Feral (14 page)

A hand wrapped itself around her wrist. It was her, Claire knew—the cop. That girl cop with the hair like sweet corn and that big tough body. It was about time for her to show up, Claire thought. It seemed like it was taking her a long time to get there.

Maybe, Claire thought, she could ask her when Becca came to Chicago. But first, the cop had to give Claire a charm. Her St. Jude medal. Claire opened up her fist, waiting for the charm, warm from the cop's chest, to hit her hand.

Instead, the hand around her wrist tugged her. Lifted her shoulders and her back off the ground, and just kept tugging, like that girl cop expected her to stand up. But how could Claire stand on broken legs? Couldn't the cop see how much blood she'd lost? Why was she acting this way? She never had before.

“Come on,” a voice pleaded. A low soothing voice. Urging her forward. When had the girl cop gotten
this
tough—so tough she sounded like a man?

Claire was being led away from the scene. On her own feet. With broken legs? How could it be?

The hand continued to grip Claire's wrist, leading her farther and farther away.

Maybe
, she thought,
I'm being led straight to heaven.

Instead, she heard a creak, felt herself being guided into some sort of padded seat. She didn't remember being put in a seat—where was the stretcher?

A door slammed and Claire glanced up, into a mirror.

It was a small mirror, a rectangle up high on a windshield. A rearview mirror. And Claire was staring straight into her own peaked face. She reached up to touch her cheek, surprised that there was no blood.

She put her hands on the seat, rising up to get a better look at her chest in the mirror. Her head jerked backward in surprise. Her blouse hadn't been destroyed. She was still wearing a shirt, her naval trench. Both of which reeked of vomit.

Still shaking with fear, she turned to look behind her. Through the back windshield of a truck, she saw only an empty street. Through the window beside her, a vine-covered, ancient school—its flag adorned with a panther's face.

She wasn't in Chicago—she was in Peculiar. For her father's sabbatical. And she had not just seen herself—she had seen another person. The missing girl.

Claire had just stumbled upon the dead body of Serena Sims. And she was now in the cab of a pickup truck filled with piles of clothes and boots.
A search party
, Claire remembered distantly. There'd been plans for a search party.

Her backpack was here, too. That new red backpack her father had bought her.
Who picked it up?

The back bumper of Owen's car sat at a crooked angle just ahead of her. The Honda was right where he'd left it before running after Claire, into the woods—the passenger-side front tire bumped up onto the sidewalk, three doors open, the engine left running. The driver-side seat belt dangled out into the street. Smoke billowed from the tailgate.

The passenger doors slammed, and Claire saw Rich. But where had he come from? He slid into the Honda's driver seat, and backed up, steering the front tire back down off the curb.

She stared straight ahead, as first the brake lights flashed and died, then as the roar of the engine sputtered into silence, then as the exhaust clouds trailed off and disappeared.

The driver-side door of the pickup flew open, and Rich jumped behind the wheel, his face frantic. “Claire?” he asked. “Claire, are you okay?”

She nodded limply. But she wasn't sure. She had often remembered the scene in the Chicago parking lot—she had dreamed of it in gory detail. Her memories had always been vivid. But she had never misinterpreted her surroundings so completely, like she had in the woods.
What had just happened to her?

Rich reached for her coat pocket. He tugged her phone free, found her dad's contact, and dialed. Claire was surprised when he started talking—not like he was leaving a voice mail, but like he was actually speaking to her father. Her father was within reach? He wasn't down in a cave somewhere?

When Rich finished his call, he placed his hand on the gearshift and pulled away from the school. He drove quickly, as a siren screamed in the background. He ran the only red light between the school and their street.

As they coasted to a stop in the driveway of the old Sims place, the front door flew open. “Claire!” Dr. Cain screamed, barreling down the front walk.

