* * *
I slogged through my classes, wondering if I should’ve taken my mom’s advice to stay home. In art, our teacher, Paul, said we should let out whatever emotions we might be feeling today in whatever expression and medium we wanted. To my left, a girl who hadn’t stopped crying since the beginning of class was cutting a broken heart out of construction paper. To my right a boy was drawing Deadpool.
I went to the supply closet pretending to get materials, but mostly looking for a quiet place where I didn’t need to do anything. Not be brave or sad. I stared at the shelves in front of me, numb with guilt and grief.
It was a while before someone walked in. Of course, it was Lux.
“Oh,” she said. “You.”
“Oh,” I said flatly. “Me.”
I expected her to say something mean. Like how my freckles were too much, on account of how pale I probably looked. Or how my uniform somehow looked like it was still crumpled on my bedroom floor. But Lux only tugged on her ski cap, fixing it so it was perfectly centered over her forehead. Her mandatory accessory only made me feel guiltier.
“I’m sorry about what happened to you,” I said. It was the best I could come up with, short of admitting that I was pretty much responsible for her accident. Lux could be mean, but she hadn’t deserved to get hurt. Saundra hadn’t deserved to die. And I didn’t deserve to stand in the middle of this mess and remain unscathed.
Lux looked surprised by my statement. And she surprised me with her response. “Just FYI, I wasn’t, like, going to tell anybody about that boy you knew. Who died.”
It was like I had entered a different universe, or at least a different art supply closet. Because the last time we’d been here our conversation was kind of the exact opposite of this one. Last time Lux had chanted his name, taunted me. Now she avoided saying it. Maybe the accident had made her realize some things.
Or maybe I had Lux all wrong. She wasn’t the typical horror archetype. Not the Babysitter, not the Victim, not the Bitch. Just Lux. Mean one day, not so mean the next.
“And I’m sorry about your friend, too,” Lux added.
My first instinct was to say, Don’t be sorry, but that felt wrong. Thank you didn’t feel any better. Didn’t matter: Lux went on talking.
“It must be traumatic for you. I know what that’s like. I went through a trauma, too. That stuff stays with you.” She gestured toward her cap. “Like, I’m glad I survived, but now I have to wear this stupid thing until my hair grows out.”
I sighed. Even when she was trying to be sympathetic, she still found a way to make it all about herself. Plus, the cap looked amazing on her. I had already spotted several other girls wearing ones like it.
Lux cleared her throat. “When you go through a traumatic experience, it’s important that you have someone to talk to. Which is why I’m talking to you right now. In case you were wondering.”
Watching Lux attempt to be nice was like watching a baby giraffe attempt to walk for the first time. Still, I had to give her points for trying.
“Yeah, trauma sucks,” I said. “At least you have Bram by your side.”
“Is that a joke?” Lux said, her eyes narrowing, instantly looking more like her normal self.
“What?”
“Bram and I broke up.”
“You did?” I’d had no idea, but then why would I? Bram wasn’t exactly an open book. More like an old, thousand-pound tome that came with an ancient lock. “Why?”
“Um, that’s none of your business?” But then Lux looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was near the closet and turned back to face me. “But between you and me? Everyone thinks he’s some big hero and that he saved me the night the Masked Man attacked me. But he didn’t. Like, at all.”
Oh. Was that really enough to break up over? I wasn’t one to judge, but I guess to Lux, if you couldn’t run into a house and KO the madman, you weren’t worthy of her love.
“He doesn’t deserve the blame for what happened to you, though,” I said. “No one could have gotten there quick enough.”
“No, that’s what I’m saying. He was there quick. Almost too quick. Why?”
I stared at her blankly. “I don’t kn—”
“One minute there was some masked freak trying to kill me and I bump my head and black out. The next minute I wake up and Bram’s right there, with a mask and a coat tossed off to the side?”
