by S. Massery
She frowns.
I lean in close, until my nose touches hers. “As long as you never put on an act like she does, we’ll be okay.”
She sucks in a breath, and my heart skips. I could listen to her little reactions for the rest of my life and be happy.
Her dark eyes meet mine. “As long as you don’t put on your mask, we’ll be okay.”
“You just want me vulnerable.”
“Yep.” She pops the p, then winks.
The bell rings, and she flinches.
Students flood out into the hall, but we remain where we are. She takes a step back and crosses her arms. She’s trying to hide again, but I know she’s afraid to go into my aunt and uncle’s house.
“They’re gone. The house will be empty,” I reason. “And since I have practice…”
“God,” she moans. “I hate you.”
Robert clears his throat. “Are you waiting on me, kiddo?”
She spins around. “Oh, um, no. Riley is going to give me a ride. I think we’re going to do homework at her house.”
He smiles. “Okay. Just let Lenora know, okay?”
“Will do.”
I follow her down the hall and tug her to a stop outside of the athletic wing. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Right.”
“I’m just going to get changed. We’ll discuss this in a few minutes.”
She nods curtly, and I leave her standing there. She’ll need to be brave—but I have a feeling Riley will be able to help with that.
Besides, we need answers.
I get changed quickly, meeting up with Theo. Eli and Liam are in the far corner.
“Eli said he wasn’t in the mood for whatever bullshit I had in mind,” Theo says. “So, you’re with me.”
Lucky me.
“What suicide run are we doing today?” I ask, lacing my sneakers.
He just grins.
Coach walks into the locker room, pounding on one of the metal doors to get our attention. “Remember: do not run alone. I want five miles, and you log what time you come back on this sheet. Got it?”
“Yes, Coach,” we all call.
“Great. Now get out of here.”
I flip off Eli as they leave. He returns the gesture, laughing.
“We need to make a pit stop,” I tell Theo.
His eyebrows go up, but he says nothing. We shove the door open and head around the building. It’s easy to spot Margo and Riley by her car.
Margo clutches her jacket tighter around her, frowning at me. “It’s freezing out here.”
I shrug. “We need to get in shape.”
Coach’s voice in the distance drifts closer on the wind. I would’ve thought he’d stay inside, but I guess he wants to make sure we actually run. Theo and I need to get moving before he spots us chatting—otherwise we’ll end up with another two miles on our plate.
I tilt her face toward me and steal a kiss. She rises on her toes, trying to deepen it, and I grin against her lips. “I have to go.”
She huffs. “Fine. I’ll see you later.”
I stuff a folded envelope in her hand. It has the key to my aunt and uncle’s house, as well as the code to their alarm system.
“Tonight,” I promise. I’m going to take her on an actual date—nice clothes, flowers. The whole thing. I’ll pick her up and take her to the fancy restaurant, and we’ll drink fizzy cider and pretend its champagne. It’s a surprise I’ve been holding on to for a few days now, and I’m proud of myself for not ruining it.
After all, we deserve a spot of happiness in our senior year.
“Come on,” Theo groans.
I touch her cheek, smiling to myself, and turn away. That kiss will keep me warm.
Theo and I head off, quickly finding a pace that both of us can sustain.
“I’m thinking the old mill road,” he says.
It’s a dirt road, winding and long, with a giant hill in the middle.
Kind of perfect… kind of awful.
I grunt, then catch his grin out of the corner of my eye. Bastard.
Coach’s one rule is that we have to stay together. It’s why I don’t generally run with Liam—he likes to go slow, then sprint toward the end. Eli and I run best together, but Theo… when I need a push, he’s my guy.
Even now, he speeds up a bit. I lengthen my stride to match his long one.
“I’m gonna be in pain by the time this is over,” I tell him.
“That’s why I like this route,” he tells me. “Once we get over the hill, it’s all downhill. The first half is just a bitch.”
“Speaking of bitches…”
He rolls his eyes. “Nice segue.”
“Have you heard anything about Amelie?” I ask. “I never thought to ask her how she knew about Margo’s mom.”
He nods. “Right. She knew where Amberly was staying.”
“Kind of a weird thing for her to know…” I roll my shoulders back.
We turn onto the dirt road. It takes us a few strides to adjust to the new texture under our feet, and both of us slow a fraction.
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
“Matt knew people from Emery-Rose,” I reason. “So it wouldn’t be crazy to think Unknown goes to our school.”
“But…”
“But my top suspect was Amelie, since she has her sticky fingers in everything. It wouldn’t have been a stretch for her to tell Savannah to send the picture of Ian and Margo to me.”
“What are you and Margo going to focus on once this is over?”
I glance at him. “You and your love life, of course.”
He bursts out laughing. “Fuck you, man.”
“Come on. You don’t think you and—”
He elbows me. “Focus on Eli and Riley. They need more immediate help.”
“Truth.”
They’ve been weird. Not that it’s really any different from their past, but it’s a cause for concern. And Eli refuses to talk about it. I’m sure Riley isn’t talking, either, otherwise Margo would’ve made some big play to fix it.
