The detective resumed his questioning. “You say you left Adam’s house and—you were driving, correct?”
Fletcher nodded, distracted.
“Fletcher, son, are you okay?”
The first blow came out of nowhere, and his entire body vibrated with the impact. Even his teeth rattled. He wasn’t sure if he was still standing or if he’d been knocked off his feet. He tried to look around but all he could see was the mosaic of pine needles on the ground, and then his vision clouded and everything went red. Sweat pricked at the back of his neck and someone was talking to him, trying to get his attention.
“Fletcher? Fletcher? Are you okay, son?” Malloy’s beady eyes looked concerned, his bushy brows diving into a V.
Fletcher blinked, the slap of pain clearing immediately. He was in the conference room. He was safe. He rubbed his hands against his jeans, his clammy palms catching on the fabric. His heart was wailing against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he said, working to focus on Malloy. “I just—”
Malloy held up one hand and blew out a long, slow breath. “That’s okay, son. We’re going to find this guy. You’re going to be okay.”
• • •
There was no parking at Dana & Mo’s. But there was always parking at Dana & Mo’s, especially on Thursday nights when Avery and her father came in at six forty-five for mammoth slices of the Kitchen Sink, a pizza laced with more toppings than Avery could count, all blended together in one harmonious, delicious mess of cheese and grease.
This Thursday night though, the parking lot was packed with cars. Kids from Dan River Falls High streamed from the doors and congregated in circles, laughing.
“What is going on?” Avery wanted to know.
Her father leaned over the seat and fished something out from a mass of papers, handing Avery a single blue page.
“A fund-raiser?”
“You didn’t get one? Some kids were by the station earlier this week dropping them off. Weren’t they up around school?”
Avery nodded, knowing that she had seen the fliers posted. She just hadn’t stopped to see what they were advertising.
A black-and white photo of Fletcher was centered on the page, with FUND-RAISER FOR FLETCHER CAROL! and MEDICAL BILLS ARE EXPENSIVE in bubble writing with little frown-y faces bordering the shot.
“You didn’t know about it?” the chief asked.
“I guess I’ve been a little distracted at school. Besides”—Avery pointed at FLETCHER CAROL—“this was obviously put on by Fletch’s closest friends. The ones who don’t even know how to spell his last name.”
“Be nice. It’s good that his peers are doing something for the Carrolls. They’re going to need a lot of support to get through this.”
She nodded. “I guess. I’m glad people are actually coming together for a good cause. It just sucks that this is what it takes for Fletch to get some recognition. I don’t think anyone even noticed him before.”
Avery thumbed at something on the window, not wanting to look at her father, not wanting to think about Fletcher and all the kids inside who were pretending like he was their friend. The same thing had happened after her mother died. The kids who came around just wanted a firsthand account of the story, so they pretended they wanted to be there for Avery, pretended they had ever paid her any attention before. Then, once the story was no longer interesting and Avery wasn’t getting back to “normal,” they started to avoid her. She wondered if they would do the same thing to Fletcher.
“In that case, we’ll get two Kitchen Sinks apiece,” her dad said.
• • •
The news was officially out: Fletcher had narrowly escaped a savage murderer, but Adam hadn’t been so lucky. Bouquets had poured into the Dan River Falls Community Hospital with notes calling Fletcher “a survivor” and “a miracle.” The same floral arrangements were delivered to the Templeton house with deepest sympathies. And Avery was deemed a hero for finding Fletcher.
The tension in town was palpable. A citywide curfew was issued for anyone under eighteen, which meant that at 9:00 p.m., the streets were completely empty even though the sky was barely dark.
The news seemed to run on every channel, a twenty-four-hour loop of local news anchors looking stern and talking in serious tones while a news ticker ran underneath them with sensationalist headlines like “Terror Rocks Bedroom Community.” Avery didn’t know what a “bedroom community” was, nor that she had been living in one, until the incident. That’s what everyone was calling it, “the incident.” And everyone was talking about it.
