by M. Leighton
Slowly, he turned and walked out of the crush, away from the crowd.
He carried me toward a deserted corner of the gymnasium and into a short, dark hallway that led to a door that emptied out onto the stage in the auditorium right next door.
The music still thudded in my chest, obscuring the excited patter of my heart.
Bo walked to the back of the hallway, to its blackest point, and stopped, pushing me up against the wall and holding me there with his body. And then his mouth was devouring mine.
As his tongue tangled mercilessly with mine, I grabbed his shoulders and held on tight. I felt his hands at my thighs, his fingers working the material of my dress up until I could feel skin on skin.
I wanted Bo so badly it almost hurt. I wanted more. I wanted it all and the frustration of it was killing me.
At first, the scream sounded like it came from somewhere inside me, like the cry of my body for Bo’s attention suddenly became audible. But then I heard the music die and an uncharacteristic hush fall across the gymnasium, which lay only a few feet away.
Bo leaned back and looked at me, both of us breathing like we’d just run a marathon. Confusion and a little concern swirled in his beautiful, velvety eyes. A frown creased his shadowed brow as he let me slide to the floor. My dress shimmied down my legs and righted itself at my ankles as we both turned to look toward the gym.
Bo took my hand and led me from the dark, back out to where everyone was shuffling to get a better view of something that was happening around the refreshments table, near the exit.
The closer we got, I could hear that someone was crying. A girl. And one of the chaperones was soothing her, encouraging her to calm down and tell him what happened.
Bo and I pushed our way to the far right interior edge of the crowd so we could see. It was Bailey Adams. She was dressed as a cat in a skin-tight black suit.
The material was torn down her arm, her tail was missing and one of her ears was bent. A fine red spatter covered her face—blood. She’d obviously rubbed at it, causing it to streak across her cheek and smear her whiskers.
She was hiccupping, bawling her eyes out, trying to speak around her terror.
“Take your time, Bailey. Just tell me what happened. Are you hurt?”
“No. She didn’t want me. She took Jason.”
“Who? Who took Jason?”
“Summer. She took him.”
“Summer? Summer Collins?”
“Yes,” Bailey cried, her sobbing renewed. “I think that’s who it was. She jumped out from behind the side of the school and attacked us. We both fell down to the ground, but it was him she wanted. She started biting him. She took two big chunks out of his face. Right in front of me. I-I-I saw her do it,” she stammered hysterically.
“I crawled over to him and grabbed his arm, tried to pull him away from her, but she wouldn’t let him go. She just chewed on him and kind of shook him, like alike a- a toy. Blood was going everywhere and- and then she got up, grabbed hold of his foot and dragged him off.”
Mr. Hall looked suspicious. “Bailey, are you sure that’s what you saw?”
“Uh-huh,” she said solemnly, nodding her head and wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Summer Collins? Attacked Jason and…and…”
“Dragged him off,” she supplied.
“Dragged him off?”
“Right.”
“Could it have been a prank, Bailey? Are you sure what you saw was real?”
Onlookers started murmuring, looking at one another. A prank like that would be epic. But Summer? That just didn’t sound like her at all. Not the Summer I knew anyway. Of course, I hadn’t seen that Summer, the one I did know, in a while.
“Ok,” Mr. Hall sighed, resigned. “Let me call the police and then I’ll call your parents, alright?”
Bailey nodded, sniffling, as Mr. Hall pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.
“I want everyone to stay inside until the police get here,” he announced as he waited for someone to come on the line.
Hushed whispers broke out among the masqueraders and the horde started to disburse a bit now that the spectacle was over. Bo took my hand and pulled me away from everyone else.
“Stay here,” he said. “I’m going to see if I can find them.”
“Do you think Summer’s a…a…” I said, looking at him meaningfully.
His brow furrowed. “That’s the thing. It doesn’t sound like it. A new one of us would’ve gone straight for the throat, not the face.”
“Then what are you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” he said vaguely. “Just stay here with Savannah. I’ll be back.”
And then, with a peck on my lips, Bo was gone. Just as quickly and mysteriously as he’d appeared at the dance, he left it. It was at least a full minute before something he’d said finally registered—Savannah.
I’d forgotten all about Savannah.
Frantically, I whirled about, searching the crowd for her vivid hair. I didn’t see her anywhere. Fear swelled in my throat like a suffocating balloon.
I started asking everyone I passed, “Have you seen Savannah?” All shook their heads. No one had seen her.
I found the dead cowboy she’d danced with and I asked him. He was marginally more helpful.
“She went to the bathroom right before Bailey came in freaking out. I haven’t seen her since.”
The knot in my throat grew and my chest squeezed in impending panic.
Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Ohmigod!
I flew from the gym, out the door and down the hall toward the first set of bathrooms I came to. Surely she would’ve used the closest ones since she was no longer able to see her way around.
Guilt rose up inside me, mingling with the fear, threatening to choke me.
What if she’d tried to find me and I was off making out with Bo? What if something had happened to her because I’d been so wrapped up in my own selfish world that I’d completely forgotten about her?
