Hendricks hadn’t been expecting this subject change, and it took her a second to figure out how to respond. Her mouth was still dry, and her eyes kept flicking back to the area down the hall where, just a few seconds ago, those girls had been standing. “Uh . . . what?”
“School musical?” Connor repeated. He laughed sheepishly and ran a hand back through his hair. “Remember? I told you I usually help out with backstage stuff. Set construction, woodworking, that sort of thing. You said you were interested in doing crew again?”
With one last glance down the hall, Hendricks turned her full attention back to Connor. “Right, I was interested, I mean, I am interested.”
Connor shoved the rest of his books into his bag, and the two began walking down the hallway. “Well, you’re in luck. They’re doing South Pacific this year, so they need someone to build an entire island out of cardboard.”
“That sounds cool.” Hendricks couldn’t help thinking about how she would construct something like that, scouring the internet for places that sold fake plants on the cheap, maybe repurposing some of the prom decorations, the netting and cardboard fish, at least. “I think I’ll sign up, too.”
They walked in silence for a moment. Then Connor cleared his throat. He seemed to be trying very hard not to look at her.
He’s going to ask about prom, Hendricks realized. Everything inside of her clenched tight.
“So,” Connor said. “About—”
“Listen,” Hendricks blurted, at the same time. “I think you’re great.”
Connor closed his eyes, a sharp breath escaping through his teeth. “But?”
Hendricks blinked, feeling a surge of uncertainty. She wanted to stop now, to backtrack and make a joke to break the tension between them.
This was Connor. She didn’t want to hurt Connor.
But that’s why she had to keep going, wasn’t it? Because it was the right thing to do, even if it sucked. She’d only hurt him more if she kept leading him on.
And so she said, her heart stuttering, “Some girl is going to be so lucky to go to the prom with you.”
Connor’s expression darkened. “Just not you. That’s what you’re saying, right?”
“I need a friend right now, more than I need a date.”
Connor stopped walking. He suddenly seemed very interested in something happening on the sole of his shoe. He scuffed it into the floor once, twice. “Is this because of Eddie?”
“No. I don’t know.” Hendricks pressed her lips together. She didn’t know what to say. “I’m just . . . not ready yet.”
“When will you be ready? Two more months? A year?”
There was something terrible about his voice then, desperate and sad. Hendricks hated that she was the one who made him sound like that. “Connor—”
“Or never?” Something shuttered in Connor’s face. It was like a curtain being drawn; a door slamming shut. “Because you don’t like me like that? Not like you liked him?”
“That’s not what this is about.” Hendricks reached for Connor’s arm, but he took a quick step back.
“Don’t do that, don’t try to make it okay. I just want you to tell me the truth. Do you have feelings for me at all?”
“It’s not that simple—”
“Actually, it is that simple. It’s very simple. You either feel something, or you don’t. Which is it?”
“If you need me to answer you right now, then—”
“Yeah,” Connor said, cutting her off. “I think an answer now would be good.”
Hendricks closed her eyes. Her brain turned slowly, trying to figure out the right thing to say, coming up blank. “Then I . . . I don’t. I—I can’t. I’m sorry.”
There was silence, for a moment, a terrible, weighted silence in which everything seemed to change.
And then Connor sucked in a breath and said, in a low, angry voice Hendricks had never heard him use before. “Because I’m not him.” The look he gave her cut through the air like a knife. “I can’t compete with a dead guy.”
Something inside of Hendricks’s chest twisted. She couldn’t believe he’d just said that, just as she couldn’t believe that he was looking at her the way he was looking at her now, his cheeks red, the muscles in his jaws tight with tension. It took her a moment to choke out a response. “That . . . that was really cold, Connor.”
“But true.” He bit down hard on the word true, and Hendricks felt her stomach drop. She was caught off guard by how much it hurt.
What hurt even more was that it was true, if Hendricks was being honest with herself. She didn’t know where they could go from here. She didn’t know when, or if, she’d ever be ready to move on.
And then he shook his head and stalked off, leaving Hendricks alone in an empty hallway filled with ghosts.
CHAPTER
10
Hendricks didn’t know where to eat lunch the next day. Usually, she ate at the corner table with Portia and Connor, but Connor was pissed at her, and she figured Portia was still annoyed from their argument the day before. Somehow, in the space of about ten minutes, she’d managed to piss off every friend she had here.
She hovered at the cafeteria door, lunch bag in hand, before veering off down a narrow hall that led to the library.
The library was small and empty. It had orange carpeting and two dozen sadly stocked shelves. There wasn’t a librarian on duty, at least not one Hendricks could see, but there was a line of computers against the far wall, humming faintly.
Technically, you weren’t supposed to eat in here, so Hendricks kept her lunch bag hidden as she wove through the stacks. When she was sure she wouldn’t be seen, she sat cross-legged on the floor and started digging in. It was only a few minutes before her phone started pinging.
Portia. Where are you?
Hendricks chewed on her lower lip and then opted to ignore it. She needed a break. But her phone kept pinging, and when she finally looked down, she saw that every message was from Portia.
