Vesper (19 page)

So maybe the connection between Emily C. and Dalton was a coincidence.

Maybe there was something else I was missing, unless I'd been kidnapped by crazed corn-altering scientists and that somehow made me a werewolf, made me someone who needed to be killed.

My stomach growled, and I realized I'd grown massively hungry. I also realized it had grown dark outside.

It was almost eight o'clock.

My body seized with fear. I couldn't go through it again, the change into Nighttime Emily, into the ... the wolf. Not with that man out there waiting for me, wanting me dead. I knew if I didn't do something fast, Nighttime Emily wouldn't be nearly as cautious as I was. She'd probably do a smash-and-grab at a pawn shop, steal a pair of brass knuckles, and go hunting for the guy who'd tried to shoot me.

And she'd end up getting herself—getting me—killed in the process.

Was this my life now? Would I have to spend every day filled with dread, knowing that when night came I'd turn into some version of myself I couldn't really control? How could I live like that? How could anyone?

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, struggling to think, trying to focus on
today
because thinking further ahead than that would drive me crazy. I needed to figure out a way to keep myself from going crazy for the fifth night in a row.

If I was right about Dalton and Emily C. being like me, that they were also werewolves and that was why the killer went after them, then wouldn't it have been all over the news when Dalton had spontaneously transformed into a wolf-man in his hospital bed the past two nights?

The difference between me and Dalton? He had been unconscious both nights I'd turned into a werewolf. Which meant maybe, if I could get unconscious as well...

I ran into the bathroom and dug through the medicine cabinet. Finding my stepmother's sleeping pills, I once again snapped open the lid and stole two. Gulping at water from the faucet, I swallowed them down, only then considering that maybe there was another reason I'd turned into a wolf and Dalton didn't.

But it was too late now. The pills were already in my empty gut, dissolving and swirling into my bloodstream, making me drowsy.

Back in my bedroom, I changed into my pajamas, flicked off the light, and lay down in bed. The last thing I saw before I fell asleep were the glowing numbers on the clock reading 8:04, and the last thing I thought was,
Please let
me be right…

I snapped awake the next morning with a sharp intake of breath, adrenaline surging through my veins, certain that the shooter would be standing over me, gun pointing at my head, preparing to blow my brains out.

I was, of course, alone. I was still in my pajamas, I wasn't covered in mud or drool or scratches. For the first morning in several days, there was no sign that I'd run wild outside.

The pills had worked.

I got up from bed, almost stepping on the pile of DVDs and books I'd unceremoniously tossed to the floor last night. Talk about personal changes—

movies and books are sacred to me, seriously. I'm the type of person who files my movies and books by title and/or author and keeps them in the most pristine of conditions. I even keep a little log of everything I own on my computer, from
Books: Adams, Douglas
all the way to
Movies: Zodiac.

Totally anal, I know. But I've always liked lists, even before my dad got married to Katherine the librarian, a lady with a serious crush on organization.

For the first time in a week I felt rested, my head clear. What had caused overwhelming confusion the day before now seemed ... almost normal already. Turning into a liberated party girl? Old hat. Werewolf? Who hasn't changed into a mythical beast at least once? I could think about these things as though I was thinking about someone else entirely—as though I was watching a movie where some doppelganger actress was the one teasing older men and running through the woods sniffing for her mate.

But I couldn't feel that way about the shooter. I was slightly less paranoid than the day before, but he was still out there, still waiting...

I got on my computer and did another search: "Emily Cooke/' Maybe there had been a break in her murder case, a new article detailing some previously unreleased evidence found on the scene. Something that would connect her back to me. Or maybe I'd get lucky, find out they'd caught the shooter and had him behind bars.

The only new article I found was an obituary. It said little more than who Emily C. was survived by and that she would be missed. And also that her funeral was to be held that day at noon.

I looked at the clock. It was a little after eight thirty.

I sat there, thinking about Emily Cooke. Here is the sum total of what I knew about her life before she died: She was pretty. Her parents were wealthy. A lot of people liked her. And she and I shared the same first name.

