Wake (Watersong Novels) (20 page)

“I know. She’s at swim practice.” Harper rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Wow. I just realized how sad that is.”

“What?” Alex asked.

“The only time we talk anymore is when I’m looking for my sister.” She rubbed the back of her neck and looked away from him.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” he agreed.

“Can I be honest with you?”

“I always thought you were.”

“It’s weird to me that you’re dating my little sister,” Harper admitted, her words coming out in one breath. “I mean, I never liked you, not like that, you know. But … you were my friend, and she’s my kid sister. And now you’re into her.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s strange to me.”

“Yeah.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at the steps. “I know. And I felt like I should’ve talked to you about it first before I asked her out.”

“No, no.” Harper waved her hands. “You didn’t need my permission or anything. I just … I feel weird hanging out with you when Gemma’s not around. Like I’m betraying her somehow.”

“No, I get that.” He nodded. “Because you’re a girl, even if you’re not a girl I was ever interested in.”

“Right. Yeah. I’m glad you get it.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

“But … I guess the thing is, you’re my friend.” Harper fidgeted with the ring on her finger, twirling it around. “And I want to be friends again.”

Alex stared at her, looking confused for a moment. “I didn’t know we’d stopped.”

“We haven’t, not really, but it’s been ages since we’ve hung out,” she said. “I think the last time was right after graduation, and that was weeks ago.”

“So … you’re asking to hang out?” Alex asked.

“Yes.” She nodded once. “I am.”

“Like right now?”

“If you’re not busy.”

“I’m not.” He stepped back. “Did you want to come in or something?”

“Actually, do you wanna take a walk? I could really use the fresh air.”

“Uh, sure. Yeah.” He glanced around, as if he thought he was forgetting something, then he stepped outside and shut the door behind him. “Let’s go.”

They walked almost two full blocks before either of them said anything. Harper tried a few times, but she only managed to make sounds and squinted up at the sun. She’d thought a walk would be easier because there would be movement to distract them.

In reality, she didn’t understand why things were so awkward between them. She blamed it partially on Alex, since he was uneasy in normal situations. But a big part of it was her, too. She felt nervous around him.

“So,” Harper said finally. “How is your summer going?”

“Good, I guess.” He shook his head. “I mean, other than what happened to Luke.”

“Oh, yeah.” She grimaced and looked over at him, trying to get a read on how much it upset him, but he just stared down at the sidewalk. “I heard about that. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. It’s not your fault.” He kicked a rock with his shoe. “I just feel so horrible for his family and everything.”

“Yeah, I bet. That has to be really rough.”

“His mom called me crying on Tuesday, asking me if I knew anything about it, and then the cops questioned me the next day.” Alex didn’t say anything for a minute, so Harper reached out and touched his shoulder gently. “I didn’t know what to tell them. I don’t know where he is.”

As he walked with Harper, his dark hair cascading across his forehead, he looked the same as when he’d been twelve and his beloved dog had gotten hit by a car. Underneath his new foxy exterior, he was the same sweet Alex.

A twinge of guilt gripped her heart. As soon she found out Luke had gone missing, Harper should’ve talked to Alex to find out how he was doing. Instead she’d been too wrapped up in her own drama, and she’d ignored her oldest friend.

“I’m really sorry,” Harper said again, but this time she was apologizing for not being there for him.

“It’s okay. I’m sure he’ll turn up.” Alex took a deep breath. Then he glanced over at Harper, forcing a smile. “So what about you? How’s your summer going?”

“Uh, pretty good,” she said, and she wasn’t sure if that was true or not. So far, everything had felt a bit chaotic.

“Are you seeing anyone?” Alex asked.

“What?” The question startled her, and she tripped on a crack in the sidewalk because she wasn’t paying attention. “Why would I be seeing anyone?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Gemma mentioned something about a guy on a boat.”

“What?” Harper quickly looked away, hoping that Alex didn’t notice the color on her cheeks. “Daniel? No, he’s just … he’s … no. Nope. No way. I mean, I’m leaving in a couple months. And with everything that’s been going on with Gemma, I don’t have time for that. So. No. I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Oh.” He paused. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

“Yeah.” Harper chewed her lip and twisted her ring again. “How … um, how are things with you and Gemma?”

