Shadow Hills

by Anastasia Hopcus

  “Sounds good.” I settled into the metal chair, feeling lighter.

  “Oh, tricky. Fourteen.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “You wanna hit?” His flirtatious smile made my heart beat faster. I wasn’t sure what I should do. Fourteen wasn’t enough to win, but I could easily go over with a number that high. It was risky to go for it, but my only other option was to not even try. I had never felt more sure of a bet.

  “Hit me.” I smiled. There was no going back now.

  I woke up the next morning with a grin plastered on my face. Zach and I had stayed in our own little world the rest of the night, and he’d asked me if I wanted to develop my pictures with him this evening. Which, since Mr. Sherwood had told us we could do it solo, meant that Zach wanted to spend time with me in a small, dimly lit room.

  I was overcome with the urge to call Ariel and tell her my good news, but she didn’t even know who Zach was. Besides, I really didn’t want to relive the awkward phone call we’d had when I first got to Devenish. Instead, I rolled over and picked up my phone from the bedside table so I could send her a quick text just to say hi.

  After I got out of bed, I put on Wolf Parade and turned it up until it vibrated my computer speakers.

  “Someone is happy this morning,” Adriana observed as I bopped into the bathroom. I couldn’t stop smiling, even as I brushed my teeth.

  “You and Zach looked pretty cozy last night,” Adriana added. I hadn’t even noticed she was at the SAC. “So what’s going on with you two?” she prodded as I put my toothbrush back in my toiletries bag.

  “I don’t know.” I tried to suppress my grin, but it was next to impossible. “We were just hanging out.”

  “Uh-huh.” Adriana was not convinced, but apparently she had better things to talk about. “Did you see Sybil last night?”

  “Nope.” I started putting on my makeup.

  “She was totally throwing herself at Trent.”

  I hated that Adriana was interested in Trent. He wasn’t a good guy, but I’d learned the hard way with Athena that trying to convince someone not to date a creep had the opposite effect. “Sybil might as well have said, ‘I’ll have sex with you if you ask me to the dance.’ It was so obvious she would,” Adriana continued.

  “So did he?”

  “What?” Adriana squinted into the mirror as she plucked her eyebrows.

  “Trent. Did he ask Sybil to the dance?”

  “Oh. Maybe.” Adriana shrugged. “I heard her shrieking like a hyena in heat at one point, so either she was doing really well at Taboo or he asked her.”

  I laughed. Adriana had a way of totally tuning out anything that didn’t interest her anymore.

  “I’ll see you at breakfast,” I told her before heading back to my room to finish getting ready. After I was dressed, I threw my cell into my purse, and I felt a pang as I thought of Athena’s ID bracelet.

  When I walked into the cafeteria a few minutes later, I spotted Graham and Toy already seated at our table. I grabbed a bowl of fruit and some yogurt and headed over to sit down with them.

  “Hey, guys. What’s up?” I slid in next to Brody, who had arrived while I was getting my food.

  “We were just talking about our complete and utter lack of dates for the dance,” Toy informed me.

  “Though I think Adriana is on the verge of asking me,” Brody announced proudly.

  “You also believe pot enhances cognitive skills,” Graham retorted. “It doesn’t mean you are in any way correct.”

  “Yeah.” I frowned. “I hate to break it to you, Brody, but even if Adriana’s into you, she would never ask a guy to a dance. It’s not in her nature.”

  “I can’t ask her, though,” Brody retorted. “What if it’s too soon, and I destroy all the groundwork I’ve laid?”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Graham offered. “How about we all go as a group? We’ve already established that none of us have dates, and this way we don’t have to go alone.”

  “I’m in,” Brody readily agreed.

  “Sounds good to me,” Toy answered. All three of them turned to look at me. Sure, I didn’t have a date, but there were still two and a half days before the dance; someone could ask me. Someone tall, dark, and handsome, with hypnotic eyes.

  “What’s the deal, Phe? You already have a date, or would you just rather go alone than be seen with us?” Graham asked.

