Inbetween (Kissed by Death, #1) (8 page)

Chapter 7

Emma

I slid my camera strap over my head as I followed Cash up the winding hiking trail toward the party. The crackling hiss of a bonfire and the tawny glow that suffused the trees led the way. I glanced around at the melting shadows that dripped from the dying hemlocks and sturdy pines. Under the safe blanket of daylight, the mountains here were beautiful. But here in the dark, all I saw was a thousand ways to die.

I needed to get my head checked. Again. I wasn’t the girl who went traipsing through the forest at night without a care in the world. I was the girl who barely escaped falling signs, loose power lines, and bottles of pesticide that just happen to fall into pots of stew. It made my head hurt and my pulse pound just thinking of all the near misses.

A soft rumble of thunder rolled across the sky on the other side of the mountain, blotting out the echoes of music and laughter from the party. I jumped and looked up at the dark smudge of clouds wandering over the moon.

“Are you sure this is safe?” I jogged to catch up. “If it rains, there could be mudslides, or flooding, or—”

Cash wrapped his arm around my shoulder and laughed. “Will you stop worrying? Nothing’s going to happen. Besides, I checked the weather before I left the house. It’s all headed west of here. We’re good.”

I nodded, still not feeling safe, and dug through my pocket for my tube of peppermint ChapStick. Cash led me into the clearing before I had a chance to finish sliding it across my lips, waved at somebody, and nudged me to do the same. I lifted my hand, not really sure who I was supposed to be greeting, but mostly surprised that they’d gotten the bonfire lit in the first place. Everything was still slick and shiny from the rain.

I tucked the ChapStick back into my pocket, brushed off the wet leaves sticking to my jeans, and glanced at Cash. He looked ethereal bathed in the glow of the bonfire. The few piercings he had reflected the flames, his skin bronzed like a fine caramel glaze. Royal-blue paint shimmered from his left cheek when it lifted with a smile. He laughed at something someone shouted at him and grabbed a beer bottle out of the dirty blue-and-white cooler.

“I guess that means I’m driving us home.” I scanned the crowd for something to photograph that I could actually put in the yearbook. So far my material was pretty limited.

Cash popped the top. “Guess so.”

“I thought you didn’t wear those for anybody else.” I pointed to his T-shirt that said,
F.B.I. (female body inspector).

He flashed me a lopsided grin. “Trust me. This shirt is absolutely for me.”

I laughed, wondering if there could possibly be someone else like Cash out there. I doubted it. Cash was sarcasm and seduction wrapped up with a gooey artistic center. He didn’t need a T-shirt to get any girl he wanted. All he had to do was look at them. The bad part was that he knew it.

“All right, you’ve got me here.” I poked Cash in the chest. “Don’t even think about ditching me.”

“I told you I wouldn’t. Now come on.” Cash grabbed me by the elbow and steered me into a crowd. He took a swig of his beer and motioned to a couple making out near the tree line.

“There. Get a shot of that.”

I snapped a photo. “Why?”

“Because when he finds out that she has an overprotective big brother who’s an offensive lineman for Cal, it’s going to be pretty friggin’ hilarious,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” I raised a brow as I checked the flash on my camera. “How do you know?”

Cash frowned and rubbed his jaw. “Don’t ask.”

I spent the next half hour snapping shots of people, begging them to at least pretend to be sober. Around shot twenty-two, I looked up and realized Cash was missing. I shouldn’t have been surprised. This always happened. He’d come stumbling back eventually, smelling like strawberry lip gloss and beer, and apologize for ditching me. I sighed and went back to taking pictures. If I had to be there, I was going to load my camera up with enough images to get Mr. Hall off my back. Seventy-three shots later, I had practically nothing that would be suitable for school publication. At least Cash would have his blackmail.

I searched for Cash and came up empty. I finally grabbed Ronnie Simmons by the arm before he could whiz by toward the cooler.

“Hey! Emily, right?” he slurred.

I sighed. “It’s Emma. Have you seen Cash?” I took one last look around the clearing. “I’m ready to leave and we rode together.”

Ronnie chuckled and put his hand on my back. “Out here.”

I let him guide me into the trees, refusing to let fear get the best of me. Other than the fact that he never remembered my name, Ronnie was a decent guy. I was more afraid of what Cash was doing out here in the woods. He could be so stupid when he was drunk.