We quit talking and focus on running. We’ve reached the hill, and it’s taken us almost thirty minutes to get here.
I check my watch, which tracks distance, and groan when I see we’ve already run four miles. I’m going to kill him for almost doubling our running distance—but it’s too late to turn back now.
Both of us are breathing hard by the time we make it to the top a few minutes later, and I motion to stop. I bend over, elbows on my thighs, and suck in air.
“That was like a mile-long hill,” I gasp. “Fucking hell.”
There’s a reason I don’t come this way. It’s also the reason Theo’s in better shape than I am—he runs this route a lot. Eli and I prefer flatter roads.
“You gonna live?” Theo asks.
I shake my head, tempted to flop over. “Maybe not.”
He slaps my back. “Walk it off.”
And then he takes off, continuing down the road. At a walk, at least. But still.
I catch up to him easily enough, sucking in deep breaths. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”
“That’s the spirit.”
And off we go.
We’re near the bottom of the hill when a car comes up behind us. We scoot to the side, Theo jogging directly in front of me.
I move farther over when the car behind me doesn’t pass us. There’s a whole stretch of road to our left, but… some drivers are weird. Overly cautious.
The vehicle comes up next to us, keeping pace until I glance over at them.
Margo’s foster sister.
She waves at me, frantic, until Theo and I stop. The car shoots ahead of us, then the tail lights illuminate. The car rocks to a stop.
“The fuck?” Theo says.
I walk up to the passenger window, my brow furrowing. “Claire?”
“Caleb, I’ve been trying to find you! Margo was in an accident. Lenora asked me to come find you. You weren’t answering your phone
…” She covers her mouth with her hand and shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”
My stomach drops into my feet. My phone is safely tucked in my gym bag in the locker room. And I just left Margo not too long ago.
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes fill with tears. “They wouldn’t tell us anything.”
I glance up and down the street, but it’s quiet. The need to get to her is insane, spiking adrenaline through my system. I could run back to school, but we’re almost two miles out.
“Go,” Theo says, reading my mind.
I yank her door open and slide inside.
She gasps. “What are you doing?”
“They took her to the hospital?”
“Y-yes.”
“Take me there,” I urge. “Please.”
She hits the gas, and I’m thrown back against the seat. I pull my seatbelt on and turn toward her, ignoring the guilt I feel at leaving Theo alone. It’s against the rules, but this trumps Coach’s stupid rules.
“Claire. The hospital?”
She blinks, wiping the tears off her cheeks. “She never saw it coming.”
“You didn’t say what happened. Or how.” The car is picking up speed. My stomach is in knots.
The hospital is ten minutes away from here, fifteen at the most.
Where did Margo get hurt? It must’ve been closer to the hospital than here.
When Claire doesn’t answer, I look around the car. It’s clean to the point of newness. Not a speck of dust on the dash or the floor. The fabric mats are free of dirt—except what’s come off from my shoes.
I almost feel bad leaning on her leather seats. Sweat rolls down my chest under my sweatshirt, and my back is soaked.
Who runs in the middle of winter? I can hear Margo’s voice in my head.
“Was it Riley’s car?” I ask. “Did she get in a car accident—”
Two in one month? What would the odds be on that?
Or maybe it was Unknown. They could’ve taken her. Something more violent, like with a gun—
Claire glances at me, then away. “You care about her so much. How? She told me how you hated her when she started school.”
I shake my head. “Hate is temporary. Love…”
We pause at the stop sign, and her grip on the wheel flexes.
“Love,” she repeats. Sighs. “That is just… the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”
There’s a moment when I think she might be up to something. Left is the hospital, and right… the road to the right goes out of town. Away from Rose Hill and toward the freeway.
“You love her, too.”
When did I become a person who discussed love? It’s easy to see the way Claire cares. She came all the way out here to find me, after all. Why do that if not for Margo’s sake?
She shakes her head. “A foster sibling’s relationship is complicated. Sometimes I think she hates me. But, as you said—hate is temporary.”
She turns left.
“Lenora and Robert—did they get to the hospital already?” I probe. “How did you find out?”
“I was there for bloodwork.” She pushes the sleeve of her sweater up, showing me the rolled gauze taped to the inside of her elbow. “Happened to see them all rush in, and Lenora and I had met before. They didn’t want to leave her.”
“Right.”
She lets out a ragged breath. “I just hope she’s okay.”
“Me, too,” I murmur. I look out the window and will Claire to drive faster. I could be nice and ask her about herself—when she learned to drive when Margo still didn’t, where her sister is, how she found me on a random side road miles from school…
But instead, I keep my mouth shut and just hope that whatever happened to Margo, she’s still fighting.
I’m coming for you, Margo.
33
Margo
I watch Caleb jog off with Theo. The sky is clear, ice-blue, and the wind has died down. As he pointed out before he left, Now’s as good a time as any.
I tuck the envelope into my jacket pocket.
“They have to stay in shape,” Riley repeats. “Dumb boys.”
I shrug. “Did you want to talk about your thing with Eli?”
