“Um…thanks,” Nash said.
“Anytime,” she purred, then finally seemed to notice me standing there. “Hey, Katie, what’s up?” Her black eyes stared into mine, and I flashed back to my dream from the night before. Chill bumps popped up beneath my sleeves, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear the fluorescent light overhead flickered just to cast deep shadows beneath her eyes.
It was everything I could do not to shudder. Something was wrong with her. How could Nash not see it? Looking into Sabine’s eyes was like taking a breath with my head stuck inside the freezer.
“It’s Kaylee,” I said through gritted teeth, forcing the words out when what I really wanted was to excuse myself and walk away. Fast. “And we were talking.”
“Oh, good!” She turned back to Nash, grinning like she’d just made a clever joke and I was the punch line, and I was ashamed of how relieved I was to no longer be the focus of her attention. “What are we talking about?”
“It’s private,” I said, my hand clenching around my backpack strap.
“Oh. Speaking of private, I actually slept pretty well last night, for once. I think I just needed to be really worn out to make it happen, you know?” She raised one brow at me, and I fought another chill as she turned to Nash. “Good thing your mom works nights now.”
I reeled like I’d been punched in the gut. My breath deserted me, and my lungs refused to draw in more air.
“Kaylee…” Nash tried to reach for me, but I pushed him away and stumbled backward into the lockers. When I could finally breathe, I looked right into his eyes, silently demanding that he let me see the truth.
“You were with her last night?”
“More like early this morning,” Sabine said casually, like she couldn’t tell I was upset. But she knew exactly what she was doing. I could tell from the way she watched for my reaction, rather than his. She was studying me. Sizing up the competition. And deep inside, I knew I should have been happy about that—that she considered me serious competition.
But closer to the surface, I was thoroughly pissed. Warm flames of rage battled the chill that resurged every time I glanced at her, until I felt half frozen, half roasted, and thoroughly confused.
“We had a lot to catch up on,” she added, while Nash’s jaw clenched. “That’s not a problem, is it? I mean, you guys broke up, right? That’s what Nash said…”
“Sabine,” he said at last. “I’ll see you at lunch. I need to talk to Kaylee before the bell.”
She shrugged and smiled like she hadn’t just ruined my whole day. Or like she’d meant to. “I gotta head to class, anyway. I’m trying out this punctuality thing. The guidance counselor says it’s all the rage.” She winked at him—actually winked!—then turned to squint at my cheek, like I’d suddenly grown a wart. “Hold still, Kay…” My pulse spiked at her unwelcome use of my nickname. “You’ve got an eyelash….”
Sabine reached out and brushed one finger slowly, deliberately across my cheek, but her gaze never left mine. In fact, it strengthened, as if she was trying to see through my eyes into the back of my skull.
I wanted to pull away, but I couldn’t. I could only stare back as that instant stretched into eternity, and I stood frozen.
And for a second—just a single moment—her eyes suddenly looked darker, and that horrified, humiliated pain from my dream flashed through my head and throbbed miserably in my heart.
“Sabine…” Nash whispered, in the warning tone he usually saved for Tod.
She blinked, then smiled. “There. Got it.” She held her finger up, then let her hand drop too fast for me to see the alleged eyelash. “Later, Kay…” she said, and I stood in shock as she sauntered down the hall without a glance back.
For a moment, Nash and I just looked at each other. I couldn’t think past the surreal second that his ex-girlfriend’s finger had lingered on my cheek. “What the hell was that?”
Nash sighed. “She’s… Kaylee, Sabine’s had it pretty rough. She doesn’t remember her real parents, and she’s been in more than a dozen foster homes, and she’s never had many friends, so—”
“Maybe that’s because she’s a creepy bitch!” I spat, and Nash’s eyes widened. He was almost as surprised by my snap judgment as I was. It usually took much longer than that for me to decide I didn’t like someone, but Sabine had definitely found a shortcut.
“She’s rough around the edges, I know, but that’s not her fault.”
