I knit my lips shut.
Sophia glares. “I don’t need your pity. That’s what you came to give, isn’t it? Or are you guilt-tripping me with the knowledge you have now?”
“No— Sophia, I wouldn’t—”
“You would. Because you think like Jack. And it’s what he would do.”
And just like that, all my anger wells up and blocks my throat.
“I. Am. Not. Jack!”
My fist swings and accidentally knocks a vase over. It shatters, opalescent shards puddling on the ground. Sophia’s glare breaks into a bitter smile.
“It’s about time you got mad at me! I knew you weren’t as manic-pixie-dream-girl as you make yourself out to be.”
“Enough with the insults! Why are you doing this? Why are you being such a horrible poop-face to me?”
She stops smiling, eyes getting heavy-lidded.
“Because you have it all. You have your health. You have family. You have friends. And even though you have all that, you still want the one thing I have left. You coveted it. You tried to take it from me.”
“I didn’t—”
“You did. You kept pressing. You met him and tried everything to get his attention, and when you had it and found out about me, you still kept pushing. You kept yourself in his life. You wanted him. You still do. And it makes me sick—”
My hand stings. Sophia’s face swings to the side, her eyes filled with utter shock and hurt as she looks back at me, her cheek red.
“I’ve never liked Jack, and I never will,” I say through gritted teeth. “He’s yours. He’s always been yours. So stop. Stop being such an ass. Let go of all this useless hate. I want to be your friend. Just let me be your friend.”
She goes still, staring at me, and I watch as her eyes slowly start to fill with tears.
“I can’t,” she whispers. “I can’t.”
Her hands go to her eyes, and she starts to sob. I don’t touch her. I want to, I want to hug her and call her Soapy and hold her hand like she held mine when I cried to her about Mom, and Leo, and what happened. But she hates me. I was wrong. Jack might be the bad prince, and the bad prince hurts, but a dragon hurts worse.
By talking about Tallie, by finding Tallie, I’m breathing fire over a village and burning everyone inside to a crisp. Sophia. And Jack. And Wren and Avery. It’s not my delicate nightmare, but I’m inserting myself anyway because I think I can what, help? Make things right? Nothing will make things right. Nothing will reverse what happened that night in the woods, no matter how much I dig or how much I try to get them to talk about it. I’m stupid for even thinking I could make things better.
And then, just like that, Sophia reaches out for my hand and pulls it to her heart.
“I want Tallie back,” she cries, angelic face swollen. “Please. Just give her back.”
I squeeze her hand and nod.
“I will.”
Two weeks after we found the body, we decide to finally talk about it.
At school, Kayla’s been avoiding me about the baby at the lake. I’ve tried to bring it up at lunch break, but she refused to mention it. Until now. It’s like she had to recharge, get over her own shock, before she could face the reality of it.
She calls it Lake Baby. She didn’t see the name on the bracelet, and I haven’t told her. Mostly because she already goes the color of thousand-year-old rice when I bring Lake Baby up. If names were attached, she might just combust on the spot out of grief. I think that’s what it is. Grief. Maybe she’s just been raised in suburban America all her life, hard things like unwanted pregnancies and skeletons far displaced from her life. I’ve told her it isn’t Avery’s baby, though, which is what she was worrying and crying about in the forest. It’s Sophia’s. But that just confuses her more.
“How do you know Sophia had a—”
“I just do. She asked Wren why he hadn’t visited the grave lately. They all must know about the grave. God, no wonder they clam up about it.”
“Wait, but what about what happened that night?” Kayla munches a cucumber and every boy within five fifty feet is staring, enraptured. “The one in middle school? Did she— Did she lose the baby then? Or before?”
“Avery said she hired some guys to do something to her, and Wren said Jack drove them off. What if the shock made her lose it? What if one of them pushed her and she fell hard, and she miscarried right there in the woods? That’d disturb them enough into the crazy-weird silence they have going on now.”
