Vengeance (20 page)

And then I was breathing again, and the guy who wasn’t lying on top of me said, “Don’t worry, pretty girl, we’ll return him to you in one piece.” Then recognition seemed to cross her face. Right, initiation. And then horror.
Right, initiation
. I saw her change directions and follow us back toward the parking lot. I was thrown in the back of a pickup truck next to Justin. Kevin followed shortly after. He tossed his keys to
Maya, who was watching the whole scene with complete confusion. “The lake,” he said.

I saw Delaney arguing for a second with Maya, then Maya shrugging and them both getting in the car. I saw their headlights shining on us as we drove to Falcon Lake.

Chapter 12

Janna was already there, standing beside Justin’s brothers, with a cheering crowd of alumni clumped together on the shore. A bunch of cars and trucks had their headlights on, their beams pointing at Falcon Lake. There were already a bunch of seniors dripping wet on the edge, looking pissed. But then someone dragged a keg down the hill, and soon they were holding plastic cups and looking not quite as pissed. Just wet.

“Kevin Mulroy!” I heard as Lance dragged him out of the truck. Kevin waved and stuck his shoulders back, like he was in a freaking pageant. And then Lance dragged him into the water, pushed him down, and held him there as the crowd cheered. He pulled him up by the back of his shirt and Kevin shook his hair out. He looked around at the water for a second, then back to the shore and smiled.

“Hey, babe,” he called to Maya as he high-stepped out of the water. But Maya did not run up to Kevin and lean into
him, like she’d done the day he was in the dunk tank. She stared past him, at the dark water. I wondered if the curse could get a hold of her, too. How long it would take, living here, for you to sense something was off. For you to believe.

“Decker Phillips!” And then Lance was dragging me into the water as well. I wasn’t scared of it. I’d been in it before. With Delaney. But it was cold and dark, and I couldn’t see anything, only the headlights shining in my eyes, reflecting off the water. And when he held me under, the calm left. I pictured her on the other side of the ice, trapped. And I started flailing my arms. I heard them splashing above me. He pulled me back up. “Easy there, cowboy.” I heard laughter. From him. From shore. I walked back toward the lights, looking for Delaney. Turned just in time to see Justin being dragged from the pickup.

“Justin Baxter!”

Justin, despite himself, resisted the whole way.

“No,” I heard him say. He looked at Janna as he passed us, and she was biting her thumbnail. “Tell them,” he mouthed to her. “Don’t!” he yelled. But Lance kept pulling him, and everyone watched in horror as Justin screamed. This was a prank. This was initiation. He was acting like he was being murdered.

Then he was under, and he was struggling, and Lance held him under even longer because of it. He pulled him back up and Justin was coughing. Gagging. Retching. He sulked over to the shore and said, “It’s in my fucking lungs.” And then he repeated, loud enough for everyone to hear, “It’s in my fucking lungs!”

“Calm down,” I said.

“Calm down?
Calm down?
”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Calm. Down. Tell him, Janna.”

Janna reached for Justin’s hand and pulled him away from the edge. “I’m not going to lie to him,” she said.

Which only set off his panic even more. “See? I’m not the only one who remembers. This place, it isn’t a joke.”

“No, it’s not,” she whispered. Her eyes moved from Justin to me to Kevin. She looked at her feet, at the water lapping onto the heels of her shoes, and took a step closer to us. “There are towels. Follow me.”

Kevin grabbed Maya’s wrist to pull her along. Tara was with some of her other friends, and she was eyeing Kevin from down the path. She was eyeing Maya and Kevin, specifically. She didn’t notice Lance behind her. Not at first.

“You get hotter every year,” Lance said. He was dripping water, and he reached for her hair. She jerked back.

“Don’t get me wet,” she said. “I’m cold.”

Lance grinned and tugged her by the arm. Tara didn’t resist much, probably because we were all watching now. We were all about to watch her get dunked and stare at her as she stood there with her clothes clinging to her body, which had defied all rules of nature since she’d turned thirteen.

Which, to be fair, was exactly why Lance was about to dunk her.

And, to be fair, that was exactly why she was going to let him.

She was grinning but dragging her heels, and she was squealing.

They were up to their knees in the lake, and she said, “Holy shit, this is cold.”