Chief Templeton clicked off the television and ran a hand over his eyes. “Want to watch a movie?”
Avery looked over her shoulder at him from where she lay on the living-room floor. “You going to stay awake past the credits?”
Even in the dim light, she could see the hint of a smile on her dad’s face. “Probably not.”
“It’s not even eight o’clock. Go to bed, old man.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Burn down the house. What do you think?” She rolled onto her back and put her bare feet on the edge of the couch. “I might go for a bike ride.”
The chief nudged Avery’s feet. “Nope. Curfew.”
“Dad, it’s a bike—” She stopped, remembering that the curfew was for the entire city, not a grounding just for her. Not that she ever did anything to get grounded. “Forgot. Maybe I’ll knit.”
Her father stood up and yawned. “You don’t know how to knit,” he said as he trudged down the hall toward his bedroom.
“Then I guess it’s back to burning the house down,” Avery yelled at his back.
By nine fifteen, all her homework was done. Every album had been listened to, every website perused. Avery could hear her father’s plaintive snores from down the hall. She had slept with her door cracked open ever since her mother died. The sound of her father snoring was annoying but proved he was alive, which comforted her.
She glanced around her room at the piles of what her father affectionately called “crap.” Technically, she could clean her room but that sounded about as appealing as a lifelong algebra class, so she pulled a book from her bookshelf and curled up in her bed. She hadn’t finished the first page before she heard the pip-pip-pip of something hitting her window. She paused, then immediately dismissed it.
Second floor. The chief of police’s house. No one would be dumb enough to tap on the window, not with the whole town on edge. She glanced down at her open book again, relishing the silence as she started to read.
Pip-pip-pip.
It was back. A definite pip! Something hitting her window.
An electric zing of panic shot through her.
She had heard something.
Avery clicked off her bedroom lights and crept to the wall, crouching in a modified crab walk, her eyes straining to see over the sill with all of the flowers she had received, accompanied by mushy letters of praise and tokens of thanks from people she’d never met. She sucked in a shaky breath and glanced out the window, thinking one of those strangers had come for her. Or maybe the same person who had come for Adam and Fletcher.
The pip-pip-pip came again.
“Avery!”
It was half call, half whisper. Avery threw open the window. “Fletcher?”
He was standing on her driveway, half bathed in yellow streetlight, the bandages on his head and arms standing out stark white against the blue-black night.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Come down.”
She looked over her shoulder, then back at Fletcher. “My dad’s asleep. He’ll flip.”
Fletcher looked down at his hands. Nearly every finger was bandaged or splinted—most of them both.
“Hold on.”
She tiptoed past her father’s room and slipped the lock on the back door—the only one in the entire house that didn’t squeak—then walked down the driveway to Fletcher.
“You’re o
ut of the hospital.” It was obvious, so a stupid remark, but Fletcher smiled anyway.
“Yeah, they released me this morning.”
“And you decided the best thing for your recovery was a midnight walk over to my place?”
Fletcher snorted. “It’s barely ten and ‘your place’ is around the corner. Not exactly a cross-country trek, Ave.”
Ave. No one had called her Ave in at least a year.
“So?” Avery raised her eyebrows.
“I just had to get out of the house. My mom was hovering, staring at me. I’d fall asleep with her watching me, and when I’d wake up, she’d still be watching me.”
“Creepy.”
“Yeah, I guess she thinks this dude is going to come to finish me off or something.” He shuddered.
Avery was quiet for a moment, and then she asked, “Do you remember who did this to you?”
His lips pursed and his forehead wrinkled. She could tell that he was searching for a word or a memory.
Fletcher shook his head. “I don’t remember anything.”
They walked to the end of the block in companionable silence, then continued toward the baseball diamond. Finally, Fletcher cleared his throat.
“Did you get the flowers?”
“I got tons of flowers. I don’t know why though. I didn’t do anything.”
