“She’s … gone?” Jen choked out.
Numb, I eased to my feet. Kian herded us to the car and offered to drive the other two girls home, even though they lived in different parts of the city. It was late enough that traffic wasn’t horrendous. I got out when we dropped Jen off and hugged her. She held on for a long time. When we got to Davina’s house, I did the same. Her mom was standing in the doorway in a golden wash of light, and Davina ran to her outstretched arms like I could never do. My mom wouldn’t think to open them.
“Is this because of me?” I asked as he put the car in drive.
Kian should’ve answered right away with a firm denial. He didn’t. “I don’t know.”
“Did I do this somehow?” A shriek bubbled in the back of my throat as I saw that crimson splatter over and over, out from the raw hole that was Brit’s mouth, cheeks eaten away, so much pain, so much. Her eyes were wild with it and swimming in fear.
“Of course not. You’d never hurt anyone, Edie.”
You wanted them all to suffer, a little voice whispered in my ear. So it begins.
Whipping my head around wildly, I caught a glimpse of red eyes in the side mirror. On a smothered cry, I checked the backseat but there was nobody. Just a reflection of some taillights. Monsters don’t live in reflections.
Or maybe they do.
It was too much. I fought the tears for a full minute according to the clock on the dash, but in the end, I lost. Kian eyed me but he didn’t pull over until we got close to the brownstone. Then he parked up the street from my apartment and reached for me.
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I’ll look into it. I’ll keep you safe.”
His hands roved my back, gentle and soothing, and I cried for the life Brittany had lost, the one he’d signed away, and the future that might not even be mine anymore. My eyes felt sore and swollen when I finally calmed down. I couldn’t remember losing it like that in front of anyone, ever, and that made it impossible to look at him.
“This sucks,” I muttered.
“Remember what I said? I meant it. I’ll never let you down when you need me.”
“Why? I was kind of an ass**le to you the other night.”
“We’ll talk about that later. Right now, I’m walking you upstairs. Under the circumstances, I’m sure I can convince your parents to let me stay a while.”
“But it’s a school night.”
“Trust me,” he said.
If only I could.
I should’ve told him that night about the bag man and the spooky children. But I didn’t; I forgot about them in the deluge of other problems.
That was a mistake.
A GRIEF LIKE FEAR
Tuesday, word had already spread. The minute I stepped into school, other students surrounded me, some of them sporting black armbands. Farther down the hall, Davina and Jen were mobbed. Jen looked horrified while Davina couldn’t seem to decide if the attention was good or bad. An onslaught of questions bombarded me.
“I heard you were there when she died.”
“Was there a lot of blood?”
“Someone told me Brit was possessed or something, and—”
“What is wrong with you?” I demanded.
Before I could bitch at the vultures, an announcement came over the PA system. “Morning classes will be canceled. Instead there will be an assembly in the auditorium and then grief counselors will be available to those who need them. If you were close to Brittany King and need a mental health day, you will be free to contact your parents.”
At lunch I sat by myself for the first time this year; the rest of the Teflon crew had gone home. At least, I thought that was the case, until Cameron plopped down across from me. His tray had beef and noodles on it but he showed no sign that he meant to eat anything; instead he dropped his head in his hands. He looked like shit. The circles beneath his eyes were so dark, it looked like he’d been punched in both eyes, and there were scrapes and bruises on his knuckles. I didn’t ask if he’d been fighting or hitting inanimate objects. For all his ass**lery the week before, it was clear he was taking Brittany’s death hard.
I raised a brow. “What’re you still doing here?”
When he raised his head to meet my gaze, his eyes were red and bloodshot. “My parents are in Europe. There’s nobody to sign me out.”
“Ah.” I couldn’t bring myself to be more sympathetic, so I picked at my lunch. When I’d pictured Cameron getting what he deserved, I never imagined anything like this.
“They’re gone, like, all the time. The housekeeper works five days, but I’m pretty much on my own, nights and weekends.”
I didn’t want to talk to him when he was acting like a decent person. Before, he was just a one-note jerkwad who seemed to get off on making my life a living hell.
“At least you have a lot of freedom.” That was a stupid thing to say.
“And I spent most of that time over at Brit’s. She has an actual family, you know? Her mom is kind of crazy and her dad’s a dick, but they’ll miss her. It should’ve been me.”
For a few seconds, I stared, unable to believe such a thing had come out of Cameron’s mouth. “Don’t say that.”
“I thought she’d get better, so I didn’t go see her. She died thinking I didn’t care.” He bit out a curse.
“You loved her?” Kind of astonishing, I’d suspected those two were together because they were both hot and nobody else at Blackbriar met their exacting standards.
“Yeah,” he said in a dull voice.
Against my better judgment, I spoke some consoling words and counted the minutes until the bell rang. I wasn’t subtle when I hurried away from Cameron, but for the first time, it wasn’t because his presence made me sick with shame. Pity swelled inside me instead but I didn’t think he’d want it.
In my afternoon classes, the teachers crafted impromptu lessons about death and loss; the lectures were more like group therapy. And in my last class, an actual grief specialist came in, introducing himself as Greg Jessup. He had apparently been making the rounds. The counselor had us move our desks into a circle, and he asked us lots of questions about our feelings. At first, people were reluctant to speak, and then it got deep. Since there were so few of us still in school, I guessed it made it easier to be brave.
“It makes you think,” a guy named Stuart said. “I mean, I wasn’t friends with Brittany or anything, but it’s sad. She was so young.”