“Whoa,” he rasped, and Mandy rose gracefully from her chair and threaded her arms through his.
“This must be Jason,” she cooed. Riley blinked at her. “Oh, sorry. Lance? Tim? Estevan?”
She smiled at me. I understood that she was implying that I had a harem of guys—or at the very least, that I had never mentioned Riley around her. Hard-to-get-back tactics. She might not know who Riley was, but she did know how to push a guy’s buttons.
She added quickly, “Possibility on Marica. Big pupils. Not sure. Got . . . spooked.”
“Yo comprendo,” I replied. I understand.
“No need to panic,” she said.
I looked at Riley again, who was clearly puzzled by our conversation. “What are you doing here?” I blurted.
“These kids need something to drink,” Mandy announced. She looked around. “Lara?”
Lara, who was wearing a tux, rolled her eyes and started to fold her arms across her chest. She was not going to fetch me anything. Then she must have realized that Mandy would keep at her until she capitulated, so she stomped over to a table and grabbed an open bottle of champagne. She started to bring it over to us. Mandy raised an eyebrow. Lara clenched her teeth, wheeled around, and grabbed two plastic champagne glasses.
She stomped over to me and practically threw them at me. Mandy plucked the bottle out of my hand and poured the bubbly into the glasses, handing one to each of us.
Riley was gaping openly at me. I no longer felt like a circus clown; I was actually grateful to Mandy for giving me the works. Because I was working it, and it was working.
“Can we maybe . . . go outside?” Riley asked me.
“Gladly,” I said, cool as cool.
I slid a glance Mandy’s way, and I was taken aback by what I saw. Her cocky smile had slipped; her shoulders were hunching. She wasn’t frightened; she looked wistful and sad, the princess of everything except for a prince.
She really loved Troy, I thought. He broke her heart. All that stuff we did, trashing his things, that was just bravado.
I felt so sorry for her, having to keep appearances up, to be solid and in control. Troy had complained about being paired for life with Mandy by their families. But she had liked it. Correction: loved it. And it was gone.
If she caught me pitying her, she would probably say something calculated to embarrass me. She was already pulling herself back together, plastering a smile on her face.
“Take a break,” she said regally. “I’ll do a recheck of you-know-who.”
Of Marica, I translated, and nodded at her.
Riley looked surprised, unsure how to respond to this girl who was acting like my employer, but said nothing as I grabbed my little purse for the sake of the lip gloss inside it and led the way out of the room. We didn’t talk as we walked back through the tunnel and out into the chilly night. I had forgotten to take the gorgeous wool maxicoat Mandy had lent me, and I shivered, hard. Riley took off his letter jacket and draped it around my shoulders. I inhaled the scent of him—leather, cinnamon, soap—and my throat tightened.
I knew exactly how Mandy felt, longing for some guy.
No one else was outside. Our breath condensed as we walked along without touching. I liked the sensation of the satin lining of Riley’s jacket against my skin. The brittle stars overhead tracked us. I stepped on branches in my high-high heels. I held onto my little shoulder clutch as if for moral support.
We reached a large gray boulder, very much like the one that Troy and I had sat on when we’d run into each other—literally—the first day of Thanksgiving break. I smiled to myself. I was so done with Troy.
“What happened to your forehead?” he asked me.
“I fell off a scooter. But I’m okay now. Really.”
“It looks painful.”
“It isn’t. Not right now.”
I smiled at him. He flushed. It was a joy to behold.
“Sit?” Riley asked, and I nodded.
Hip to hip, we sat down. Our fingers brushed and Riley closed his hand around mine. Electricity jolted through me. I couldn’t stop smiling.
“So there’s hope,” Riley said, wiggling my hand.
I didn’t say anything. Like the rest of my life, the situation was unreal. But unlike the rest of my life, it was great.
“I meant everything I said in my voice mail,” he began. “Lindsay, I don’t even know why I—I went in there.”
My parents’ bedroom.
