They All Fall Down (27 page)

I stand up and walk to the shelves again, then to his desk. Behind me, I’m aware that Levi has opened the closet door. I’m not ready to touch Conner’s clothes quite yet. But I pull out the desk chair and run my finger along the thick powder of dust surrounding his big calendar blotter.

It’s opened to the month of October, the year he died. I stare at the eighteenth, but the day is blank. Most of the other dates have notes in them—Conner was insanely organized, with homework due dates, his work and football practice schedules jotted in. The name
Alexa M
on the Saturday after he died.

He hadn’t had a date with Alexa Monroe that night; he had a funeral instead.

Swallowing that morbid thought, I run my finger along the side of the blotter, drinking in the notes on Conner’s calendar. Behind me, I hear hangers moving over the rack, unsure what Levi thinks he’ll find in the closet.

I read Conner’s writing.

History exam

Pick, up paycheck

Debate team mtg. 8:00 a.m.

AP Language essay due

Practice 4:30–7:00

Game at St. Edward’s

NRNV course

“Kenzie.”

I barely hear him say my name because my eyes have just moved back to October seventeenth, frowning at the entry on that page:
NRNV course
. What class was that?

“Look at this.”

I want to turn to him, but I’m staring at those letters. What was NRNV? A school group? A team he was on? Why do those letters feel like they should mean something?

Levi’s hand lands on my shoulder. “This was in his letter-jacket pocket.”

I finally look at what he’s set on the desk in front of me. It’s a paper folded in thirds with a thick, broken wax seal. I frown at it, the wax seal such a foreign thing to see.

“Look closely,” he orders.

I do, lifting the paper so I can see the half seal in the light and read the letters that remain:
et Nihil Vestigi
.

“It’s only half a motto,” he whispers. “But we know the part that’s missing.”

Nihil Relinquere et Nihil Vestigi
.

My heart drops as a puzzle piece snaps into place.
NRNV
. “Oh my God, Levi.” I look up at him. “Conner did the ropes course the night before he died.”

I flip open the paper and let out a soft grunt. It looks like a freaking Latin exam.

My phone dings in my pocket but we both ignore it, our attention on the paper.

“What does it say?” Levi asks.

“It’ll take some time to translate.”

The phone dings with another text, immediately followed by another.

“You better see who that is,” he says.

I reach into my jacket pocket to get the phone, but my hands brush a folded piece of paper—the one Jarvis Collier gave me. I pull it and my phone out at the same time, absently unlocking the phone with one hand while I flip open the folded paper with the other.

And see the same Latin words. The same phrases that Levi found in Conner’s pocket, the same numbers, the same everything. In fact, the sheet I have is an exact replica of Conner’s.

“Oh my God, Levi, do you see that?” I look up at him but he’s not reading either paper. The color has drained from his face and his dark eyes are burning in horror.

I follow his gaze to the phone, my blood turning ice cold as I read the words that show up over and over in the last three texts.

Amanda … Kylie … car … bridge … dead
.

CHAPTER XXVII

L
evi slept in the basement and slipped out before Mom got up this morning. I left early enough not to have to tell her any of the bits and pieces I learned overnight.

A few blocks from my house, Levi picks me up on his bike and rides me to school, but Vienna High is like a ghost town. At least half the student population is out, taking any excuse—like the deaths of two more girls on the infamous Hottie List—to cut class. He pulls into the junior lot but doesn’t get off the bike after he parks.

“Aren’t you going to school?” I ask.

“I have something else to do.” The tone in his voice snags my attention as I climb off and remove my helmet.

“What?”

He takes off his helmet, too, his mussed hair making my hand ache to smooth it. “Just some stuff.”

The vague response hurts and when I look away to hide the
impact, he touches my chin, turning my face back to his. “I have to go find out what’s going on.”

“How? What are you going to do?”

It’s his turn to look away. “I’m just going to talk to a few people. Maybe look around the woods.”

“Without me?”

He chokes out a wry, mirthless laugh. “Yes, without you. Don’t you realize how unsafe you are right now? You should have stayed home.”

“Home is the number one place for accidents to happen,” I say, quoting my mother. “I’m better off in school.”

But the truth is, I’m not better off anywhere. I’m next. And we both know it.

“This has to end, Kenzie,” he says softly.

“Are you going to talk to the police?”

He shakes his head. “I can’t, and I don’t think it will help anyway. Maybe tomorrow, but I have to—there’s someone I have to talk to.”

“Who?” I demand, but he stays maddeningly quiet. “Josh? Rex?
Jarvis?
”

“Just give me a few hours, okay? And watch your back. And your front. And whoever is next to you.”

I step closer to him. “I want that to be you.”

He brushes some hair off my face, his fingers warm. “It is and it will be.” Then he kisses me long enough for me to hold on to that promise as I head into school.

The few kids who are in the halls openly stare at me, some with sympathy, some with curiosity, all with sadness. I ignore them and go to the locker bay, which is quiet and empty when I get there. While I’m facing the still-closed door, I hear soft footsteps behind me.

As much as I want to spin around and see who it is, I don’t want any more looks that say
You’re next, Fifth
.

“Kenzie?”

At the sound of Molly’s voice, I pivot, meeting her sad gaze. She looks so wrecked I almost collapse on the spot. “Molly,” I whisper, my voice cracking.

She hesitates and searches my face, her eyes swollen and red. I know she’s been crying. Wordlessly, she walks over and folds me in a hug.

“I’m sorry.” We say the words at exactly the same time, in the same voice. Any other time, we’d laugh. But today, we just hug tighter. I don’t know if she’s sorry we had such a horrible fight or that Amanda and Kylie have died or what, but I don’t care. I just hold on to her.

