Kami’s day wasn’t over yet. Her father greeted her at the door and asked if she could watch her younger brothers while he finished up a big project. Kami was used to this. Luckily, Ten and Tomo were absorbed in front of the television, so she was able to drift in and out of a doze while curled up in the window seat.
Kami’s mind was turned toward Jared, without her normal barriers up between them. She could not help thinking of how soon she might lose him, and she kept reaching for him without meaning to. If he was gone, she would stop being distracted at odd times, would be a little more normal. Her mother would be so pleased. Everyone would think it was the best thing for her. Except that Kami couldn’t think of it as the best thing for her. Not when every time she thought of losing Jared, her heart beat out an insistent rhythm of sheer desolate misery and all she could think about was how she would miss him.
If she thought about him as if he was real, insane though that was, it was different. If cutting ties would make his life better, she could bear it.
I was thinking maybe …, Kami said, and thought about him, what was best for him, steadily so he knew she was sure. Maybe things would be better for you if you do what your mother wants. Maybe it’s the right thing to do.
Jared said, I don’t care.
Too many of their walls were coming down with their shared distress, blazing a channel open between them. She should pull back. She would in a moment.
I don’t want to be sane. I don’t want to be normal, said Jared. I just want you.
Kami rested her cheek against the cool glass of the window. It was as if he was real for a moment, as if he was close, with just a windowpane between them. Hardly any barrier at all.
Then Tomo laughed at something on the television. Kami turned back to the real world, to share Tomo’s laugh and catch Ten’s usually solemn eyes glinting with appreciation behind his glasses, to home.
That night Kami woke to the sound of screaming again. She flailed herself awake, knocking her alarm clock and her latest mystery novel, The Nefarious Mezzanine, off her bedside table in the process. Then she cast away her bedclothes and seized her flashlight. It was exactly where she’d left it, wedged between books and her nightlight.
Kami grabbed her coat, shoved her feet into shoes, and launched herself down the stairs, terrified that the screaming would stop before she could get there.
The door of their house tended to stick, but now the latch lifted easily, the door swung open smoothly, and the night air blew cool through her hair.
Jared, Kami said, reaching out for him. Want to go on an adventure?
You even have to ask?
Kami was fiercely glad he was still there. She stepped out onto the garden path, shutting the door carefully behind her. Where the garden ended, the woods began. It was almost autumn, and the trees were still thick with leaves but more subdued, closed off as if they were keeping secrets. In the darkness Kami couldn’t see the trees for the forest. She switched on her flashlight and the circle of light finally found a path into the woods.
Kami set off. The night had a different quality here, as if the trees curving over her head gave weight to the air. The sound of screaming was fainter. It was a far-off sound, but now that Kami was really listening she thought she heard a whine to it. She didn’t know how she had mistaken it for kids’ voices.
Kami hurried, feet flying over logs and leaves almost before her flashlight beam found them.
Because God forbid we miss the screaming, said Jared, growing more guarded as they drew closer, the feeling like an arm held out protectively in front her.
The sound was terrible, this near.
I don’t want to miss the screaming, Kami told him. She slid her hand into her coat pocket and found her phone in there beside her keys as she ran. I want to catch them in the act.
Kami ducked and just missed banging her head on a low-hanging branch. She almost dropped her flashlight and the beam went wide.
The scream stopped abruptly.
The yellow circle of light caught on a wall.
It was rough wood, unpolished, the wall sagging a little. But it was a wall. As Kami drew closer, she was able to make out the shape of something like a sagging hut or maybe a shed, something that had been built.
A thought crept into her head, cold and sly as a draft beneath a door: What if this place had been built just for this?
Kami, run, Jared ordered.
Kami wanted to run, but she wouldn’t. Not until she found out the truth. She crept forward.
Kami, break a branch off a tree so you can fight at least!
I can fight bare-handed if I have to, said Kami. She put her hand on the soft, weathered wood of the hut door.
It swung open at her touch.
There were candles, some burning and some blown out, their wax still running liquid and hot. There was a table covered in a white cloth. On the cloth there lay a fox. It was dead. There was blood all over the cloth. Kami knew that if she touched the blood it would still be warm, only just spilled, like the candle wax.
Jared’s fear scythed through her, sharp as a blade. That, more than anything, almost made Kami panic.
Kami, run!
But she couldn’t run yet. She held the flashlight in one hand and with the other took out her cell. She kept both hands steady as she took picture after picture with her camera phone.
Then she ran, stumbling faster than she had come, back through the night to the safety of home. She called the police as she went.
Chapter Four
Blood and Sunlight
When Sergeant Kenn interviewed Kami, he was very kind, told her she had done her civic duty, and even gave her a quote for the paper.
Kami closed her article on the animal killing in the Vale woods with “The police investigation is ongoing. And so, I can assure my readers, is my own.” The second issue of The Nosy Parker—Kami had decided to put out two issues in the first week of school, to gain momentum—was even more popular than the first.
“People took home copies for their parents,” Kami announced, and did a victory dance in the privacy of her headquarters. “The photocopy machine overheated and broke down. I think I can still hear the sound of it sobbing and wanting to talk about its childhood.”