“I was so stupid.” He unfolded his hand, as if anticipating that I was going to pull away. I didn’t move. I held my breath. I wanted to hear it all. “I didn’t even like Jane. But she was . . . I . . . ” He ran his hand through his hair. I remembered sand and salt, getting busted for kissing on the beach. In the arms of Riley Kinkaid.
After all the nightmares, this was such a beautiful dream. Joy surged through me in huge waves. After all the horrible, scary things that happened, Riley was too good to be true . . . just as he had been before. I was scared, but I knew he meant what he said. He’d driven fourteen hours to find me, in my haunted dungeon on the hill.
“I’ve missed you.” He turned to me. “I thought after you left, I’d get over it, but I think about you all the time. I want . . . ” He searched my face. “I want it to be how it started, between us. We were a couple. That’s what I want.”
He waited. I made him wait longer because I didn’t trust myself to speak. And then I wondered why I thought I needed to say anything. I turned and looked up at him. I knew that was all I had to do.
He kissed me. His lips warmed mine and I thought my head would explode. He put his arms around me and held me, very tentative and gentle, as if he expected me to ask him to stop. I hadn’t kissed Riley in over five months, and I wasn’t going to miss a second of it.
I began to melt. I was so, so, so happy. And afraid, too, that if Riley knew what my world was really like, he’d dump me just as Troy had. But for now, there was this sweet, shy, getting-back-together kiss, just the nicest, slow—
An icy waterfall cascaded over me with a huge, rushing “No!” as Celia screamed inside me. Cold on cold on cold; terror, panic.
“No, no!”
I stiffened and fought against her as she pushed Riley away as hard as she could. He wasn’t expecting it and he fell off the boulder, landing flat on his back. I stood frozen in horror, listening to Celia screaming inside me.
“Oh, unhh,” Riley moaned, barely moving.
At the same moment, Miles crashed through the bracken, lurching toward us. He moved awkwardly, as if he’d been drinking. Before I realized what he was doing, he stepped over Riley, straddling him, grabbed his T-shirt, and raised his back off the ground. Then he made a fist and slammed it into Riley’s face.
“Ow!” Miles shouted.
Riley sat up and made a double fist, ramming it upward between Miles’s legs. Miles bellowed and collapsed on top of him. Grunting, gasping, Miles rained blows on Riley’s head. Riley fought back, pushing Miles off him, leaping to his feet and taking a boxer’s stance.
“Stop!” I shouted, but they didn’t hear me. Miles landed a punch; Riley counterattacked. They were actually fighting each other; it was surreal, bizarre. Frightening.
“Get away!
“Get away!
“He’s here!” Celia shouted.
“Both of you, stop!”
“He’s here!” she screamed.
I heard myself whimpering. Celia was forcing me to leave. I staggered, trying to move toward Riley and Miles as they bloodied each other.
Miles looked over at me. Riley landed a punch on his face and Miles’s head snapped back.
I heard voices, shouts. Partyers who heard me scream. People coming. People who would stop the fight.
Celia took possession, and I ran. Through the dark trees, with the full moon glinting in and out of the limbs, I raced as if my life depended on it.
Celia was in a blind panic, shrieking in my head, “He’s here; he’s here!”
>
I was partly myself and partly Celia, aware of the overhanging tree limbs as they slapped me, yet feeling her terror. I couldn’t control my body. Fear swept through me, more violently than ever before, worse than when the six ghosts of the girls Celia had murdered charged after me, to kill me.
She was screaming “He’s here!” and I didn’t know who he was, but I was just as afraid as she was. More afraid than I had ever been in my life, even at the moment when Memmy died.
The wind screamed like a human being in agony. Sobbing, I clapped my hands over my ears. The ground tilted downhill; the incline was steep. I slipped and fell. Rolled. Rocks scraped; branches cut. My feet were cut and bruised. I had lost my shoes and Riley’s jacket.
Every second counted. He was coming.
Then I burst free of the woods. I saw Searle Lake sprawled before me, and there was someone down there. In the darkness I couldn’t see who, but it was . . .