  “Sorry, I was spacing out.” I couldn’t turn down my friends because of a vain hope. “Of course I’ll do the group thing.”

  “Score.” Brody did his stoner-guy head nod.

  “Good morning.” Adriana walked up and sat down across from me.

  “Hey, Adriana.” Brody smiled euphorically at her.

  “Hi, Brody.” She rolled her eyes.

  “We were discussing the idea of all of us going to the dance together. As a group. You into it?” I figured it would sound less like a setup coming from me than it would if one of the guys suggested it.

  “I guess. It doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice at this point.” Adriana brooded. “Who decides to have a school dance only two weeks into the year, anyway? Do they really expect us to have met someone in that amount of time?”

  “It’s possible.” The optimistic mood I had been in all morning reared its ugly head.

  “Maybe for you, Miss Everyone-in-a-Five-Mile-Radius-Falls-in-Love-with-Me-Instantly,” Adriana groused.

  “Oh, come on.” I shook my head. “That is so not true.”

  “Yeah,” Brody agreed quickly. “I have absolutely zero interest in Phe. She’s like vanilla yogurt or tapioca pudding. She’s unflavored oatmeal.”

  “Why, thank you, Brody.” I smiled sweetly.

  “Fine. I’ll go with you guys,” Adriana relented. “But only because I have no better options.”

  “What a gracious acceptance speech.” Graham smirked.

  As everyone else talked about the dance, I let my mind wander. Tonight it was going to be just Zach and me in the darkroom, and I was almost as anxious as I was excited.

  The entire afternoon I alternated between untethered optimism and an assurance that Zach was interested in me to paralyzing fear that I had totally misread the situation. By the time photography rolled around, I was a hopeless tangle of nerves.

  I sank into my chair, disappointed to find Zach wasn’t already in class. But he got there just as the late bell rang—and the instant his eyes met mine I knew any worrying had been unnecessary.

  Mr. Sherwood, who today wore a tie with little elephants on it, had us go to the darkrooms to develop our film. Unfortunately, we did it solo, and I didn’t get a chance to be with Zach. But at least I had one good set of negatives when class was over.

  “I have a long diving practice today,” Zach told me as we walked toward the Athletics Center. “How about we meet at your dorm around seven?”

  “Do you think we can be done before dorm study starts at eight?”

  “You can get a pass to work on campus for a class,” Zach said. “We’ll have until ten.”

  I was so excited I felt like I was going to burst out of my skin.

  “I’ll get a pass from Ms. Moore when I’m done with swimming.” I tried to sound calm.

  “See you then.” His voice was low and rough—beyond sexy. Three hours never seemed so long.

  Zach broke into a slow grin as I stepped out of Kresky Hall that night. “You’re stunning.”

  “Thanks.” I blushed. I was only wearing a green tank top and jeans, but he was staring at me like … I couldn’t even think of a word to describe it.

  Zach had also changed out of his uniform, and he looked amazing. He was wearing dark jeans that clung to him perfectly, and a navy blue tee that emphasized the pale intensity of his eyes. His hair curled softly over the snap collar of his charcoal wool motorcycle jacket.

  “So how was diving?” I asked as we walked down the flagstone path.

  “It was diving.” Zach shrugged.

  “You don’t sound terribly
enthusiastic about it,” I said.

  “It’s fine. I’m just not into it like you are swimming.”

  I looked up at him in surprise.

  “What do you mean? I’m not on the team or anything.”

  “Exactly. You do it because you want to. Your face is always all lit up when you get out of the pool. You look blissfully happy.”

  “I love it … the weightlessness, the sensation of the water running over my skin. It’s so peaceful … I don’t get why some people don’t like swimming. And I certainly can’t see why you’d do it if you didn’t like it.”

  “People do things they don’t want to do all the time. Because it will make their parents happy, or because it looks good on their transcripts.” Zach’s eyes held mine captive. “People even try to deny the strongest feelings they’ve ever felt, because they don’t want to let other people down.”

  His gaze made my pulse race, but I tried to ignore it. “But you’re so good at diving. How can you not love doing it?”

