“Your grandmother knew too?” Chelsea asked, her voice small and awed now.
“My grandmother had it too,” Violet told her. “These echoes can be anything, a taste, a smell, a color, a sound, a sensation. No two are alike, at least that I know of. And here’s the weird part . . .”
“Dude. There’s a ‘weird part’?”
The corner of Violet’s lip pulled up. “Right?” she said, agreeing that it had already reached maximum weirdness. And then she plunged ahead. “Whatever that echo is also attaches to the killer too, exactly the same. I call it an imprint.”
Chelsea only missed a beat before she quietly said, “Now you blew my mind. So there are freaky killers walkin’ around out there that you can smell and taste? And they don’t even know it?”
“Totally.” Violet nodded. “But not just bad-guy killers. Cops and hunters, too. And people who’ve been in wars. I can’t tell them apart.”
“And animals?” Chelsea asked, already sorting through the pieces.
“My cat always comes home with imprints. Drives me crazy sometimes.”
Chelsea took a breath and leaned back on her hands as she studied Violet through brand-new eyes. “Is it weird?” She shook her head, as if trying to imagine it.
Violet scowled playfully. “I find dead bodies, Chels. How could it not be weird?”
Chelsea nodded, as if realizing how stupid her question had been. “Were the people at the lake the first . . . you know, humans you’ve ever found?”
Violet thought about how to answer that. She didn’t want to lie, not anymore. But she didn’t want to tell the whole truth either. There were still things she didn’t want to share, things she shouldn’t—and couldn’t—share. Like about her team.
She waited too long and Chelsea leaned forward, waiting expectantly, knowing there was more.
“When I was eight, I found a girl buried in the woods near my house,” Violet finally answered, skirting the issue by giving part of an answer. “And you already know that Jay and I found that body in the lake last year.” She didn’t tell Chelsea about all the other bodies she’d found.
“Oh yeah . . . the floater. Gross.” She wrinkled her nose. “So I’m guessing that wasn’t an accident. You didn’t just happen to see it while you were out on the lake the way you said you did?”
Violet shook her head.
“What are they like, the bodies? Does it freak you out? I gotta admit, I think I might pee my pants if I were in your shoes.”
Violet stifled a giggle against the tops of her knees. “Well, I haven’t peed yet, but I’ll definitely keep you posted.” And then she shrugged. “It’s definitely not like on TV. There, the bodies still look”—she struggled for the right way to describe it—“like real people. Like they could just sit up and start talking to you. But real bodies, the ones I’ve seen at least, are obviously dead. The girl in the lake was so bloated that her skin didn’t look like it even belonged on her anymore. It was shiny and blistery looking, and didn’t sit right on her features. And I could see right through her skin in places. It was like looking at a water-logged roadmap.” Violet kept her gaze on Chelsea, making sure she wasn’t being too graphic. “The girl who was buried near my house when I was little already had bugs on her when I found her. They were eating her.”
Chelsea cringed, and Violet thought about the family at the lake house, about their wounds, and wondered what Chelsea would think if she knew how their necks had looked, about the way the edges weren’t smooth and clean the way they would have been if it had been on television. Instead they were ragged . . . as if they’d been gored rather than sliced.
But Chelsea didn’t need to know such things. No one did.
Violet got up and held her hand out to her friend. “Come on, Chelsea. We should get back, it’s been a long day.”
Chelsea followed Violet’s gaze, looking up at the sun through the filter of leaves overhead. It wasn’t late. Not really. But it felt like it was.
It felt like they’d been out there forever.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
“PLAY IT AGAIN.” KISHA CLAPPED, HER ENTHUSIASM making her look younger, less tired. Less strung out.
Evan grinned back at her, laying his guitar aside. “Maybe later, Kish, I’m tired.”
He wasn’t really; he could play all day, especially in the park where his playing drew attention . . . a real audience.
Except that today they had another purpose. Today was meant as a scouting mission.
He looked over to where Butterfly tried to get comfortable on the blanket Boxer had spread out for them. She squirmed, her body racked by an unexpected, relentless tremor, and he wondered if she even realized what was happening to her as she reached down to resume picking at the scab on her hand. It was easy to recognize the nervous energy she was trying to release, easy to spot an addict craving a new high.
When they’d first found her, less than a month ago, she’d been pretty and fresh faced. Despite her attempts to look urban, he’d pegged her for what she was: a bored rich girl who was trying to rebel against her parents, to prove there was more to her than spray tan and strawberry lip gloss.
To look at her now was like a study in contrasts. Her hair, which had once been a soft shade of reddish-blonde, had since been dyed black, but was now faded and dirty. Her skin, which had been clear, was now marked with pockets of acne, and her cheeks were hollow. Her eyes, although sunken and ringed with dark circles, were the only giveaway to the girl she’d once been, big and silvery green-gray, made more mesmerizing by the pining that tormented her.
He couldn’t help her now though. He had to save enough for Bailey, who was getting progressively worse, her tolerance getting harder and harder to satisfy. Kisha and Boxer and Colton, at least, could function on small hits here and there. Bailey could no longer get up in the morning without the needle. And he couldn’t bear to watch her tweak the way he was watching Butterfly do now.