“Tod told me her sob story,” I snapped. “He also said she’s a convicted criminal.”
He frowned and his eyes narrowed slightly. He was looking for more. “He say anything else?”
“Yeah,” I said, and Nash’s eyes swirled in panic. “He said she was your first, and you two practically shared the same skin for, like, a year.”
“Oh.” Nash sagged against his locker, but he looked oddly relieved. “That was years ago, Kaylee. I haven’t seen her since the summer before my sophomore year.”
“You were with her last night,” I reminded him, hating the warble in my voice.
“We were just talking,” he insisted. “I swear.”
“All night?”
He shrugged. “We had a lot to catch up on.”
“Like, her latest felony and your latest conquest? Did you two laugh about me?” My heart throbbed, and suddenly I was sure that’s exactly what they’d done. They’d laughed at me all night long. “Am I your little inside joke? ‘Poor, frigid Kaylee has to be possessed before she’ll let anyone touch her.’”
I started to walk away, tears forming in my eyes in spite of my best effort to stop them. But Nash grabbed my arm. “Kaylee, wait.” He pulled me back, and I let him because I wanted him to deny it. Desperately.
What the hell was wrong with me? I wanted to be wrong, but I was terrified I was right. So scared of the truth that I could hardly breathe.
Nash looked down into my eyes, like he was looking for something specific in the shades of blue that were probably twisting out of control at the moment. “Damn it, Sabine…” he mumbled. Then, to me, “I’ll talk to her. She doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just habit.”
“What’s habit?” I was obviously missing something.
He closed his eyes and exhaled. “Nothing. Never mind.” When he looked at me again, his eyes were infuriatingly still. “Look, Sabine and I haven’t seen each other in a long time, and we were just getting caught up. Nothing happened, and nothing’s going to happen. I know I messed up with you, but I’m trying to make it right, and I’m not going to let anything get in the way of that. Not even Sabine. Okay?”
“I…” I wanted to believe him. But I was so scared that he was lying. And if he was, I’d never know it. “Yeah. I just… I have to get to algebra.”
“I’ll see you at lunch?” he asked, as I walked away.
“Yeah.” But he’d see her, too.
I dropped into my chair in Algebra II and stared at the wall, trying to ignore the whispers around me. No one knew the truth about what had happened to Doug and Scott, but they all knew that Nash and I had been involved. And that we’d broken up. And half of them had probably seen him getting out of Sabine’s car.
Emma thought our classmates’ theories were hilarious, and probably much worse than what had actually happened. But she was wrong. They couldn’t begin to imagine anything as awful as how Doug had died. How Scott was now living.
After wallowing in unpleasant thoughts for a while, I looked at the clock. Class should have started eight minutes ago, but Mr. Wesner hadn’t shown up. And neither had Emma. But just as I glanced toward the door, Emma came in from the hall, eyes wide, cheeks flushed.
She dropped into the chair next to mine, and I started talking, eager to share my misery with someone I knew I could trust. “You’re not going to believe what just happened,” I said, leaning in so no one else would hear.
“You’re not going to believe this, either,” she interrupted. “Mr. Wesner’s dead. The custodian found him
this morning, slumped over his desk.” She turned and pointed toward the front of the class. “That desk.”
5
AT FIRST, I JUST sat there. Stunned. Staring at Mr. Wesner’s desk. And before I could ask for details, a crowd had formed around us, everyone looking at Emma.
“Wesner’s dead?”
“He died here?”
“No way,” one of the girls from the pom squad—Leah something or other—insisted. “I was here early to sell raffle tickets, and I didn’t see anything. No police. No ambulance. No body. It’s just a stupid rumor.”
Em shook her head and gestured for silence. “It’s true. I heard Principal Goody telling Mr. Wells in the office when I went in for a late slip. One of the custodians came in at six this morning to let a repairman into the cafeteria before breakfast, and he found Mr. Wesner. Right there.” She pointed at the desk again, and every head pivoted, all voices silenced now, except for Emma’s.
