one a better make or newer model than Chloe’s mother’s old, primer-colored Dodge.
“He didn’t want to steal anything,” Cooper said, pointing to the car. “You don’t get into the cab by going under the hood.”
“Well, what would someone be doing under the hood? Messing up the engine? Trying to pull some kind of prank?”
Ryan put his hands on his hips. “A prank is locking someone’s keys in their car or putting shaving creaming the windshield.”
“Sugar in the gas tank,” Cooper suggested before bending over the exposed engine, scanning. “Hey, Ryan, do you know anything about cars?”
Ryan shrugged but looked anyway. “I know that you shouldn’t keep tools under the hood.”
Sawyer rushed in and looked where Ryan was pointing, squinting. She reached for the tool and held it up to the light. “What is it?”
Cooper took it out of her hand, eyeing both Sawyer and Ryan. “It’s a tube cutter.”
“What do you use a tube cutter for?” Sawyer wanted to know. “And why would you stash it in someone’s car?”
Ryan shook his head slowly, his eyes wide and focused on the tube cutter in Cooper’s hand. “You wouldn’t stash it in someone’s car,” he said. “But you might drop it there if you were surprised in the middle.”
Sawyer swallowed. “In the middle of what?”
“Of cutting Chloe’s brakes.”
Sawyer’s stomach folded in on itself. “How could…? Someone…Chloe could have died! If she didn’t have brakes, she could have died!” The realization crashed like a cold wave over her and Sawyer was stunned, her breath tightening in her chest.
Ryan swiped a finger across his cell phone and pushed it under the open hood. The blue light from the screen washed over the engine, and he pointed. “Right there.”
Cooper let out a low whistle as he fingered the even cut along a thin metallic tube. “He cut clean through.”
The tears were rolling down Sawyer’s face now, hot tracks burning down her cheeks. “Why would someone do that?”
But she didn’t need to hear an answer because she already knew it: Sawyer’s secret admirer was after her best friend too.
Sawyer’s head felt all at once light and impossibly heavy, and suddenly she felt the cold concrete slap against her back, her head lolling. Her nostrils stung with the smell of dirt and grass, the damp coldness pricking at her head and neck. She blinked when a bright light pierced her eyelid.
“Cooper?” Her lips felt puffy and her head throbbed. “What happened?”
“You passed out.” He helped Sawyer up, and Ryan shoved the penlight he was holding into his back pocket.
“We need to call the police,” Sawyer said.
Cooper shook his head as he led Sawyer into the Rutgers’ living room. It had cleared out considerably. Only a few scattered students remained, wide-eyed and quietly clutching their red party cups. Chloe sat alone on the loveseat, her eyes red rimmed, her cheeks a deep pink. She pulled her knees up against her chest and hugged them.
“Chloe doesn’t want us to.”
Chloe looked up at Sawyer, fresh tear tracks glossy on her cheeks. “My parents don’t know I’m here. They’ll kill me.”
Sawyer sucked in a sigh. “Chloe, this is really dangerous. Someone attacked you, and”—she choked on a sob—“they cut your brake lines. They could have killed you. They—they wanted to hurt you—bad. You have to tell the police.”
Chloe shook her head. “No. I can’t.”
“I’m going to take her home,” Ryan said softly.
“I’ll go with you,” Sawyer said.
“Yeah, I drove Sawyer over here.”
“No problem,” Cooper said, “I can take Sawyer home.”
Sawyer looked from Cooper to Chloe. “I think I should go home with her. Chloe, your parents probably aren’t even home. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“Then how are you going to get home from her house?” Ryan wanted to know. “Here, I’ll take Chloe and hang out with her until her parents come back.”
Sawyer opened her mouth to protest, but Ryan held up his hands. “No argument. You had a hard night too.”
Cooper nodded. “You passed out. You probably should lay down or get an ice pack or something.”
Chloe held out her ice pack. “Room for one more.”
“Chloe.” Sawyer sat down next to her, gingerly touching the dried blood over Chloe’s eye. “Let me at least go with you.”
Chloe leaned in, dropped her voice to a low whisper. “Sawyer, everyone’s looking at me. I’m embarrassed. I don’t care who’s at the house. I just want to go home.”
“But your car—”
“It was probably a stupid prank,” Chloe said, her eyes defiant, “and I caught the guy by surprise.”
“A prank?”
“We’re going to get going,” Ryan said, pulling Chloe from the couch.
“I’ll call you later,” Chloe said, shielding the cut above her eye with her sleeve.
A prank.
The word burned on Sawyer’s tongue. The sliced brake line, Chloe’s black-red blood—both burned into her mind’s eye. If this was a prank, then someone at Hawthorne High had a really bad sense of humor.
FIVE
Sawyer watched Ryan as he gingerly settled Chloe into his car. Chloe gave a slight wave when he pulled away from the curb, and the gash on her eye caught the light from the streetlamp. Sawyer shivered and hugged her arms.
“Here,” Cooper said, pulling off his zippered hoodie and settling it over her shoulders. “Better?”
Sawyer nodded. The sweater would have helped if the chill hadn’t been bone deep.
“Can we get going now?”
