Dead Silence (24 page)
Violet smiled—both on the outside and on the inside. Everything about her felt better . . . lighter. Why had she waited so long to share this? Why had she thought she needed to keep this a secret for so long?
Chelsea could handle this.
She
could handle this.
Chelsea’s eyes continued to glitter as she clutched Violet. “You know what this means, don’t you? It means you’re some kind of superhero or something.”
The smile slipped from Violet’s lips, even as nervous laughter bubbled up her throat. “Uh, no, Chels, it doesn’t.”
But she could see the wheels in Chelsea’s head already turning. “Think about it, Vi. How many people do you think can do this? I’ve never heard of it before, have you?” She didn’t wait for Violet to answer, she could carry this conversation on her own. “None. And you know why? Because you’re special. Like Superman or Spider-Man or Batman.” She stopped. “Scratch that, not like Batman. He was just some dude with a bunch of cool gadgets on his belt. But you know what I mean,
you have a power
. A power, Vi.” Her eyes got wide then . . . like, lunatic asylum wide. She was grinning now. “You know what you need, don’t you?”
Violet groaned, wondering how this conversation had gone sideways. She answered hesitantly, worried about what she might hear next. “What’s that, Chels?”
“A sidekick!” Chelsea announced, beaming back at her, and suddenly Violet realized why she’d been so worried. Because Chelsea
was
a lunatic. “And who better to be your Robin than me? Not only can I keep your secret, I can help you.”
This time it was Violet grabbing Chelsea’s arms. She gave her a brisk shake, trying to snap her back to reality. “I’m. Not. A. Superhero,” she insisted, enunciating each word carefully. “And what, exactly, would you help me do? Comb the woods searching for dead animals? I seriously don’t think we need capes and secret identities for those kinds of adventures.”
Chelsea deflated beneath her, but she shot Violet a withering stare. “Buzz kill,” she accused. “Fine. No capes . . . got it. But I have, like, a million questions. I don’t even know where to start.”
Violet just smiled. That, she could totally understand. It was a lot to take in, a lot to process. Chelsea had just discovered that her best friend was some sort of freak of nature.
She dragged Chelsea over to where there was a large boulder covered with sprinkles of soft green moss. “Here,” Violet told her, waiting till Chelsea got settled. “Think about it for a minute. Then you can ask me whatever you want, ’kay?”
Violet kept a watchful eye on Chelsea as she sat down. She was glad when the color returned to her friend’s cheeks, and it didn’t take long for Chelsea to gather her thoughts, sounding more like herself again. Flippant, but rational . . .
ish
. “So, you’re definitely not some kind of necrophiliac or anything, right?”
“Gross, Chels!” Violet shuddered. “You’re disgusting.”
“Me?” Chelsea sounded shocked at the accusation. “And you’re trying to tell me that
that
. . .” She waved her hand toward the newly mounded soil in front of them. “That
that
isn’t disgusting?”
Violet thought about it for a second, then half shrugged. “Well, sort of. I guess. But in a completely different way. It’s not like I wanna make out with the bodies I find. I’m only drawn to find them. And only if they’ve been . . .” She hesitated, uncertain how to explain this part. “Only if they’ve been murdered.”
Chelsea’s eyes grew three sizes larger. “So you’re saying that thing was
murdered
?”
“I’m saying it didn’t die of natural causes. Something killed it, probably a coyote or a cat or something.”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Chelsea said, as if she were glitching. She took a breath. “Okay,” she repeated. “Let’s start at the beginning. How long have you known about this?”
Violet tried to remember the first time she’d realized she was different, when she knew that she was doing something other kids didn’t do. She was little, that much she remembered. And she’d been with her father, walking in the woods around their house.
She remembered her father telling her, even then, how important it was for her not to tell anyone about it—what she could do.
And here she was, confessing everything.
“Forever,” she said at last. “For as long as I can remember.”
Chelsea’s mouth dropped open. “And you never said anything . . . to anyone?”
“Except my family. And Jay,” she admitted guiltily.
Jumping up from the rock, Chelsea pointed her finger accusingly. “Oh,
come on
! Are you kidding me?
He
got to know and I didn’t? How long, Vi? How long has he known?”
Violet couldn’t stop her laugh. She knew Chelsea wouldn’t like the answer. “Since the summer between first and second grade. He used to help me bury animals in my graveyard.”
“Your what?” Chelsea asked, her brows and lips all pinched and puckered. “Is that what that thing in your yard is? By the woods?” When Violet just nodded, Chelsea grimaced. “Burying animals in your backyard, isn’t that one of the signs they look for in a serial killer? That, and, like, bed-wetting or something?”
“I think it’s torturing animals, not burying animals in a graveyard, Chelsea.
Big
difference.”
Chelsea sat back down, still shaking her head. Still not happy that she’d been left out of the circle of trust all these years. “Yeah. You’re probably right,” she said, sounding serious now, and Violet wondered if she should be offended that Chelsea had said “probably,” like there was still some doubt. But she’d already moved on to her next question, and she leaned forward, captivated. Morbidly curious. “So, how does it work anyway? How do you know where to find them? How did you find that family at the lake?”
She’d had to explain this before, but for some reason, trying to find the words to tell Chelsea was harder. And infinitely more important.
She bit her lip as she lowered herself to the ground in front of the boulder, sitting in front of her friend. She drew her knees against her chest and hugged them tightly. “It’s weird,” she started. “It’s like an itching under my skin at first, like everything inside of me is tingling. Sometimes I don’t even realize it’s happening, I’m just
pulled
in a certain direction, almost against my will.” She glanced up, stealing quick glimpses at Chelsea as she leaned her chin against her knees. “As I get closer, it changes, and every body develops a unique energy all its own. It’s like a signature. I call it an echo, but only because that’s what my grandmother called it.”
