by Heidi Acosta
Nervous energy dances through my veins as I step out of the bathroom and back into the hall. I pick up my pace and push open the first door I come to. I’m greeted by a bright blue room, with posters of football teams and girls in hot pink bikinis. A pile of dirty clothes sets on the floor next to an unmade bed. This must be Cardelian’s bedroom. I back out and continue my search.
It becomes obvious that none of the other bedrooms are Jaxson’s. When I come to a door at the end of the hallway that looks like a closet I open it and look up the dark stairs that lead to an attic. Of course! As if he’s not dark and brooding enough, he needs to add sleeping in a creepy attic to the list. Maybe he is a vampire. I take the stairs two at a time, trying not to make any noise as I go.
The attic is exactly what one would find in an old house. Dusty and dim, boxes set in corners with sheets covering them, and wooden slat walls peek out to the outside, letting a cold draft fill the space. A mattress rests on the floor in the center of the room, and a small desk is pushed up against one of the walls, the top littered with art supplies and Jaxson’s sketch book. Remembering the life-like drawing makes my heart beat violently. I pad quietly across the floor to the desk.
I shouldn’t look, I would be horrified if someone tried to peek at my writing without my permission, but the image of him with glowing eyes—the creature of my nightmares—overpowers my sense of right and wrong. I have to know what he is hiding. I open the first page and find nothing out of the ordinary—just still life sketches of fruit and flowers. I continue turning the pages, and sketch after sketch, they begin to change into a girl. She has long, black hair that covers most of her face, large, almond-shaped eyes, and delicate features. She is exotic and beautiful.
On the next page, they change, and she’s screaming in pain. I keep flipping until it looks like she might crawl right off the pages. My heart races. I want to help her and stop whatever it is that is hurting her. I can hear her screams ringing around the room—loud, sharp, desperate pleas for help. I flip to the next page, and my heart stops, my stomach drops to the floor, and panic turns to fear in my veins.
The images change from the girl to sketches of me, it’s like looking in the mirror. When did he do theses? There are tons of them at different points during my day. Liv and me by the lockers. Me eating lunch and walking home. Me leaning on my hand, gazing off into the distance. The next picture chills me to the bone. It’s me, looking out of my bedroom window wearing my pajamas from this morning. A cold sweat trickles down my back. Is he stalking me? I flip the pages and all of them are me. The last drawing is one of me standing in a dress, barefoot on a frozen lake, and my eyes are shut as if I’m waiting for something.
A hand slams the book shut and ice travels down my spine. I spin around to face him. He is calm, but anger radiates off him and blackness swirls inside his eyes. “Did you see something you like?” he asks in a menacing tone.
Before I can think of what my next move should be, he reaches out and snatches my wrist, wrapping his fingers tightly around it. I yank my hand, but his grip is like a vice.
“Why are you watching me?” My voice cracks, my throat is dry and itchy, and my head spins.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he says in a low voice, pulling me closer to him.
I dig my heels down, attempting to make my feet lead weights, but to no avail. He easily drags me until I’m pressed hard against him, his cold breath washing over me. Everything I found alluring—the misunderstood, elusive boy—I now find frightening and sinister. I yank my hand again, my wrist throbbing where he holds it.
“Why do you have drawings of me then?” My heart beats so loudly that I can barely hear my words over it.
“Think of it as the same itch you get when you see someone with no legs struggling, a car wreck, or … a dead body.”
He smiles and my stomach lurches in response.
“You don’t want to look, but you can’t look away.”
“Who is the other girl? Did you attack her, too?”
“She was a player who lost the game.” His words are clipped, but the crooked, sinister smile remains on his face, and his eyes dance with amusement.
“What did you do to her?” I choke on the vomit that is competing with my words to be released. I swallow hard, forcing the contents back down.
The smile slips from his face. “She didn’t play by the rules like she was supposed to.”