Hendricks groaned and flipped the phone over. She pulled a baggie of baby carrots out of her bag and tried to distract herself by wondering where baby carrots came from, whether they started out baby or were they just normal carrots that someone cut down into tiny shapes. But her mind kept veering back to her friends. She hated when people were mad at her.
A book slid out of the shelf above her and thudded to the floor next to her leg. Hendricks thought she caught the smell of something. Cigarette smoke and baby shampoo.
Eddie.
She stood quickly and her eyes moved past the metal shelves holding row after row of dusty books, to the shadowy aisle on the other side. From where she was standing, she could see patches of orange carpet and another row of books, nothing else.
“Hello?” Hendricks called. The light bulb above her flickered. Her heartbeat quickened.
No one answered, but Hendricks thought she saw the shadows behind the bookshelf shift. Her breath stopped in her throat. She crept closer, closer, squinting through the shelves again—
Then, from behind her, giggling, followed by a girl’s breathy voice. “Brandon, stop!”
Hendricks flinched. There was a shuffling sound of footsteps on the other side of the bookshelf, and then two kids rounded the corner, a boy and a girl. They were seniors by the look of it, and they were dressed kind of strangely. The boy’s jeans were a touch too tight, and his hair swept away from his face in soft waves, reminding Hendricks of a villain from an old movie. The girl looked dated, too. Her curly hair wasn’t quite in style, although her jean jacket looked like something Hendricks had seen people wear today. In fact, she was pretty sure Portia had the same one in her closet. Brandon had his arms wrapped around her waist, thumbs hooked into her jeans, and the girl was sliding her fingers up into his hair. He leaned in to kiss her—
Hendricks blushed and cleared her
throat to let them know she was there. The girl pulled away, dark curls swinging forward to hide her face. She didn’t look her way, but Hendricks recognized the pale pink jean jacket she was wearing and realized it was the same girl she’d seen the day before, the one who’d reminded her of Portia.
She even looked a little like Portia. She had the same dark brown skin and wide-set eyes, the same full lips. Her hair was different though, big and curly.
“Not here,” the girl murmured. “Someone could see us.”
“Come on, don’t be such a priss,” the boy said condescendingly. He tugged her close and gestured around them. “There’s no one else here.”
A soft sigh escaped from Hendricks’s lips. There’s no one else here, he’d said.
But . . . she was standing just a few feet away.
“You’re ghosts,” she said, on an exhale, understanding crashing over her. It was the only explanation that made any sense. This boy and girl were dead. She was watching something that had already happened, probably years and years ago.
This sort of thing had happened to her before, at Steele House. She’d watched as scenes from the past played out around her. Horrible things, mostly. Things she’d tried very hard to forget.
Her skin began to crawl. The last ghosts she’d seen had tried to kill her and had actually killed Eddie.
She needed to get the hell out of here.
She began to back toward the door—
There was a noise on the other side of the library, a shoe dragging over carpet, a soft exhale. Hendricks’s eyes darted back to the bookshelves.
This time, she saw another set of dark eyes peering out from behind the books.
Hendricks swore and stumbled backward, nearly losing her balance. Her eyes darted back to the end of the aisle, but the boy and girl had disappeared. For some reason, this frightened her more than when they’d been standing a few feet away. If they weren’t there anymore, then where were they?
The answer came to her instantly: anywhere. They could be anywhere.
The lights flickered, again.
Off.
On.
And now the girl in the pale pink jean jacket was standing directly in front of Hendricks, her nose inches from Hendricks’s nose, a smell like spoiled meat clinging to her breath. Hendricks wanted to run, to scream, but she felt frozen, paralyzed in place.
The girl was different now. Her face had been mutilated, those thick, dark curls hacked away so that raw, bleeding skin showed through the few remaining tendrils. Her left eye was bruised and so swollen that she didn’t seem able to open it, and her right eye was pitch black, as though her inky pupils had expanded to fill the entire socket.
Someone had carved an inverted pentagram onto one of her cheeks, badly, the cuts barely more than angry hacks in the meat of her face. Her skin was angry and raw and pink where the blade had dug into her. Blood trailed down her face in dark rivulets, gathering in the corner of her lips, the crease of her chin.
Hendricks watched, horrified, as the girl lifted a finger to Hendricks’s face and traced the line of her jaw. Her skin was like ice, and it left Hendricks feeling cold straight down to her bones.
“He’ll be back for you,” the girl said. Her voice was throaty and deep.
The lights flicked off.
Hendricks’s paralysis broke. Knees knocking together, she turned and fled, flying through the library door. She stumbled out into the hall, her heart thudding in her chest, tears streaming down her face. She felt like something pressing against her, holding her back. She tried to breathe but each inhale was a hard scrape in her throat, like something inside of her was trying to claw its way out.
She didn’t dare look back to see whether anything was chasing her, but she could’ve sworn she felt a cold nipping at her heels, and the sound of buzzing in her ears. There was a sharp sting in her forearm, and when she looked down, she saw something moving just below her skin, like an insect trapped inside of her, trying to get out.