Ash leaned in the doorway, his eyes averted from the sight of Kami dancing. The dance involved flailing, brandishing of a vase of flowers, and most importantly the victory shimmy, so Kami could not really blame him.
“Walk you to class?” he asked.
“Well,” Kami said, “sure.”
Ash pushed himself off the doorframe and into the room, toward her. “You did an awesome job out there in the woods,” he said. “And with the article.”
Kami beamed. “Thank you.”
“But I think you and Angela should leave this to the police from now on.”
“What an interesting thought,” Kami said. “Thank you for sharing it with me. Let me share a thought with you: Actually, I can walk myself to class. And I can also handle myself, so I’ll be doing what I want.” She shouldered her bag and headed out, moving past him.
“Kami, wait,” Ash called out.
She paused at the top of the stairs and looked back. The newspaper headquarters looked great, she thought proudly. The boxes were gone and the desks were shiny nut-brown. Kami had borrowed a few colorful lamps from home and had plans for a filing cabinet. The office looked great, and Ash looked great in it: arms crossed over his chest, staring at her with eyes turned dark blue with concern.
“Whoever’s doing this—” he began, then switched thoughts. “What if you got hurt?”
“Here’s the thing,” said Kami. “Holly came to me with this story because nobody else would have listened to it. And nobody would have listened to me if I’d called the police and said, ‘Oh, the kids are making too much noise in the woods.’ They’re listening to me now because I went out and found something. I found something. And it was horrible, and the only way I know how to deal with som
ething horrible is to do something about it. This is my story. And I’m not going to give it up. I’m going to see how it ends. You don’t get a say.”
“I’m getting that impression,” Ash remarked. He uncrossed his arms and walked over to where Kami stood, still undecided. “I am worried about you, though.”
Kami smiled; she couldn’t help it. She wasn’t used to guys looking at her with concern, or drawing near her being all conciliatory and handsome. Except Angela’s brother, of course, but Rusty hardly counted. “I guess you can be worried if you really want,” Kami conceded. She went on tiptoe and kissed Ash on the cheek. She felt him smile, then eased back down and saw him lean in toward her.
“So, you’re okay?” Ash murmured.
Kami wasn’t sure, despite her exhilaration over the newspaper. The police had scared her. How worried her parents were had scared her more. She kept thinking about that night, and the blood. But her secret fears were for her and Jared: she hardly knew this boy, no matter how beautiful his smile.
She just smiled back at him. She knew her smile was not as convincing as his, but it seemed to be enough. Ash’s smile spread, brighter than before, and he leaned down closer. Kami’s breath snagged in her throat. She did not move away.
An explosion of noise came from the stairwell: the sound of so many people running and yelling at once that it sounded like an earthquake. Kami and Ash broke apart without ever coming together.
Kami went running down the stairs, Ash right behind her. She rounded a corner and headed down the school steps, then out the doors to the back of the school. There was a courtyard there, raised a few steps above the cricket pitch.
The cricket pitch was chaos.
“What’s going on?” Ash demanded behind Kami, just as Holly Prescott came rushing up the steps.
“Your brother is fighting the cricket team,” Holly announced, flushed with excitement.
“He’s not my brother,” Ash snapped, his cool cracking instead of just ruffling for the first time since Kami had met him.
“Who on the cricket team?” Kami asked at once, producing her emergency notebook from her bra.
“Sort of the whole team,” Holly said.
Kami went forward, shielding her eyes against the sun’s rays. She could only see one person not in cricket whites. All she could make out were shoulders, and a fist going into someone’s face.
Miss Mackenzie and Ms. Dollard were both crossing the pitch and moving fast. Kami hurtled down the stairs and got to the combatants at the same time the teachers did. Over the noise Kami yelled: “Any comment for the school newspaper?”
Only the new boy’s head turned. The sun was still in her eyes, but she thought he grinned at her over his shoulder. His teeth were dark with blood.
“Hell of a first day,” he said.
Then Ash’s cousin—the other Lynburn—and four members of the cricket team were marched off to Ms. Dollard’s office.
Kami ran back up the steps to Holly, pen at the ready. “What happened?”
Holly looked delighted to be asked. “The way I heard it, Matthew Hughes said something and shoved him, and then the new guy punched him, and, well, you know how the cricket guys stick together—”
“Who won the fight?”
“Some of the team were still carrying their bats,” Holly said. “New boy got his ass kicked. I don’t mean to pry,” she added to Ash. “But does he have issues?”
“Oh, Jared’s nothing but issues,” Ash said bitterly. “And the urge to take them out on other people.” He set off toward the principal’s office
“Wait,” Kami said, and her voice caught on the word. “His name’s Jared?”
Ash gave her an impatient glance. “Yeah, so?”
“Nothing.”
Ash nodded and walked away.
It was nothing, Kami told herself. Plenty of people had that name. She just didn’t like hearing it out loud.
It made her remember being in London for the first time, holding her dad’s hand and enjoying the novel sensation of having nobody know her name or her entire life history, having nobody even notice she was Asian because it was an everyday unremarkable thing there. She’d heard someone shout out “Jared!” and spun around, stood up on the stone parapet of Blackfriars Bridge, and looked for him.