“No. From me. I-I sent you flowers. You know, just to say thanks.” Even in the darkness she could see that he was blushing, a fierce red that went up to his ears. “I mean, it’s no big deal. Not you finding me, the flowers. The flowers—they are not a big deal. You know, just to say thanks.”
“There were a couple of bunches on the front steps when we got home tonight. To be honest, I hadn’t read the cards yet.”
“That’s cool.”
There was another beat of awkward quiet, just the sound of their shoes crunching the dirt over the diamond.
“Remember at the hospital when I asked you what you think happens when we die?”
Avery stopped, the breath snatched from her chest. “Yeah.”
“I can’t stop thinking about it. I try not to, but…do you think people go somewhere immediately? Or do they—do they maybe hang around? Unfinished business and all that.”
Avery had considered the same question every day, what felt like every moment, for months after her mother died. She pored over texts and the Bible and did Internet searches on every myth and legend and belief possible. Not one gave her a solid answer. Not one gave her enough satisfaction to feel peace, to feel whole again.
She shrugged.
Fletch seemed to drop the subject and smiled, rolling his head back to look at the sky. “It’s kind of nice out here right now. No one but us, you know?”
Avery huffed a laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re already getting tired of your adoring fans.”
A stitch of pain crossed Fletcher’s face and Avery felt guilty. “I didn’t mean that—”
“No”—Fletcher shrugged her off—“I know it’s weird. People act like I’m some kind of hero because I survived.”
“Well, you escaped. And because of that, we were able to find Adam.”
He shook his head. “Fat lot of good that did.”
“But…you are alive. Which means there is a better chance the police can catch this guy. You know, because you’re a witness and stuff.”
Fletcher loosened a rock with the toe of his sneaker, then picked it up, rolling it in the palm of his “good” hand. “Did I already say, ‘Fat lot of good that did’? I can’t remember worth shit.”
“It’ll come back,” Avery said, awkwardly patting his elbow. She had never really touched Fletcher before. Or any boy, for that matter. They were casual friends who greeted each other with a head nod, and that was it.
Fletcher asked, “People treated you different after your mom died, right?”
Avery pinched her lips together and looked off in the distance. “Well, yeah. I mean, at first it was, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and after a while it was, ‘Aren’t you over that yet?’” There was an edge of anger in her voice.
“When did people start treating you normally again?”
Avery picked up her own rock, palmed it, then sent it on a line drive past the pitcher’s mound. “They didn’t. The way they treated me became the new normal.”
“People never paid any attention to me before all this happened, but I think that was better.” He dropped his rock. It rolled over his bandaged fingers and plunked onto the ground at his feet. “I think being ignored is better than everyone watching me. I—”
“Wait.” Avery reached out for Fletcher instinctively, her hand circling his wrist.
There was a light rustling behind them.
A prickle of nerves shot down her spine. “Did you hear that?” She yanked him to the ground. “There’s someone here.”
Avery knew every covert tactic, thanks to her father’s love of spy movies, but she was sure the thundering beat of her heart would give away their location at the edge of the baseball diamond. Her heart only thumped harder when the bushes across from them shook and a figure stepped out. They could see it was a person from the glow of streetlights, but that was it.
The person swiped something against a tree trunk. A flame caught on the tip of the match, which glowed fluorescent orange, illuminating the hard angles of the man’s face. His thin lips were bared, and he held a cigarette between his yellowed teeth.
“What do we have here?” The guy jutted his chin toward Avery and Fletcher, and then took a long drag from his cigarette. He squinted, cupping his hand over his eyes as if there was glare from the sun. Then he rolled back on his heels, satisfied.
“Huh! You that kid on the news? The one that got all beat up. The little bitch that ran away. Is this your little girlfriend, faggot?”
The guy shifted. His cheeks were pockmarked and still spotted with acne. His hair was greasy and plastered hard against his forehead.
“Jimmy Jerold?” Avery asked.