“Your grandmother knew too?” Chelsea asked, her voice small and awed now.
“My grandmother
had
it too,” Violet told her. “These
echoes
can be anything, a taste, a smell, a color, a sound, a sensation. No two are alike, at least that I know of. And here’s the weird part . . .”
“Dude. There’s a ‘weird part’?”
The corner of Violet’s lip pulled up. “Right?” she said, agreeing that it had already reached maximum weirdness. And then she plunged ahead. “Whatever that echo is also attaches to the killer too, exactly the same. I call it an imprint.”
Chelsea only missed a beat before she quietly said, “
Now
you blew my mind. So there are freaky killers walkin’ around out there that you can smell and taste? And they don’t even know it?”
“Totally.” Violet nodded. “But not just bad-guy killers. Cops and hunters, too. And people who’ve been in wars. I can’t tell them apart.”
“And animals?” Chelsea asked, already sorting through the pieces.
“My cat always comes home with imprints. Drives me crazy sometimes.”
Chelsea took a breath and leaned back on her hands as she studied Violet through brand-new eyes. “Is it weird?” She shook her head, as if trying to imagine it.
Violet scowled playfully. “I find dead bodies, Chels. How could it
not
be weird?”
Chelsea nodded, as if realizing how stupid her question had been. “Were the people at the lake the first . . . you know,
humans
you’ve ever found?”
Violet thought about how to answer that. She didn’t want to lie, not anymore. But she didn’t want to tell the whole truth either. There were still things she didn’t want to share, things she shouldn’t—and couldn’t—share. Like about her team.
She waited too long and Chelsea leaned forward, waiting expectantly, knowing there was more.
“When I was eight, I found a girl buried in the woods near my house,” Violet finally answered, skirting the issue by giving part of an answer. “And you already know that Jay and I found that body in the lake last year.” She didn’t tell Chelsea about all the other bodies she’d found.
“Oh yeah . . . the floater. Gross.” She wrinkled her nose. “So I’m guessing that wasn’t an accident. You didn’t just
happen
to see it while you were out on the lake the way you said you did?”
Violet shook her head.
“What are they like, the bodies? Does it freak you out? I gotta admit, I think I might pee my pants if I were in your shoes.”
Violet stifled a giggle against the tops of her knees. “Well, I haven’t peed yet, but I’ll definitely keep you posted.” And then she shrugged. “It’s definitely not like on TV. There, the bodies still look”—she struggled for the right way to describe it—“like real people. Like they could just sit up and start talking to you. But
real
bodies, the ones I’ve seen at least, are
obviously
dead. The girl in the lake was so bloated that her skin didn’t look like it even belonged on her anymore. It was shiny and blistery looking, and didn’t sit right on her features. And I could see right through her skin in places. It was like looking at a water-logged roadmap.” Violet kept her gaze on Chelsea, making sure she wasn’t being too graphic. “The girl who was buried near my house when I was little already had bugs on her when I found her. They were
eating
her.”
Chelsea cringed, and Violet thought about the family at the lake house, about their wounds, and wondered what Chelsea would think if she knew how their necks had looked, about the way the edges weren’t smooth and clean the way they would have been if it had been on television. Instead they were ragged . . . as if they’d been gored rather than sliced.
But Chelsea didn’t need to know such things. No one did.
Violet got up and held her hand out to her friend. “Come on, Chelsea. We should get back, it’s been a long day.”
Chelsea followed Violet’s gaze, looking up at the sun through the filter of leaves overhead. It wasn’t late. Not really. But it felt like it was.
It felt like they’d been out there forever.
“PLAY IT AGAIN.” KISHA CLAPPED, HER ENTHUSIASM making her look younger, less tired. Less strung out.
Evan grinned back at her, laying his guitar aside. “Maybe later, Kish, I’m tired.”
He wasn’t really; he could play all day, especially in the park where his playing drew attention . . . a real audience.
Except that today they had another purpose. Today was meant as a scouting mission.
He looked over to where Butterfly tried to get comfortable on the blanket Boxer had spread out for them. She squirmed, her body racked by an unexpected, relentless tremor, and he wondered if she even realized what was happening to her as she reached down to resume picking at the scab on her hand. It was easy to recognize the nervous energy she was trying to release, easy to spot an addict craving a new high.
When they’d first found her, less than a month ago, she’d been pretty and fresh faced. Despite her attempts to look urban, he’d pegged her for what she was: a bored rich girl who was trying to rebel against her parents, to prove there was more to her than spray tan and strawberry lip gloss.
To look at her now was like a study in contrasts. Her hair, which had once been a soft shade of reddish-blonde, had since been dyed black, but was now faded and dirty. Her skin, which had been clear, was now marked with pockets of acne, and her cheeks were hollow. Her eyes, although sunken and ringed with dark circles, were the only giveaway to the girl she’d once been, big and silvery green-gray, made more mesmerizing by the pining that tormented her.
He couldn’t help her now though. He had to save enough for Bailey, who was getting progressively worse, her tolerance getting harder and harder to satisfy. Kisha and Boxer and Colton, at least, could function on small hits here and there. Bailey could no longer get up in the morning without the needle. And he couldn’t bear to watch her tweak the way he was watching Butterfly do now.
Bailey had been the first to call him “family.” The first to let him take care of her.
He refused to let her down, but at the rate she was going, she’d used up most of their stash. And he couldn’t afford to let the rest of them come down for too long. He couldn’t risk not having them need him. Not having them depend on him.