I follow her line of sight to where she’s picked Eli out of the trio of lacrosse players running down a different road.
She snorts. “No.”
“He’s bound to be planning something. Like, a way to get you back.” In fact, I had heard as much. Eli swore me to secrecy, but he isn’t my best friend—Riley is. So I add, “There’s nothing he can do to fix… whatever it is that happened?”
“Fat chance.” She shakes her head. “Where are we going? My place or yours?”
“Actually…”
She gives me a look. The one that says, You’re about to drag me into some shit, aren’t you?
“Caleb’s aunt and uncle are out of town,” I blurt out. “And we think there might be something in that house that can help us with everything.”
“Something that can help with everything? What is everything? Do you actually know what you’re searching for, or are you grasping at straws?” She sighs. “You two have got yourselves so wrapped up in this mystery—”
“Riley,” I interrupt. “We didn’t choose this. It’s been haunting us, and with everything happening with Unknown…”
She pulls me into a hug. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean how it sounded. I’m just worried about you.” After a second, she leans back and visibly steels herself. “Okay. So, Caleb’s aunt and uncle’s house.”
“I have the address in my phone.”
It takes us almost twenty minutes to get there. The last time we were there… I shudder, remembering the state I found Caleb.
“What are we looking for?” Riley asks.
I fish out the set of keys Caleb gave me, and we hurry to the side entrance. I cross the entrance to the alarm panel, but it’s already been deactivated.
“Weird,” she whispers. “Maybe they only put it on when they’re home?”
I squint at her. “Why on earth would they do that?”
She shrugs. “He really wanted you to get in here, huh? The key, the code…”
“He’s busy, and this couldn’t really wait.” I glance around. “Should we split up?”
“No.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“You still haven’t told me anything about what we’re looking for.”
I nod. “Right. Sorry. We need to find anything Lydia might’ve kept—an old yearbook, preferably, or pictures from high school.”
“Lydia, Caleb’s mom?”
“Right.”
She shakes her head. “Isn’t most of her stuff still at their old house? Why—”
“Caleb suggested to start here,” I interrupt. We’re still speaking as quietly as possible, and I clear my throat.
She hums. “Okay, fine. May as well start in the bedrooms, right? Upstairs?”
I nod, then hesitate. “Or his uncle’s study…”
“After,” she says.
We go to the stairs, jogging up them with light footsteps. I don’t know why we’re moving like we’re thieves in the night—no one is here.
At the top of the stairs, there are two immediate doors: one to the left and one to the right. Farther down, there are more doors.
“Start at the back and work forward?” Riley points to the end of the hall.
We creep along and pass four closed doors before we get to the last one. I push it open, almost expecting Caleb’s uncle to be sitting there, waiting for us.
It is the master bedroom, although it’s empty.
Riley goes to the nightstands while I hurry across to the bookshelves built into the wall. They frame a huge flat-screen television and an armoire below it.
I run my finger across the book titles, but nothing with Emery-Rose’s gold-and-black colors or its sigil jumps out at me.
“Nada,” Riley calls. “Just some lube, and I could�
��ve happily gone my entire life without knowing that was there.”
I stick out my tongue. “Gross.”
I take the next room down on the left, and Riley opens the door on the right.
“Bathroom.” She appears in the doorway. “What’s in here?”
It must be a guest room. Everything is in shades of white and gray. The drawers in the dresser are empty, the bed made neater than a pin.
“Moving on.” I ignore the discouraging feeling twisting my stomach. It isn’t just foreboding—that we’re intruding on a dangerous family’s home—but also… like something bad is going to happen.
This is a literal gut feeling.
I grab Riley’s hand, pulling her to a stop. “Maybe you should be lookout.”
There’s a narrow walkway next to the stairs that goes to a window. From there, she’ll be able to see to the driveway and the front door. She sighs, then goes to the window. We parked across the street, which will hopefully not tip anyone off that anything is amiss.
I crack the second to last door and pause.
I was expecting something more masculine, a room Caleb would’ve stayed in as a kid. Instead, it’s feminine. The walls are a blush color, and the comforter on the bed is pink and orange flowers.
Slowly, I leave the doorway and walk farther in.
It’s not as neat as the monotone room we just left. This one is… lived-in. Papers on the desk, a pile of dirty clothes in a hamper in the corner. One of the dresser drawers is cracked open, denim sticking out.
Spooked, I back out into the hallway.
“What is it?” Riley asks.
I shake my head and go to the last bedroom, shoving the door open.
Blues and purples. An unmade bed. More clothes.
“Do they have a kid?”
I go to the desk. It’s white, not inexpensive, with a blue chair on wheels tucked in. A laptop sits on top, plugged into a power strip.
Fuzzy pens in a cup.
A mouse pad with the picture of a dog.
The desk itself is pushed up against a window. To the left of it is a bulletin board. I stand in front of it, putting my finger on the one of the pins.
Newspaper clippings.
Cut-out articles.
Fatal Two-Car Accident on Elm Street and Drunk Driver Kills Teenage Boy and Rose Hill Child Fatally Struck.