“Dad,” she whimpered as tears pricked at her eyes. She stepped from the truck, the cold wind reminding her of the open cuts on her knees just before she collapsed into her father's arms.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

D
r. Cain ushered Claire inside, sat her on the couch. “I don't—I don't know what happened,” she mumbled, trembling. What she meant was that she didn't know what had happened to
her.
She knew what she had seen—the woods, the dead girl, the cats. But afterward—Claire had been in Chicago. She had felt the pavement beneath her, felt the girl cop's hand around her wrist.
How was that possible?

Panting, she listened to Rich ask if there was anything he could do to help. She watched her father give him a shopping list and money, then disappear into their bathroom and emerge with their emergency first aid kit. After standing her back up and helping her out of her coat, he cleaned the cuts on Claire's knees. He blew on them when the antiseptic made her wince, and he put Band-Aids on the cuts, like he always had when she was a kindergartner with a playground injury.

When he glanced up at her, Claire felt herself wrapping her arms around her chest protectively.

“Are you cold?” he asked, tugging a blanket from the back of the couch, draping it across her.

She gratefully pulled the scratchy wool blanket up to her chin, acting as though he were right. In truth, she'd recognized that look on his face—it was the same look he wore in the lab. He was observing her, weighing her movements, her reactions. Waiting to decipher the just-right thing to say to her, so as not to make the whole situation worse. After all,
what do you say to your daughter when she has just discovered a dead body?

Before Claire could really figure out what she wanted, the doorbell rang. Her father touched her wounded knee gently before rushing to answer. Rich's voice returned. He'd been to 'Bout Out already. They spoke for a while, their whispered voices like Ping-Pong balls flying back and forth.

Her father closed the front door and rushed past her, carrying the groceries straight to the kitchen. In the complete stillness of the house, she could hear a peeler whacking the skin off potatoes, smell onions searing in a pan. And she let out a quiet, breathy chuckle. Her father was making her favorite cream of potato soup. He was taking care of her.

At that moment, Claire knew—she wanted to bring that proud smile back to her father's face.
Brave
, he'd called her. The word was like a drug; she wanted another hit.
Say it again, Dad. Say “Brave.”

They ate, and he tucked her into bed. “Rest,” he whispered. “Just rest.”

When she woke hours later, she found him sleeping in the desk chair next to her bed, a blanket crumpled into his lap. He hadn't even changed into nightclothes or taken off his glasses.

“Hey,” she said. “Dad.” Mostly because she wanted him to get out of that awful position, his chin resting against his collarbone at an uncomfortable angle.

He snapped his eyes open. “What is it?” he asked. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” she insisted. And because he'd tried to fix her with food the night before, she stammered, “Why—why don't we go get some breakfast? Get out of the house for a little while.”

Her dad nodded, giving her a small smile. They had to leave Peculiar, taking a freshly plowed on-ramp to the highway to find a restaurant that was open so early, where Claire sipped a glass of OJ and forced herself to down some over-easy eggs. She ate to prove to her father that she still had an appetite.

Brave
, she thought.
Don't you see it in me, Dad? Don't you think I'm still brave? Why don't you say it if you see it?

The road home took them straight past the high school. The walk surrounding the grounds had been covered in stuffed animals and balloons and handwritten signs that promised, We'll miss you, Serena.

The car slowed as Dr. Cain stared at Claire, searching her face. “Claire. Do you want me to call Dr. Agee?” he asked.

“What?” Claire asked.

“Dr. Agee. From Chicago. I'm here, too, Claire, you know that. You can talk to me anytime. But you talked to Dr. Agee last spring, when you got out of the hospital, so you two have a history. I thought maybe, with all this going on—”

Claire shook her head. “I feel bad for her. That's all. I didn't know her. It's not like I'm—mourning, or something.”

“But what you
saw
—”

She frowned. “It was a shock, but—”

“It was gruesome, Claire. I know.”

“How?”

“Rich.”

“Rich?” she parroted.

“He brought you home. Remember? He was driving by the school, heading toward the search party at 'Bout Out. And he saw Owen's car up on the sidewalk. And he followed the footprints in the snow.”