“Did she find out what you are? Did she figure out what made your eyes glow?” I tug again, and this time, he releases it.
“This is a dark and dangerous game you are playing, Ace.”
I back away, not daring to turn my back on him. “I already told you, I’m not playing any games,” I say with force. I bump into the mattress on the floor, causing me to stumble backwards.
“Yes, you are. We’re all playing the game.” His eyes flicker, like the lights above us, going from pale blue to a bright, a glowing turquoise. I turn and run.
Chapter Seventeen
I stand in the center of a frozen pond, and despite being barefoot, I can’t feel the cold. I have on an amethyst colored dress. The bodice is tight, and the bones of it dig into my ribs, making it hard to breathe. The skirt trails behind me, wrapping around my ankles in the wind. My hair falls to my shoulders in soft waves. It is the same dress from Jaxson’s drawing.
Snow falls like ash, blanketing the shore of the pond and clinging to the bare trees. A dark figure steps out. My heart begins to slam in my chest. It’s my attacker. He pushes his hood back, revealing himself to me. All the air in my lungs escapes, and I feel my legs go weak.
It’s Jaxson, and his eyes are glowing bright blue. I turn to run, but the ice begins to break under me, and I sink into the frozen, black water. I attempt to swim to the surface, kicking furiously, but my dress is wrapped tight around my legs, binding them together. I scream, but all I manage to do is suck in icy water. It cuts my lungs like razors. The veins in my arms twist and turn on the paleness of my skin, turning from blood to ice inside of me. I’m dying.
I am hit hard from behind, and it bumps into me, pushing me farther down. I pull at the water, moving until I’m looking up into the milky eyes of a dead girl.
I push her away from me, desperate to get away. Her skin is a sick green color, and her hair is matted with clumps of pond vegetation, floats out around her swollen face. I try to scream, but end up filling my drowning lungs with more water. I panic, desperately wanting to get away as more girls float up toward me from the bottom.
There are disfigured, bodies decomposing and bones exposed. Liv is there—drowned, dead—along with Essie and Juliet. Dead girls fill the black water all around me. Then I see her and stop fighting. It’s me, just as I am now, same dress, same hair, but my eyes are different, they are white with the milky substance of death.
I wake up, gagging. Tangled in my sheets, I tumble out of bed, barely making it to the bathroom before I vomit. I expel everything that’s in my stomach, and it tastes like rotten water.
###
The dream has been haunting me all day.
“You look horrible,” Liv says as I open my locker.
I feel horrible.
“Does this have to do with Jaxson?”
I bite my lip, contemplating telling her everything from his glowing eyes to the weird stalker-like behavior.
“What happened when you went in his house yesterday? What were you thinking going inside with him?”
“I don’t know? Maybe get some answers.”
“If he did anything to hurt you, so help me I will find him, and—”
“Liv, I’m fine. He didn’t do anything to hurt me.” Yet.
She hesitates for a moment, searching my face. “Eden, you’re freaking me out. What happened in there? And don’t tell me nothing because I know you too well to know that there is something wrong.”
I press my fingers to my eyes, trying to sort through what I actually saw and what I should tell Liv. Jaxson said he was p
laying a game, one he thinks I’m a part of, but I don’t even know the rules.
“Eden.” Liv’s voice is sharp.
She is not going to be satisfied until I give her something. I don’t want to pull her into whatever Jaxson is doing, don’t want him to turn his sights on her. The image of her lifeless body surfaces from my dream.
“I just got freaked out in there. The whole house is like something out of a horror movie, as in kids living in the walls kind of freaky, and I kept expecting to see Mrs. Foster with a butcher knife behind me.”
“And?”
“And, I went into his room,”
“You went into his room?” Liv repeats horrified.
I pull a piece of hair from my ponytail and begin to play with it. “And he had these drawings of a girl, lots of them, and all the same girl,” I admit, leaving out that there were also drawings of me.
“So?”
