A Girl Called Dust (12 page)

I rolled my eyes and pushed the cart
ahead, but Lacey stepped in front of it. “So you and Bailey have been hanging
out again, haven’t you?”

It was more of an accusation than a
question, like Bailey was her property I was trying to steal. “It’s none of
your business who I hang out with. Move.”

Trista scoffed and rolled her eyes.

Lacey sneered at me, pushing the cart away
from her so that its handle bumped against my stomach. “You better watch your
mouth, Dust.”

Quinn disappeared behind me, while Paige
was prepared to one-up Lacey’s mean girl act. She put one hand on her hip and
glared at Lacey. “Her name is Arden, and if you can’t remember that, don’t talk
to her.”

Whoa. Paige would be going to Everson High
next year, and she was fully aware of Lacey’s popularity. The fact that she was
risking her impending popularity by pissing off the queen bee meant a lot to
me.

Lacey focused on my sister, and I was
ready to run her over with my shopping cart. Paige and I weren’t the closest,
but my big-sister instinct was kicking in. 

Lacey looked over our shoulders to where
Gerdy rang up a customer and gabbed away at the register. “You want to run with
the big dogs, little girl? Meet me outside.”

I remembered Lacey getting into a fight
last year with a girl named Claire Donahue. Only it hadn’t been a fair fight.
Trista and Marley had jumped in, making it three against one—a total punk move.
Lacey was a pack animal. She needed someone to have her back. I thought I could
take her if I really needed to.

“Really, Lacey?” I asked. “You’re
threatening an eighth grader?”

Lacey’s smirk fell a little, and she was
probably realizing how stupid she looked. “Let’s go, Trista. Get out of my
way!” she barked at Paige, but Paige didn’t budge. She gave Lacey the infamous
Look of Death that she’d inherited from Mom. Lacey stared at her for a few
seconds before giving up. She and Trista finally inched around Paige, almost
knocking boxes of Ritz crackers off the shelf. My little sister had totally
owned Lacey Chapman.

Once they were gone, we continued our
shopping.

“You should totally kick that bitch’s
ass,” Paige said on the way home.

 “Paige! And what is fighting her
going to solve?” I was surprised by her comment even though I shouldn’t have
been. I could only imagine how Paige acted at school.

Quinn stayed quiet, cradling the bottle of
grape soda as if it were the last one on earth.

Paige ripped open a pack of Starburst she
had snuck onto the counter while Gerdy rang us up. “It’ll show her you’re
strong. Somebody she can’t mess with. She only bothers you because she thinks
you’re weak.”

Well, maybe I was. My little sister had
just defended me.

I’d picked up some mozzarella sticks and
chicken fingers from Gerdy’s since all I had to do was throw them in the oven.
Cooking wasn’t my forte. The three of us sat around the kitchen table, and I
told the girls we were still following Mom’s rule of no cell phones during
dinner. Surprisingly, they didn’t fight me on it.

After listening to Paige and Quinn debate
about what God-awful name some celebrity had given their baby, I needed to ask
them an important question. “Guys, I have to ask you something that might sound
a little weird.”

Quinn dipped a chicken finger in barbeque
sauce. “Sure. Shoot.”

“Do you ever hear me making strange noises
at night?”

Both girls nodded. “Yep,” Quinn replied.
“You wake me up all the time.”

“You howl like a werewolf. Sometimes you
bark,” Paige added.

My faced warmed with embarrassment. “How
come you guys never said anything about it?”

Quinn shrugged. “Mom and Dad said we could
never bring it up. Dad said if we did, we would lose our allowance forever.”

Paige pulled her hair around her neck and
squeezed it tight. “Mom said if we ever told anyone outside of this house, she
would shave our heads. You know she’d really do it. We can’t even tell
Grandma.”

My throat tightened. I couldn’t believe
everyone in my family had been keeping that secret from me. How was it they’d
all known this horrible thing about me that I’d only learned a few days ago?
Why was I the last one to learn things about me? It wasn’t fair. “Are there any
other secrets you need to tell me about myself?”

They looked at each other and shook their
heads. “No.”

Was there more? Did I do other things I
didn’t know about? I couldn’t tell if they were lying or not, so I let it go.

I watched my sisters as they continued to
eat as if we were having an ordinary conversation. “What . . . what do you guys
think about what I do? I mean, it’s weird, right?”