  “I used to love it, but there’s so much pressure now that it kind of takes the fun out of it. I wish I could have just one thing that wasn’t for anyone but myself, you know?”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean.” And I did. It was as if all the things I learned about Zach were already there, tucked away in my subconscious. Like I had known him forever.

  “Ever since I was a kid, it was drilled into me that no outsider would ever understand. That if I let anyone near me it would end in disaster. I’m sick of that—living my whole life as if the only thing that matters is this town and its rules.” Zach looked down at me, and my heart stopped, like it was waiting for him to finish before it could go on beating. “I can’t do it anymore. I won’t.”

  “Are you …?” I began, but I didn’t know how to finish the question.

  “I’m gonna let the herd fend for itself for a while.” Zach grinned and walked into the Arts Building. “I’d like to see what kind of trouble I can get into, making my own decisions.”

  He opened the door to the darkroom and flicked the amber safelight on.

  “Do you want to go first?” Zach asked politely, holding the door open for me.

  “Sure,” I accepted. I wanted to jump up and down and clap, but I contained myself. If Zach meant what I thought he did, I was one very happy girl. I smiled over at Zach, and he smiled back, his face bathed in red. I placed the negative in the enlarger and slid the photographic paper under it; then I flicked the enlarger on and exposed the paper.

  “I’m glad you made it back to your dorm okay last night—I mean, Shadow Hills isn’t crime infested, but I worry about you,” Zach said.

  “Hopefully they’ll station several guards around the premises for when the dance lets out on Saturday,” I teased.

  “About the dance.” Zach pushed a lock of wavy hair back behind his ear. “I was wondering …”

  The timer went off, cutting Zach’s sentence short.

  I cursed internally as I picked up the paper with the tongs, letting the excess liquid drain off before placing it in the stop bath tray. After an agonizingly slow thirty seconds, I was able to take the print back out. I set the timer for five minutes and dropped the paper into the fixer.

  “Sorry about that.” I turned to Zach. “What were you saying?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “No, really. I want to know,” I urged him.

  “I thought if you didn’t already have plans, you might like to go to the dance. With me.”

  The group thing didn’t count as actual plans, did it? I hated to ditch my friends for a guy, but it wasn’t like I was needed there. In fact, without me, it would be two couples. Much more conducive to dancing.

  “That sounds great,” I answered. I’d figure out how to break the friend plans later.

  “Cool.”

  Zach looked down at me, and I studied the way the red light threw shadows on his face. The room suddenly seemed very still and quiet, and I wondered if Zach could hear the loud thumping of my heart.

  The sound of the timer broke the silence, and I placed the print in the wash. When it was done, I squeegeed off the excess liquid, then repeated the process on four of the other photos.

  “Why don’t you put those in the drying cabinet, and we can go get some coffee while we wait?” Zach suggested. “I can’t do my prints until yours are finished anyway.”

  This sounded like a perfect plan to me.

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  As we stepped back onto the sidewalk, I heard a cell ringing. My first instinct was to search my purse, but its weight was conspicuously absent from my shoulder. “I forgot my bag in the darkroom.”

  “Do you want me to get it for you?” Zach pulled the ringing phone out of his pocket and checked the caller ID.

  “It’s Corinne.” He sighed in annoyance. “I better answer, or she’ll keep calling.”

  “Why don’t you talk to her, and I’ll get my stuff?” I said. “Be back in a second.”

  “Okay.” Zach flipped open the phone as I stepped back into the building.

  I hadn’t noticed how dim the lighting in the corridor was earlier, but now that I was alone it was eerie. I hurried to the darkroom and pulled open the door. My purse was on the far counter. I took two steps toward it when the red safelight blinked, then went out.

  I froze. It was utterly dark—no windows, no light seeping in around the door. My heart thudded against my ribs. I felt my way toward the door, bumping my hip bone on the corner of the metal worktable. I was going to have a bruise tomorrow, but at least now I had an idea of where I was. Sweeping my hand back and forth in front of me, I crept slowly forward. In the total blackness, the tiny room suddenly seemed enormous.