But Kami wasn’t a child anymore, to search for him in every crowd. It was a name like any other. She still found herself feeling possessive. Jared was hers, his name was his, and it annoyed her that it was shared by some delinquent.
“Hey, he’s cute,” Holly said, looking after Ash. “Actually, they’re both cute. The new guys, I mean. Ash is cuter, but crazy Jared might be more fun.”
“Yeah, getting expelled from school and spending your life in a chain gang: such fun.” Kami grabbed Holly’s elbow and steered her back inside. “I need to talk to this guy.”
Holly blinked. “Because he’s cute?”
“Because he’s crazy,” said Kami. “And that’s news. Besides, he’s a Lynburn, and I want to know about them. That Lynburn seems a little busy just at present. But can you snag him and bring him to me tomorrow?”
“You know,” Holly drawled, “I’ve never had a problem snagging them.”
Kami felt Jared reach for her, as if he knew she was thinking about him. I’m bored, he said. What are you doing?
Talking about hot guys, Kami informed him.
Jared said, Oh my God.
You did ask.
It’s a topic of absorbing interest, Jared said. I’m sure. Obviously, as a hot guy myself, I wouldn’t know.
Kami laughed.
I find your skepticism very hurtful, Jared said. I’m extremely hot. Except not so much in the face.
If you’re saying a lot of people want to buy tickets to your imaginary gun show, Kami said, I’m very happy for you.
His amusement rippled through her, making her smile, as she and Holly reached their classroom. Holly was giving her a strange look, which made Kami realize that she had been communing silently with the empty air for too long and had also just laughed at nothing.
“Well, thanks, Holly, you’re a pal,” Kami said hastily.
Holly hesitated, as if expecting something else, but Kami peeled off and headed for her usual seat beside Amber Green.
Amber gave her a brief smile through the curtain of her fox-red hair and then returned to reading The Nosy Parker. Kami beamed at Amber’s bent head.
How do you deal with it? Kami asked Jared. The laughing at nothing and occasionally stopping dead in your tracks.
I have a system where when I stop, I lean casually against something, Jared told her. It makes people think I’m a bad boy. Or possibly that I have a bad back.
Kami laughed again and Amber gave her a familiar look that said she was worried Kami was crazy. Kami’s laughter subsided and she flipped open her notebook to start plotting her interview with the delinquent.
Holly was bringing him to her tomorrow. She had to be prepared.
It was dark by the time Kami got to Angela’s house to discuss their future of unstoppable investigative journalistic teamwork. The Montgomerys had bought their house because they thought Sorry-in-the-Vale was quaint and would be a great place to raise the kids. One year and two extensions on their house later, they both got so bored they seized any excuse to go up to London and leave the kids on their own. Angela never talked about it and never seemed to miss them.
The house had once been pretty but now resembled a sad little donkey with two oversize saddlebags. Light shone from one window, and the gate was hanging open, which was a mercy because Angela always took forever to get up off the sofa and buzz Kami in. Kami pushed the gate open farther and headed for the back door.
It had gotten very dark, very fast. She could only make out the pale side of the house and the stir of leaves that was the yew tree by the wall. Even walking carefully, Kami almost tripped over the hose.
The near miss jolted the breath out of Kami for a second. She heard the s
oft, almost stealthy sound of someone else breathing—which was when an arm locked around her throat and a male voice whispered in her ear: “Don’t move.”
Chapter Five
Listen for a Whisper
Kami’s fingers bit into a pressure point on the arm at her throat. When the hold loosened, she went down low, keeping her grip steady, and used her body to trip the guy and flip him into the wall. “Rusty!” she snapped. “Quit doing that.”
Rusty’s eyes gleamed up at her from his crouch, laughing-bright even in the darkness. “I’m keeping you on your toes, Cambridge,” he said. “Transforming you from a simple English schoolgirl to a lean, mean fighting machine.”
Kami put out a hand and gave him a push on the forehead that tipped him back against the wall. “You’re right, I am feeling meaner.”
Rusty got up and held the back door open for her because he was a gentleman, even if he was also an incredibly annoying person who kept attacking her. Kami called out for Angela, her voice echoing off all the white surfaces in that spotless kitchen, and Rusty leaned against the doorframe as if all the exertion had exhausted him.
At first glance, Rusty was a masculine version of his sister—tall, dark, and incurably lazy. He had the same athletic frame, which he draped on walls and furniture as if simply too weak to support himself. He had the same classic features and almost the same black hair, though his was shot with the red highlights that gave him his nickname.
In reality, Angela and Rusty were markedly different. They were even lazy in quite different ways. Rusty was sleepily good-natured and thought Angela wasted energy being cranky. Angela refused to cope with being hassled by teachers, so she was brilliant at school, while Rusty had failed out of Kingston University after one term.
Rusty had also been the one to introduce Kami to her one and only boyfriend, Claud of the unfortunate goatee. She didn’t hold it against him: it was hard to hold anything against Rusty.
“Oh, Rusty, why did you let her in?” Angela said. “We could have just lain down on the floor until she went away. We could’ve had a nice floor nap.”
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