Vengeance (27 page)

By the time my mom and I got back from dinner, everyone was already upstairs at Delaney’s. She sent me a text a little after midnight.
All quiet
.

I texted back:
Plans foiled. Mom put the fear in me
.

A few minutes later, there was a tap on the office door. I opened the door and she waved, but she didn’t come in. I peeked at the staircase behind her. “Look who’s the rebel,” I whispered.

“It’s your last night here. And there’s no rule about watching television in the living room after midnight. I’m sure of it.” She smiled. “So … want to watch TV?”

I followed her out of the room. “I’m trying to figure out if that’s a euphemism for something, but I have a feeling I’m about to be seriously disappointed.”

She flipped on the television, turned the volume all the way down, and threw a pillow in my lap from the other side of the couch. Then she put her head on the pillow and sprawled across the couch. She pulled the throw blanket from the back of the couch down around her.

“I see you get the good seat,” I said.

“Shut up,” she said, her eyes focused on the muted screen.

She was scared. Correction: I had scared her.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m wrong. Like always.” I put my arm on her side.

“Okay,” she said, but it was like my thought, the vision in my head, had transferred to her. And whether she believed it or not, it was stuck there, becoming something. I ran my fingers through her hair until she fell asleep, and then I tried to
rest my head on my other arm, but it didn’t really work. I slept like I was on an airplane, jerking awake every few moments when my neck fell at an awkward angle. But eventually, I must’ve fallen asleep for real, because the next time I woke up, there was a hand on my shoulder.

I jumped, seeing my mom standing over me, and I jarred Delaney in the process. She woke slowly, and then quickly, processing the fact that my mom was standing over us.

“Oh God,” she said, pushing herself to the other end of the couch. “It’s not what it looks like.”

My mom raised an eyebrow at her. “What it looks like is that you fell asleep watching TV.”

“Oh. Then, yeah.” She had lines in her cheek from the pillow impression, and she rubbed at them.

“Now get upstairs before your mother comes down here and has a heart attack.” And Delaney nodded, already getting out of the room.

But my mom had frozen. And I was staring at her. “Did I just make a joke about heart attacks?” she asked.

“You did,” I said.

Her hand covered her mouth, and she sat on the sofa beside me. “I’m a horrible person,” she said.

“You are.”

She shook her head. Then she refocused on me, still sitting on the other end of the couch. “I see you set up your defense already.
But I wasn’t in her room, Mom
.”

“No defense,” I said. “It was her idea. I pretty much just go along with her ideas.” I rolled my neck. “Ow.”

I waited for the argument, but none came. She got up off the couch, ran her hand through my hair as she passed. She backed into the kitchen. “You’re going to have a really good life. I can feel it.”

I wondered how she could possibly think something like that, when in the last year alone, I’d lost my father and Carson, and very nearly lost Delaney.

“Thank you, Fortune Cookie,” I called as she disappeared through the swinging door.

Chapter 17

My mom may have felt that my life was going to be good, but she didn’t see the way everyone was watching us at school that morning. Nobody wanted to be us. Nobody wanted to be
near
us. Like the curse was a part of us now, and we were contagious.

I walked Delaney to class, and people whispered as we passed. And I was guessing it wasn’t just because I was holding her hand. I strained to hear what they were saying.

Listen
.

Carson and Troy
.

Tara in Falcon Lake
.

It’s coming for them
.

“Decker? You there?”

“Here. Sorry,” I said, turning to face Delaney. “Meet you at lunch?”

She forced a smile as she backed into her classroom, but
her eyes roamed the hall behind me. Everyone watching. Everyone talking. I wondered if she was listening, too. I wondered what this place whispered to her.

I passed Janna in the hall. She was fidgeting with the lock on her locker, unable to open it. She hit it with the palm of her hand and tried again.

“Here,” I said. I knew her combination without even realizing I knew it. It’d been the same since freshman year. I felt something click inside the lock, and I slid it open.

“Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t sleep.” She pulled out her book, and I heard her breath shake. She leaned in close to me, gripped my jacket with her free hand, and said, “Have you ever pretended something so much that it became real?”