Paige took a giant gulp of grape soda and
let out a deep burp, something she only dared to do because Mom was gone. “It’s
okay. We’re family. That means we love you even if you’re crazy.”

That was probably the nicest thing Paige
had ever said to me.

 I cleaned up what was left of
dinner, and the girls disappeared to Paige’s room. Down in the basement, I got
back to work on my dress. Even with so many options for things to do on a
Friday night, there was nothing else I would rather be doing. I was almost done
with the sleeves. I turned on the tape player, and the sounds of Boy George and
the Culture Club filled the basement. Listening to
Karma Chameleon
, I
went into my zone. After about thirty minutes, I heard what I thought sounded
like a squeal. I stopped sewing to listen and decided it was probably just my
sisters goofing around.

I did a few more stitches when I heard
another scream and Quinn shrieking my name even over the music. Annoyed,
figuring she and Paige were probably fighting over something stupid, I dragged
myself up the basement stairs, into the house, and to Paige’s bedroom.

“What? I was working.”

Paige’s window was shattered, and glass
covered the floor. Quinn stood there hugging herself and shivering as a cool
blast of air filled the room.

“Quinn, what happened?”

Quinn shook her head as if trying to make
sense of the situation. “He took her. A man . . . or something. He came in and
took Paige.”

That didn’t make any sense. Things like
strangers coming into a house and kidnapping someone happened on TV, not in
real life. Not to us. “Quinn, are you serious, or are you guys playing a trick
on me?” I waited for Paige to jump out of the closet laughing her ass off.

“I’m not playing. Look at the window!”

I moved over to the window, glass
crunching beneath my boots, trying to accept the grim reality. The window had
been broken from the outside. Paige was gone. “Which way did they go?” I turned
back to Quinn, who shook her head. “You can’t follow them.”

I grabbed my sister’s shoulders and shook
her. Every second counted for Paige. “Quinn, which way?”

She pointed one shaky finger to the
ceiling. “You can’t follow them. They flew away.”

Chapter Thirteen

“What?”

“The man, he had wings like a giant bat.”

Clearly Quinn was too afraid to think
straight. I got on my phone and dialed 9-1-1 before going out into the
backyard. I saw nothing that suggested an intruder had been there. The gates
were closed. There were no footprints. No crushed plants or flowers. How had
the man come and gone through a second-story window while carrying a girl who
was surely struggling to break free? Was Quinn telling the truth?

I didn’t get the opportunity to ask her
any more questions about what she’d seen because Quinn shut down after that.
She wouldn’t speak or even make eye contact with anyone. I called Mom, but she
didn’t answer, so I called Grandma, who arrived shortly after the cops.

Grandma sat on the couch crying
hysterically while holding a checked-out Quinn. My sister looked like she had
frozen in time. An ambulance was called for her. They wanted to take her to the
hospital to make sure she was all right. Grandma was going with her, while I
went to the police station on my own to answer some questions. I wished my parents
were there, but what could I possibly say to them? While I was in charge, Paige
had mysteriously disappeared. It felt like it was all my fault even though I
knew it wasn’t.

At the station, I was taken into a white
room surrounded with glass windows. The only things in the room were a wooden
table and three chairs—two on one side of the table and one on the other.

After a minute, Officer Putney came in and
sat in front of me. I couldn’t say I was happy to see him. I knew he was still
giving me the side-eye from the whole Fletcher–bus incident. He thought I was
crazy.

Officer Putney folded his hands in front
of him. “Can I get you anything, Arden?”

“Just find my sister.”

“We have the whole precinct and the ones
that surround us looking for her. We’ve issued an Amber Alert even though we
don’t have any information about a vehicle.”

That’s because they’d flown away,
according to Quinn.

I took a deep breath and formulated my
thoughts. I had to do and say just the right things. I’d watched enough cop
shows to know that detectives were watching me on the other side of those
windows, judging my facial expressions and body language.

Officer Putney flipped open a notepad.
“Can you tell me again what happened?”

I sighed then caught myself. I didn’t want
to seem frustrated, but I’d already told him the story, and he should have been
out there helping them look for Paige.

“I was sewing in the basement. I heard the
girls screaming from upstairs in Paige’s room. By the time I got there, the
window was broken and Paige was gone. When I asked Quinn what happened, she
told me a man with wings came in, grabbed Paige, and then flew away. That’s all
I can tell you.”

