Vengeance (23 page)

“What the hell is that?” she asked, leaning forward.

I leaned forward too. Saw a shape at the edge of the lake. Saw color. “Who …?,” I said. It wasn’t a
what
at all, but a
who
. It was bare legs on the rocks and blond hair floating in the water.

“Oh God,” I said. “Get help.”

I heard Delaney yelling before she reached the party, before I reached the edge of the lake. Before I pulled her by her fur boots, dragging her out of the water. Before I flipped her over and saw Tara’s face. The wig attached by bobby pins, but her brown hair escaping from underneath.

Her open mouth. Stained red lips. Falcon Lake water dripping off her cold, still body.

Chapter 14

“Tara!” I yelled, shaking her by the shoulders.

Listen
. Water lapping at my knees. Footsteps crunching the pebbles as people came racing. And nothing, nothing, nothing coming from Tara.

She had a cut on her forehead, and blood was dripping down the side of her face, mixed with the lake water.

I saw Delaney instead. Her blond hair floating in the water. The way her skin was blue when I pulled her from the ice. The way she didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. The gutting terror.

I couldn’t take a breath. Couldn’t focus on the girl on the side of the lake who needed help. I was useless. Someone pushed me back. Kevin, I think.

No to me or yes to her
. Tara had asked me within earshot of the lake.
Her
, I’d said.
“I want her.”

Her for everyone.

“Is she breathing?” someone asked. But all I could hear
was someone asking that same question over my shoulder as I tilted Delaney’s lifeless head back and put my mouth over hers.

“Can you feel her heartbeat?” someone said. But all I could feel were Delaney’s ribs cracking under the weight of my hands as I tried to keep hers beating.

I heard myself counting in my head. I heard sirens coming, like they did that day, almost a year ago. I heard Delaney’s voice in my ear. “Breathe,” she whispered. I felt the air from her lungs against my cheek. Her hand on my chest as she knelt beside me.

I turned my face, and all I could see was her. Alive. “What’s happening?” she asked, once she could tell I was breathing. “What the hell is happening?”

I didn’t answer, because the question in her head became the only thing in mine:
What the hell is happening?

I watched as everyone else watched Tara being loaded onto a stretcher, an EMT hovering over her so we couldn’t see what was happening. I watched the police start to weave between us, searching for answers. I saw as everyone’s attention shifted from the ambulance driving away to me, clinging to Delaney, on the edge of Falcon Lake.

People nodding in my direction as the cops asked them questions. The cops making their way to me, like I had any answers whatsoever.

I saw Tara in the water. That’s what I told the young cop. I thought I recognized him from school. Not much older than us. “What were you doing when you saw her?” he asked.

I had stepped away from Delaney. He’d wanted to speak with me in private. “I was leaving,” I said.

“Why were you leaving so early?”

I realized he was trying to see if I had been involved. “I was leaving with a girl,” I said, keeping my voice low. Not wanting to bring her name into it.

“Care to point me in the right direction? Just to verify …”

I looked over my shoulder. Saw her watching me. “Delaney,” I said, still looking at her. Then I turned back to the cop. “Delaney Maxwell.”

He looked at her, like he was trying to place her. He knew her, of course. Or the story of her. He closed his notepad, took a step away from the lake. “You need to stay,” he said. “Can’t let anyone drive. We’ll call parents soon.”

“I haven’t been drinking,” I said.

“That’s what everyone else said, too,” he said.

Kevin was behind me, pulling on my arm. “Let’s go,” he said. “Maya’s.”

“We’re supposed to stay,” I said, trying to think straight.

“We need to
go
,” he said. He turned to Delaney, gave her a look, and I felt her fingers sliding between mine. I felt her pull me away, following Kevin.

We disappeared into the woods, picking our way over branches, grabbing onto one another in the dark whenever we lost our footing.

We walked in a silent, single-file line. Justin leading the way instead of Maya. It was his house first. When Carson died, Justin and Tara and I had spent the night at Kevin’s
because we didn’t know what else to do. We didn’t even talk. It was just a room filled with shock and grief, but it was better than being alone.