. . . she was . . .
Screams shot up around me, geysers of sound. Screams, exploding around my feet like land mines. Falling from the sky like bombs. Screams.
I ran toward the screams, away from them; they threw me to my knees and slammed my face in the wet earth of shoreline. I crawled through the screams to the person lying faceup, moaning.
It was Mandy. Who was not screaming. Who was making no sound at all. Who was silent.
From her nose up, her head had been crushed in by a large rock the size of a soccer ball, and blood was gushing out beneath it, out over the dirt. In the moonlight it looked black. Panting, I wrapped myself around the rock and tried to heave it off her. It was too heavy. Falling to my knees, I threw my weight against it, sobbing, pushing. Again. Again.
It rolled. And I screamed as I had never screamed before. Her face, her beautiful face.
“Mandy, Mandy!” I said, holding my hands inches from her wounds, shaking, with no idea what to do. “Help,” I croaked, throwing back my head. “Help us!” But I couldn’t make enough noise. Only the moon heard me, and the black water of Searle Lake, and the wind. I ripped off the lower part of my top and tried to staunch the blood. I didn’t want to cause her pain, but I didn’t want her to bleed to death either.
I tried to gather her up, to keep her warm. She was icy. It was so cold out. Cold as the grave.
“Get the evil one,” she whispered, but her mouth didn’t move. Blood streamed out of it. Her voice was not her own; it was Belle’s.
“I want Mandy,” I ordered her. “Let me talk to her now.”
“Can’t,” Belle replied.
“Why not?” My voice cracked. The world was spinning, blurring. I forced myself not to break down. Mandy needed me.
“Dying, sweet bee.” With that horrible, ruined face, Belle glared at me. I saw her fury, and her hatred. “Because of you.”
“No, she’s not! Mandy, don’t die!” I screamed. “Don’t die!” I held her, rocked her. Tears spilled down my face, landing on Mandy’s cheeks. “Help!”
“Too late.”
I was heaving and sobbing, looking around, trying to decide what to do to save her. Aware that the killer might be watching me, waiting to do the same thing to me. I opened my purse to get my cell phone, but it wasn’t here. Just the lip gloss, the lighter, and the gum.
“Belle, tell me who did this!”
There was a long silence, cut by my weeping and my hoarse croaks. Then the answer echoed from a distant place, like a muffled cry, a bell that was tolling from another shore. Griefstricken, shocked, broken.
“Da . . . vid. Aber . . . nath . . . y.”
The name came out so slowly, I had to force myself to listen to each tortured syllable.
I felt a horrible chill. Someone was possessed by the man who had betrayed Belle and Celia both. Someone who was here.
“He is coming!” Celia cried deep inside me.
Celia wanted me to run. Now.
“Yessssssssssss,” Belle hissed. “Run, Celia.”
“But where is he? Who is he in?” I leaned over her, pressing my ear against the unmoving lips. I thought I could hear whispering, as if of other voices speaking from wherever Belle now was. I could feel Celia scrabbling away from the brink of hysteria, like someone dangling from the edge of a cliff by her fingernails. Forcing me away. Making me run.
“Where is he?” I pleaded, taking Mandy’s hand. “Oh, God, help us, please, someone! Mandy, I’m getting help. I’ll save you. I will!”
There was no answer.
Mandy Winters was dead.
BOOK THREE:
THE SCREAMING SEASON
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
—Michel de Montaigne
He that studieth revenge keepeth his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
—John Milton
TWENTY-FIVE
March 23
possessions: me
nothing. i have nothing left. it’s all been taken. i am lost.
haunted by: her death, their deaths; ours.
listening to: the screams.
mood: they’ve won; how can I feel anything? how can I do anything, stop them?
possessions: them
nothing. they have sold it all for this horrible vengeance. they’re bankrupt. they’re adrift, with nothing to hold them down.
haunted by: hatred that is immortal. it’s what keeps them alive.
listening to: my tears, with glee.
mood: triumphant. they’re winning, and they know it. they’ll dance on our bones.