That was a pitifully small amount to know about someone.

It was strange, but I suddenly felt a deep, hollow loss. Nothing had changed about our nonrelationship in the past week, with the exception of the day I had feared she was hovering around me, waiting to possess me. But now I knew that even though it wasn't what I'd originally imagined, there actually
was
some connection between us that went deeper than our names.

Something it seemed only a handful of people had shared. And now I'd never get to talk to her about it.

Maybe I was being presumptuous, I don't know. Or just being overemotional because it felt like the only people who cared about me all hated me at the moment due to the way I'd been acting. But if I was right, if the reason Emily C, Dalton, and I had been targeted was something unique to us, something that caused us to change as night fell, our bodies to transform as we ran under the stars ... then I'd missed out. I'd spent so much time being ignored by the other kids at school that I forgot that I was sorta kinda ignoring them, too.

It was too late to get to know Emily C, to talk girl to girl about our shared, monstrous secret. But I could at least pay my last respects.

After lunch, Dawn drove me to the church where Emily's funeral was being held. She wasn't exactly keen to go, but when I told her that I was going anyway, even if I had to walk there, she insisted on driving me.

I was dressed in black slacks and a black blouse that billowed in unfortunate places—an outfit borrowed from my stepmom's closet. I peered out the window of Dawn's car as she pulled into the church's parking lot. It was a clear, bright day. Next to the church was a park. It wasn't a seesaw-and-slide park, just a nice, open field with evergreens and birches swaying in the cool breeze, flowers still in bloom around a latticed gazebo.

The park usually hosted weddings, but I could see figures dressed in black sitting inside the gazebo, crying on one another's shoulders. I guessed that Emily C.'s casket would be moved to a cemetery somewhere else after the ceremony.

The church lot was so full of cars that Dawn had to park along the sidewalk out front. We filed through the square doors into the chapel, all the pews already filled with somber mourners. I saw teachers from school, including Ms. Nguyen, sitting side by side with friends of Emily's, like Mikey Harris and Mai Sato. Mai cried openly, tears streaming down her cheeks. I don't think I'd ever seen her cry, not even when she'd broken her leg the year before during a track meet.

At the very front of the chapel, set atop a draped table beneath a modern stained-glass window, was a closed coffin. Emily C's coffin. Next to the coffin there was an easel set up with a blown-up black-and-white photo of Emily Cooke. It was artistic and incredibly well composed (says me, the girl who digs movie cinematography): She sat on a porch step, pensively considering a lake. Half her face was cast in shadow, as though the picture had been taken as the sun set, and she had a little half smile on her face, like she'd posed super serious but had started to crack up just as the camera snapped.

Looking around at everyone sitting in the pews, I felt completely and totally out of place. I didn't recognize a lot of the people there, but the people I did recognize—mostly the teenagers—had really known Emily Cooke. It was like I was invading another private party of theirs, and for a moment my heart fluttered, afraid that someone would turn around and see me, think I was going to ruin Emily C.'s funeral like I had Mikey Harris's party.

Ducking my head, I grabbed Dawn's hand and led her to stand against the back wall. It was crowded enough that there were a few other people standing as well, so it didn't seem that odd.

The service began with a pastor talking about ashes to ashes, dust to dust—the sort of thing you hear on TV funerals. Guess those are true to life, after all.

The sermon done, Emily Cooke's friends and family stood up in front and talked about her life. Mikey Harris, wearing an ill-fitting suit and with his hair slicked down, nervously fiddled with note cards as he talked about how Emily Cooke was always trying to take everyone's photo, that she dreamed of going professional. He revealed that the photo on the easel was actually one she'd taken with a timer—a self-portrait. So those photos I'd seen on her web page
were
ones she'd taken. She'd been talented.

Mai went up next, tears making little rivers down her cheeks. She recalled how after she broke her leg Emily Cooke would write her long emails every single day, making up short stories about Mai gaining a bionic leg and beating everyone's butt when she got back on the track, or just fabricating intricately long jokes with stupid punch lines to make her smile.