Once the sounds of the party were just an echo behind us, Ronnie stopped and nodded behind us to a heavily twisted batch of trees that surrounded what looked like an old, well-used fire pit. “Good luck getting his attention.”

I could barely make out the swaying shadow in the distance, so I pulled my camera up to my eye and zoomed in on where he was pointing. For the millionth time that night, I heard the words, “Get a shot of that!”

Cash and Tinley Rhineheart were a tangle of limbs and lips. He pressed her against the tree, only breaking away long enough to whisper something in her ear. She giggled and they were kissing again.

Without understanding why the stupid thing was even there, I swallowed the lump in my throat and snapped the picture. Part of me wondered if I’d ever get to a point in my life where I’d allow a guy to lead me off like that and kiss me until I couldn’t breathe. The other part of me said it was ridiculous to want to give those breaths away when something out there was so intent on stealing them. I forced the thoughts out of my head. Who needed to live when you had a best friend who did enough of it for the both of you?

I turned around and headed the direction Ronnie had gone, feeling so out of place in the world around me that I couldn’t catch my breath. I swiped the back of my hand across my cheek, finding warm wetness there, and scowled at the tears on the back of my wrist.
Stupid
. Why was I crying? I didn’t want that life. I didn’t. I couldn’t.

“Ronnie?” I felt suffocated by the darkness around me. “Ronnie!”

He was gone. He’d left me in the dark alone. In the woods. Fear made my throat close up, but I swallowed through it. This didn’t have to be a big deal. I just needed to get back on the trail we were on. I pulled my cell phone out to use the screen as a flashlight. Wait…were we even on a trail? Why hadn’t I paid attention? God, this was going to suck.

I spun around, trying to ignore the panic in my chest. It was okay. I could find my way back. I could just follow the sounds of the party. We hadn’t gone that far out. I heard the sound of water rushing through the dark. The bonfire had been set up next to a stream. I headed in the direction of voices and water, trying to fit the two sounds together to pinpoint one location. I was going to kill Cash for this. If he was just going to ditch me every time we came to one of these things why drag me along? It not like I wanted to—

Something cold swept over the back of my neck. I whirled around and stared into the thick, consuming dark. Whatever it was slithered over my skin again, and a twig snapped somewhere off in the dark distance.

“Is somebody out there? Cash?”

No one answered. A set of fingers brushed over the back of my shoulder and fear exploded in my chest. I spun around, eyes wide.

“Cash!” I held my camera so tight my knuckles turned white. “Ronnie! This isn’t funny, you guys.”

Someone tugged on my ponytail and I yelped. Cold exploded across my skin, under my skin, and everywhere inside. I tripped and caught myself on a tree trunk, scraping my palms. My pulse pounded so hard I could feel it in my neck. I couldn’t seem to form a thought, let alone an escape.

Think, Emma!
I balled my hands into fists and spun around, ready to scream.

I squeezed my eyes shut and held the sound in my throat. I couldn’t scream. What would I say? Someone I couldn’t see pulled my hair? I had a bad
feeling
? Every person at this party already thought I was crazy.

I couldn’t go back to Brookhaven. I couldn’t.

I opened my eyes, determined to find the party. Someone laughed in the distance, so I started forward. I was so close to the water I could smell it. I’d just follow the stream back. Yellow eyes glinted at me from the trees. Nighttime creatures hummed and slithered and chirped from places that only belonged to the murky palette of midnight. I’d almost convinced myself that no one had been there when something iridescent moved through the trees. It flickered like a flame for only a second before being snuffed out by the dark.

I took a step back, ready to bolt, but stopped. Something moved through the underbrush, along the trail. Footsteps. Something bigger than an animal. Footsteps with so much purpose they could only be human.

Oh, thank God. “Hey!” I called out, rushing toward the sound. “I’m kind of lost. Can you show me how to get back to the party?”

The footsteps stopped, but no one answered. The cold returned, crackling along my skin like frost, and I shivered. Something was about to happen. Oh my God it was already happening…

I took a second step back. A third. I didn’t let myself blink. My heel felt the earth crumble beneath my shoe, and I stopped to glance over my shoulder. It was pitch black, a seemingly endless crevice. I could hear water trickling, rushing, splashing through the maze of riverbanks below. How far down was it? I didn’t want to find out.