ARMS CAME AROUND me, dragging me away from Mandy. A hand went across my mouth to stop my screams. It was covered in blood. I panicked, flailing, struggling. I was forced away, into the trees, into the darkness. Then I was pushed against the trunk of the tree, and I saw my attacker.
It was Miles, sobbing. He was holding me, but staring back toward Mandy. Going wild. We both were.
I realized how it must look. “I didn’t kill her, I didn’t!” I shouted.
He clamped his hand over my mouth. Tears rolled; he was shaking his head back and forth so hard I was afraid his neck would snap.
Mandy was dead. No, it was a terrible dream. A nightmare. I would wake up. Now.
“Miles,” I said in agony. “I didn’t kill her.”
“I—I know.” He clutched his head. “You have to help me. We don’t have much time.”
“Don’t . . . ?”
“Mandy will be found. Evidence will point to you or to me. Once we’re locked up . . . ” He broke down sobbing. “Mandy.”
I put my arms around him and held him. He wailed against the crown of my head, completely lost. I cried too, trying to keep him upright as his knees buckled. He sank to the ground, covering his face. There was blood all over his hands.
“Lindsay, they’ll take you away. Criminally insane. They’ll do that. We need to move fast. Find out who did this. Fast.”
He kept crying. “He’ll be after you too. He’s probably coming now.” He whipped his head around and looked over his shoulder.
“Is it Miles?” I asked Celia. “Do you know?”
“Men, men!” she screamed. “Run!”
Miles looked back at me. His face went white. He took a step backward, his shoulders raising, his eyes widening.
“Are . . . are you Celia?” he said.
“Die,” she said.
“Stop it!” I shouted. “It’s me, Miles. I’m here.”
He bit his lower lip. He was terrified. I reached out my hands to him.
“Please,” I whispered. “Oh, God.”
He ran for me and threw his arms around me. He kissed the top of my head, and then my forehead, and my right temple. Then with a deep, heavy sob, he kissed my lips. We stayed that way weeping and kissing, panting and gasping with fear and pain until he pulled away.
“Oh, God, we have to get you out of here.” He took my hand. “Come on.”
“We can’t leave her there,” I said.
&n
bsp; “You’re alive.” His eyes were so swollen with tears I could barely see his eyes.
He ducked from out of the trees and looked around. “There must be somewhere to hide. I know there’s a tunnel in Jessel . . . ”
“No.” I shook my head, fighting to focus. “The storage room in the admin building.” My eyes widened. “There’s a dumbwaiter.”
“Okay, good. Does it work? Where does it go?”
“I don’t know.”
“And it’s halfway across the campus.” He ran his hand through his hair. “If we could get to the parking lot, I’ve got my car back.”
“Too far. Too out in the open.” I grabbed his hand. “Miles, someone is possessed by David Abernathy. Mandy told me that before she died.” I gave my head a shake. “Belle told me that.”
“Oh, God, God,” he said. He was beginning to lose it again.
“Run!” Celia shrieked inside my head. Her screams ricocheted around my skull. I pressed my fingertips against the bridge of my nose, then winced at the pain. A dull, icy ache throbbed across my forehead, like a tooth when a filling falls out.
“Miles, someone is coming,” I said.
“Come on.”
He pulled on my hand and sprinted left. As we ran, I fought to understand who could have done that horrible thing. Murdered her like that. I shut my eyes against the memory of her face.
Girls were running down the hill to our right, running and screaming. The screams echoed off Searle Lake.
They had found Mandy.
Miles and I moved left again. The moon tracked us like a prison searchlight. He looked down and said, “Oh, God, your feet.”
He picked me up and hefted me over his shoulder. Charging up the hill, we hid from more girls as they heard the screams and ran down the hill to see what was going on. The blood was rushing to my head.
We were going up the steepest part of the hill. I knew what that meant: the operating theater.
“No, not there,” I whispered, but he didn’t hear me. “Please, not there.”