“Good.” He nodded. “Great.”

“Glad to hear it.” She let out a deep breath and stared up at the sky, wishing a few clouds would come in and blot out the sun.

“Actually…” He stopped walking and looked over at Harper. “Honestly, I have no idea how things are with Gemma.”

“Really?” Harper asked, and hoped she didn’t sound too eager for information. “Why? How do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head, then he started walking again. “I probably shouldn’t even be talking to you about this.”

“No! I mean, of course you can.” She hurried to catch up with him. “We’re friends.”

“You promise you won’t say anything to her?” Alex asked.

“I promise. We aren’t really talking right now, so it shouldn’t be that hard.”

“You guys are fighting?” Alex asked, sounding genuinely distressed by it. “I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t know.”

“No, we’re not fighting, exactly. I think she’s just…” Harper waved her hand. “Never mind what I think. You were telling me about you and her.”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

Before Alex could say more, Harper pointed to a trail cutting through the park and leading into the woods. “Let’s go that way. It’ll be cooler.”

It was a thick wooded area filled with cypress trees and maples. The trail that went through it wasn’t an official hiking trail, but one that had been worn down by kids making a shortcut to the bay. It actually went right up to the water, so the bugs would be much worse, but it would be worth it to be out of the sun.

“The thing about Gemma is…” Alex shook his head and seemed to struggle for the right words. “I like her. I do. Really.”

Harper nodded as they walked into the trees. “I know.”

“And I think she likes me. Well, I’m pretty sure, anyway.”

“No, she definitely likes you.”

“Really?” His head shot up, and he smiled a little, looking relieved. “Good.”

“You couldn’t tell?” Harper smirked.

“That’s the thing. Sometimes she’s pretty obviously into me. And then other times it’s like she’s not even there.” He looked over at Harper. “Do you know what I mean? She’s with you, but her mind is a million miles away.”

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.”

“And now all this stuff with those weird girls.” He shook his head. “She won’t tell me what she’s doing with them or why she keeps hanging out with them.”

“She won’t tell you?” Harper asked, not bothering to hide the disappointment in her voice.

“No.” He looked over at her. “She’s not telling you, either?”

“She’s not telling me anything, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” Alex said. “And those girls are just so … creepy.”

“I know,” Harper agreed, remembering the way they’d left Gemma on the shore. “I swear, they’re evil.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it. And Gemma’s not evil. She really isn’t. So I don’t know what she’s doing.”

“I know! It doesn’t make any sense at all!” Harper was excited to have somebody to talk about this with, somebody who really knew and understood both her and Gemma. “I just wish this all wasn’t happening right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m leaving at the end of August for school, and then it’ll just be Gemma and my dad. And she’s getting all wild and crazy now, and soon I won’t be around to deal with it.”

Alex didn’t say anything to that, probably because Harper had just reminded him that his time with Gemma was limited, too.

As the trail wound closer to the bay, the bugs got thicker, swarming around them. Harper waved her hand, trying to shoo them away.

“The bugs are ridiculous this year,” Alex commented, and Harper had to agree.

The trees had begun to buzz with the sound of them. Then Harper saw them. Big black flies were hovering in a cloud a ways off the trail, where ferns and weeds had overgrown a rocky area near the ocean.

“Ugh.” Alex groaned. “What’s that smell?”

“I don’t know.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s like … rotten fish, but different.”

She’d actually started smelling something faintly as soon as they’d entered the trees, but she hadn’t thought much of it. On a hot day like today, it wasn’t uncommon to get the scent of bad fish wafting from the docks.

But now the stench was almost overpowering.

Harper stopped walking, but Alex took a few steps ahead of her before he stopped and turned back to her. The flies were getting thicker, and they both swatted at them with their hands.

“This is obscene,” Harper said, ducking down to keep from inhaling a bug. “I think I’d much rather take being hot and sweaty over dealing with these insects. Let’s go back.”