“Goody said the custodian called her, and the ambulance was already here by the time she got here at, like, dawn. They took him before any of us got here, but they’re still in the office scrambling for a sub.”
“Damn,” someone said from behind me, and while I watched, the same stunned, vaguely frightened expression seemed to spread from face to face.
“How’d he die?” Brant Williams asked, clutching the back of my chair.
Emma shrugged and glanced at the desk again, and again, all eyes tracked her gaze. “I don’t know. A stroke or something, I’m guessing. He was probably here all night.”
“Ugh. That is so morbid,” Chelsea Simms said, yet never paused in the notes she was taking for the school paper. But I couldn’t help wondering if they’d actually let her run the story. “This whole year has been morbid,” Leah added, eyes round and a little scared, and everyone else nodded.
You have no idea….
Ironically, Mr. Wesner’s stroke, or heart attack, or whatever, was the only normal death our school had experienced so far. Yet it was the one that most creeped people out.
Before anyone could ask any more questions, Mr. Wells, the vice principal, came in and officially announced Mr. Wesner’s unfortunate, unexpected demise, then said that he’d be watching the class until a substitute could be found.
Wells seemed disinclined to dig through Mr. Wesner’s desk for his lesson plan, though, so he gave us a free period. Which meant we were free to spend the period imagining Mr. Wesner slumped over the desk our vice principal obviously didn’t want to sit behind.
“Can you believe this?” Em whispered, scooting her desk closer to mine. “Yesterday he was fine, and today he’s dead. Right here in his own classroom.”
“Weird, huh?” And I couldn’t help wondering why Tod hadn’t told me someone was scheduled to die at my school, just as a courtesy. If I’d been there when it actually happened, I’d have been compelled to sing—or scream—for his soul.
“And sad. Makes me feel bad about not bothering with homework for most of last semester. Do you think he was grading midterms when he died?”
I frowned when I realized she was serious. “Emma, your test did not give him a stroke.”
“I think you underestimate my incomprehension of sign, cosign, and tangent,” she said, obviously trying to lighten the mood. And failing miserably. Her eyes narrowed as she watched me. “Everyone else is completely weirded out by this. Why isn’t this freaking you out, Kaylee?”
I could only shrug. “It is. It’s just that…” I lowered my voice and leaned closer to her. “I’ve seen a lot of death in the past few months, and every bit of it has been weird and wrong. After all that, it’s actually kind of good to know that Mr. Wesner died at his own time and that his soul isn’t being tortured for all of eternity. For once, death worked the way it was supposed to, and honestly, that’s kind of a relief.” Even if it did happen at school.
“I guess I can understand that,” Emma said at last. But I had my doubts. “Okay, enough of this. I’m depressing myself.” Emma shook her head, then forced her gaze to meet mine. “So…what were you going to say earlier?”
My news didn’t seem quite as catastrophic as it had before I’d found out my algebra teacher died, but the very thought of Nash and Sabine alone at his house still made my blood boil. “Nash spent most of the night with Sabine.”
“With her? Like, with her, with her?”
I shrugged. “He says they were just talking, but she’s on the prowl, I swear. She actually reminded me that Nash and I broke up. Like that gives her some prior claim or something.”
“Well, yeah, technically. You’re both his exes now, so…” Em hesitated, obviously wanting to say something I wouldn’t want to hear. “Does he seem interested in her again?”
“His mouth says no, but his eyes… His irises churn like the ocean every time I say her name. There’s definitely something still there, but I can’t tell exactly what it is. It’s strong, though. And she was spewing innuendo like some kind of gossip geyser, saying how great it is that Nash’s mom works nights. She’s making up for more than just lost time. Plus…” I felt like an idiot, saying it out loud, but it was the truth. “She’s creepy.”
“What do you mean, creepy?”
I scratched at a name carved into the corner of my desk. “I don’t know. She gives me chills. I think there’s something wrong with her. And Nash knows about it, whatever it is. He told me he’d talk to her. Like, he’d take care of her. I think she’s seriously unstable.”