Officer Putney made some scribbles on his
pad while looking at me then closed it and put his pen down. I wondered how he
could do that—write without looking, like Scarlett. Was his writing legible? I
hoped so because this was important.

“Some interesting things happen to you,
don’t they, Arden?”

“What?”

Officer Putney sat back in his chair and
folded his arms across his chest. Not a good sign. “Well, first you
claim
to see a boy get hit by a bus. Then you stumble upon poor Mrs. Chin’s body in
the woods. Now, your sister has been taken by a flying man.”

I gulped. Yeah, that sounded bad, but the
first two things had totally been Fletcher’s fault. He ran in front of that bus
and then lied about it, and he was the one who’d found Mrs. Chin and brought me
to her. As for Paige, I was only repeating what Quinn had told me, so he
shouldn’t have been looking at me as if I had two heads.

“I guess,” was all I could think to say.

“This flying man. Can you describe his
wings? Did he have feathers too?” Officer Putney asked, not bothering to hide
his smirk.

I wanted to smack him. “I don’t know. I
told you a hundred times that I didn’t see him. Quinn did. Ask her.”

“Unfortunately, your little sister’s still
not talking or responding to anything.”

Poor Quinn. I felt like I should have been
with her, but then I thought about Paige. We had no idea where she was or what
this mystery man was doing with her.

Officer Putney tapped his pen on the
table. “One sister missing and one in shock. What exactly happened in that
house tonight?”

Taking deep breaths, I tried to remember
what I’d learned in speech class about staying calm and not being defensive. I
remembered nothing. “For the millionth time, we ate. I cleaned up. My sisters
went upstairs to hang out, and I was in the basement sewing. That’s all.” This
was a nightmare, and I needed it to be over. “Have you spoken to my parents?”

Putney shook his head. “We haven’t been
able to get in contact with either one. We’re trying.”

Something was wrong. Were my parents okay?
A lump rose in my throat. They needed to be there. Mom would have already
flipped out and had every officer in the state looking for Paige.

Officer Putney looked me up and down as if
he wanted to say something else. “Your house is still a crime scene for the
time being, so you’ll be going home with your grandmother. You can sit in the
waiting room until she comes for you. If you think of anything you haven’t told
me, don’t hesitate to call.”

I nodded. A younger officer led me to the
waiting room, where I called Fletcher.

“Fletcher—” I said as soon as he picked
up.

“I know. I’m watching the news now.”

I looked up at the TV that hung from the ceiling
of the waiting room. The eleven o’clock news was on, and although it was on
mute, my sister’s picture flashed across the screen along with several other
pictures from her Instagram account. That was fast.

I watched the newscaster’s mouth move, but
I didn’t want to hear what she was saying. Was she telling everyone I’d said my
sister was taken away by the flying man? Even though it had been initially
Quinn’s statement, I was the one who had repeated it to the police. They would
think I was crazy.

“I’m sorry. I’m sure they’ll find her,”
Fletcher said. I’d almost forgotten that I was talking to him.

“Fletch, Quinn said the man who took her
flew away with Paige. Why would she say that? That’s crazy, right?”

Fletcher was silent for a minute. He
wasn’t talking because he’d rather be silent than lie to me. “Fletch, that’s
crazy, right?”

“Arden, I have to go. I know they’re going
to find Paige. Don’t worry. I’ll come over tomorrow.”

His mother yelled something in the
background. She didn’t sound happy. I thought I could make out the words “their
fault.” What was she talking about?

“Fletcher, what do you know that you’re
not telling me?” One thing I did know about Fletcher Whitelock was how to tell
when he was keeping secrets. Still silence. “Fletch, come on. This is my little
sister.”

“Arden, I have to go. I promise, I’ll see
you tomorrow.” Then he hung up. I called him five times after that, but he
wouldn’t answer.

It was after midnight when Grandma and I
got to her house. They’d wanted to keep Quinn overnight for observation, and
she still hadn’t uttered one word.

Grandma didn’t sleep that night. She
alternated between pacing the living room crying or calling Mom and Dad’s cells
screaming at them for being unavailable. I couldn’t blame her because I was
just as angry. What were they doing? Whenever Dad went away on business, he’d
always return our calls within the hour even if it were for something stupid
like Paige and Quinn arguing about whose turn it was to take out the trash. And
Mom, where the hell was she? Was she okay?