“So it was just really weird, like stalker weird.”
Liv’s eyes go round. “Do we know her? Do you think we should we call the police?”
“No, I’ve never seen her before. And what would we tell the police anyway? I was snooping in his room and found pictures of a girl?” Saying it aloud makes it sound even more ridiculous.
“That is so creepy! I knew there was something off about that kid, there always is when it comes to the fosters,” Liv says. “Eden, promise me you will leave this alone.”
“I think he knows something about the attack,” I murmur.
“Oh no, I know that look. Do not even try to Nancy Drew this case. For all we know, he could be the creep that attacked you, and we don’t know what he’s capable of. There is something seriously wrong with that guy, and I’m afraid you might get hurt that if you go snooping around. Eden, please promise you will stay far away from him,” she begs me.
“I promise,” I say.
“You really think Jaxson attacked you?” Liv asks, following me into the library and down an aisle.
“Shhh,” I hiss at her. “Someone is going to hear you. I need to find out more information before I can go to the police.”
“Eden, you said you were going to leave it alone? Besides, you already went to his house. What more can you do?” She raises one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows at me.
I check over my shoulder as I stop and take a book off the shelf. “I’m not sure yet. Can you get to his file? Maybe there’s something in there about him.”
Liv shoves a book on a random shelve without looking at the title. “I can try, but Dr. Black keeps the records locked up in his office.” Liv grabs another book and shoving it into a free spot.
We stop walking, and she eyes me suspiciously. “Are you sure about Jaxson? I mean, really sure?”
“Liv, I’m sure.”
She sighs. “You also accused Buck and questioned Jamie.”
“And I already apologized for that. Are you going to hold it over me forever?” I whisper as we shuffle down the aisle a little more.
“Until we are old and gray and wearing a wide array of animal print, I will still hold it over your head.”
I push the cart holding go-back books, knocking it into her.
“Hey,” she yelps.
I give her my best impish grin. “Look, they missed burning this one.” I pluck a book off the cart and wave it in front of her. “At least, someone in this town is not as narrow-minded as I thought.”
She ignores my comment. We have moved into the Mythology section, which is only about two books deep. I pick up another book that is about to die and press it to my chest.
“If one of the players gets a grass stain, this school orders new football uniforms, but books that were not even new when my grandmother went here, still set in the same spot. You think it would kill them to get a few updated materials.”
Liv rolls her eyes and takes the book from me, shoving it on the shelf.
“Really, Eden, you think everyone in this town is so small minded that they only care about football and farming. You know I cheer for that team.”
“Liv, I didn’t mean you! I love you.” I smile at her.
“I know. It’s just sometimes when you make comments about Copake Falls it feels like you are talking about me.” She moves to the next aisle, the one with the burnt out light bulb, which was probably that way since before my grandmother went here, but I don’t say anything about it.
“No, Liv, never.” I walk around the cart and hug her. “Honestly, I don’t know what I would do without you.”
She hugs me back. “I love you, too.”
My eyes well up, and I can feel my emotions start to bubble over because I really do need Liv. If I didn’t have her … My mind flashes back to the nightmare that has been haunting me. I try to squeeze the thought of the dead Liv out of my mind.
A loud crashing sound makes us both jump. “What was that?” Liv whispers in my ear.
“I don’t know, but it came from the other side.”
“Maybe we should go get Ms. Betty.” Liv glances nervously toward the back of the library.
“No, let’s go see what it was.” I take a step forward.
“Don’t! This place gives me the creeps,” Liv protests.
I grab her hand and pull her with me.
“Eden, no.”
“Shhh. Do you hear that?” The closer we get to the end of the aisle I can hear voices, but they are too muffled for me to make out what they are saying. I turn to Liv, putting my finger to my lips, and she nods. Still holding hands like we did when we were kids, we move closer.