Bailey had been the first to call him “family.” The first to let him take care of her.
He refused to let her down, but at the rate she was going, she’d used up most of their stash. And he couldn’t afford to let the rest of them come down for too long. He couldn’t risk not having them need him. Not having them depend on him.
He’d need to score some more cash soon. And more cash meant finding a new mark.
“What about them?” Colton said, pointing with one hand while biting a nail on his other. “They look like they have money.”
He watched the picturesque family, spreading out their picnic on the checkered blanket. This was the strange part about being out of the city and in the suburbs: Everyone looking like they’d walked straight out of the pages of a catalog, like they were props or paper dolls. All of them pretending that people like him—and his family—didn’t exist. He scrutinized them for several long minutes, trying to decide if they could be right . . . analyzing their body language, the way they interacted with one another, the way they talked, laughed, and even breathed. He was a lion, stalking his prey, waiting for his chance to pounce.
After several long moments, he shook his head. “No. No good, man.”
“Why not?” Colton whined, his voice fraying at the edges as if he were unraveling right before their eyes.
Something gentle and protective unfurled within him. This was what family did, he told himself. This was his purpose, to protect them. To teach them. “See her purse? It’s a knockoff. And check out her hair. See her dark roots? That kind of grow-out says she hasn’t been to whatever second-rate salon she goes to in months . . . way too long. Even the kid’s shoes are from Wal-Mart or Target.” He pointed at the girl, a preschooler with the kind of golden blonde hair that the mommy had probably been trying to cling to with her discount highlights. “Parents don’t usually skimp on the kids’ shit. Not if they don’t have to.” He looked away from them, no longer interested in what they had to offer. “Nah, they’re no good. We need to find someone else.”
“Dude, you sound like a fag when you talk about handbags and hair salons. You know that, don’t you?” Boxer laughed, shoving him. “So who then?” he asked.
He realized then that Boxer wasn’t shaking as badly as Butterfly or Colton, and he wondered if his old friend had gotten into their stash when he wasn’t looking. He wondered if his authority might be slipping.
But Colton demanded his attention as he still strained toward the picture-perfect family. “We could still do ’em.”
Kisha bit her already chapped lip until it bled. “What’s the point, Colt? Why bother if they don’t have nothing we want?”
Colton grinned, a smile so huge it was almost menacing. It was menacing. “For fun. We could still have fun with ’em. What d’ya say, Butterfly? You wanna have some more fun, don’t you?”
Something flashed behind Butterfly’s eerie greenish eyes, something close to comprehension, as if she nearly understood what he meant. As if she nearly remembered what they’d done to her family.
Not that he cared, really. She hadn’t stopped them. She’d participated with the rest of them as they’d yanked the parents from their bed and dragged them down the stairs. She’d helped tie her mom’s and dad’s hands behind their backs, never even flinching as they’d begged for their lives. As they’d begged their daughter not to do this.
She’d hardly blinked when Colton had pulled his knife out. She’d giggled, even, as Boxer had sliced her mother’s throat.
She was high as shit, but she was there.
He knew, because he was the one who’d given the commands. He’d been the one carefully orchestrating the blitz on her family. And then he’d stood back and watched as his plans were carried out, each of his own family members following orders to a T while he looted the house for stuff that could be sold easily for cash.
He’d been surprised, though, by the intoxicating rush he’d felt at pulling the strings, despite letting the others have all the real “fun.”
It was also when he realized he had a new calling. That he wanted people to see what he’d done, to know what he was capable of.
There were other ways to achieve fame. Other ways to make the world bow at his feet.
When the kid had come down the stairs and recognized his sister, he’d asked her what was wrong, what was happening. It wasn’t until he saw his parents, when his face had twisted with fear and he’d screamed, that Butterfly had lost her shit. That’s when she’d wanted out. That was when the high wore off and reality kicked in.
But it was already too late. She was in it. She’d joined their family then.
Boxer had hauled her into the other room and dosed her again, making sure she would either cooperate, pass out, or die. It didn’t matter which, as long as she’d shut the hell up. As long as she’d stop fucking crying.
The kid had been tougher to watch. Not impossible, just tougher. Especially when Colton had decided to take a souvenir.
Watching as Colton had gutted the kid like that . . .
It wasn’t like in the movies where someone just reaches in and pulls out a still-beating heart. No, Colton had had to work at it, sawing at the kid’s chest to get through.
It was messy. And the sounds of knife grating through bone . . . it was disgusting.
He watched Butterfly now, as she frowned, trying to make sense of Colton’s words. And then he turned to Colton, staring into his cold, emotionless eyes. “Leave her alone, will ya? I said no. We need someone else.”
Colton held his gaze, and he wondered if this was it, the challenge he’d been waiting for, the moment someone would decide that he wasn’t their leader. That he wasn’t calling the shots. But then Colton waved his hand, as if batting away a fly. “Whatever, man. You’re no fun sometimes.”
He smiled then. “I didn’t say we weren’t gonna have fun today.” He lifted his chin, nodding toward a couple who were just getting out of a silver Mercedes at the edge of the parking lot. The purse draped over the woman’s shoulder probably cost more than his parents’ house had, and they both wore designer sunglasses with big garish logos on them. “What about them?”