I hit the bathroom door at a run. It slammed back against the wall and rocked on its hinges.
“Savannah! Savannah, are you in here?”
I listened, praying I would hear her delicate voice. When nothing but silence greeted me, I turned to leave. If need be, I’d search every square inch of the school until I found her.
Just as the door was closing behind me, I heard a soft whisper. I caught the door with my foot and whirled back around. I heard the other door, the one on the opposite side of the bathroom that opened onto the back hall, creak as it closed.
“Savannah!” I called again.
“Ridley?”
A relief so profound, so draining washed through me that I thought my legs might fold. I couldn’t bear it if something else happened to Savannah, especially on my watch. I felt like I’d already let her down enough by keeping things from her, important things. I couldn’t hurt her any more.
“Ohmigod, Savannah, you scared me to death!” I was literally clutching my chest. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” she murmured from one of the stalls.
“Where are you?”
“In this one,” she said, tapping at the third door with her knuckles.
I walked to stand in front of it. “Can I open the door?”
“Sure.”
I pushed the squeaky metal door back and there was Savannah, sitting on top of the closed toilet lid, holding her silver sunglasses between her fingers, smiling like she’d just won a million bucks.
“What are you doing?”
She giggled with delight. “Ridley, I saw him. I saw him!” she exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears. “He’s alive.”
“Who?”
“Devon.”
CHAPTER SIX
My heart tripped over itself for a few beats. “Devon? What? He’s alive?”
“Yes!”
“But- but- how do you know?”
“I told you I just saw him.”
�
�You saw him? You mean you talked to him? Tonight? Here?”
“Yes, I talked to him, but Ridley, I saw him.”
It had been a very emotionally tumultuous night and I wasn’t the quickest at that moment, but I felt inordinately confused by what she was saying.
“What do you mean you ‘saw him’?”
She laughed out right this time. “I mean exactly that. I saw him.”
I hated to be the one to point out the obvious, but…
“But Savannah, you’re blind. You can’t see anything.”
“You think I don’t know that, Ridley? I know I’m blind, but I saw him. I can see him.”
Then something scary occurred to me. What if she was hurt? Delusional?
“Savannah, are you hurt? Did you fall in here? Hit your head or something?”
I bent forward and started gently probing her head, checking for cuts or blood. Savannah grabbed my wrists in a firm grip and tugged my hands away from her. I stopped and looked down into her beautiful, sparkling chocolate eyes. They were clear and lucid, though they stared right through me, unseeing.
“Ridley, I’m fine. I’m telling you, I saw Devon.”
“But, I don’t—”
“I don’t know how either,” she interrupted. “But I did. It happened. And it was real. I saw him. I heard his voice and saw his lips move. I even felt him, Ridley. He held my hand and touched my face. He even kissed me, right before he left. Right before you came in.”
“But, how—”
“I don’t know, Ridley, but you can’t tell anyone. He made me promise.
He’d kill me if he knew I told you. Promise me,” she demanded, her expression serious.
“Alright. I promise,” I agreed. Then I thought of Bo. I had to tell him, but I didn’t want to out-and-out lie to Savannah. “Unless Bo comes back, too. I can tell him, right?”
Savannah grinned tolerantly. “Yes. If Bo mysteriously turns back up, you can tell him.”
We were silent for a few minutes, each lost in thought.
“So, did he say where he’s been? What happened?”
“No, he told me he’d find me later and we’d talk more.”
“Why is he back now? I mean, where has he been?”
Savannah shrugged.
“All he said was that he could finally trust himself around me, whatever that means.”
A little twinge of unease poked the back of my mind, but I was still too flabbergasted to make much sense of it right then.
“Devon’s back,” I said numbly. What in the world could that mean? And Savannah could actually see him. I was missing something, something important. I could feel it, but I just couldn’t latch on to it.
“What are you doing in here anyway? How’d you know where to find me?”
“Dead cowboy,” I answered absently.
“Dead- oh, Zach.”
“Right, Zach.”
“Well,” Savannah said, standing abruptly. “Let’s go get our freak on. We’ve got some rug to cut before midnight.”
That shook me out of my stupor.
“I don’t think there’s going to be any more dancing tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Bailey Adams showed up with a torn costume and blood all over her face.
She’s saying that Summer attacked her and Jason and then dragged Jason off.”
Savannah gasped. “Shut up!”
“I’m serious.”
“What- I mean, who—”
“Don’t ask me. I’ve got nothing.”
“Come on, then. Let’s go see what’s going on,” Savannah said, grabbing my hand and tugging me forward. “Well, you can see. I’ll listen.”
I looked over at her and she was grinning cheekily. She was fine, right back to her old self. Nothing got Savannah down for long.
“You’re impossible.”
“I know,” she agreed pleasantly.
The cops were just arriving as we walked back into the gym. I gave Savannah a play-by-play of what I was seeing.
