by Jo Holloway
She never got that smile.
When he talked to her, she got quiet Rhys—reserved Rhys. She wished she got this happier, more playful version, but the rare times they found themselves alone for a moment, he usually grew quiet. Maybe she reminded him too much of a bad time in his life. It couldn’t be easy being around someone who’d helped plot and carry out his sister’s murder, even if it had been necessary to save her. She shuddered to think how easily it could all have gone wrong. Then neither he nor Liv would be here.
Residual guilt trickled through her at the thoughts she’d been having before she’d tripped. She should be glad Rhys had Emma. She should be grateful he had someone who could let him relax without thinking of dark times. He deserved that much after everything he’d been through.
Cara gritted her teeth. It didn’t matter how much mud was on her pants or what kind of embarrassing things she said. It wasn’t like Rhys would care. She was his little sister’s friend now, however they’d first met. All that mattered in this moment was the five of them were together, conveniently away from anyone who could overhear them.
Wes had brought Jory in on the secret of the hidden Pyx from the moment he’d begun to discover his abilities. Liv . . . well, Liv had firsthand knowledge. And as for Rhys, the gold ring in his eyes meant he was the third Pyxsee in their midst. Here at Scovell Academy, the five of them were the only ones who knew.
She stepped up to the fence again.
“What’s new is Jenyx thinks there was another unfamiliar Pyx near us today.” She managed not to wince when Rhys’s smile vanished at her words.
“Seriously?”
Wes nodded. “Not a friendly one, if Cara’s emotional radar is any indication.”
“It is true,” Jenyx said. Jenner had reappeared from the forest. “They are turning up with increasing frequency.”
“Do we know what they want?” Jory asked.
“We do not. It is most unusual for any Pyx to avoid communication with the others in the area, but this one, or more than one, does not appear keen to make themselves known.”
“They aren’t talking.” Cara recapped for Jory and Liv who, not being Pyxsees, couldn’t hear Jenyx’s response.
“Do you have a guess? Does the council?” Rhys straightened and took a step toward the fence. “Do we know if it’s safe for her—for anyone, I mean—to be out on the forest trails?” His eyes darted to Cara, sending her heart skittering for a second.
“We aren’t certain of much; however, we do have some ideas,” Jenyx replied.
“And?”
“Now is not the time.”
Cara huffed. “Figures. When is your precious council going to tell us what’s up?”
“Soon, child, very soon.”
“Why did I know you were going to say that?”
CHAPTER 2
“WHAT COL-OR D-DID SHE say?” Cassidy forced the words out between ragged breaths and swiped at the tears on her cheeks, dislodging Cara’s hand from her shoulder with her jerky motions.
Tish paled, staring open-mouthed at the hair color tube on the bathroom counter.
“Smoky silver,” Tish breathed.
“Tish!”
“I’m so sorry, Cass. I never—I can’t—”
Cara had rushed into the bathroom after Cassidy’s scream tore through the halls. There had been a moment of confusion over the appearance of what looked like an old lady crying in the middle of the dorms while Cassidy’s two best friends stood over her, wearing matching looks of horror. Then she’d realized the old woman actually was Cassidy.
Cara picked up the blonde hair dye box. “The tubes must have gotten swapped.”
Cassidy’s face reddened in the silence that followed.
Cara gave up trying to console her one-time roommate, whose usual blonde curls were now a tangled mess of grey. Before anyone could throw accusations around, Ms. Lewis charged into the room.
“Who screamed?” The French teacher, and one of their two dorm parents, must have heard Cassidy’s shriek through the vents. Ms. Lewis glanced around the crowded bathroom and clutched her chest at the sight of Cassidy’s damp grey curls. “Oh mon Dieu. That is a bold choice.”
Cassidy stomped her foot. “Someone did this to me. On purpose. Look at my hair. I can’t be seen like this. You have to punish them.”