Hendricks froze, a scream building in her throat. She watched as two antennae poked up through her flesh, splitting the skin on her arm until it was large enough for a single wasp to crawl out of her, wings heavy with blood, eyes glassy and black.
Hendricks slammed back against a locker, clutching her throbbing arm.
The bell rang, making Hendricks flinch. She gaped wordlessly as students spilled out of the cafeteria and quickly surround her.
When she looked down, she saw that the wasp was gone. There was no scab on her arm, no blood—nothing but smooth, unbroken skin.
* * *
• • •
Hendricks didn’t know how she made it through the rest of the school day. She was sliding into her desk for her first class after lunch and then, the next thing she knew, the final bell was ringing. At her locker, she was determinedly trying to ignore the lingering scent of roses and what seemed like a second later, she was shuffling down the sidewalk toward home, apparently having decided to skip prom committee.
She released a sudden breath, causing the hair hanging down over her face to flutter. Skipping prom committee was probably for the best. She couldn’t imagine untangling streamers or painting glitter onto chairs after what she’d seen.
She made her way up the steps to her house and pushed the front door open.
“Diane?” called her dad from the kitchen.
“No,” Hendricks said, fighting tears. She thought of that girl’s black eyes, her mutilated face.
“Hendricks?” Her dad had appeared at the living room door, scratching his chin. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
Hendricks opened her mouth to say that she was fine and released a strangled sob, instead. She couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t pretend to be normal when everything was falling apart. She pressed a hand to her mouth, her face crumbling as she choked back fresh tears.
“Oh, honey.” Her father was suddenly by her side, one arm slung around her shoulder. “What’s the matter? I thought you had something after school? Like a prom . . . thing? Did you and your friends get into a fight?”
Hendricks shook her head. “No . . . it’s not that, it’s just . . . stress.”
Stress. That was the understatement of the year.
Still, it seemed like the right thing to say. Something in her dad’s expression softened as he said, “I know how hard this is for you, going back to school after camp and Eddie, and Raven . . .” he trailed off, clearing his throat. “But it’s not going to get better all at once. Some days are going to be harder than others. The best you can do is just take them one day at a time, you know?”
Hendricks nodded miserably. “Yeah, I guess,” she said.
“Come on.” Her dad suddenly clapped her on the shoulder and stood. “Let’s go for a drive. What do you say to burying our feelings with something sugary?”
Despite herself, Hendricks smiled. An ice cream cone or a doughnut wasn’t going to help, not really, but it touched her that her dad was trying so hard.
“Yeah, okay,” she said, offering up a watery smile. “Let’s go.”
* * *
• • •
Hendricks and her dad hadn’t spent much time alone together in the last few years. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, it was just that Hendricks’s family had always been a fairly tight, three-person unit. When Hendricks was little, she was always going on outings to the movies and trendy restaurants with her parents. And then Brady had come along, and her parents’ house-flipping business had gotten busier, and Hendricks had started high school.
So she was touched to see that her dad was taking this outing pretty seriously. Meaning, he insisted they stop at Dead Guy to grab lattes, even though Hendricks knew he hated coffee, and he let her choose the music they listened to in the car. She appreciated the effort. And it seemed to be working—she did feel a littl
e better.
Until dad turned down their old road.
“I just want to take a peek at the construction site,” he explained, slowing the car as they approached the Steele House lot. Hendricks’s heart began to beat louder and louder in her ears. Sweat broke out on her palms and under her armpits. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, trying to look normal. As though that were even possible.
Her dad cut the car’s engine. The music switched off, leaving them in strained silence. Hendricks, thinking about the wasps, refusing to look directly at the foundation. Tension crawled up the back of her neck. It didn’t feel safe to be here.
Her dad leaned forward over the steering wheel, the skin between his eyebrows creasing. “What the hell?”
Hendricks swallowed and followed his gaze. Even though she knew what they were going to find, even though she’d seen it with her own eyes, she still wasn’t completely prepared for the long, jagged crack that ran through the foundation. Evidence of the séance gone wrong.
Her dad swore under his breath and then threw the door open and climbed out of the car.
Cautiously, Hendricks followed him.
Some construction workers had gathered around the edges of the site. Her dad made a beeline toward them, but Hendricks veered off in the opposite direction, walking right up to the edge of the crack.
It jutted across the foundation, the edges rough. Now that Hendricks was looking straight down into it, she could see the ground below. So it wasn’t a gateway to hell, then. The thought wasn’t as comforting as she’d hoped it would be. The toes of her sneakers sent bits of rock and cement crumpling down over the sides of the crack and cascading into the darkness.
She sipped her coffee. Despite the sweet, syrupy flavor, it tasted bitter on her tongue, and she knew it was going to keep her up all night, but she drank it anyway. She needed something to keep her hands busy.
Until this moment, she hadn’t really understood what Portia meant when she’d said she felt a presence. Had the temperature changed? Had she felt a breeze, or seen a shadow?
The Unleashed Page 9