Justin had mentioned that Janna thought the curse was real. Tara said so, too. “It’s messing with your head,” I said. “None of this is real.”

She got too close in my face. “It is now,” she said. “Oh God.” She covered her mouth and looked at me with wide eyes.

The warning bell rang, and she grabbed her books and took off down the hall.

I didn’t see Kevin until lunch. He was already at the table, uncharacteristically somber. He wasn’t even eating. Justin sat across from him, his head resting on his folded arms.

“Hey,” I said as I sat beside Kevin. “You guys okay?”

Justin raised his hand and grunted.

“Well, I’m alive,” Kevin said. Then he cringed. “Shit, that wasn’t funny.”

“What says the mother?” I asked.

“The usual,” he said as he picked at his burger. “Irresponsible. Epic stupidity. Grounded for eternity. No car. No phone. No life.” He looked up. “Also, apparently I make poor life choices, and we should all be grateful that Tara’s not dead because otherwise I could be charged or something.” Then he looked at me, his eyes bloodshot. “As if
that
’s the reason we should be glad she’s not dead.”

Janna sat down beside Justin and put her hand on his forehead. “You don’t feel so good,” she said.

“Bronchitis,” he said. “Already went to the doctor.”

“God, has anyone talked to Tara?” Kevin asked.

“We did,” I said, just as Janna said, “I did.”

“We?” Kevin asked.

“Me and Delaney,” I said as she slid into the seat beside me.

Kevin looked between the two of us and started laughing. “I can’t believe I had one of the worst weekends of my life, and Decker gets the girl.”

“Speaking of …,” I said. “Have you talked to Maya?” If Holden left, and Kevin hadn’t called, then she was pretty much on her own over there.

He cringed again. “No. I don’t know, it’s probably for the best.”

“It’s just … when I saw her, she mentioned you hadn’t called. She didn’t even know that Tara was okay.”

“But I’m guessing you told her?” he asked.

“Yeah, but maybe you can tell her you were just upset, that you didn’t mean it.”

He locked eyes with me. “You are not seriously trying to give me relationship advice right now.”

“And maybe he
did
mean it.” Janna looked up at me, her eyes wide and wild.

“Yeah, I’m trying to remember your exact words at the funeral, Janna,” Kevin said. “Funny. Did Decker ever ask
you
to apologize for them?”

And suddenly, we were all back there. At Carson’s funeral.

“Stop,” I said, which I didn’t say back then. But I should have.

Janna tilted her head to the side, watching Delaney. I’d heard it once. I couldn’t hear it again. “You don’t get to breathe goddamn water for eleven fucking minutes,” Janna said. She’d said it last year, and she was saying it again.

“
Stop!
” I said.

And Janna did. But Delaney picked up where she left off. “‘And stand here all fine at my brother’s funeral,’” she continued. “‘You don’t get to stand there all perfect like nothing—’”

“Enough!” I said. “God,
look
at us.”

Delaney pushed back from the table. “I tried to stop it, Janna! I called 911. I did CPR until the ambulance got there. I didn’t want him to die either. What was I supposed to do?”

Janna stared at Delaney. The table was silent. The whole damn cafeteria was silent. “A butterfly flaps its wings and a hurricane forms halfway around the world, right?” she said. “One small change, and everything happens differently. You
die, and Carson isn’t in the car with you. You’re not there, and he’s not distracted. He notices something is wrong.”

“He noticed,” Delaney said, and Janna jerked back. “He knew something was wrong, and I called 911 on the way to see my doctor. So now you know.” She stormed off, and I sat, gripping the edge of the table, trying to keep myself under control.

“Janna, what the hell?” Justin said. “Did you just tell Delaney she was supposed to die?”

I left my food on the table and took off down the hall. Please let her be in the library. Otherwise, I was going to have to be a creep and check the girls’ bathrooms. Thankfully, I found her in the back of the nonfiction section, at the end of the aisle, leaning against some Save the Wildlife poster.

“Nobody else thinks that,” I said.

“Isn’t it enough that one person does?” she asked.