Cara took one more look and then turned away. Cassidy’s complaints and accusations faded as Cara slipped out the door past the other watching girls and headed down the hall. She passed the door to her dorm room where she and her roommate, Delaney, had been studying with Liv and Kaylee moments before the scream, and went to the room on the other side of the hall that she’d shared with Cassidy for the first few months of freshman year.
Turquoise hair bounced on Meygyn’s bare shoulders as the girl turned toward the knock at the open door. Cassidy’s roommate held, of all things, a glue gun in one hand and the shirt she’d just been wearing in the other. Cara didn’t have the energy to ask what she was doing standing in her bra with a superheated weapon in her hand and the door standing wide open.
“Um, did you . . . You didn’t swap Cassidy’s hair dye, did you?” She couldn’t imagine why she would, but Meygyn changed her own hair color at least once a month, so she was the obvious choice. “Because she’s really upset.”
“She’s upset? Why?”
“I guess because she looks like an old lady?”
“So?”
“So most people don’t want to go grey before sixteen, I guess.”
“I don’t know. I think she looks pretty hot as a crone. But I’ve got plenty of other colors if she wants to change it.”
Okay, then. Not Meygyn. Who else . . .?
Cara turned and left Meygyn to do whatever it was Meygyn did with her spare time. She checked her and Delaney’s room with a sinking feeling, and found it empty except for Jenner and Marcus, Delaney’s cat. The girls hadn’t come back to their study session after the excitement. She headed to the lounge in the center of the dorm with Jenner padding after her.
The couch sagged when she sank beside Liv. Liv worked hard to keep watching the television, but her cheeks twitched under the force of Cara’s stare. After another moment, she turned her head.
“Yes? Can I help you?”
“Liv?”
“What?”
Cara waited her out.
Liv rolled her eyes. “What? It’s a harmless prank. She can dye it back right away. I even have another box of her blonde dye to give her . . . tomorrow.” She gave a wicked grin. “After class.”
“Why?”
“Someone had to take Queen Bee down a peg.”
“Cassidy’s nice. A little salty sometimes, a tad superficial, but she’s sweet deep down. Why won’t you give her a chance?”
“I’m sick of her flirting with Jory all the time.”
There it was. Those two needed to sort themselves out.
“Are you serious? Cassidy’s a flirt, sure, and Jory too. At least, he was . . . before. But you and him are together all the time now. You must know he likes you.”
The Pyx who’d been trapped in her mind had left Liv near death, with ashen skin, sunken eyes, and lifeless hair, unable to speak or react, wasting away to nothing, and Jory had still looked at her like she was the only thing that mattered in the world from the first time he’d seen her.
“I thought so, but it’s not like he’s asked me out yet.”
Cara had no idea what he was waiting for. He certainly wasn’t shy. And he was clearly smitten. It was obvious in the way he looked at Liv, the way they reflected each other’s expressions without trying, and the special smile he only had for her. Obvious to everyone except Liv, apparently.
One of the girls in the lounge changed the channel, and the background music of the TV show cut out, replaced by a droning voice.
Cara rolled her eyes at Liv and dropped her voice to a hushed tone. “You do know you could ask him out, right? You don’t have to wait. Twenty-first ce
ntury and everything. We have exams next week and a few days off, but then it’ll be a new semester, and the Valentine’s dance is coming up.” When Liv shot her a look that said that wasn’t going to happen, she tried another approach. “Fine, but you must see how he looks at you. I’ve never seen him look at any girl that way. Even when he supposedly had a crush on me for a while, he never—hey!”
Liv had shoved her over sideways on the couch. “When he what?”
Cara sat back up, laughing. She raised one finger to hold off Liv’s outstretched hands. “Okay, I definitely thought you knew that. And it definitely was not my point. That was before he ever laid eyes on you. My point was he’s not the same flirty guy since he met you.”
Jenner bumped Cara’s knee. “Cara, are you seeing this?” Jenyx’s voice sounded deathly serious in her mind.