Their waists. “Wait,” she said.

But Lance didn’t wait. He pushed her legs out from under her and pressed down on her shoulders until she disappeared under the surface. Lance smiled and let her up right away. She busted out of the water, flung back her hair, and pushed him. Hard. He fell back, under the water, and a cheer erupted from the shore. Tara stood there with a giant smile and clothes clinging and everyone staring, and she curtsied.

Tara was almost back to shore, walking toward us. I wondered if she could feel Kevin’s eyes on her.
I
could feel his eyes on her. And from the change in Maya’s posture, so could she. Lance dragged himself out of the water and said, “Tara Spano, please tell me you’re eighteen now.”

She put a hand on her hip, turned to face him, and said, “Only if you round up.”

Then she turned to me, stuck her tongue out like she was gagging, and mouthed the word, “
Yuck
.”

“Too bad I suck at math,” Lance said, leering at Tara.

I walked up and slung my arm around Tara’s shoulder. “Too bad she’s taken,” I said.

As we walked away, I let my arm fall off her, but she bumped her shoulder against mine as we walked to the pickup trucks with the towels. “Thanks,” she said. “He’s gross.”

She started rubbing her hair with a towel, and I had to
actively remind myself not to look down. Kevin obviously didn’t remind himself. Maya was probably pissed. No, Maya wasn’t paying attention at all. She was staring at the water, her arms wrapped around herself, shivering like she’d just been dunked.

“I’m probably breaking guy code right now,” I said, “but if you want Kevin back …”

“I don’t want Kevin back,” she said. She pulled another towel over her shirt, and I rubbed her upper arms as she shivered. I was also shivering.

“Sure seems like …”

“There’s a difference,” she said, shrugging me off, “between
wanting
someone and wanting someone to be
jealous
.” She turned away from me, keeping herself covered with the towel. Then she looked at me over her shoulder. “You of all people should know that.”

I hadn’t been trying to make Delaney jealous. “Tara, that’s not what I—”

“Oh,
please
,” she said. “It’s not like I
care
.” She turned around. “I’m glad we’re friends,” she said. “I mean it. It’s nice to have someone you can count on to save you from sleazy old guys.”

“Intense,” Kevin said, walking toward us. Tara flipped her hair again. I expected Maya to roll her eyes, but she was staring at her phone.

“Has anyone seen my brother?” she asked, keeping her eyes on her phone.

“Has anyone seen Delaney?” I asked, not caring that I was
being totally obvious. I stood in the back of the pickup truck and scanned the crowd around the lake, searching for her.

Maya scanned the crowd, too. “Or maybe he
did
see my message.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

She shrugged. “He was on his way to meet Delaney. But she got … sidetracked.” She narrowed her eyes at me, like she hated that Delaney still cared. That I wasn’t worth it. “I told him we were heading to the lake.” She looked toward her house, and I did the same. It was hidden in darkness.

“I don’t get why he would want to meet Delaney,” I said.

She put her finger on her lips as she assessed me. Assessed what to say, I guess. “Why wouldn’t he? Is there some reason I’m not allowed to introduce her to Holden, Decker?”

She walked around the truck with Kevin. I saw his wet shirt on the ground. Heard her laugh.

“Holden,” I mumbled. “What kind of name is Holden, anyway?”

Janna blinked at me. Justin laughed as he rifled through the stack of towels, searching for a dry one.

“Hey,” I said. “Decker was my mom’s last name. It has
significance
.”

Janna smiled. “
Catcher in the Rye
? Ring any bells?” By my blank expression, I guess she could tell that it did not. She sighed. “Holden is only the angsty-est voice of discontented youth in all of recent literature.”

Shit.

Delaney was going to love him.

In my head I saw Delaney talking to him somewhere in the woods. Him saying something angsty. Frowning. Her commiserating. Smiling. Justin shook his head, and when Janna turned around, he mouthed, “
Go, you idiot
.”

“Janna, my phone?”

“Oh, right.” She handed it over. I wandered away, and she called out, “By the way, Delaney called.”

“What? What did she say?”

“Nothing. I said, ‘Decker’s phone,’ and she hung up. I mean, what the hell? Can’t even say hello?” Then Janna yelled, “She was the last person to see my brother alive, and she can’t even fucking say hello?”