I spent the night curled up on the couch,
thinking about Paige. I tried to imagine how scared and alone she must have
felt at that moment. I would have traded places with her in a heartbeat.

Chapter Fourteen

An accidental overdose of the wrong
medication

A doctor screw-up in surgery

A serial killer posing as a nurse

The uncontrollable outbreak of some
vicious disease

Electrocution by heart defibrillator

The beef stroganoff from the
cafeteria 

The thoughts wouldn’t stop coming. For
places of healing, hospitals were crazy dangerous.

Saturday was a blur. Grandma and I spent
the morning in the hospital with Quinn. There was nothing else to be done, so
they were going to discharge her soon, promising us that she would talk again
when she was ready. In other words, there was nothing medically wrong with her,
it was all mental. She was simply choosing not to talk. In the meantime, Quinn
stared straight ahead, barely even blinking and completely shutting us out of
her little world.

Fletcher came by with a small vase of
yellow roses. “My mother made me bring these,” he announced as he set them on
the table beside Quinn’s bed.

“Thanks, Fletcher, but you shouldn’t say
that when you’re giving someone a gift,” I explained.

“Oh. Right.”

I didn’t want him to think the flowers
were unappreciated. “It was nice of you, though. Quinn likes yellow.”

 Grandma left us alone to make a
visit to the cafeteria. She promised to bring me something back, but I begged
her not to. I imagined that hospital food was worse than school cafeteria food.

Fletcher sat in a chair on the other side
of Quinn’s bed and stared at her. “She’s afraid of what she saw.”

“You believe her? That a man flew away
with Paige?”

Fletcher nodded. “I guess. Why would she
make that up?”

“She’s ten and she was scared. Maybe she
just thought she saw the guy flying away.” But that part still bothered me. How
had he done it? There was no evidence anywhere in the house. No footprints or
fingerprints. Had he simply flown in and flown out with Paige? Why Paige? What
did he want with her?

Fletcher stared at me, gripping the arms
of his chair as if he were afraid of something.

“Fletch, you’re scaring me.”

He continued to watch me with the same
level of intensity. “Arden, I’m going to tell you something. When I tell you
this, you can’t freak out. If you do, I’ll never tell you anything again no
matter how many times you ask. My mom doesn’t want me to tell you, but you’re
my friend and I have to.”

What did this have to do with Fletcher’s
mom, and what did she know about me?

“I won’t freak out,” I promised, even
though I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t. “Please, whatever it is. Tell me.”

“I told you your mom and dad weren’t your
parents. I know you didn’t believe me, but you should ask them. Really ask
them. Don’t let them brush it off. Make them tell you the truth. You have a
right to know. You should have known a long time ago. It wasn’t a man who took
your sister. It was a boy. Our age, but he’s big, so I can see why Quinn thought
it was a man. His job is to collect people like you. That’s why he came to your
house last night.”

“People like me. What does that mean?”

“It’s not my place to tell you, and that’s
not even the point right now. The point is he came for you, but he made a
mistake and took the wrong girl. He’ll realize his mistake soon if he hasn’t
already, and he’ll come for you, Arden.”

Shivers crept up and down my spine. I
hadn’t slept the night before, and I knew I would never sleep again with the
prospect of some winged boy coming into my house to take me away, even though I
didn’t believe it.

“Shut up, Fletcher. You’re just trying to
scare me, and it’s not funny.”

“I mean it, Arden. There’s nothing you or
your parents can do. You can’t stop them. You can’t hide from them. They have a
right to take you because you belong with them and not your parents. You’re in
the wrong place. They have to make things right.”

All the times I’d asked Fletcher to tell
me what was going on, I hadn’t expected a cockamamie story like this. Even
though he was giving me information, he wasn’t telling me anything. My parents
were my parents. They had to be. And what was I? What was he talking about?

 Quinn stared straight ahead at the
wall. I wondered if she could hear us.

Everything that had been going on almost
made me forget about something else. “Hey, how could you do that to Ms.
Melcher? What’s wrong with you?”

Fletcher sighed and looked down at his
lap. “I told you I was trying to help her. It’s not my fault they didn’t want
to listen.”

“You were trying to help her by scaring
her and telling her over and over that she’s going to die? Who does that? Now
I’m all alone at school, and it sucks.”