I could feel my forehead crease, hear my heartbeat loud as an analog clock. Because I wasn’t sure I was actually hearing what Lux was telling me or, more accurately, what she was trying to tell me about her once-loving and now ex-boyfriend Bram.
“You think he was the one wearing that mask and coat?”
Lux looked at me for a moment, the seconds ticking by slowly. “I didn’t say that.”
“So what do you mean?”
Lux seemed to suddenly find it very important to study the tins of colored pencils and charcoal. She shuffled materials around like it was her duty to tidy up.
“Nothing. It just freaked me out,” she said. “One minute there was a masked man and the next minute there was Bram. It was not a good association.”
I swallowed. Why was Lux confiding in me? I was a nobody who she’d hated for months now. Then I realized that this was probably why she felt comfortable talking to me in the first place. Who would believe me?
42
I WASN’T A zombie anymore. My brain had been fully resurrected and was working overtime, going through every detail Lux had shared with me. She must’ve realized she’d said too much—said something bad—about Bram. It fired me up that I wasn’t alone in suspecting Bram anymore. That Lux, the person who knew him best, seemed to think he may have been capable of hurting her. If that was what Lux had been hinting at.
Either way, I had a mission. I needed to get to the bottom of this.
At lunch I took my tray and avoided my usual table, with Saundra’s empty seat. I walked until I was standing in front of Sim Smith.
“Hi,” I said. “Can I sit here?”
He was sitting alone, but I wasn’t sure if it was because lunch had only just started or because he still couldn’t live down his breakdown. He nodded, eying me suspiciously. I sat.
Sim was the only other person I knew who had seen someone in a mask. This was recon. I needed to gather more info before I could just start accusing Bram. “Can I ask you something?”
Sim nodded again, though he looked like he was still afraid I’d start throwing napkins at him. Felicity had unfortunately started a trend.
“What happened to you that night you saw the guy in the mask?” Sim made a sound, something between a sigh and a groan. “I believe you,” I said quickly.
“You do?” He watched me like he was a bird and I was holding out a handful of crumbs. He wanted a nibble, but he also could’ve taken flight at any moment.
I nodded. “I know you saw someone in a mask. I was just wondering if you saw something else, something specific that you could tell me about?”
Sim thought for a moment, then shook his head and gave a half-hearted shrug. “Just a guy in a mask. He chased me. But I fought him off.”
“You fought him?”
“Yeah. He tried to kill me but I fought back.”
I deflated a little. He meant when he’d pushed open the car door—the move that had knocked Felicity to the ground. Maybe he did like to exaggerate after all.
“I did three years of karate in elementary school,” Sim continued. “I only got to orange belt but—” He curled his arm and flexed, as though there was some sort of evidence of his training in his bicep. There wasn’t. “Well. It was technically three summers, not three years, but the body never forgets. I kicked that sucker hard enough to knock him on his ass.”
A kick? “Where?”
“In my stepdad’s car dealer—”
“Where on his body, Sim?”
“Oh. In the ribs. The right side of his ribs.”
A memory came back to m
e, hard as a lightning bolt. “Thanks, Sim, gotta go.”
* * *
I found Freddie just as lunch was coming to an end. The cafeteria was thinning out, but there were still too many people around. I led him to the first private place I could find.
The janitor’s closet was filled with bottles and mops and the antiseptic stench of bleach. My head was starting to spin, but it wasn’t from the toxic fumes in this airless space. Being in a closet with Freddie teleported me back to that night in the cabin. Which was exactly what I wanted to forget and what I needed to talk to him about.
“Are you okay?” Freddie asked, but didn’t wait for me to answer. “Why aren’t you answering your texts? We can talk—I want you to talk to me. Is that why you brought me in here?”
“Saundra didn’t fall. And she didn’t jump either.”
The first bell rang out through the halls, triggering a speedy trample of feet beyond the closet door. But neither of us made a move to head to class.
“What are you talking about?”