“Please,” I said, backing away. “Why would she say anything to you? You’re acting like she gave Carson epilepsy. Like she could’ve stopped it.” I was breathing heavily, and everyone was watching us. And I stopped talking because I had basically just accused Janna of the exact same thing I had been doing.

“And you’re acting like something isn’t seriously wrong with this place,” she said.

I almost flipped her off as I walked away, but I thought of Carson, and what he would do if he was here. What he’d think of me right now. What his death had done to her.

What it had done to all of us.

I tried calling Delaney back, but it just rang. I sent her a message, that it was me and not Janna.

I could see Justin’s—no, Maya’s—house from here, about a quarter of the way around the lake. Rather, I saw where it
should’ve been, but right now it was just a black shadow. No lights. I was starting to shake. The towel was pretty much useless since my clothes were soaked through. My shoes, too. They squished with each step, and as the sounds from the initiation faded, my own steps grew louder. The light from the cars still cut through a few of the trees, lighting the way. But it faded as I rounded the next turn. I could still see everyone behind me, shadows in the light, but the area in front of me was in total darkness.

I walked by memory—there was a trunk coming up, a tree that the Baxters had cut down because it swayed too much in storms, threatening to come down on their roof. And when I reached the stump, I’d be able to see the backyard, sloping above me to my left. And then the sliding back door. There were no curtains on the back doors, then or now, but the inside of the house was pitch-dark. I tried Delaney’s cell once more, listening for ringing in the silence. Nothing.

So I scrambled up the sloped grass and cupped my hands over my eyes as I pressed my face to the glass doors. The house was a ranch—but a big ranch. Huge, open living area, perfect for parties. A kitchen off to the side. A long hallway extending off the main area, leading to bedrooms. Perfect for parties. I could see a faint light coming from the hallway. I skirted the side of the house, peeking in the windows as I went. Like some sort of stalker. Great. I stepped away. None of my business.

There was a red car in the driveway. A car that normally wasn’t here, that I hadn’t seen since the day Maya moved in.
Holden’s, I assumed. He was back at the house. He was here. Maybe Delaney—

None of my business
, I thought again, but I pressed my face back to the window anyway. Nothing. The bedrooms all had shades drawn. But there was a light coming from behind one of them. My face was level with the base of the window, and I stooped down to try to see through the crack at the bottom. A shadow moved across the room.

My phone rang, breaking the silence. I fumbled for the Mute button. And then the window was all shadow, and the shades fluttered for a second, then pulled lower, cutting off my vision. They flew upward as I dove down against the base of the house.

Shit. I pressed my back to the wall, hoping whoever was in there couldn’t see me. Hoping it wasn’t her mother, scared of an intruder. Hoping they wouldn’t call the cops on me.
Sorry, I was just checking to see if my ex-girlfriend was in there
.

Idiot.

I eased my way along the wall, toward the backyard, and nearly bumped into Holden’s chest.

“Holy shit,” I said.

“Holy shit, yourself,” he said. “Maya’s not here.”

“I know,” I said. I took a step back. Tried to calm my breathing. “Sorry, I was looking for Delaney.”

He looked confused. Then his eyes narrowed, and he looked back toward his house. “Why would she be
here
?”

“I was just checking. …”
Because you’re named after some angsty guy from literature. Because Maya said you wanted to meet her
.

“Did she
say
she’d be coming here?” He looked over his shoulder and then over my shoulder.

“No, Maya said Delaney went to meet you, and I couldn’t find her. Sorry, this was stupid.”

“She said she couldn’t make it,” he said. Which should’ve made me feel better but only made me realize they had talked. Who knows how frequently or what about. Holden was looking me over. “Were you swimming?”

I pointed to the lake. “Everyone’s there. It’s … stupid. Never mind. Sorry,” I said, turning to go.

Holden grabbed my arm as he leaned forward, closer to the water. He took a step toward the lake. “What are they doing?” he asked. “What the hell is going on?”

“It’s this yearly prank,” I said, pulling my arm away. Trying to give him the quickest answer so I could get the hell out of there. “The alumni are dunking us.” I held out my arms as evidence.