“Of course,” Claire answered, though the memories of the previous afternoon were anything but clear.

“When Rich brought the groceries back. He told me—about the cats.”

Claire cringed.

“I just thought maybe it brought up some other feelings—about what happened—”

“Two different things,” Claire said simply.

“But it had to have been—”

“Horrific,” Claire said. “It was horrific what happened to her. Yes. I won't stop seeing her face. But it's over. Just like the incident in Chicago is over. Dr. Agee even said that it's over. Remember? How he said the memories will always be with me, but that's okay? You don't have to forget in order to heal, right?” She had taken great care to say the words
incident in Chicago
smoothly, without a hitch in her voice.

As her father stared, she whacked his knee with an open hand. “Come on, now,” she urged, changing the subject, “isn't it about time you got our Wi-Fi up and running? You'll need it for work, and I'll need it for school.”

Dr. Cain paused—as though trying to convince himself to believe her—and steered toward the old Sims place.

When they pulled back into the drive, two figures were already standing on their porch.

“Who's that?” Claire wondered, opening the car door.

The sound of the Gremlin had pulled the visitors away from the front of the house. It was Becca, Claire realized. And Owen. Both of them in dark winter coats and jeans, Owen with his hair slicked away from his face, Becca's pink cheeks and lips shining out from underneath a bulky winter hat with fur trim. And they were walking across the front lawn, toward Claire and her father.

“Dr. Cain,” Becca greeted as they all stopped on the front walk, not two feet from the porch. She stretched her hand out. “We're Claire's classmates. We came to see how Claire was doing. After yesterday . . .”

Her father smiled, obviously grateful that Claire had visitors—
two
someones to talk to. Dr. Cain shook Becca's hand and Owen's, pumping their arms in an exaggerated way. “Nice to meet you. Actually, I have to bow out. I'm sure the three of you don't need a dad around, anyway.” When they all entered, Dr. Cain disappeared upstairs; Claire, Becca, and Owen dropped their coats on a chair just inside the living room.

Becca plopped down on the living room floor, while Owen pulled back the fireplace screen and picked up a box of matches from behind the poker.

Claire stood dumbfounded by the comfortable way they'd made themselves at home.

“We used to come here all the time,” Becca revealed. “With Serena. It was her favorite place. She had a key.”

“To do what?” Claire asked, squatting down on the floor beside Becca.

“Nothing,” Owen muttered, picking up a newspaper from a stack on the hearthstone and curling it into a tight tube.

“
Everything
,” Becca whispered, her eyes glittering.

Claire eyed the hiking boots Becca had on with her dark jeans and a midnight-blue sweater that offered the perfect contrast to her blond hair and ruddy complexion. Becca was drop-dead beautiful—even grief-stricken, even without makeup. She didn't need makeup, Claire thought with a slight twinge of jealousy. Bare, her lips were the shade of pink summer geraniums. It must have felt good, Claire thought, to leave the house uncovered.

“This house was just someplace we went when we didn't have enough money for Ramona's,” Owen said with a shrug.

“What's Ramona's?” Claire asked.

“Ramona's Beer Joint,” Becca said softly. “A country bar off the highway. Never carded the four of us when we went out to dance to their rockabilly band and get out of this town for a while.”

“Us—Chas went, too?” Claire asked.

“Of course,” Becca answered. She frowned, shaking her head. “I don't know why he keeps acting like it wasn't a big deal, him and Serena. She loved him. Her first big love.”

Claire's gaze darted up toward the fireplace just as Owen rolled his eyes, struck a match, and lit the edge of the newspaper.

Becca's expression grew distant as she said, “Serena always liked coming here better than the bar. We'd just—stretch out on the living room floor, in front of the fire, passing some bottle we'd snagged with the help of an extra ten-dollar bill and some random stranger outside a liquor store. We'd talk while the fire crackled. Sometimes, we'd lie flat on the throw rug, our heads all together in a tiny circle, our feet stretched out in front of us so that we looked a little like a human starburst.”