Blood and Other Matter

by Kaitlin Bevis

  He nodded, seeming to accept that. “We could tell the truth.”

  “And then tell her what? I had a bad dream where Josh stopped when I asked him to?”

  “It’s still assault, Tess. And if you were drugged—”

  “There’s no evidence, no signs of struggle, no proof anything actually happened.” There was comfort in going through the motions. A distraction in talking through logistics. Maybe this was why Derrick always turned to research when things got intense. “And even if there were, people would blame me for being dumb enough to let someone else fix my drink.” I spoke around a mouthful of pancakes. “You heard about that girl in Ohio that dared to press charges against their precious football players. She had solid proof, and it still turned into a witch hunt. Her mom got fired, and someone burned her house down. I’m not doing that to us. Not for the super slim chance he’d actually be found guilty enough to spend grand total of ninety days in jail. It’s not worth it.”

  Derrick worked his jaw, eyes narrowing. “Yeah, okay.”

  I knew what that shift in tone meant. “You’re not murdering Josh Worthington.”

  “I won’t have to.” Derrick looked up at me. “Something is killing off everyone who was at the bonfire. We just need to stay out of its way.”

  “Something?” I arched my eyebrows in surprise. “I just proved I have frickin’ powers and a shit-ton of motive. I think that mystery has been solved.”

  “You were here.” Derrick jabbed at the table with his finger. “Screaming Harrison’s name while he bled to death. Unless you think you can astral project, this isn’t you.”

  “What if I can?” I leaned forward, folding my hands beneath my chin. “Josh said he watched me burn. If I came back from that, who knows what else I can do?”

  Derrick shook his head. “Josh said he watched you burn, not that he saw you ripping his friends into pieces, which would kind of seem like the more pertinent image. You’re not a werewolf. They didn’t give you superpowers or awaken something dormant inside you or any other movie premise you’re about to throw at me.” Derrick’s fist tightened around his empty soda until the can crunched. “They tied you to a stake, painted you with symbols, and for all we know, lit the match. That’s ritualistic. If there’s anything supernatural happening here, it’s because of that.”

  Trust Derrick to decide he was an expert in paranormal activity two seconds into the unexplained. “If? Did you miss the magically disappearing stab wound? We need to figure out what else they gave me, what else I can—”

  “Would you think for a second?” He pushed back the chair and sprang to his feet. “Why would they give you magic, Tess? Out of the goodness of their date-raping hearts? This isn’t one of Ainsley’s books! What’s fueling this power? Do they have it? Does it wear off? If it does, does it take your sanity with it? Compel you to slit your wrist, stab yourself with a hunting knife, or I don’t know, a goddamn pencil!” His hand slammed down on the back of his chair.

  I flinched. “If Josh could heal, we wouldn’t have been able to beat him up.”

  “Maybe you all got something different.” He waved his arms as his spoke, motions becoming increasingly frenetic. “Maybe healing isn’t his power. Maybe you guys can only hurt each other. Maybe there are no powers, but there’s some force out there that doesn’t want you dead yet, so it’s keeping you alive until it says when.” He walked to the fridge, then whipped back toward the table. “The laws of reality just broke down, Tess. We know less than nothing about what we’re dealing with here. So, no. Our next step is not figuring out what you can do, because experimenting with something we don’t understand is possibly the stupidest—”

  “Okay, enough! I had a moment back there, I’ll admit, but—”

  “A moment?”

  “—given everything that’s going on, I’m kind of entitled. So stop trying to make me feel bad for what was obviously a complete and total mental breakdown.”

  “Your mental breakdown didn’t happen in a vacuum.” Derrick’s voice went hoarse with shouting.

  As his words echoed around the room, I came out of my fog enough for all the details I’d registered—his stress and panic—to form meaning. “Derrick, I’m—”

  “No, don’t apologize, that’s even worse. Look—” He slid back the chair and took a seat across from me. “I’m trying really hard not to lose it here, all right? I shouldn’t have yelled, and yeah, maybe the digs are out of line, but this is the best I can do, so at the very least, don’t trivialize what happened.”

  “Okay.” He didn’t have to tell me how much it sucked not to be able to lash back at the person who’d hurt you, especially when that person was someone you cared about. “So if our next step isn’t further testing, what is it?”

  “We start with Jenny Johnston. This started near her cabin and they used her book. Clearly, there’s something to that old ghost story.”

  I thought through everything I knew about her. “She lived to be nearly a hundred years old.” I brightened. “And one of the soldiers survived, so whatever we’re dealing with, it can be stopped.”

  “We just have to figure out how.” Derrick studied me for a long moment. “You weren’t the only one who dreamed about Harrison. They all did.”

  “What?”

  Derrick nodded. “Mom said they all called to warn her about Harrison. And Ryan confirmed they’ve all had nightmares with every death, too. But since you guys weren’t all together the whole time, they’re getting different pieces, different perspectives . . .” His gaze darted down to the table. “We need the rest of the details.”

  Which meant we’d need to talk to all of them. Even Josh. My gut twisted. “What makes you think they’ll tell you anything?”

  “I wasn’t planning on asking nice.”