“Bram pushed her.” As I said the words I felt a weird sensation of relief. It had been Bram, and now that I knew that, I could handle him. Face him. Take him down.
“What?” Freddie leaned back against a metal shelf overflowing with rolls of toilet paper. Some of the rolls wobbled, threatening to spill over the edge.
There was hardly room to pace, but I needed to expel all the energy I had pent up. I clenched and unclenched my fists while trying to put my thoughts in order.
“The night after Felicity’s Fear Test—the one with Sim Smith—I saw Bram trying to pick popcorn up off the floor.”
“Okay,” Freddie said slowly. “What about it?”
“He had to stretch to reach the popcorn and when he did, I saw him wince. Like he was in pain. He even held his side for a second.”
Freddie’s eyes clouded over with confusion, and it frustrated me that I couldn’t get this all out fast enough. “I just talked to Sim. He said that when he saw the Masked Man at the car dealership, he fought him off by kicking him in the ribs.”
The second bell rang out but we still didn’t move. I let my words sit there, searching Freddie’s face to see if they would sink in. I needed him to see that this wasn’t just a conspiracy theory. The rib thing was the most damning piece of evidence, but it wasn’t the only one—Bram had been shady since this all had started, even going so far as to point fingers at Freddie, probably to deflect suspicion from himself.
“Even Lux thinks he might’ve been the one to attack her.”
“What?”
I nodded vigorously, pleased that this seemed to shake Freddie. “How did Bram get to Lux so quickly after the attack and not see anyone running off?”
“You’re saying Bram got to that house early, put on a mask, and tried to attack his own girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To mess with us. To mess with me. But it tracks, Freddie.”
“I’m not sure that it does.”
I didn’t get it. It wasn’t like they were best friends. In fact, Bram never had anything good to say about Freddie. He’d pretty much told me to stay away from him.
“Why are you defending him?”
“I’m not defending him,” Freddie said. “Actually, I’m relieved you no longer think I was the one messing with Lux. But we can’t just go accusing Bram of murder.”
I leaned on the shelves and this time a roll of toilet paper did tumble down. I kicked it across the tiny room.
“Bram has blood on his hands.” I meant it figuratively, but then I remembered that it worked literally, too. “When we all met up behind the general store, after the cabin—Bram had blood on him.”
Freddie straightened, pushing himself off the shelves slowly. “I didn’t see any blood.”
“It was on his fingers and mask.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I don’t know, there was a lot going on—I wasn’t thinking straight.” My urgency made me push off the shelves too, cutting the space between Freddie and me in half. “But there—that’s evidence. That’s forensic evidence.”
“It might not have been Saundra’s blood,” Freddie said. “And he would’ve had his maid wash all his clothes by now.”
“But not the mask,” I said quickly. “He didn’t throw it away in the woods. I think he kept it.”
“Yeah, but he would’ve cleaned it himself.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But there could be traces of something.”
Freddie had an answer for everything I was throwing at him, but not for this. My words filled the small closet, charging the air around us with an electric energy.
“We’ll have to find it,” Freddie said.
My heartbeat quickened at the sound of “we.” It reminded me of that night in his room when we talked about how different we were from the rest of the club. I felt like we were a team back then. I felt that way again now.
“How?” I asked.
“It’ll be hard. But I think I know where to start.”
43
WE HAD TO wait a week, but the perfect opportunity finally arose.
Tonight, our uniform was a white shirt and black slacks. Freddie squirmed in his, hooking his finger into the collar as if he could stretch it wider by sheer force of will. It didn’t take a genius to understand why he was uncomfortable. Freddie had started going to Bram’s house as the housekeeper’s son, eventually graduated to being a guest, and then, ultimately, to being Bram’s friend. Tonight, things had come full circle and he was relegated to being the help once again.