More family and friends stood and shared stories, talked about trips they'd taken with Emily Cooke, about how funny she was, how creative. She wasn't perfect by any means, her father was quick to point out—she was always so busy thinking of things she
wanted
to do, that Emily often forgot all about the things she was
supposed
to do, like the time she offered to give her little sister a perm, then went off to take photos, leaving her sister in the chair, a garbage bag over her clothes and chemicals in her hair. That year, Emily Cooke's sister had to sport a really short haircut.

I laughed along with everyone else at that story, and I realized something: Megan was wrong about Emily Cooke. And I'd been wrong too, thinking she was just about style with no substance. Emily Cooke wasn't just some insipid rich girl. It was funny—I'd spent so long hiding from people like Emily Cooke that I never knew that she and I might actually have some things in common.

That we could have been friends.

I also felt sorta guilty, you know? Here I was, meek little me, with no real goals beyond staying alive long enough to see the next
Batman
movie. The other Emily had real dreams, real talent. All taken away by two little bullets put into her by a man whose image was now burned into my brain.

I couldn't laugh or feel sad anymore, share in the stories everyone was telling. Standing in the church, behind rows of pews filled with black-clad mourners, I began to tremble with anger. It wasn't right, not what happened to me, not what happened to Dalton, especially not what had happened to Emily Cooke.

That man, that
killer,
had to be stopped.

As Emily Cooke's uncle took the podium and launched into a story, the glass door leading outside creaked open. I caught sight of new guy Patrick leaving the funeral early. I hadn't even noticed him, I was so caught up in hearing about the death and life of Emily Cooke.

He always seemed to be around at the wakes for Emily Cooke, despite being the new guy who shouldn't have known or cared about her. And I was sure that he was the wolf I'd seen the other night, the one I was certain was my mate.

I'd had so many opportunities to talk to him, find out what was going on.

And I always lost my nerve.

"What would Nighttime Emily do?" I whispered to myself.

Dawn leaned over to me and said, "What was that?"

"Nothing. Hey, I need to go talk with someone."

Before Dawn could protest, I speed-walked to the exit and followed after Patrick. He walked down the street at a rapid pace, cars zooming by on the busy road in front of the church. Shoving my hands in the pockets of my too-big slacks, I followed.

"Hey!" Dawn called as the glass church doors slapped shut behind me. I peered back over my shoulder and saw her winding around parked cars, her expression stern, the way it had been in the car when she'd dropped me off at school Friday morning.

Catching up to me, she grabbed my arm. "Look, dude, no more running off."

"Sorry," I said, "it's just, there's this guy, and I really need to talk with him.

And I'm gonna lose him...."

Dawn let me go, crossed her arms, and arched an eyebrow. "A guy, hmm?

Is this what all your antics have been about?"

I almost laughed, remembering the wolf-me's thoughts—Find
the mate.

Maybe it
was
all about a boy after all.

"Yeah," I said quickly. "I've gone all chick flick lately, I guess. But we have to hurry, I don't want to lose him."

Rolling her eyes, Dawn actually smiled at me for the first time in days. "All right, girl, let's go get him."

Half walking and half running, so that I looked like the geriatric speed walkers you see at the mall on Sunday mornings, I chased after Patrick, Dawn at my heels. He was at the end of the street now, entering a small convenience store on the corner, the kind that has had the same faded cigarette ads in its windows for decades and where the little wrapped sandwiches you can buy are all queasily green.

Timidly I opened the door to the store and peeked in. It was empty save for the wrinkly Asian woman behind the counter reading a copy of
Entertainment Weekly,
and for Patrick, who stood in the center of the snack aisle, his face stoic and unreadable.

"I'll wait out here," Dawn whispered, then patted me on my back.

With a steeling breath, I stepped inside. The glass door shut behind me, a little dangling bell ringing out. I cringed, but neither the clerk nor Patrick bothered to see who'd come in.