Em raised both brows at me, and I rolled my eyes. “I know, that sounds hypocritical coming from me.” Usually I was hypersensitive to references to mental instability, because I’d spent a week locked up in the mental health ward a year and a half ago. “I don’t mean she’s crazy. I mean she’s…unbalanced. Dangerous. She’s a criminal, Em.”
Emma shrugged. “Tod says she did her time.”
“Yeah. A few months in a halfway house. I’d hardly call that paying for her crimes.”
“You don’t even know what her crimes are.”
“I’m guessing theft. She probably stole someone’s boyfriend.”
Emma laughed, and I gave in to a grin of my own. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, Kaylee. Whatever they had can’t compare to what you and Nash have been through together. I mean, she’s human, right? How well can she possibly know him?”
I sat a little straighter. Emma was right. Sabine was a non-issue. I’d faced down two hellions in the past four months, not to mention assorted Netherworld monsters. Compared to all that, what was one stupid ex-girlfriend? Right?
BY LUNCHTIME, news of Mr. Wesner’s death had already been chewed up and regurgitated by the masses so many times that it bore little resemblance to the story Emma originally reported. In any other school, during any other year, a teacher’s death would have been a headline all on its own. But we’d already lost four students, and the yearbook’s In Memoriam page was getting regular updates. So while some of the snippets of conversation I overheard were flavored with either disbelief or morbid curiosity, most people sounded kind of relieved that life now made a little more sense than it had the day before.
After all, Mr. Wesner was pretty old and overweight enough that he’d wheezed with practically every breath. In a weird way, his death seemed to be giving people a sense of security, as if the world had somehow been shoved back into alignment with the natural order of things, wherein old, unhealthy people died, and young people talked about it over nachos and cafeteria hamburgers.
I paid for my food, then grabbed a Coke from the vending machine and made my way outside, where I found Nash sitting at a table on the far side of the quad. Alone. Again.
I felt bad for him. With the rest of the football team still reeling from their double loss, no one seemed to know what to say to the last surviving musketeer. But Nash’s solitude was a definite advantage to me. I headed his way, hoping Emma would be late again and that Sabine would walk off the edge of the earth so he and I could
talk.
His eyes lit up when I sat on the bench across from him, and some of my tension eased. “Hey, did you hear about Mr. Wesner?” he asked. “Don’t you have him this year?”
“First period.” I twisted the cap off my bottle. “Em’s the one who broke the story.”
After that, he seemed at a loss for what else to say.
I knew exactly what I wanted to say—what I wanted to know—but I questioned the wisdom of actually asking. What’s that they say about beating a dead horse?
But after a few sips of my soda and a lot of awkward silence from Nash, my curiosity overwhelmed my common sense. “So…what’d she do?”
“What’d who do?” Nash asked, around a mouthful of burger.
“Sabine. What’d she get arrested for?”
Nash groaned and swallowed his bite. “Kaylee, I don’t want to talk about Sabine. Not again. Not now.”
“Well, you sure had plenty to say to her.” And in that moment, I hated Sabine for turning me into a paranoid, desperate shrew. Even more than I already half hated her for coming between me and Nash. But that wouldn’t stop me from asking what I needed to know. “How late was she at your house?” I’d never been there past midnight when his mom wasn’t home. If she was there after one, I was going to lose it. You don’t stay at your ex’s house alone with him past one in the morning to talk.
Nash exhaled, long and low. “Burglary and vandalism.”
It did not escape my notice that he’d answered my first question, rather than the latest one. Not a good sign.
“What’d she steal?” I took the top bun off my hamburger and squirted ketchup onto the naked patty, just to have something to do with my hands.
“Nothing, really.” Nash hesitated, poking his limp fries with a fork. “She took a baseball bat, but she didn’t actually leave with it.”
“What does that even mean?” I dropped the bun back onto my burger and tried to pin him with my glare. “She took something, but she didn’t really take it. What happened? She hit someone with it?” The poor, defenseless girlfriend of some guy she had a crush on, maybe?