  Finally, my hand hit the edge of another counter. Gratefully, I gripped it and moved up close, sliding down the counter until it ended. I reached out, groping for the light switch. I turned on the ceiling light, and it flickered and sputtered in crazy bursts of brightness. The loud humming and popping sounds it was making were not helping my nerves, but at least I was able to see the door. I reached for the doorknob.

  Something crashed at the far end of the hall, and I jumped, all my nerves sizzling. It was the heavy outside door, I realized. Just Zach coming back to see what was taking me so long. But that didn’t make sense. I had left Zach standing outside the front door. This sound had come from someone slamming through the back exit.

  I went still. A door opened at the end of the hall, then closed. Another door opened. Someone was walking down the hallway, looking into every room.

  Stop the paranoia. So someone else had come into the building. It was a public place.

  I forced myself to reach for the doorknob again. Cracking open the door, I peered out. The lights in the hall were flickering wildly, too, creating a strobelike effect. I eased open the door and, taking a deep breath, stepped out into the hall. I turned my head toward the far end of the corridor, and at that moment, a dark figure emerged from one of the rooms.

  “Zach?” My voice was small and strangled. I could barely get the words past my closed-up throat. It felt like I was choking.

  The shadowy form took a step toward me, and every light in the building went out.

  I was plunged into complete darkness.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As my eyes adjusted to the blackness I realized there was dim light coming in the windows on the entrance doors. The dark figure stalked toward me. This definitely isn’t Zach. Terror bubbled up inside my chest as the slow, deliberate footsteps echoed in the empty corridor. My body flooded with adrenaline, the liquid fear pumping through my veins. I whirled and ran toward the entrance.

  Zach was right outside the front doors. I could see his silhouette through the small windows. As I got closer I could tell he had his back to the entrance. I have to get his attention. But I had a feeling the heavy metal double doors hindered sound. Then again, Zach did have the extraordinary BV hearing.

  That’s when I sa
w them, bright white against the charcoal gray of his jacket. Two ear buds lying on either side of his neck. Great. Zach’s love of music was less than endearing right now.

  “Zach!” I had to try, just in case, but as I suspected, he remained motionless. He couldn’t hear me. If only I could get closer …

  I was less than six feet away from the door when the dark figure tore past me. He whirled to face me, blocking the entrance. Instinctively, I took a step back. Suddenly, I was aware of a sickly sweet vanilla aroma. It was emanating from the menacing figure. I was already nauseous with fright, and the odor made me want to gag. The man tilted his head to the side, inspecting me, like I had seen Ariel’s dog do once when it encountered a frog—right before it squished it. The shadowy silhouette was waiting, calculating, before making the next move. I can run around him. Even if I can’t reach the door, I might be able to make enough noise to alert Zach. Just as I thought this, the figure put his shoulder to the side of the soda machine that stood next to the entrance. With one swift push, he tipped it over, and it came crashing down in front of the doors, blocking my escape.

  I spun around to run to the back exit, but again the shadow was already in my path. His eyes glittered in the darkness. I darted across the hall to the classroom opposite me. Any of the darkrooms would be a trap; none of them had windows. But the classrooms did, and I could lock the door and crawl out a window to get away.

  I grabbed the doorknob and twisted. It was locked. Shit! I wasted precious seconds rattling the knob, then turned and ran back to the front entrance.

  “Zach!” My heartbeat pounded in my ears.

  The figure behind me stopped, and I seized the chance to scramble up onto the overturned soda machine. I pushed as hard as I could on the doors but it did no good. They opened the other way. I beat on the doors, yelling Zach’s name.

  Zach whipped around, startled. He immediately recognized the terror in my eyes.

  “Phe! What’s going on?” The doors rattled as he pushed futilely. I looked behind me. The shadow was still standing in the middle of the hallway, poised and unmoving. Waiting to see if Zach can manage to get the door open. If Zach couldn’t, he would know that he had me trapped.