“You okay?” she finally asks, pulling away.

I shudder as I shrug a nonanswer.

“What happened?” she asks.

“I don’t know any more than you probably do,” I say.

“They committed suicide? Why?”

I don’t believe that for a minute, but the rumor mill says the police found a double-suicide note taped to the end of Seneca Bridge, which is a good twenty miles from Vienna. Amanda’s car had been deliberately driven over the bridge, and both she and Kylie had drowned. The doors were locked and they were still in their seat belts, though none of this had been officially released. It all came from a friend of a friend of a friend who knew somebody in the Vienna Police Department.

“I saw them a couple of hours before,” I tell her. “They were fine.”

“Another private party?” she asks, unable to keep the bitter note out of her voice.

“Molly—”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m really sorry about that.”

“
You’re
sorry?” I grab her arms again. “Molly, that was so awful, and there’s so much you don’t understand.”

“Clearly.”

I squeeze a little, a thousand ways to say this playing in my mind. “I think there’s a—”

“Curse? I’ve heard about it.”

“I’m not buying the curse theory,” I say. “But the believers insist that your number’s up if you tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.”

“Then don’t,” she says, inching away. “Kenzie, if anything happened to you, I’d—”

“Hey!”

We both startle at the sound, fired by Candace, who’s standing ten feet away with her hands on her hips, her butchered black hair still as shocking as the first time I saw it. Behind her is Dena, who looks like she hasn’t slept at all.

“You better zip your lips, Summerall,” Candace says. “Unless you want to be next.”

Instinctively I get even closer to Molly, refusing to shut her out the way I did before. “I trust Molly,” I say quietly. “She’s my best friend.”

Candace takes a few steps closer, ignoring Molly and focusing on me. “You want to know the last thing Amanda Wilson did before she and Kylie took off last night?”

I just stare at her. I’m not sure I want to know, but I have to.

“She texted her freaking cousin and asked if she and Kylie could go stay with her for a few days. And she told her cousin
why
.”

“And you think that’s why her car went off Seneca Bridge?” I ask. “ ’Cause I’d bet my life it’s not.”

“You’re betting your life talking to her,” Dena says, coming up to join us. She throws a dismissive look at Molly. “Better leave, Kenzie’s best friend.”

“No.” I grab Molly’s hand and cling to it. “She stays with me. We’re a package deal.”

Candace crosses her arms. “Just like Amanda and Kylie.”

Molly gasps, but I dismiss the comment with a wave. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you,” Candace says. “Alone.” She gets my elbow and pulls me a few feet away from Molly. “Listen, we have to meet tonight. At the trailer.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the only place we’re safe. No one knows about that trailer, and we can talk freely about what to do and not worry about someone killing us.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“Suit yourself. Stay home and risk an accident. Or come, but don’t bring anyone.” She gets closer to my face. “And I mean anyone.”

She walks away, and Dena follows, slowing down to whisper, “Kenzie, please don’t tell anyone else.”

“She hasn’t told me anything,” Molly says. “So you can quit freaking out.”

Dena slumps with a sigh of gratitude.

“But if I do,” I say, “I don’t think that has anything to do with what’s happening.”

“It might,” Dena says in a harsh whisper. “Don’t take any chances, Kenzie. You’re next. And I’m right after you.”

I want to reassure her, but I can’t, swallowing hollow words. I just nod and when she leaves, I turn to Molly.

“Don’t,” she says, cutting me off when I open my mouth. “Don’t tell me anything that will jeopardize your life.”

“Telling you isn’t going to put me in danger. Anyway, I’m in enough already.”

“Kenzie, you’re scaring me.”

She should be scared. We all should be. “Please understand that this has nothing to do with our friendship and I’m not ditching you for these girls.”

“I know that.” She reaches out and pulls me into a hug. “Please be careful.”

“I will, I promise.” But I’m not sure I can be careful enough.

I head into Latin hoping Mr. Irving can be my savior. He won’t know what he’s doing, of course, but I need to get some help translating the page of Latin I got from Jarvis—if that was Jarvis—that matched the paper Levi found in Conner’s jacket pocket.

It has to hold some kind of answer for me.

When I hand it to Mr. Irving, he gives me a sympathetic smile. “Preparing for State already, Kenzie? That’s a good way to get your mind off things.”

I nod and go with the explanation he’s handed me. “I found this on the Internet in a forum about testing, and I thought it might help me.”

A glimmer of hope crosses his face. “You can go? Did you get the parental consent form signed? The competition’s in less than a month.”

“Not yet, but …” I point to the paper. “Can you give me some help here?”

“Sure.” He pulls reading glasses from his pocket and perches on the empty desk next to mine, frowning at the page and glancing at the few notes of translation I’ve already made. The Latin is over my head, though, written in a way that doesn’t make sense to me. I hope that’s not the case with Mr. Irving.

“Is this a game?” he asks. “Riddles or something?”

Maybe. “I’m not exactly sure.” I point to a section where I was really lost. “I understand the actual words, but it’s those subtle modern meanings that throw me. Like that one.
‘Hodie mihi, cras tibi.’
I know that translates literally to ‘today to me, tomorrow to you,’ but what’s the figurative translation?”

“That, Kenzie, reflects the inevitability of change and normally is used to remind a reader of their mortality.”

Mortality
. That doesn’t sound good. “And what about
‘Ex-tinctus amabitur idem’
?”

“Quite famous, actually,” he says. “That’s some lovely insight from the
Epistles
by Horace, which you’ll read in Latin Four.”

If I’m still alive by then. “But what does it mean, Mr. Irving?”