“One cop’s got Bailey over in the corner asking her questions. There’s another one talking to Mr. Hall. The back doors are open and I can see some lights out there. I guess they’re looking for Jason.”
The cop that was talking to Mr. Hall strode to the center of that area marked off to be the dance floor and he stopped.
“Can I have your attention, please?” he shouted in an authoritative voice.
A hush fell over the room and every eye turned toward him.
“One of the cops is getting ready to make an announcement,” I whispered to Savannah.
“I kinda figured that out,” she whispered back. “I’m blind, not deaf, remember?”
“Oh,” I said, feeling a sheepish grin slide into place. “Sorry.”
“My name is Officer Felding and I’m going to need everyone to form a single file line in front of that table,” he said, indicating the refreshments table. “I’m going to need your name, address and contact information, as well as your whereabouts for the last two hours. That includes bathroom breaks, trips to your car, any time and any reason that you were not inside this room.”
He backed up toward the table, raising his arms and motioning us forward like a ground crew member at the airport, guiding a large plane into its hangar.
Kids started slowly moving forward to follow him, squeezing themselves into a thin line that snaked all the way around the gym.
The cop turned and spoke to Mr. Hall, who scrambled off quickly, obviously sent in search of something. A few minutes later, after the cop had cleared a spot on the refreshments table, Mr. Hall returned with two metal folding chairs in one hand and a stack of paper in the other.
The cop took the stack of paper and put it in on the table in front of him. He unfolded one of the chairs and sat. Mr. Hall unfolded the other and slid it under the table on the other side, opposite the policeman.
Officer Felding motioned the first student forward. It was a girl and, if the look on her face was any indication, she was scared to death. He motioned for her to sit in the chair opposite him as he began asking her questions. And so the process began. Savannah and I chatted quietly amongst ourselves and with the few others in our part of the line. Meanwhile, I scanned the shadows and the doorways, constantly watching for Bo.
I knew it would be incredibly difficult for him to contact me without being discovered. I’m sure he wished, as I did, that his invisibility was more controllable, more of an at-will condition. With fresh blood in his system, without some serious stress to burn it off, he’d be quite discernible for some time.
A shiver passed through me as I thought of him being attacked by a vampire Drew or a whatever-she-is Summer and having to fight for his life. That would increase his metabolism, but I’d rather him not gain his transparency in such a way.
No one could be 100% certain yet that Bo was the boy who can’t be killed, and until that could be ascertained, I didn’t want him taking any chances.
Savannah was deep in conversation with one of our school band’s violinists when something fluttered in my stomach. Once more, my eyes searched the periphery of the room.
I caught movement in the same hallway Bo had taken me into. Something shifted just inside the shadows. I saw the flash of a hand as it breeched the light. It motioned me forward and then disappeared again. It had to be Bo. Didn’t it?
I scrambled for an excuse, a good reason to escape the crowded gymnasium and make my way to Bo. I spotted another cop, standing by the double doors at the back of the gym, the ones that were propped open and now showed a string of yellow crime scene tape that passed in front of them. I concluded that they must’ve found something bothersome.
“I’ve gotta pee,” I told Savannah. I waved to the policeman. “Excuse me.”
His head turned toward me and he motioned me forward. I hurried toward him, smiling my most innocent, beguiling smile.
“I’m sorry, but is there any way that I could be excused for, like, fiv
e minutes to go to the bathroom?”
When he didn’t immediately agree, I pressed. “Please?” I think I might even have batted my eyelashes. I can’t be sure.
He looked uncomfortably at the other officer and then he sighed. I knew I had him then.
“It will only take a minute. I promise.”
“Alright. Five minutes, or I’m coming in after you.”
“Thank you. I’ll be right back.”
I hurried off, crossing the gym and bolting through the doors into the hallway. Rather than making a left, however, I veered right, toward the auditorium. I could access the small hallway from that direction, too. That must’ve been how Bo got in there without being seen.
I opened the auditorium door, slipped through and let it fall quietly shut behind me. The only lighting was the red glow of the three exit signs; one behind me and one over the doors on either side of the stage toward the front. I scrambled down the sloped aisle and made my way to the steps that led up onto the platform.
I turned the corner to round the curtains and go back stage. That’s the only way I could get to the door that led to the gym, the door that led to Bo.
I jerked to a halt. Nothing but pitch black lay in front of me, between me and the door. A little shower of trepidation rained chills down my arms.
I listened closely for any sounds, but the only thing I heard was the muffled thump of my own heartbeat beating in my ears.
Quietly, I placed one foot in front of the other and entered the darkness. I struggled to make out shapes of things that stood in my path. Just barely, I could make out a rack that held costumes. It was pushed up against the wall. I saw the pale outline of the tall top of a cardboard castle they’d used in a set at the beginning of the school year when they’d put on Romeo and Juliet. I imagined that every high school in the free world had the exact same light gray castle turret.
I saw the thin stream of light coming from the top of the door that led to the gym and knew the short flight of stairs was straight ahead.
Then something moved in front of the light, blocking it out for an instant before it reappeared.