Cooper nodded. “Yeah, of course.” He dug in his pocket for his keys and Sawyer touched his wrist gently, her fingers cold on his warm skin. “Are you okay to drive?”
He smiled. “Only had half a beer and that was”—he squinted at the clock—“over an hour ago.”
“Didn’t seem that long ago.”
“Well, there was the thing with Chloe, and before that—” Cooper bit his bottom lip in a way that shot fire crackers through Sawyer’s system. “The thing with us.”
Heat—and guilt—pulsed through Sawyer. She had been making out with a guy—a guy who was not Kevin—while someone was trying to murder her best friend.
What kind of girl are you? Her insides roiled.
“Ready?”
Sawyer nodded, and when Cooper rested his arm across her shoulders, she slid out of the half embrace. She hoped to make it seem as nonchalant or as innocent as possible, but the hurt look in Cooper’s eyes was unmistakable.
They drove in awkward silence until Cooper’s car hit the freeway.
“I’m really sorry about your friend.”
“Chloe,” Sawyer offered.
“Chloe. Have you guys known each other long?”
Sawyer smiled, remembering. “Remember when I said I was friends with Maggie?”
“I remember, but I still don’t believe it.” Cooper grinned in the darkened car, but his eyes sparkled sweetly. Sawyer punched down the warmth that rose inside of her.
“It was the three of us. Best friends. We were five—Maggie didn’t know how to be evil ye
t.”
“Ah, there’s the missing piece.”
Sawyer started to feel more comfortable, letting her shoulders sag forward as she sunk into the car seat. “We met at dance class. Nothing special, but we used to do everything together. Everything. The three of us.”
“So when was the huge falling out?”
Sawyer frowned. “I don’t really know what started it. We were in junior high and Maggie started to get popular. Chloe ended up having to quit dance class, and Maggie just kept nagging at her to tell everyone why. It was like she wanted to prove to everyone how cool she was by throwing Chloe—our best friend—to the wolves.”
Cooper flipped on his blinker when Sawyer showed him where to exit. “So what was Chloe’s big secret? Or is that still privileged information?”
Sawyer smiled at Cooper; she couldn’t help herself. “Chloe’s parents—I think it was still her parents, maybe a stepdad already—just couldn’t afford it.”
Cooper furrowed his brow. “That’s it? Not like every time she danced a puppy died?”
“No!” Sawyer laughed.
“Parents not being able to afford dance lessons doesn’t seem all that tragic.”
“Well, when you’re eleven, whatever makes you not the same as all the other girls is tragic. I told Chloe I didn’t care, but she was so terrified someone would find out. They moved into this crappy trailer park, sold their car. Maggie found out from her gossipy mom or something, and she pounced. Chloe’s new status went viral overnight. People made fun of her, called her trailer trash or ghetto girl.” Sawyer shook her head, remembering. “She was crushed.”
“But you stood by your friend.”
“Of course.” Sawyer smiled faintly. “She’s my best friend.”
“So that was, what? Five, six years ago?”
Sawyer nodded. “Something like that.”
“And you haven’t spoken to Maggie since?”
Sawyer gritted her teeth. “Nothing nice.”
Sawyer remembered the day the news broke that she and Kevin had begun dating. Maggie was Kevin’s ex-girlfriend; they had been apart for a little over two months, but from Maggie’s bulldog expression, one would think Kevin had walked out on the one for the other. “I don’t think Maggie’s really the making-up type, regardless.”
Cooper nodded. “You’re pretty tough, Sawyer Dodd.”
Sawyer turned in her seat. “Why would you say that?”
“Standing up to a bully? Even at eleven years old, that’s pretty brave.”
In her mind, an image flashed of Sawyer cowering in a corner while Kevin stood over her, spitting mad. Humiliation washed over her, and she looked away. “I’m not that brave.”
“Chloe’s lucky to have a friend like you.”
“It’s not like that. She’s got my back too. When I told her my parents were splitting, she came over every day with vanilla ice cream and a two liter of root beer.”
Cooper guided the car through the gates of Blackwood. “Vanilla ice cream and root beer? No chocolate? No marshmallows? Sounds kind of dull.”
“Not when you tunnel down the center of the carton and fill the void with root beer. It’s the ultimate root beer float.”
“I see,” Cooper said with a grin. “So vanilla ice cream and root beer, that’s what made you a tough girl then?”
Sawyer feigned anger. “What do you mean, ‘then’? Cooper Grey, I’ll take you down right here.”
“I kind of wish you would.” The comment was suggestive and raced like lightning through the car, hanging heavy in the air. The thrilling zing rushed through Sawyer, and as quickly as it came, it was gone, replaced by that same sense of shame, of betrayal. She saw Kevin’s narrowed eyes, saw the blood seeping from Chloe’s wound.
“This is my street,” she said quickly.
Cooper slowed. “Which one is your house?”
“You know, don’t worry about it. You can just drop me here. It’s right there.” She waved in the vicinity of her house, hunkering in the darkness.
“What?”