It is Jaxson and Juliet, and they look like they are in a heated argument. I get down on my knees, Liv following suit, and we peer around the corner. He has her pinned to the wall, both of his hands planted next to her head.
If it weren’t for the strange, pinched look on Juliet’s face, I would have thought that we’d stumbled upon a heavy make-out session. She looks scared, which scares me because Juliet has never backed down to anyone. She also looks strange. Her normal, shining blue eyes are dulled and downcast, staring at her untied boots, and her long, perfect blonde hair hangs in greasy strings.
“Did you think you could get away? Don’t you understand yet? I told you, you will never get away,” Jaxson says his voice low and threatening.
Fear spikes inside of me as I remember Juliet floating in my dream with the other dead girls.
“No. I–I–I thought if I just g–got away for a little bit that things would ch–change,” she stutters. She is far from the confident girl that keeps Liv on her toes.
Jaxson raises his fist and slams it into the wall next to her head, sending pieces of plaster raining to the floor. “That will just make it worse,” he growls.
Whatever Juliet has done to me in the past is not bad enough to make me walk away from this. I have to help her. I stand up, but Liv yanks me back to the ground.
“What are you doing?” she hisses.
“I have to stop him,” I whisper back.
“You can’t do that! Do you see what he is doing to her? He’s scary. Let’s just go get help.”
I shake my head no. By the time we get help, something bad might happen to Juliet, and I couldn’t live with that—not after seeing her in my dream.
“Go and get help. I’m going to do something,” I tell her.
“Eden, please,” she desperately pleads.
“Go.”
Liv looks like she wants to argue, but another punch to the wall from Jaxson sends her darting down the aisle. Juliet is now cowering away from him and whimpering.
“Hey,” I step out from my hiding spot, “do you guys know where I can find the history of Copake Falls? Ms. Betty said it was back here, but I can’t seem to find it.”
Both Juliet and Jaxson’s heads snap in my direction. I feel like a bucket of ice water was thrown over me. Ice shoots through me as Jaxson’s cold eyes meet mine. He holds me with them, and I don’t know what to do. It’s like I’m a prisoner. His eyes throb a bright, glo
wing blue. The coldness travels to a smirk that is painted across his lips, but there is nothing friendly about it. He turns back to Juliet, who is still pressed against the wall.
“This is not over.” He sneers and walks away without a glance in my direction.
We watch him walk away with an easy glide as if nothing unusual just happened, he wasn’t just threatening Juliet, and his eyes weren’t lit up like a damn light bulb. I turn back to Juliet, who is staring at him, strings of blonde hair hanging in her face.
“Are you okay?”
“Why don’t you just mind your own business?” she hisses before walking away.
Chapter Eighteen
I can’t let him get away. I run out into the hallway, looking for Jaxson, but it is empty. My forehead breaks out in a cold sweat as I search for him. Rain knocks against the scattered block windows above the lockers, making shadows dance in corners and along the walls. They seem to follow me, and I walk faster, the uneasy feeling blossoming in the pit of my stomach. They stretch up the dirty white walls, licking at the lights overhead. I’m losing it.
I squeeze my eyes shut, repeating in a whisper, “I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy.” When I open my eyes, all the lights have gone out.
Bang! I jump as the double doors at the end of the hall slam against the frame and the sound reverberates through the hallway. Rain spills inside, yanking the purple homecoming flyers off the wall, scattering them across the floor in a sticky, wet mess. I swallow, my tongue stuck to the dry roof of my mouth and run to my last class of the day. I know I will find him there.
The shadows nip at my heels until I push open the classroom door and slam it shut. I gasp in the thick, hot air that steams off the radiator at the back of the room. He waits for me, leaning lazily against a brick wall, clearly amused. His eyes dance over me.
This is all a game to him, I remind myself.
He wears a sadistic smile on his face, reminding me of a snake, ready to strike and kill its victim.
I stalk up to him, willing my heartbeat to slow. “What did you do to her?” I narrow my eyes.