Jimmy Jerold was the stuff that nightmares were made of—the high-school dropout who still hung around, selling pot and pills in the school parking lot. He was always getting arrested. His two nicotine-stained fingers gripped his cigarette, and he blew out a long, white pouf of smoke.
“Your little girlfriend knows me.”
Avery could see Fletcher stiffen beside her. He took a small step forward toward Jimmy, effectively stepping in front of Avery. “Dude, we were just talking,” Fletcher said, his voice calm. “We’re cool.”
Jimmy moved like a flash and was nearly nose to nose with Fletcher. “We ain’t cool, dude.”
Ten
Avery’s stomach plummeted as the glare of the streetlight caught the blade of Jimmy’s knife pressed against Fletcher’s neck. Fletcher was on his tiptoes, with Jimmy gripping a fistful of his shirt.
“Leave him alone, Jimmy!”
“This pitiful son of a bitch? Maybe I should gut him. Finish him off. You were supposed to die out there, you know. You and your little bitch boyfriend.” Jimmy blew a huff of smoke into Fletcher’s face, and his lips thinned as he grinned sadistically.
Fletcher just stared straight ahead as if he wasn’t seeing Jimmy.
“Fletch—” she started.
Blue-and-white lights cut through the darkness and Jimmy let go of Fletcher’s shirt, shoving him backward. Avery grabbed Fletcher’s arm to support him, and they both started to run. Avery could hear his breath straining as he kept pace with her, his weight balanced against her shoulder until her house came into view. They doubled over in her driveway.
Adrenaline crashed through Avery’s system and she blinked, her throat tightening. “Oh my God, that guy is a psychopath.” She could feel tears forming. “I’m so sorry, Fletcher.”
Fletcher stood in front of her, his eyes hard and dark. “He said I was supposed to die out there.” His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. “What do you think—”
Avery stepped backward, her lower lip t
rembling. “Fletcher.” She gestured at his chest, unable to push the words past her lips.
He looked to where she was pointing. There was a starburst of wrinkles on the cotton where Jimmy’s fist had been. In the center, like the stamen of some hideous flower, was a smear of blood. Fletcher didn’t raise his head again before turning on his heel and walking into the night.
• • •
I shoulda killed him. I shoulda killed him. The words swirled around in his head. The faster he walked, the more the night air broke over his face. His hands were fisted so tightly that his fingernails dug into his palms.
The metallic waft of the blood on his shirt assaulted him, and he felt something noxious roiling in his gut. That smell…
A thick, dense forest of pine trees surrounded him. Somewhere, a river flowed. He could hear it. He should have been able to smell it too—the fresh, mossy scent of the water, let alone the heady, sharp scent of the pine needles that cushioned his step. But the dull, metallic stench of the blood overtook all of his senses.
“Adam?” Fletcher called. There was no response. His voice came out shaky and weak. “Adam, dude, where are you?”
There was a rustle from somewhere behind Fletcher. It wasn’t big enough to be a bear, but was too large to be a squirrel. It was like his body knew the sound before his mind did. He tensed. Every inch of his body sensed danger in the most primitive way. Sweat burned his eyes and poured down the back of his shirt.
It was coming for him. He needed to run. He needed to get away.
A branch shook. A twig snapped. Someone took another step through the foliage. But Fletcher was frozen. It was as if he had been turned into a statue. He thought his head was going to explode or his heart would blow through his chest. He wanted to growl, to roar, to make himself big and terrifying and impassable.
“Adam…” His voice was a mere whisper now, strained with tears and terror. “God, Adam. Man, where the fuck are you?”
Then the smell of blood grew stronger. He looked down. Fresh droplets fanned across the toes of his sneakers. Another drop fell and a fresh wave of nausea crashed over him. He looked up, trying to locate where the drop came from. Branches stretched above him, but that was all. He looked down at his shoes again as another drop fell at the edge of his vision, burning a trail down his cheek.
The Escape Page 6