“Okay, good idea.” He started walking back to meet her but stopped short.

“What?” she asked.

He stared down at the ground, seemingly frozen. The bugs flocking around him didn’t even seem to bother him. Harper was about to ask him what again, but he bent down and picked up something off the ground. It was small and green and on the edge of the path, smashed into the dirt so it had barely been visible.

“What’s that?” Harper asked and walked over to him.

Alex brushed the dirt off it, so Harper could see it. She still didn’t understand what it was exactly, except that it appeared to be some kind of ring, but Alex’s hands had begun to tremble.

“It’s a Green Lantern ring.” He turned it around in the light. “Luke had his parents get him this instead of a class ring. He never takes it off.”

“Maybe it fell off when he was going for a walk or something,” Harper offered, trying to ease his fears.

“He
never
takes it off,” Alex repeated and started looking around. “He was here. Something bad happened to him here.”

“We should get the police.” She swatted away another fly, but Alex was oblivious to them now.

His eyes were pinned on the cloud of flies a few feet off the trail. He turned and walked toward them, mindless of the poison ivy and brambles that covered the forest floor.

Despite her reservations—more likely because of them—Harper went after Alex. As soon as he’d found the ring, she’d felt it in the pit of her stomach. A sick tightness. Just like Alex, she’d immediately known that something was wrong, that Luke wasn’t okay.

Alex stopped when he saw it, but for reasons she didn’t understand, Harper took a few steps forward, as if she wanted a better look. In reality, she didn’t want to look at all. She wanted to forget it as soon as she saw it, but it was already etched in her memory, certain to haunt her nightmares for years to come.

Luke lay a few feet away, or at least Harper thought it was Luke based on the shock of red hair on his head. His clothes were stained a dark brown from blood. There’d been so much of it that it clumped in places, looking more like dried jam than blood.

His face and appendages appeared intact, other than the insects that covered him. A thick white grub crawled out of his mouth, and his closed eyelids moved with living creatures beneath them.

From his chest down to his groin, he’d been torn open. Her first thought was that it looked like a grenade had gone off inside him. Because of all the larvae, she couldn’t see well enough to be certain, but it looked as though all of his internal organs were missing.

There was another body almost right next to him, but that was in even worse shape, having apparently been there longer. The bugs and animals had really gotten to him, but from what Harper could see, he looked like he’d been left in the same state as Luke—his whole torso torn open down the middle.

A few feet away from that, Harper could only see a leg sticking out of the weeds. If it hadn’t been for the old Reebok sneaker on the foot, she actually wouldn’t have been sure it was a leg at all. She would’ve just thought it was a rotting stick.

The disturbing truth was that she might have stayed there all day, staring at the dead bodies, if Alex hadn’t turned and bolted back toward the path.

“Alex!” Harper called and ran after him.

As soon as he got to the trail, Alex hunched over and threw up. Her own stomach lurched, but Harper managed to keep her food down. She stood next to Alex and rubbed his back. Even after he’d stopped vomiting, he stayed bent over for a minute.

“Sorry.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his arm, then stood up. “I didn’t want to contaminate the crime scene.”

“That’s probably a good idea.” She nodded. “We should go get help.”

They started out walking on the trail, but before long it had turned into a full-on sprint. They raced all the way to the police station downtown, as if they could outrun death.

NINETEEN

A Way Out

Gemma had gone to swim practice because she’d decided to try at this life. Spending the afternoon with Alex yesterday had cemented her belief that she couldn’t walk away from all this yet. She had to at least try to find a way to make it work.

Sleep had been difficult, though. She lay awake, tossing and turning all night. The ocean called to her, almost like a song. The waves beckoned her, and it took all her energy to ignore their pull.

In the morning, Coach Levi had been hard on her about missing practice this week, but her times were so amazing, he couldn’t fault her too much. Now, though, swimming in the pool wasn’t as much fun as it used to be.

The chlorine irritated her skin. Not that it gave her a rash, but she could almost feel it chafing her flesh, like itchy burlap rubbing against her. She couldn’t wait for practice to be over.