"Leave him alone, Jimmy!"
"This pitiful son of a b.i.t.c.h? Maybe I should gut him. Finish him off. You were supposed to die out there, you know. You and your little b.i.t.c.h boyfriend." Jimmy blew a huff of smoke into Fletcher"s face, and his lips thinned as he grinned s.a.d.i.s.tically.
Fletcher just stared straight ahead as if he wasn"t seeing Jimmy.
"Fletch-" she started.
Blue-and-white lights cut through the darkness and Jimmy let go of Fletcher"s shirt, shoving him backward. Avery grabbed Fletcher"s arm to support him, and they both started to run. Avery could hear his breath straining as he kept pace with her, his weight balanced against her shoulder until her house came into view. They doubled over in her driveway.
Adrenaline crashed through Avery"s system and she blinked, her throat tightening. "Oh my G.o.d, that guy is a psychopath." She could feel tears forming. "I"m so sorry, Fletcher."
Fletcher stood in front of her, his eyes hard and dark. "He said I was supposed to die out there." His voice was little more than a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "What do you think-"
Avery stepped backward, her lower lip trembling. "Fletcher." She gestured at his chest, unable to push the words past her lips.
He looked to where she was pointing. There was a starburst of wrinkles on the cotton where Jimmy"s fist had been. In the center, like the stamen of some hideous flower, was a smear of blood. Fletcher didn"t raise his head again before turning on his heel and walking into the night.
I shoulda killed him. I shoulda killed him. The words swirled around in his head. The faster he walked, the more the night air broke over his face. His hands were fisted so tightly that his fingernails dug into his palms.
The metallic waft of the blood on his shirt a.s.saulted him, and he felt something noxious roiling in his gut. That smell...
A thick, dense forest of pine trees surrounded him. Somewhere, a river flowed. He could hear it. He should have been able to smell it too-the fresh, mossy scent of the water, let alone the heady, sharp scent of the pine needles that cushioned his step. But the dull, metallic stench of the blood overtook all of his senses.
"Adam?" Fletcher called. There was no response. His voice came out shaky and weak. "Adam, dude, where are you?"
There was a rustle from somewhere behind Fletcher. It wasn"t big enough to be a bear, but was too large to be a squirrel. It was like his body knew the sound before his mind did. He tensed. Every inch of his body sensed danger in the most primitive way. Sweat burned his eyes and poured down the back of his shirt.
It was coming for him. He needed to run. He needed to get away.
A branch shook. A twig snapped. Someone took another step through the foliage. But Fletcher was frozen. It was as if he had been turned into a statue. He thought his head was going to explode or his heart would blow through his chest. He wanted to growl, to roar, to make himself big and terrifying and impa.s.sable.
"Adam..." His voice was a mere whisper now, strained with tears and terror. "G.o.d, Adam. Man, where the f.u.c.k are you?"
Then the smell of blood grew stronger. He looked down. Fresh droplets fanned across the toes of his sneakers. Another drop fell and a fresh wave of nausea crashed over him. He looked up, trying to locate where the drop came from. Branches stretched above him, but that was all. He looked down at his shoes again as another drop fell at the edge of his vision, burning a trail down his cheek.
Fletcher retched. Through his daze, he had made it home. Kneeling in front of the toilet, he felt his whole body convulse. He was pretty sure he"d already thrown up every bit of food he"d ever eaten in his life.
"Fletch, honey, is that you?"
His mother clicked on the bathroom light, and Fletcher pinched his eyes shut at the harsh fluorescent glare. She put her hand on his back, then immediately pulled it away. "You"re sweating. Honey, are you sick? Do you have a fever?"
Fletcher flushed the toilet as his mother arranged a wet washcloth on the back of his neck.
"Do you need more pain medication? Or is the pain medication making you sick?"
His head was still swimming with images of Jimmy. He pushed the pads of his fingers against his temples and rubbed small circles, trying to quell his headache.
"I don"t know, Mom. The pain meds make me feel crazy." He shrugged and pushed himself up from the bathroom floor. "I think I"m okay though. Maybe it was just something I ate." He gave his mother a quick peck on the cheek. "Go back to sleep. Sorry I woke you."
He started down the hall, but his mother stopped him. "Fletcher, if there was something wrong-something wrong again-you would tell me, right?" Her smile was weak but her eyes were hopeful. "We can talk about things, you know."
Anger swelled in his chest and his headache thumped like a ba.s.s drum. "I"m fine, Ma. It"s probably just something I ate. I"m going back to sleep." He pushed the washcloth back into her hand, strode into his room, and shut the door.
Avery snuck back into her house completely undetected. If she were a normal teenager, this would be a triumph, but she was Avery Templeton, daughter of the chief of police and lifelong do-gooder, so it troubled her that her father"s snores didn"t shift in the slightest.