What if they had to bury more than one body that night? The picture from the email is still vivid, like a blind spot you get from staring at the sun too long. But there’s another spot that sticks harder to my mind. Kayla voices it first.
“If Sophia and Jack were going out back then…”
My stomach curls in on itself. Kayla’s eyes widen.
“…does that mean—”
“You two look way too serious for eleven thirty a.m.” Wren slides to sit by Kayla, a smile on his face. Kayla clears her throat and smooths her hair.
“Um. Yeah! We were just, um, talking about the prom! Senior prom feels like such a letdown after junior prom, I think.”
“Well, it’s the last time we’ll have a school function,” he says.
“And the last time we’ll ever have to buy hand-me-down dresses from Ross,” I say, “and put up with groping boys who can’t tell the vagina from the anus while a DJ plays something about partying till the sun goes up from the top forty and people sneak cheap vodka from thigh flasks.”
Wren and Kayla stare at me.
“What?” I ask innocently.
“You sound like you’ve been to a lot of school dances,” Wren says.
“I’ve been to exactly zero school dances.” I puff my chest proudly and my nipple hits the ketchup bottle off the table and there is a fabulous red puddle on the floor directly in front of the shoes of Jack Hunter. Kayla and Wren freeze, staring at him as if waiting for him to say something first. I keep my eyes ahead, focused on the radical silver perm of the second-in-line lunch lady.
“I’d advise you learn to control your extremities,” Jack sneers. “Or lack thereof.”
It’s almost traditional. My mind nags at me that this is the normal procedure of things between Jack and me. The memories are there, just hazy, and they all say I should snark something back about the way his hair looks like a duck’s butt, but I can’t. I can’t say anything. He’s terrifying. The email picture is fresh in my mind, and the image of Tallie’s skeleton hangs just before my eyes, and I can’t get rid of either of them. They’re his. They are extensions of him, and they terrify me—me! The girl who’s afraid of nothing except centipedes. And the green Teletubby. And the front-row seat of Space Mountain.
So I just stare and don’t say anything. Jack waits, and Kayla and Wren wait on him, and nothing moves. Jack’s expression is barely there, but the hint of smug wilts rapidly, and he steps over the ketchup puddle and leaves. Wren gets up with a wad of napkins and wipes the puddle.
“What was that all about?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t say anything. You always say something.”
“Ignoring him is the best way to get him to back off.” I shrug. “I’ve had enough, I guess. It’s just boring now.”
Kayla narrows her eyes. “That sounds like bullshit to the max.”
“You’d rather I fight him like I used to? Didn’t that like, end in tears? And a broken head? Let’s not go for a repeat performance just this once, okay?”
Kayla and Wren look at each other but don’t press it. And I’m grateful. The last thing I need for them to know is what I know. Because I know a lot. And it hurts my head. And possibly my heart. If I had one.
“Did you see his face?” Kayla asks as we walk together to our next class.
“Whose?”
“Jack’s. His lip was busted and scabbing. And that was a mean bruise on his cheekbone.”
“Probably got
in a fight with the mirror when he saw it was prettier than him.”
“Isis, I’m being serious!”
“So am I!”
“Look, I know you have like, amnesia about him and your feelings for him are all mixed up or whatever—”
“Feelings? What is this foreign word you speak of?”
“—but you don’t have to be such a fucking jerk about it. He’s a person, too, okay? You can’t just cut people off and put them back in whenever you want.”
The words sting, mostly because they sound too much like what Jack himself said. Kayla’s too pissed to talk to me anymore, so I spend the period doodling exploding things on my worksheet.
Wren and I have yearbook together, so it’s the perfect time to show him. I print out the strange email picture and pass it to him over the computers. There’s a beat, and then:
“What is this, Isis?” he asks.
“What does it look like?” I singsong.
“Where did you get this?”