Justin let Maya pass when we reached the front porch. She looked over her shoulder and said, “You have to be quiet,” as she turned the handle. The door creaked open, and our shoes echoed on the old wood beneath our feet. The house was exactly like I remembered it. A few sofas in the big, open area. A kitchen you could see into, with a second exit. A wood-paneled hall leading to a bathroom and three bedrooms, crammed together, with a third exit.

This was always built to be a vacation rental. There was nothing homey about it.

“Maya?” We heard a voice from the dark hallway, heard footsteps approaching.

“We have company,” she called back. Holden stepped out into the living area, looking at each of us, then staring at Maya.

“It’s not a good time,” he said, looking back down the hall.

I felt bad, knowing their mother was somewhere down there, needing rest. “There’s been an accident,” she whispered, and a sob escaped Janna’s throat.

Justin put an arm around her, and Kevin sunk to the floor with his head in his hands, like he’d forgotten until right that second.

“What happened?” Holden asked.

None of us could say it. “Tara,” Maya said. “She drowned.”

“She’s not dead,” Janna said. And Maya stared at her. “We
don’t know yet.” Janna glanced at Delaney quickly, and I knew what she was thinking. Dying and almost dying were nowhere near the same thing.

Holden put a hand on the nearest piece of furniture, and all the color drained from his face. He shook his head, like such a thing shouldn’t be allowed. It’s exactly how I felt when I got to the hospital and saw my mom waiting for me. “Who’s Tara?” he whispered.

“Kevin’s ex,” Maya said, which was the least of what she was, but I guess that’s the only Tara she knew. The one she’d taken something from.

Holden was still shaking his head. “Who are
you
?” Holden asked. He was looking at us like he was trying to place us. He knew Kevin. He knew me.

Maya did a quick halfhearted introduction of the rest. “Janna, Justin, Delaney,” she said.

Holden stared at Delaney in a way that made me step closer to her. “This is Delaney,” he said. As if he was expecting Delaney to say hi or that she was glad to meet him or something. She was holding on to me, or I was holding on to her, and she was definitely not acknowledging his existence.

“What the fuck is happening,” Kevin mumbled. He looked up at me. “What the fuck was she doing in the water?”

“Shh,” Maya said. “Stop it.”

“Don’t tell me to stop it when my—”

“Your what?” she asked. “Your
what
?”

This is how it starts. We’d all been here before. The accusations and the blame. They come first.

“Maya,” Holden said, reaching for her.

“No, it’s horrible, I know, but you’re acting like she’s yours,” she said, waving off her brother.

Kevin looked at her like she was crazy. “She
is
ours,” he said.

We belonged to one another. When things were on the line, we were protective of one another. To the outside world. And she didn’t get that.

Kevin narrowed his eyes at her and continued. “And Janna is ours. And Justin. And Decker. And Delaney. Carson is ours, too, but you’ll … never … know him.” He spoke through clenched teeth. Janna started sobbing. He was acting like this was all Maya’s fault. She was just a body. The closest thing he could blame.

“Stop. My mother,” she whispered. Kevin stopped talking, but his shoulders were shaking.

“You all need to leave,” Holden said, stepping closer to his sister. He put an arm around her and pulled her toward him. “Out,” he said. “Now.”

I was going to be sick. I started walking down the hall to the bathroom, and Holden called after me, “Where are you going?”

I raised my hand because I couldn’t even answer. The bathroom was at the far end of the hall. I passed Maya’s room on my right—all reds and browns—and then a room with a plain double bed, an old quilt, like it had been stitched by hand. The room was barren otherwise, probably because Holden kept most of his stuff at school. And a
closed door on my left. I tried not to make any noise as I passed.

I shut the door behind me, put my hands on the edge of the sink, stared at the drain, and waited for the wave of nausea to pass. The bathroom already had the scent of sickness, like somebody had recently been ill right here, and my knees buckled as I tried to breathe through my mouth. My skin turned hot, and I felt beads of sweat forming at my hairline, which happens right before I hurl, usually. There was a knock but no pause before Delaney slipped inside as well, shutting the door behind her.

I couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t tell her how I’d rejected Tara to her face. Told Tara I chose Delaney instead. Imagined Tara lying facedown in the water while my hands were in Delaney’s hair, while my mouth was on hers. My body, pressed against her, feeling entirely alive.

Delaney didn’t say anything. She ran the faucet, put the hand towel in the sink, and then placed it across the back of my neck. I felt the water dripping under my collar, cooling my hot skin.

I saw her hands gripping the edge of the sink beside me, like she was trying not to be sick herself. And I remembered the way they had looked on the dashboard. Like she was gripping it to keep them still. The shudder that ran through her.

“You knew,” I said, and her grip tightened against the sink.

“This place,” she whispered, not exactly answering. “What the hell is happening?”

“Delaney,” I said, because she knew, she
knew
. “Is she …”

She spun around, threw her hands up. “I don’t know.
I don’t know
. I don’t know
anything
. Nothing makes sense.”

She had her hand over her mouth and her eyes were closed, and I couldn’t tell whether she was trying to keep something in or hold herself together. This is why she went to that guy in Boston. The not knowing would shatter anyone. The not knowing would irrevocably destroy a person who relied on logic, like Delaney. And it was.

I had my hands on the sides of her upper arms. “Tell me then.”

We had never done this. I mean, she didn’t
not
tell me. But she spoke vaguely. In shrugged-off events. In moods. I worried I was overstepping, that she wanted to keep it for herself. But from the way she was looking at me now, it was like she’d been waiting for me to offer. God, I was a moron.

“You were kissing me,” she whispered. And she touched her fingers to her mouth for a moment. “Outside. And then …” And then I felt her shudder. “From nowhere,” she said.

“Her body was starting to die,” I said, and she nodded. Tara’s body, giving off a signal. A Leave-me-behind signal. Only it pulled Delaney. Not a push. A pull. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“I thought it wasn’t real,” she said. “Like a memory. Like a reminder of what I had done to you.” And what I had done to her. “And nothing makes sense anymore. Like I’m standing right here”—she pointed at the closed door to the hall—“and I can’t feel
anything
. Nothing makes sense.”

I heard a door being closed in the hall. And then another. And then a knock on our door.

“Just a sec,” I said.

“I’m driving you all home,” Holden said.

Delaney opened the door and he looked at her. Looked at me over her shoulder. Like he thought we were up to something in here and not just trying to keep from hurling in his sink. “I’m getting my shoes, and we’re leaving.” Then he disappeared into the third room. The room that had the door shut. I mentally tallied them. Maya. The empty, quilted bed. Mom, behind the closed door.

Something was off. Delaney, not feeling anything. Holden, wanting us out. Holden, going into the wrong room.

“We have to go,” I said to Delaney, grabbing her by the hand. She was confused, I could tell. But she didn’t say anything.

Kevin was waiting by the door. “Holden is driving me to the hospital.”

I shook my head at him. Something was
off
. “Come with us. We’re walking. We’ll make some calls.”

“No. I’m going to the hospital.” Holden was walking down the hall again. We had to
go
. And Kevin had that look like he was searching for someone to be angry with again.

“Come with me,” I whispered.

He bumped his shoulder into mine as I passed. “We are
going
to the hospital to see Tara,” he said.

He was staring me down, and Holden was coming closer. “Call me when you know?” I asked.

“You’re not coming?”

I needed air. I needed to think. I needed to think
straight
. “We’re walking.” I pulled Delaney out the sliding glass door out back before Kevin could say anything more. We were moving way too fast, and I caught her as she slipped behind me down the embankment to the path. Our home was on the other side of the lake, but the path would take us all the way there.

I could see the police still picking over the edge of the lake a few houses away, and I put my finger to my lips as we walked. It wasn’t until we were all the way on the far shore, where I couldn’t see the cops in the dark, that she asked me, “What? What is it?”

“Their mom isn’t there,” I said.

Delaney looked confused. “Whose mom? Maya’s?”

“Holden went into the only room she could’ve been in. For his shoes.”

“Is there some reason his shoes couldn’t be in there?”

I shook my head. “You don’t feel anything because she’s not sick. She’s not
there
.”