So did what had just happened with Jimmy Jerold.
She tried to scrunch her eyes shut and fall asleep counting sheep or listening to music on her iPhone, but with the tension thrumming through her body, every sheep or song dissolved into the terrifying snarl on Jimmy Jerold"s face...and the expressionless look on Fletcher"s. She wasn"t sure which disturbed her more-the fact that she likely had stood toe-to-toe with Adam"s killer or the stony, unaffected way her friend had reacted. A line she had read in cla.s.s swam in the back of her mind: "...Sometimes, in an effort to protect itself, the brain turns off certain functions, particularly in the light of trauma or a trigger."
Avery started to breathe harder. Fletcher might not remember that Jimmy was there on the hike that day, but maybe his brain did. Maybe his body did but he had been frozen in fear.
She sat bolt upright and made a beeline for her father"s bed.
"Dad," she whispered, gently poking his shoulder. "Dad."
It took little more than a heavy breath to wake her father, who was on his feet in the amount of time it took for most people to blink. Instinctively he reached for the gun belt but stopped when he thunked into Avery.
"Avery? Is everything okay? Are you okay?"
She nodded, sitting on the edge of his bed. "Maybe. Yeah, I mean, not really." She gnawed her bottom lip. "Dad, Fletcher came by. He and I snuck out tonight."
Her father sucked in a heavy breath. One eyebrow was arched and Avery could tell that he was pressing his lips so as not to interrupt her story. But he was not happy.
"I"m sorry. I"m really, really sorry."
"Avery, you broke a house rule and you broke a city law. Is this you just coming clean?"
"No, Dad, that"s not the point."
"No, Avery, I think that very much is the point."
Avery groaned. "Dad! Just listen to me. I"m sorry about sneaking out and you can punish me, but something happened."
Suddenly, Chief Templeton"s dad face was replaced by his cop face: hard, penetrating eyes, slightly c.o.c.ked head. "Tell me."
"We weren"t doing anything. Fletcher had been cooped up and just needed to get out of the house so he came by here. We walked out to the old diamond-"
The chief pinched the bridge of his nose. "The point, sweetheart."
"We ran into Jimmy Jerold." Avery was more terrified than she had been when Jimmy was actually in front of her. "He was watching us. He came out of the bushes and started calling Fletch a f.a.ggot."
"I"m sorry, Avy, but-"
"Listen! He held Fletcher up by his shirt, like this"-Avery demonstrated on her own nightshirt-"and he told Fletcher that he should have died. Dad, he said that Fletcher was supposed to die in the woods too."
Chief Templeton straightened. "Are you sure? That"s exactly what he said?"
Avery nodded. "And something else. There was a car. When it drove by, Jimmy let go of Fletch and we took off running. But when we got back here, there was blood on Fletcher"s shirt. Right where Jimmy had grabbed him. Dad, Jimmy Jerold had blood on his hands. He came out of the bushes at the edge of the forest. I think maybe he killed Adam."
Eleven.
Fletcher knew everyone was going to stare at him. He figured some would point and there would be whispers, but he never expected the greeting he got on campus the next day. Two girls smiled at him. A jock named Biff or Bill or Brian fist-b.u.mped him. Mrs. Taylor hunched over his desk in biology, telling him, "If at any time you need a break or something gets too much for you, just raise your hand and go straight to the nurse. She"ll let you lie down."
He could feel his cheeks burning and the sweat turning his palms slick as he gripped the sides of his desk. Mrs. Taylor was so close. He could taste the bitter alcohol in her rose-scented perfume. Fletcher didn"t know where to look. If he looked at her eyes, he would see her pity. He was too embarra.s.sed to look at the soft crest of her ample cleavage as she leaned over to speak with him, so he stared at the back of Ford Winston"s head, at the gel-covered spikes of black hair cutting across his bone-white scalp.
The cops had picked up Jimmy Jerold sometime last night-or maybe sometime this morning. Fletcher had slept through his alarm and was late to homeroom, but the news had already torn through the entire school: Jimmy Jerold and Fletcher had a run-in, and Jimmy talked about that day in the woods. Jimmy killed Adam and he was going to kill Fletcher too.
Fletcher shifted in his seat, the weight of his cla.s.smates" stares heavy on him. Maria Gray, perfect and perky in her tight jeans and shrink-wrapped T-shirt, smiled at him, batting her eyes. When Mrs. Taylor walked away, Maria leaned in, casually draping one slim, caramel-colored arm across his desk.
"So is it true? Jimmy Jerold came back for you last night and you escaped again?"
Fletcher blinked. "Uh..."
Maria grabbed his hand, her thumb stroking the back of his. "I didn"t know you were so brave," she purred, "or so strong."