“Someone sent it to me. Over email. That’s Jack’s lovely hand, isn’t it? Holding that bloody bat and standing over that guy who looks very much dead.”
I can see Wren’s hand on his mouse, and it’s shaking.
“What interests me wayyyy more,” I press, “is the fact that the quality is shit. Shit enough to be in a sewage pipe. Or my makeup collection. And see the way the pixels are a little off? Like they’re wavy? It’s almost like someone took a screenshot of a video—”
“What’s the email address?” Wren interrupts. “That sent this to you?”
“Just random key smash.
[email protected] Nobody either of us would know just from the address. You can’t even say it. Ickwajihuk? Ikewjahooookk?”
I hear Wren typing, and I sigh.
“Trust me, I’ve already looked. Google’s got nothing. I’ve dug in fifty-two pages and a lot of backlog. Ickwajhuk doesn’t exist anywhere else on the internet.”
“Isis, listen to me.” Wren looks at me from between our computers, expression serious. “Whoever gave you that picture is dangerous. Block the address and don’t correspond with him.”
“Why?” I laugh. “What’s he gonna do, send me an unsolicited dick pic?”
“That’s the video I took from that night,” Wren murmurs. “I gave it to the federal investigator who questioned us.”
“Wait—what? The Feds questioned you guys?”
Wren inhales. “There were…issues. We were the only ones signed into a cabin near the lake, so we were questioned.”
“About what?”
He doesn’t say anything. I sigh.
“Okay, so you’re saying the Feds sent me the picture?”
“The guy who questioned us turned it over to the bureau’s vault. He died five years ago of a heart attack.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve been keeping close tabs on everything.” Wren adjusts his glasses. “So it couldn’t have been him. Whoever sent you this picture—he either works there or hacked into it. If he works there, he isn’t good news. And if he could hack something that secure, he is really, really bad news.”
“This is ridiculous. Nobody hacks the Feds except in movies.”
“Trust me, Isis. Wipe your computer. Wipe the entire hard drive. Don’t take any chances. And don’t ask any more questions.”
“So that’s it? I’m just supposed to forget I’ve ever seen this? Sorry, I have a better memory and more self-respect than that.”
Wren sets his jaw. I lean in and whisper.
“I saw Tallie, Wren. I met her. I know where she is and who she is. And I know that’s what happened that night. Sophia lost her. You all saw it. You buried her together. And maybe you buried other bodies, too. I don’t know. But I won’t stop until I do.”
Wren clenches his fist and stands from the chair. “Then you leave me no choice.”
He says something to Mrs. Greene and strides out the door. I try to follow, but Mrs. Greene harps with her shrieky voice.
“Where do you think you’re going, Blake?”
“The South Pole?”
She frowns.
“Nicaragua?”
She frowns harder.
“Okay, fine, the piss palace.”
“Emily left with the bathroom pass. You’ll have to wait till she gets back.”
“But what if I wet my pants? Do teacher salaries really pay enough to replace student underwear? I’m wearing very expensive underwear.”
This is a bluff. My underwear is blue and three years old. We both know I am not That Girl.
“Sit. Down. Ms. Blake.”
I cross my arms and flop in my chair with considerable grumpy pizzazz.
For the first time in nearly five years, Wren walks up to me. He peeks into study hall, finds my table, and walks over, looking me in the eye as he does it, too.
This is my first indication that something has gone very wrong. He’s cowardly. He’s hesitant. And he’s carrying years of guilt toward me on his shoulders. He would never approach me this boldly unless something dire was happening.
He slides a paper across the table. It’s a printout of a picture, of a very familiar bloody baseball bat, and my hand, and a dark shape in the background I know all too well. I see it each night my brain decides to grant me a nightmare.
“Isis had this,” Wren says, voice strong but low. My lungs splinter with ice at her name, but I quell the pain and quirk a brow.
“And?”
“You know what it’s from,” he hisses. “Someone sent that to her in an email.”