A wave of cool breath whispered across my face. My skin prickled. My eyes widened, staring at…nothing. No one. Yet that breath—

Something hard knocked me off-balance and I fell backward, off the edge. My hands flew out in front of me, grabbing for something, anything, and one closed around an exposed root three feet from the ledge. My back slammed into the mud wall behind me, and I swung like a pendulum above the water below while I tried to find something else to grab onto.

Rain sprinkled from the sky and spattered my face. So much for that storm moving west. The root I had a hold of was secured in the mud wall, but the rain was making it slick and my fingers were already starting to slip. One, two, three fingers came loose. My hand started to cramp.
No, no, no, no, no! Please no!
Not yet. Please not yet. Darkness started to swallow my vision. A fresh batch of panic tightened my chest.

“Emma!” A male voice that sounded familiar permeated the haze. “Hold on. I’ll get something to pull you up.”

Hold on. Right. Just… One of my hands slipped free of the root I was holding and my heart slammed into my ribs so hard I lost my breath. I yelped and reached out, grabbing onto more half-exposed roots in the dirt wall to catch myself. Numb from shock, I pressed the side of my face into the mud wall. “I’m going to fall!”

“No, you’re not,” the male voice answered. “I won’t let that happen. Here.”

He swung a big branch over the side and I looked up at the shadow of a boy holding on to the other side. “Grab it.”

I nodded and adjusted my hold to the branch. “Please don’t break,” I whispered.

“You’re going to have to help me out a little.”

He pulled on the branch, and at the same time, I jammed my feet into the mud wall to climb up. Once I was up over the edge, I spilled onto my hands and knees. My fingertips tingled. My brain felt numb from fear. I dug my nails into the soil and gasped for air.

“It’s okay. Shh.” Someone settled beside me and my insides buzzed with awareness. “She’ll never hurt you again, I swear it. I don’t care what I have to do,” he whispered as if he were mainly talking to himself.

I wiped my face on my sleeve and looked up. It was the boy from the quad. He sat with his elbows resting on his knees, his head in his hands. Wait a minute—she? He’d said
she
. I scrambled onto my knees, eyes darting, suspecting every shadow.

“Is she gone?” I choked out. “Where is she?”

His green eyes connected with mine and ignited with an emotion I couldn’t comprehend. He nodded and sat up, leaning a few inches closer to me. He held out his palm the way you would to a frightened animal. I wondered if that’s what I looked like just then, eyes wide, flinching from his touch. I knew that’s how I felt. Like a deer that someone had just grazed with a bullet.

“She’s gone,” he said.

I wrapped my arms around my knees, rocking until my tailbone went numb and I couldn’t feel the ground beneath me anymore.
I should be doing something right now. I should call the cops or something.
I thought about the last time I’d called for help. Paranoid schizophrenic. That’s what they’d called me.

“Was she real?” I asked. “Someone was there, right?”

The boy leaned back, a wary look spreading out over his face as he scratched the back of his head. “Yeah.”

I rubbed my scraped palms. I didn’t understand. It had never happened like this before. All of the other times they had been accidents. Like the sign at school, or the woman whose steering wheel locked and she almost hit me on my bike. This was purposeful. This was someone trying to hurt me. Mystery guy held up my camera like an offering, then sat it in front of my feet.

“I think your strap broke when I was pulling you up,” he said. “Sorry.”

I stared at the cleanly sliced strap, at his long tan fingers tapping against his knee.

“How did you know I was here?” I finally asked. “Are you stalking me or something?”

He laughed. It was a nervous, broken harmony of sound that did funny things to my insides. He picked up a twig and scratched something into the dirt between his thighs. “Just good timing, I guess.”

I wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t there. I wasn’t sure
what
was inside me. The only thing I could feel was that prickling cold crawling under my skin. I scratched my arms until they felt raw, wanting it out.

“Hey, are you okay?”

I looked up and for maybe the first time really saw the boy sitting across from me. He had a sad look on his face. Not the kind that showed how he was feeling at that second, but the kind that’s branded there after seeing things that can never be unseen. His light-brown hair was cropped close around his scalp, the longer pieces on top stained gold from the sun. His jaw was strong, classic looking. He looked like he belonged somewhere else, a place where it was normal for boys to look like James Dean and rescue damsels in distress.