The babble of voices in the room had vanished into tense silence. She held up a hand to stop Liv from responding and switched her attention to the television.
“You guys are watching the news?” Cara asked the girls around her.
The couch dipped again as Kaylee sat beside her and nodded. “It’s awful.”
On the screen, the news showed twisted cars scattered across a street. Wreckage lay strewn in haphazard patterns. The newscast switched to an overhead view and panned out. Cara gasped. The crash scene must have stretched for a mile.
“This is in Portland?” She’d run that road often enough with Jenner to recognize it.
She scanned the faces around the arc of couches. Every girl, and a couple visiting boyfriends, stared at the TV or their phones with blank looks of shock. People passing through stopped behind the couches to watch.
The screen changed again to show a reporter standing in front of a bus that was lying on its side looking crumpled and battered.
“As you can see, the bus came to a stop here after crashing into cars on both sides of the road for nearly a mile. Witnesses say the bus engine was revving, and the lack of skid marks is leading many to speculate this was a deliberate act by the driver, who is not known to police and does not appear to have been a part of any extremist groups. The sole survivor from the bus gave a statement to police from the hospital.”
The reporter lifted a paper. “This report alleges that the driver was screaming and hitting his head. When passengers attempted to intervene, the driver apparently began a high-speed journey of destruction, ramming cars while shouting about polluting monsters.”
Cara’s pulse pounded in her throat at the images in front of her. The reporter’s next words made it far worse.
“At least two dozen are confirmed dead, including the driver and all but one bus passenger, as well as several other drivers and bystanders. The survivor from the bus remains in the hospital in a serious but stable condition. Another thirty-one people have been taken to the hospital with a variety of injuries, several in critical condition. Jackie has more.”
The footage switched to a female reporter standing at a different part of the wreck. Cara’s breath caught. In the background of the frame, between crushed cars, police officers worked around a yellow tarp on the ground. Her breathing grew tight and her eyes welled. All those people, all those families. It hit too close to home.
“Need to text my mom,” she whispered, standing. Her feet carried her down the hall to her room, where she scooped her phone off the desk and found she already had a message from her mother.
Nowhere near the crash.
In case you were worried.
The road wasn’t on her mom’s commute, so she hadn’t been worried, but she still breathed easier reading the text. She sent a reply.
Glad you’re ok.
Try not to watch.
Love you.
She hoped her mom wouldn’t watch the coverage. Cara had never gotten over the day she’d found her mom sobbing in their living room with a similar scene playing on the news—a much smaller accident, but a fatality where the same type of tarp showed in the background. It was the day her mom had told her the story of her dad’s accident and how she’d been called to identify his body. Police had shown her photos of the scene to see if she could shed some light on what he’d been doing at the time of his death.
The memory of the conversation haunted Cara, so the memory of that awful day would be a million times worse for her mom after seeing a similar crash on TV. She wiped the tears from her eyes.
The phone chimed again.
Love you too, sweetie. Not watching. I’m heading out to the police station to talk to the detective again. It’s been another month and still no word on Lydia. Figured another face to face might help light a fire since my phone calls do nothing.
There wasn’t much Cara could say, so she replied with a heart emoji to offer a little support, although she didn’t expect the visit would do any good. Her mom’s friend Lydia had disappeared about three months after the day she’d run out of their law office and right into traffic, luckily only breaking her leg.
Cara’s heart gave another squeeze recalling how her mom had done everything she could to help Lydia recover, taking her to all her psychiatrist appointments, feeling terrible about not realizing what had been going on with her. Cara didn’t pretend to understand the myriad of ways people could be affected by mental illness, but she wished her mom would stop feeling guilty. No one could have foreseen the woman up and leaving her life behind the way she had. And no one could have done anything more to find her.
Jenner rested his head on Cara’s knee, looking as miserable as she felt. She stroked his silky ears and sniffed. A flash of green crossed his eyes as he turned his baleful gaze up to her.