“Did she say what the address was?”
“
[email protected] All in lower case.”
The letters are simple to memorize. I sit back in my chair and struggle to look casual. “Sounds like a trash-byte spammer.”
Wren leans in, now closer to me physically than we’ve been in five years. His green eyes are dark behind his glasses.
“I know you know more about computers than I do,” he says.
“Correct.”
“And I know—God, the whole school knows—you like Isis.”
I have to force the chuckle, and it comes out bitter. “Really? Fascinating. I love hearing fresh gossip.”
“It’s not gossip, Jack, and it’s sure as hell not new. It’s the goddamn old truth and you and I both know it.”
He’s breathing heavily, his face flushed. He’s frustrated and flustered, not angry. Wren never gets truly angry. I give him my best glare.
“Didn’t you see her in the cafeteria?” I ask. “I don’t exist to her. She clearly has no concern for me. Why should I care who she’s emailing?”
“She’ll find out the truth about you!”
“It’s about time someone other than us did.”
“This p-person—” He splutters and jabs his finger at the photo. “This person is dangerous. And he’s talking to Isis. What if he hurts her?”
There’s a long silence. I scoff and look him up and down.
“I’m sorry, am I supposed to care?”
Wren’s face falls like someone’s slapped him. He grits his teeth and grabs the paper back.
“I thought you did. I guess I was wrong.”
“Yes. Now, if you could turn around and march back the way you came in, I’d be very grateful.”
“I care about her!” Wren shouts suddenly. Study hall goes quiet. The librarian looks up, but Wren doesn’t seem to notice. His hair comes undone from its gel, and his glasses skew minutely. “I care about Isis! She’s done more for me than anyone, and if she gets hurt again, I swear to you—”
“You’ll what?” I laugh. “Slap me with a ruler? Sic your student council lackeys on me? Oh wait, I know—you’ll call in some favors and have my pudding privileges revoked with the cafeteria.”
And then he snaps. Wren, the coward behind the camera and my mild-mannered ex-friend of ten years, snaps.
Before I can move, he’s grabbed my shirt and shoved me against a bookshelf. The libraria
n frantically dials security. Girls shriek and boys start to clamber around us in an encouraging, scattered circle.
“Come on.” I smirk. “Punch me. Do it.”
Wren’s green eyes blaze, his muscles taut for someone who isn’t in any sports clubs. I eye his fist, and just as I see it pull back, he drops me and snarls.
“No. That’s exactly what you want. Someone’s already ground you into pulp by the looks of it, and now you want me to do more damage because you’re a self-absorbed, masochistic asshole.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I laugh.
Wren nods, fast and hard. “Yeah. I don’t. I just know that before her, you were dead inside and out, walking around like a zombie. Anybody could see that. And then she came, and you lit up like a fucking candle. And we could all see that, too. Even Sophia.”
“Shut your mouth,” I growl.
“Is that why Isis ignores you now?” Wren laughs. “Because she realized Sophia means so much to you, and you were out here fooling around with her?”
“I never— No one ever—”
“You did!” Wren hisses. “You did, Jack! Isis’s been through more shit than any girl should go through and you got her hopes up! And then she met Sophia and you fucking crushed them!”
“You have no—”
“How could she compete, you moron?” Wren’s voice gets softer, but not any less deadly. “Just use that huge fucking brain of yours for two seconds; you’ve given up everything for Sophia. You send her letters. You’ve been with her since middle school. You had Tallie, and she knows about that, too—”
My mind goes white, a horrible keening noise starting in the back of my skull.
“She what?”
“She knows. She saw it. She went out and found it herself because she’s Isis and that’s what she does.”
Something in me plummets.
“What do we do?” I whisper, my own voice surprising me by how hoarse it is. Wren’s eyes grow brighter.
“You tell her the truth. Before this emailer does, and gets her involved deeper.”
“You forget she doesn’t acknowledge my presence anymore.”