  Chapter 32: Derrick

  Saturday, October 1st

  MAKING THREATS IS easy. Delivering on them. . . not so much. After Harrison died, the Worthingtons lost their battle at keeping the press at bay, which meant we weren’t leaving the house much. The school had finally given up on trying to return a sense of normal to the community and had closed for “planning days,” which made it damn near impossible to get a hold of the football players. They’d gone radio silent. No phones, no social media, nothing.

  The survivors had disappeared into their grief. And since the last time I’d been around Josh he’d ended up in the hospital, the other players’ parents weren’t all that willing to help pass along messages to them either. But fortunately, we knew one place they would be. Harrison’s funeral. Tess and I cornered them after a service that was so reminiscent of Ainsley’s that we were both on edge. “We need to talk.”

  Three varying degrees of skepticism, disbelief, and incredulity stared me back in the face.

  “Fuck. No,” Josh spat. “You gotta hell of a lotta nerve showing up here.”

  “We know what you did,” Tess murmured in a tone I didn’t recognize. “So unless you want them to know, too . . .” She spun on her heel and headed down the hall toward the Sunday School rooms without so much as a glance back to see if they’d follow.

  I stared after her for a second, surprised into silence. Everything about that exchange, down to the power in her stride as she walked off, was unlike Tess.

  “Ten minutes,” Josh grumbled, glaring at me before he hurried after her. Aaron and Matt exchanged a glance and followed her into one of the classrooms.

  I entered the room last, closed the door behind me, and leaned against the scratched wooden door with my arms crossed. The jocks didn’t notice because Tess commanded the room. She sat on top of the pine table, her black skirt short and tight against her crossed leg dangling off the edge.

  “You drugged me.” Her voice was pure venom and seemed out of place in a room where kids had obviously been involved in painting. Streaks of dark
blue paint and clotted yellow stars had been slathered on top of the cinder blocks.

  “Is that what you’re telling yourself happened?” Josh pulled out the chair just in front of Tess and sat down, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back like he was enjoying the show. “Why would anyone need to drug a desperate whore like you?”

  I lurched forward, but before I could take more than a step, Josh’s chair whipped forward in a blur of motion. Tess held him fast by a handful of his shirt, her eyes blazing with rage. “Say again?”

  “Whoa!” Aaron cried, holding his arms out in a gesture of surrender. “Let’s everyone calm down, okay?”

  Tess didn’t even seem to notice anyone else was in the room.

  “You. Drugged. Me.”

  Josh struggled to get free, but she wasn’t letting him go anywhere. Matt and Aaron edged toward him like they wanted to intervene, but weren’t sure how. If it had been me, they would have ripped me off Josh in a heartbeat, but Tess was a girl.

  “There was something in my drink.” Tess’s knuckles paled. “I would have never—”

  “No shit, Sherlock!” Josh snapped, trying unsuccessfully to pry her fingers free. “There was something in all of our drinks. Do you think I’d touch a skank like you with a ten foot pole if—”

  I didn’t even remember moving, but suddenly I was up against a wall of muscle in the form of Matt Lee.

  “Guys! Come on.” Aaron still held his hands out, like that was going to help something. “Josh, stop being an ass. You”—he pointed at me,—“back the fuck down. We’re not doing this here. Not today.”

  I thought of Harrison’s sobbing family down the hall and forced myself to take a breath and step back. “He doesn’t get to talk anymore.”

  “Fair enough,” Matt agreed, giving Josh a look that dared him to talk. “But he has a point about us all being drugged. I can’t think of anything else that could explain us forgetting everything.”

  I considered pointing out that no drug would impact this many people in such a uniform way, but Tess spoke up before I could.

  “Well, he remembers.” Tess motioned to Josh and unfolded the puzzle from her pocket, slapping it down on the table. “He said he watched me burn.”

  “Yeah, and you drew pictures of it,” Josh added. “So obviously, you remembered more than you were letting on.”

  “Shut up, Josh,” Aaron suggested.

  “I just drew it!” Tess protested. “That doesn’t mean I remember it happening, but Ryan said this came from—”

  “What is it that you think we did? Burned you at the stake?” Josh waved his hand up and down, motioning to all of Tess’s body. “That would leave a mark.”

  “Josh, shut up.” Aaron snapped.

  Tess gritted her teeth. “Yeah, about that whole leaving a mark thing—”

  “Guys, would you focus?” I yelled, exasperated. “Something happened that night, and for some reason, you guys are the only ones left. Any one of you could be next—”

  “Is that a threat?” Matt asked.

  “It’s a guess,” I clarified. “And a good one, given what we’re all doing here. What happened to Harrison, Ryan, Finn, Isaac and Chris could be coincidence, but on the off-chance it’s not, I don’t particularly want to wait around and figure out whose funeral I’ll be attending next. The more we know about who or what is doing this, the better chance—”

  “It’s her.” Josh pointed at Tess. “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out, yet. She’s got more reason than any of us.”

  This time, no one bothered telling him to shut up.

  “What reason? What did you guys do?” Tess demanded.