Sawyer clicked open the door, and Cooper slammed on the brakes. “I’m just going to get out here.” She gathered her purse and hopped out of the car. “Thank you so much, Cooper, um, it was fun—well, not fun fun, but—you know. Thanks.” She snapped the door shut before Cooper could say anything and gave him a curt finger wave before turning on her heel and heading toward the bank of dark houses. She hated the way they seemed to leer at her, these gaping skeletons, but all at once the air in the car had gone from barely noticeable to so heavy it pushed all the air out of Sawyer’s lungs. She ran to her house and disappeared through the front door without waiting to see Cooper leave.
***
Sawyer couldn’t remember when—or if—she fell asleep, but she was staring at the ceiling by the time the sun started to tinge the ink-black night a pinky yellow. It had been too quiet to sleep; with every breath she took, Sawyer imagined the deathly silence filling her lungs, soaking through her body. When the first finger of light broke its way into her room, she kicked off the covers and wrestled her way into a sports bra and track pants, pulling on a long-sleeve shirt and running socks. She kicked through the mess of discarded clothing and random junk on her bedroom floor until she found one sneaker; she was on the floor, flat on her chest, reaching under her bed when the palm of her hand landed on the crumbs of something cold. She withdrew her hand and wrinkled her nose at the beads of dried mud that had embedded themselves in her palm. She brushed the mud off on her T-shirt and gave the bed a good heft with her hip, moving it a few inches. Her one errant shoe was there, flopped on its side, wedged between some books she was planning to shelve when she got around to getting shelves and a single metallic flat. Sawyer snatched up her sneaker and brushed off the dirt, trying to remember the last time she trail ran; the muck that usually clung to her shoes was red track dust. She slid the sneaker on and glanced back to the heap of books and the single shoe, the littering of dried mud. She edged the bed back in place and told herself she’d vacuum later.
The cold was overwhelming and bone deep when Sawyer stepped onto the porch. Her breath came out in puffed white clouds, and her muscles seized up as her lungs sucked in the icy air. She launched herself anyway, hands fisted, legs pumping. It didn’t take long for the warmth of motion to surge through her body. She zipped past three half-built houses, studs exposed like spindly skeletons as the warm air surged through her lungs, broke through her muscles.
Sawyer was a distance runner, not a speed runner, but she left her house quickly, clearing her street and her block in record time. As she ran she could feel the memory of Kevin, of the note, of Chloe and the oozing red gash pulling her back, doing its best to weigh on her, but she pushed harder, faster, her fists punching at the air in front of her, her heart metering out a quick, hot rhythm with her footfalls as they rang out hollow in the empty street. As she ran, something nagged at her periphery—something she was missing. She was deep in thought, trying to grab the missing piece, when she heard the footsteps behind her. They were quick, keeping easy pace with her, their echo cracking against the empty streets, bouncing off the model homes. Sawyer slowed and the footsteps mirrored her rhythm.
She stopped.
Suddenly the silence was too deep, too thick. It sunk into Sawyer’s chest, enveloping her so that she felt claustrophobic. Her fingers clawed at the zipper of her windbreaker, then pulled at the collar of her shirt. The street was deathly silent now.
Had she imagined the footsteps?
A branch broke behind her, and Sawyer sucked in a breath and held it, afraid to turn around—afraid not to. Her eyes searched the horizon in front of her and the breath seeped out of her body little by little as she saw each cookie-cutter house in front of her, each as perfect and as empty as the last.
She took off like a shot.
She dug into the air wi
th her fingers and pumped her legs until her thighs screamed, wet heat breaking across the muscles. She squinted as the wind smacked at her face, turned the tears she didn’t know were falling into painful blasts of cold. She was making headway, had reached the looped street that returned to her house as the footsteps became more pronounced, more frantic. Her feet ached and her left calf seized, the pain shooting through her like needles in her bloodstream. She tried to will it away, tried to command her brain to make her legs move more, faster, harder, but her knee collapsed over her cramped calf and Sawyer felt herself falling, the whole thing in achingly slow motion. She noticed every detail on this block’s more finished houses as she went down—the unobtrusive almond-colored paint, the chocolate-brown trim, the shadow under one of the eaves. And she knew she was being watched.
Her shoulder hit the pavement first, sliding enough to accommodate her upper arm, her splayed palms, her belly, and her chin. She felt her skin make contact with the frozen ground, felt it tear and burn as she slid in the gravel. The smack had sucked the wind out of her so when she tried to scream, nothing came out except a low, offensive moan. She searched wildly for her assailant, for the shadow under the eave—but there was nothing there. Again the silence was everywhere, until a crumpled paper bag caught on the breeze and flitted across the sidewalk, coming to rest on a would-be porch.
Sawyer rolled onto her back and worked to pull air into her folded lungs. When she could breathe and her heartbeat dipped back to a normal thump, she pushed herself up, wincing as the gravel dug itself deeper into her ruined palms. She looked around her, her fear still palpable in the early morning light, still aching in her exhausted muscles.
The street was deserted. There was no one there.
Her teeth started to chatter, and the tears fell freely over her cheeks. She sniffed as she began a slow, laboring jog back to her house. Her jaw ached by the time she reached the low arc of her property, and as she stepped onto the porch, her eyes caught the faintest glimmer of something in her periphery.