Fletcher shifted. Maria Gray had never spoken to him before. Ever. She"d b.u.mp into him and say nothing, not even an apology. And suddenly, she was stroking Fletcher"s hand like a kitten and studying his face with her wide, cocoa-brown eyes.
"I-I"ve-" he stuttered, and then raised the hand that Maria was holding. Mrs. Taylor gave him a nod that he was excused.
"Hey, Fletch, way to go, man." Ford clapped Fletcher on the back as he gathered up his backpack.
"Glad you"re safe," a female voice said.
"You"re a hero, man. You caught Adam"s killer."
There was a smattering of applause and agreement as Fletcher stood, but he stared at his shoes as he made his way out of the cla.s.sroom. The st.i.tches underneath the bandage on his forehead were starting to throb, and the edges of his peripheral vision were starting to fog and go black.
The last thing he saw before he left the room was the empty seat. It was right at the front of the cla.s.s, first row for the star student. It was Adam"s desk.
Fletcher and Adam"s case was only getting bigger, and so was the attention focused on Avery in the school hallway. She tried to shrink into her black hoodie, hoping to draw attention away from herself.
"So, is it true that you were out with Fletcher last night?"
Avery wasn"t even sure who asked the question because when she looked around, everyone was facing her, every kid waiting for her to speak.
"I can"t really talk about it," Avery said, turning on her heel in time to see two girls-seniors, probably-pointing and staring at her with narrowed eyes.
"Hey," one of the girls said. "Are you Avery?"
The girl stood a whole head taller than Avery and had b.o.o.bs that generously filled her black-and-red T-shirt. Avery shrank deeper into her sweatshirt, painfully aware that she had the body of a twelve-year-old boy.
"Yeah. Who are you?"
Avery wasn"t ready for the hands on her shoulders or the heaving push that knocked her off her feet and into the crowd that had a.s.sembled behind her. The girl in the tank top got in Avery"s face, her eyes sharp and dark, her red-lipsticked mouth pulled into a hideous snarl.
Avery instinctively put her hands up, defending her face, but the girl didn"t shove her again.
"You got my boyfriend put in jail, you little b.i.t.c.h! Jimmy wasn"t even in the woods that night!"
"I-I didn"t-" Someone pushed Avery forward, trying to stand her upright. Someone else yelled behind her, "Get away from her, Rachel! Your boyfriend is a murderer!"
"Leave her alone!" someone else screeched before the din of voices blurred into one and Avery rode the crowd, being shoved backward, then forward. She howled when someone grabbed her hair, tugging until her scalp burned. Someone else pulled on her sweatshirt, and when she looked to see who it was, she only got punched in the nose. Arms flew, fingers clawed, and you couldn"t tell who was fighting whom. It was an all-out melee in the junior hallway of Dan River Falls High, and Avery Templeton was in the middle of it.
"Stop! Stop!"
The shrill sound of a whistle cut through the yelling, and there was a brief pause in the fight-long enough for Avery to slip through the crowd and press her shoulders against the wall, doing her best to make herself flat and invisible.
"Come on!"
Princ.i.p.al Corben was suddenly in the middle of everything, pushing kids apart. Coach Krail and Mr. Parsons stepped in too, screaming something about suspension.
The crowd quickly thinned. Avery breathed hard, the panic humming through her body. Fevered images slashed through her mind at nauseating speeds: the crushed car at the edge of the woods. The spinning lights from the police cruisers. The sound of the officers yelling, warning her to stay back. The blood. Her mother"s blood.
"Avery?" Princ.i.p.al Corben appeared in front of her. "You"re bleeding. Let"s get you to the nurse"s office."
Avery nodded numbly and followed him. "What happened here, Ms. Templeton?"
Her nerves buzzed like bees in her head. "I really don"t know. Someone-I guess Jimmy Jerold"s girlfriend-shoved me. She thinks I put Jimmy in jail." Avery felt briefly guilty, as though she had been the one to do something wrong. But then she thought of Jimmy Jerold and the blade of that knife resting against Fletcher"s skin. The anger crashed over her. "Jimmy deserves to go to jail."
It was cool and dark in the nurse"s office. Nurse Katie was a heavyset older woman who looked like a grandmother on a greeting card. She smiled at Fletcher, directed him to a cot, and handed him a blanket.
"Your parents didn"t register any pain medication with me. Would you like me to call home for you?"
"My mom."
"What"s that now?"
Fletcher bit his bottom lip, then touched the bandage on his head. It was becoming almost a security thing, touching the bandage as if to make sure that everything that had happened to him, to Adam, had been real and not some sick and twisted dream.
"My dad"s gone. It"s just my mom. And no, I don"t need any pain medication."
Nurse Katie stood at the edge of the bed, wringing her hands. Fletcher could tell that she wanted to pat him-his leg or his shoulder. She looked like a patter, one of those old-school ladies who liked to hug and pinch cheeks and pat.