  “It can’t be her. She was with me when Harrison died. And she had the same dream the rest of you had.” I tried to reel the conversation back in. “Same thing happened when Chris died. Bits of what happened at the bonfire are coming back to her with every death, and I’m assuming that’s happening across the board?”

  They glanced at each other and nodded.

  “Then if we want to figure this out in time to be of any use, we’re going to have to work together. So how about we start with that book. What was—?”

  Josh looked me straight in the eye. “Fuck that.”

  “Josh,” Matt interjected. “He just said it can’t be her. So—”

  “He’s obviously lying to protect her!” Josh shouted. “He might even be in on it. His mom is the sheriff. You think it’s a coincidence that every death has been labeled a suicide or an ‘accident?’” Josh put the phrase in air quotes, pushing away from the table. “That’s B.S. and everyone knows it. I don’t trust them. And neither should you.”

  Tess moved toward Josh, but I got between them before she could lunge for him. “After what you did, you’ve got a lot of nerve talking about trust.”

  Josh snorted. “Why? Because I made out with your girlfriend? She wanted it, Hernandez. Right up until she didn’t, when, if memory serves, I backed the hell off.”

  “Liar! You did something to me!” Tess yelled, reaching over me. I moved to hold her back.

  I wasn’t surprised when Aaron and Matt walked away, pulling Josh with them, but I might have tried to stop them if it wasn’t for Tess, struggling to get around me and shouting after them.

  “You deserve whatever is coming for you!” she screamed. “I hope it hurts! Do you hear me! I hope it fucking hurts!”

  And so begins the witch hunt, Mom’s voice echoed in my head. I shushed Tess harshly before she caught the attention of those in the church.

  “What are you doing?” Tess demanded. “Let me go!” She twisted to face me and shoved me back so hard, I hit the ground before I realized what was happening.

  Air escaped my lungs in a painful whoosh. I tried to suck in a breath, but none came. It felt like a python was constricting around my neck.

  “Ohmigod!” Tess dropped beside me. “I don’t—I didn’t—”

  “I’m fine,” I managed to wheeze, climbing to my feet. “I just got the wind knocked out of me.” After a dragging in a few deep breaths, I felt almost normal. “I think that went well, don’t you?”

  Tess’s laugh only sounded a little like a sob.

  Chapter 33: Derrick

  Saturday, October 1st

  TESS RETREATED TO my room when we got home from the funeral. I’d taken over the kitchen table in a laughable attempt to get this essay written. I’d been stuck on the same sentence for the last hour.

  My pen ground into the paper—I couldn’t bring myself to use a pencil after Tess’s stunt—as I tried to shove all my anger and fear away and get back to some semblance of normalcy. Life had gone nuts, but the world didn’t stop turning.

  Would Tess do something stupid? She was getting more and more unhinged with every memory, and who could blame her? God, what if she was next? What if I couldn’t figure this out in time? What if—?

  “Is everything okay with Tess?” Mom asked as she passed through the kitchen with a basket of laundry.

  I stared down at my illegible scrawl, unsure how to respond. I’d read everything I could find to figure out how to help Tess cope with what she’d remembered, but I still felt clueless. “I don’t know,” I said, finally. “She’s going through stuff.”

  “Hmm.” Mom didn’t ask what stuff, and for a second, I wondered at that before I realized the sliver of horror that she did know was still pretty traumatic. “Whatcha working on?”

  “Essay.” I chewed on my pen, staring at the words on the page like my last sentence might surprise me and morph into something better. Normally, I’d type instead of writing, but I wasn’t allowed on my computer.

  “For school?” Mom paused in the doorway, eyebrows arching in surprise.

  I almost laughed. Every time the teachers even thought about pushing
us back on track, someone up and died. We were going to be screwed when AP testing began. “College application. Hey, Mom, when was the last time I ‘overcame adversity?’”

  She studied me for a long moment.

  “I’m not going to twist their deaths into talking points.”

  “Fair enough. You could talk about what happened with your dad. And how it didn’t divert you academically.”

  “What could it have diverted? Staying in the lines when I colored?”

  She balanced the laundry basket against her hip. “Do you remember that year?”

  “Learning subtraction under distressing circumstances isn’t good enough.”

  She snorted. “You could always play the single working mother card.”

  Using her struggle for my benefit seemed like a slap in the face. I gave a noncommittal grunt and changed the subject. “When do you think you’ll get some time off? I tried to move the futon into the office, but you have all those old boxes in there, and I wasn’t sure where—”

  “That’s right!” She remembered. “Oh, honey. I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy lately, I haven’t even had a second to think.”

  “It’s fine. It’s just everything is in my room.” Tess needed space to process what happened to her without me barging in every three seconds for something I needed.

  “We should give the office to Tess. It would take more work to move all your stuff than her clothes.”

  “When?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know when I’m going to have a minute off, hon. With everything that’s happened . . .”

  I’d barely seen her in the last couple days.

  “I’ll make some time,” she promised. “For now, why don’t you put all those old boxes in my room?”

  “Anywhere in particular?”

  “Just against the wall. I’ll find another place to put all that stuff when I can.”

  “All that stuff” was pretty much everything belonging to my dad.