It was Bram’s birthday, and even though he was turning seventeen and getting too old for this, his parents still threw him a party every year. Freddie’s mom always catered it, and when Freddie and I offered up our free services as cater waiters, she was all too happy to accept.
Hence the two of us standing in Bram’s kitchen.
Since the Mary Shelley Club wasn’t exactly having any more meetings, Freddie thought the best way for us to get back into the Wilding house to hunt for evidence was to do it during Bram’s birthday party, where there would be enough people present that nobody would notice if we slipped away.
Which was as far as our plan went. It wasn’t the most thought out, but it was the best we could do on short notice. I had to find dirt on Bram, and being in his house was my best shot. I was grateful that Freddie was there. I could tell he hated the idea of serving Bram’s friends—our classmates—but he didn’t bail.
“Hey.” I faced him and pinched the tips of his collar. Even after everything that had happened, I still gravitated toward him. My fingers found excuses to touch him, as they did now, smoothing down the fabric on his shoulders. “Thanks for doing this with me.”
The squirming stopped beneath my touch and I could feel Freddie’s chest rise and fall with a deep breath. The intensity that had nipped his features slackened enough for him to smile. “This? This is nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. It means a lot to me,” I said, giving his shoulders one more squeeze. Bram’s kitchen was all white, gleaming marble, and at the moment it was overflowing with food and activity as we rushed to prepare the hors d’oeuvres for the guests. Every inch of the sparkling surface was covered with trays, themselves covered with a variety of tasteful finger foods. Bram’s mother stepped into the kitchen for a final look, and Mrs. Martinez rushed over.
I’d never seen Bram’s mother before tonight. I’d known she was a model when she was younger, but she could’ve still been one if she wanted to. Her skin was flawless, her hair shinier than most people’s half her age. Her clothing reflected the décor of the house in that it was elegant and chic, but even without all of that, I would’ve been able to tell that she was rich. There was something about her posture, the way she tilted her head and bent her wrist. She carried herself like a person who moved freely in a world that was wide open to her. A customer of life. Bram carried himself the same way.<
br />
“Do either of you know how to pour?” Freddie’s brother, Dan, appeared before us. Freddie and I were just moonlighting as cater waiters, but this was Dan’s regular job on the weekends. Tonight he was in charge of showing us the ropes, which, judging by his scowl, really seemed to piss him off.
He had the same light brown coloring as Freddie, and his features were similar too, but it was like someone had assembled him all wrong. The eyes that were soft behind Freddie’s glasses and framed with long lashes were too close together on Dan’s long face. The bottom lip—pillowy on Freddie—was set in a constant frown. But the biggest difference between the brothers was their hair. Freddie had fantastic hair, thick for the grabbing. Dan’s hair was black and slicked back, like he’d gotten his fashion sense from the Sopranos. “Pouring drinks?” Freddie asked. “Uh, no, Dan, I’ve never poured a drink in my life.”
“These people like their drinks poured a certain way,” Dan whispered, even though Mrs. Wilding was definitely not listening. He lifted his left forearm, on which a neatly folded cloth napkin hung. He positioned the neck of a closed bottle of wine over it and demonstrated the pouring motion, his thumb jammed up the bottle’s indented bottom. “Do you think you can handle that?”
Freddie and I exchanged a look. There was no way I was pouring anyone’s drink like that.
“Mom, where’s my brown sweater?” Bram bounded through the swinging kitchen door in slacks and a crisp white shirt. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Freddie and me. “What are you two doing here?”
“Isn’t it great?” Mrs. Wilding said. She came up behind us and placed a hand on Freddie’s shoulder. “Freddie’s helping out Maria tonight. You kids grow up so fast. It feels like yesterday when you two were playing video games together.”
“Yeah, it does.” Bram fixed his gaze on me. “You work for Maria now, too?”
Mrs. Wilding turned her attention to me. Curiosity flitted over her face, but she never dropped the delighted lilt in her voice. “You know Bram?”
The Mary Shelley Club Page 23