She fought fresh tears. “Stop making my dog sad. And me.”
“Apologies, child. It is difficult to see you struggle, although I do admit I am uncertain as to why I am affected so. I do, however, have concerns about what we heard.”
“Concerns?”
“Indeed. Is there time yet to head over to speak with Tomyx?”
There was still an hour before curfew. Besides, a visit with Wes and Jory was exactly what she needed right now, so she nodded.
THE LOUNGE IN THE LODGEPOLE Pine dorm, or the Lodge, where the boys lived held the same scene as her lounge over at the Cedars, as they called the Red Cedar dorm. The only differences were the faint musky scent and the people watching the television were a bunch of guys instead of girls.
Wes and Jory sat to one side, spotting her as soon as she and Jenner entered through the main doors. They rose and climbed over the back of the couch to join her.
“Tomyx said you’d be over soon. We were watching for you.” Jory attempted a smile, falling short of his usual grin.
She glanced at their TV where the image had returned to the anchors at the news desk.
“In other news, the suicide rate continues to climb. This week saw three more deaths and another six people admitted on suicide watch. That’s more than triple the average for Portland, and we’re learning this heartbreaking trend is more widespread than was previously thought. Pete, what can you tell us about what the state of Oregon is doing to handle this increasing demand on our mental health facilities?”
The news was full of cheer today. Cara sighed. Noise grew in the lounge and drowned out the television’s coverage of a psychiatrist discussing how to make it easier for people to seek and accept help. The guys sitting around the couches all started talking at once, discussing the accident now that the broadcast had moved on from their top story.
“Think he was a terrorist?”
“Weren’t you listening? They said the police don’t suspect terrorism. Just a guy who snapped.”
“Who would do that?”
“Someone insane, obviously.”
“The guy’s not wrong about polluting monsters, though. I’m getting an electric.”
“Sure you are, Mike.”
“It didn’t look like he cared what type of cars they were.”
“He’s the monster.”
; The din of comments started to annoy her, and Cara turned away, leading their group down the hall to the boys’ room.
“Hi, Tomyx.” Cara greeted the Pyx who lived in Jory’s big orange cat. The only answer was another wave of sorrow she didn’t need. “Jenyx said we need to talk.”
The boys each sat on their beds, and she took a seat beside Wes.
“So what’s wrong, aside from the obvious?” she asked.
“A lot.” Tomyx usually spoke in a joking, sometimes sarcastic tone, but today, he was mastering a grumpy cat voice to match his pyxis.
“A lot?”
“Indeed,” Jenyx replied. “Sadly the events of today are not isolated. A pattern is forming, one which is of terrible concern in light of what the council learned from Livyx.”
“The information you refuse to share with us, you mean.”
“I do, though that will not be true much longer, unfortunately.”
“What? You’re finally going to tell us?”
Jory perked up across the room. “They’re talking about Livyx? What’d they do to her? She better have paid for what she did to Liv.”
“You may reassure young Jory that the Pyx in question is serving out her sentence,” Jenyx said.
“She’s serving out her sentence? That’s it? That’s all you have to say about an evil Pyx who almost killed someone?” Cara fumed.
“Easy, child. I know everyone in this room feels strongly about Olivia, and I assure you, the council did not take the decision lightly. The circumstances are not what we expected, and adjustments had to be made.”
“We’re not the only ones who feel strongly about Liv.” Cara’s mind flashed to an image of Rhys smiling over his sister at breakfast that morning. There was also her dad, Dr. Randall Whalton, probably busy at the hospital in Portland with crash victims as they spoke. Presumably Liv’s mother cared too, though neither Whalton sibling had ever shared anything about her except enough for them to gather she was alive . . . somewhere.
“Of course not,” Tomyx said, “but we had to make a call. Letting the Pyx live to ensure her help was the best decision given the situation.”