“We’re all just …” “
You’re all so messed up
,” Maya had said. “
You’re just too close to see it
.”

Someone knocked on the metal side of the shelf at the end of the aisle, like it was a door. “Sorry.” Janna stood at the end of the stacks. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Delaney nodded, and we stood there in silence, in the back corner of the school library, like we were waiting to see what would happen next. “So am I,” Delaney finally whispered.

Kevin and Justin were maybe twenty seconds behind. “See?” Kevin said to Justin. “Told you. Library.”

Justin coughed, and it seemed to come from somewhere deep inside of him. Kevin looked at the three of us, standing apart through the aisle. “So, we’re having a bad day,” he said. Which actually made Delaney laugh.

The bell rang, and Janna jumped. We were all so on edge, wound tight with adrenaline.

We started walking back to our lockers. “What are we doing after school?” Kevin asked.

“I’m moving back home,” I said.

“Oh, good,” Kevin said. “Please let me help. My house is a freaking hostile environment.”

“I thought you were grounded,” I said.

“Of course I’m grounded.” He smiled. “So I need a ride.”

“I’ll take you,” Janna said, staring at me. “Justin? You in?”

Justin coughed again, doubled over, and nodded before slipping into the closest bathroom.

Janna parked right behind me in the driveway. My mom’s car was missing, but all the lights in the house were on. “Power,” Delaney said when I opened the door.

“
Heat
,” I said.

“Whoa,” Kevin said. “Your house looks …
different
.”

Their steps echoed on the wood in the living room. “New floors?” Justin asked.

I smirked. “Never knew you had an eye for interior decorating.”

He flipped me off.

“Seriously,” Kevin said, “everything is different.” He pointed to the light fixture over the dining room table. “Even the lights.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Well seeing as the entire house was
ruined
, we kind of had to.” I pointed to the kitchen, which my mom hadn’t started on yet. “Pick up a rag. I want to get this room done before my mom gets home.”

Delaney’s phone rang, her spine stiffened, and she silenced it, leaving it on the dining room table. Same as yesterday. She’d silenced her phone last week, she was ignoring the calls this week.

“Hey, do me a favor?” I said. “Go see if your mom has more paper towels.”

“Sure,” she said, and she left without taking anything with her, like I knew she would.

I went to her phone and checked her missed call log. Son of a bitch. I pressed Call Back and held the phone to my ear, and that guy from Boston answered on the first ring. “Thank you for calling me back,” he said breathlessly. “First, please accept my apology.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “And no.”

After a pause, Dr. Josh said, “Right. The boyfriend.”

“Yeah, so here’s the thing. She’s not going to talk to you. And this is bordering on harassment. So you might want to stop before she does something about it.”

I heard him breathing on the line, but he didn’t say anything. I was about to hang up when he said, “Pass a message to her, will you? Just one thing. It’s … it’s part of the
Hippocratic oath. It’s a promise, to others, to ‘share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.’ She’ll understand the importance.”

Great. So he was going to lure her with medical text. “Wow, that’s beautiful. Really. Like poetry. Yeah, let’s go ahead and share. How about I go ahead and share with your fabulous institution that you were taping a minor, that you were attempting to examine a minor without a legal guardian present.”

Please let those words mean something. They’d sunk in, like osmosis, over years at the dinner table with two people who worked in law and social services, when I swore I wasn’t paying attention.

“She’s not eighteen?” he asked.

I smiled into the receiver. “Only if you round up,” I said. And then I hung up. Win.

Delaney came back through the door with two paper towel rolls under each arm and one under her chin. She dropped them all in a heap on the floor, and they each unwound across the room in different directions. “Well, crap,” she said. She turned to me, cocked her head to the side, grinned at the expression I was giving her. “What?” she asked.

“You,” I said. “Are perfect.”

“Are you mocking me?” she asked, one hand on her hip.

“Never,” I said.

I helped her reroll the paper towels, and we went back into the kitchen. Janna was scrubbing the counters, scrubbing the fine white powder from the plaster that had settled
over everything like ash, and she was crying. She wiped her hand, and the plaster dust, across her face, trying to hide it.