Butterfly followed his gaze as her body was racked by another spasm.
Kisha leaned up behind him, whispering softly against his ear. “She looks like she deserves it, doesn’t she, baby?”
Colton answered before he had a chance to. “She totally does. They both do.”
CHAPTER 12
“GET IN.” VIOLET’S VOICE WAS PRACTICED AND steely as she met Jay’s startled expression.
She wasn’t surprised to see the look of shock on his face; she was probably the last person he’d expected to find sitting behind the wheel of his car, engine running. But she was tired of waiting for him to figure things out and come to her, tired of drowning in her own self-despair, and she’d decided to take matters into her own hands.
Plus, she’d known he kept a magnetic hide-a-key under his front passenger wheel well. It wasn’t exactly like she’d broken into his car, or anything. Not technically at least.
“Violet . . .” he started to say, but she cut him off.
“Get in,” she repeated, testing her foot on the accelerator and revving up the engine, hoping to make an impact on him, letting him know she was serious. “Now,” she insisted.
He didn’t jump at her command, which was sort of what she’d hoped for, and he didn’t open the door and haul her out, burying her in his arms and begging for forgiveness. She’d imagined it that way too—along with about a hundred other scenarios, some good and some not so good. The begging-for-forgiveness one ranked right up there with the ripping-his-shirt-off-and-dragging-her-to-bed one. She smiled wickedly to herself.
She supposed she’d have to settle for his soft sigh of resignation and silent acquiescence, as he rounded the front of the car and climbed mutely into the passenger seat. At least he hadn’t insisted she get out of his car and leave.
She’d been waiting in the dark for almost an hour, sitting in the parking lot of the auto parts store where he worked, knowing he’d be off any minute and find her there—borderline stalking him. She’d nearly changed her mind a dozen times as her heart climbed higher and higher into her throat, anticipation threatening to get the best of her. But each time she’d remind herself of how miserable she’d been the past few days without him, of how badly she wanted to fix this . . . this mess she’d made. And how sorry she was she’d let it get this far in the first place.
No more lies, she told herself. No more secrets.
Yet here he was, sitting right beside her, and suddenly all she wanted to do was bolt. To run away and hide so she didn’t have to face him right now.
“What are you—?”
“Shut up,” she insisted, not wanting to stray too far from the plan she’d formulated, otherwise she might just chicken out after all. She slammed the car into reverse, still expecting Jay to stop her at any second . . . especially since he’d never let her drive his car before. But he didn’t. He bit back any questions he had as she pulled out of the parking lot, leaving her car behind in a darkened corner, just out of sight.
Violet pretended to concentrate on the road, and the traffic lights, and the steering wheel and turn signal, and everything else she could pretend was significant as she drove. Anything in order to ignore how uncomfortable the silence inside the car was. She stole glimpses of Jay whenever she was sure he wasn’t looking, as he too seemed to find the signs and streetlights and storefronts fascinating. Entirely too engrossing.
She wanted to reach across to him, to touch him, let her fingers weave through his, but she couldn’t. Not until she could talk to him, explain things.
She gripped the leather wheel, which suddenly felt sticky beneath her hands as she drove, following the path she’d mapped out in her head, wondering at what point he’d realize where she was taking him.
But if realization dawned, he never said so. He just continued to watch as stoplights turned into stop signs, and then were replaced by n
othing but trees . . . all around them. Trees and deserted stretches of roads and night skies.
When Violet pulled off the pavement and the sound of gravel replaced the glaring silence, Jay finally spoke. “Why here?” he asked.
But Violet still wasn’t ready to answer him. She stopped the car, putting it in park and turning off the ignition. She pocketed the key, and without looking his way, ordered, “Get out.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw the faintest hint of a smile. “I have my own set, you know?”
Her stomach dropped, heavy like it was filled with lead. She hadn’t considered that. Of course she didn’t have the only key . . . she had the spare.
She squared her shoulders and got out anyway, slamming the door behind her, deciding to play this through anyway. He wouldn’t just leave her out here, would he?
Without the headlights, it was darker. The only light came from the bridge about a quarter of a mile away. And it was too high up to be all that effective.
Violet stood there, waiting, straining to hear above the rushing water of the river for the other sound she so desperately wanted to hear—the passenger side door. It took far too long for it to come, but when it eventually did, her heart swelled with relief, like a balloon filling with helium. The sound of his footsteps, coming closer, made her feel like she could soar.
“Violet,” he said, this time sounding more determined than before. “Why are we here?”
His voice wasn’t soft or apologetic, or even filled with the kind of lustful desire that would give Violet the impression he might actually rip his shirt off at any second, but he didn’t sound angry either. She turned to face him, looking at him in the pale light that shone down on him from the bridge. The sound from the water, just steps away, was alternately trickling and gushing, as the river pushed and splashed and parted for both smooth and jagged rocks in its path. At the edge, where it was shallow, the water was cool and almost tranquil. But farther out, it could be treacherous; the perilous currents had been known to pull full-grown men beneath them, trapping them. Drowning them.
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