Silent Alarm (20 page)

“Do you want to dance?” Riley speaks so close to my ear that his words buzz through me like a plucked string.

“I don't really know how,” I say, embarrassed.

Shouldn't someone have taught me? Luke? My father?

“So we'll fake it,” Riley says confidently, standing up and holding out one hand for me to follow.

On the dance floor, I place my arms around Riley's neck, swaying from side to side with the beat of the music. It feels strange to be this close to him, to smell the clean scent of his hair, to feel the taut muscle of his biceps beneath his pressed suit jacket.

“See?” Riley raises an eyebrow. “Nothing to it.”

I'm grateful for the fact that the dance floor is packed with people, none of whom seem to be looking at me. Most are too busy making out, leaning in for kisses. Out of the corner of my eye I catch glimpses of corsages resting on shoulders, rhinestone hair bands sparkling in the blue light, shoes sporting a mirror shine. I close my eyes, Riley's body swaying against mine, his hands firm at my waist.

When the song ends, I raise my head from his shoulder, and we stand there awkwardly for a moment, just looking at each other. On the way back to the table, my hand in his, I see Delilah walk over to an adjacent table, her hair pulled up in some complicated arrangement at the back of her head that makes her look so grown-up that for a minute, I don't recognize her. She's wearing a white dress that ebbs and flows in soft peaks to the floor, Grecian-style, a band of small white flowers peeking out from her dark hair, a diamond chip sparkling at her throat, which looks long and bitable with her hair pulled away from it. She's talking to the girls seated there, leaning over their shoulders, smiling, and at that moment our eyes meet and she freezes. I feel a pang in my chest, somewhere beyond my ribs, and I miss her so intensely that it hurts to breathe. She raises one hand tentatively, slowly, to wave at me, and as I'm about to raise mine in return, I see a figure come up behind her, a tall, dark-haired guy who immediately wraps his arms around her waist, burying his face in her neck as if he wants to devour her. When he raises his head, I hear a sharp intake of breath, and realize that it is my own. Ben stares back at me, his eyes catching mine and holding them, the color flooding his cheeks in an avalanche of blood.

The room is stifling, pressing in on all sides. I am vaguely conscious of Riley still beside me, his hand on my arm as I begin to move across the room, pulled toward Ben like a magnet. I know that Riley is talking to me, tugging on my arm insistently as a small child would, but his features have gone out of focus, the room whirling before my eyes, and I cannot tell if it is tears or panic that makes what I am seeing so incomprehensible.

Suddenly, I am standing in front of him. Ben. And he is so very beautiful, his dark hair brushed back from his face, that all the words fall out of me onto the floor, swimming there, mixed up and out of order.

Why? When? How?

He looks at me uncomfortably, his eyes moving restlessly from me to Delilah, and then back to me again, as if he isn't sure where to turn or what to do.

“Alys,” he finally says, looking at me, his smile stretched tight and thin. “I didn't think you'd be here tonight.”

The music surrounds us, a pummeling beat that begins ferociously, and I have to raise my voice to be heard over the din, the shrieks and whoops erupting from the dance floor.

“Well, I am,” I manage to get out, the rush of adrenaline pumping through my veins. “So, how long has this been going on?” I nod at Delilah, whose face is now as pale as her dress.

“It's not what you think,” he says quickly, raising his voice and taking a step toward me. I immediately retreat, needing to be as physically far away from him as possible, while at the same time all I want is to be in his arms.

“I think that it is.”

His face flushes again, the way it always does when he's embarrassed or caught in a lie, and I realize that I know him too well to play this game, that we are dancing without music, stepping around each other nimbly.

“Look,” he starts, raking his hand through his hair, his expression conflicted. “We didn't plan anything . . . It just happened . . .”

I stare at him blankly, my mind refusing to process the words. People directly around us are also staring, whispering, but I can't, I won't, take my eyes away from Ben's face. The music thunders in my ears, and I wish someone would just shut it off, pull the plug, the world going quiet and still.

“Things don't just
happen,
Ben.” My throat hurts from yelling, scratchy and dry, and I lean in slightly so that I'm sure he can hear me. “We
make
them happen. Luke didn't just happen to stumble past a gun and then kill fifteen people. He
planned
it. He
wanted
it to happen.”

Ben flinches noticeably. It's as if I've reached over and slapped him.

I have never said this out loud. Not in this way, and not even to Riley. My brother shot and killed fifteen people. And he planned it. I have always known this, but now it seems real, here in this gymnasium I know so well, my words falling like grenades. Luke wanted people to die.

“Well, what about you?” he yells back, his eyes snapping with anger and defiance, and I remember how when Ben is pushed up against a wall, he fights back the only way he knows how—dirty. He points somewhere behind my head. Riley is still standing there, waiting. “How long has
this
been going on?”

“It's
not,
” I say, my cheeks flushing. “We came as friends.”

“
Friends,
huh?” Even partly drowned out, Ben's voice is nasty, cutting. “Sure you are.” He scoffs.

“Was this . . .” It is hard for me to finish, to even contemplate that what I'm about to ask might be true. “Thing with Delilah . . . going on when you and I were . . . together?” I swallow hard and look at the floor. The moment I tear my eyes away from his face, I can feel how close to crying I've been this whole time.

“No!” he blurts out. He grabs my arm, and I let him, his grip firm. When I look up, his face is contorted, the anger and sadness twisting his features like so much pulled taffy. His voice lowers, his tone softening. “You know me better than that, Alys.”

Somehow I find the strength deep inside to pull my arm away gently, rubbing the place he touched with one hand as if to rub him, finally, away.

“I thought I did.”

I stare straight at him, daring him to argue with me, to say it isn't true.

“Now I'm not so sure. There are a lot of things I don't understand anymore—I guess you're one of them.”

He stands there, openmouthed, then looks at Delilah, who quickly turns away. There's nothing left to say, so I do the hardest thing I've ever done—I turn my back on him and force myself to put one foot in front of the other. The dance track melds into a slow R & B song, and I think of how happy I was just a few minutes ago, my head on Riley's shoulder, the world falling away. There is glitter in the air, silver clouds of it falling from the ceiling, coating the top of my head, my dress. I keep walking, looking straight ahead as if I am wearing blinders until I am in the front hall, then outside, the night chill descending over my face, the skin of my bare legs. From somewhere far away I hear my name being called, and it is garbled, nonsensical. I rub my ears, trying to make it all go away. There are hands on my shoulders, and then Riley is in front of me, breathing hard.

“I want to get out of here,” I say. “I want to get out of here now.” My voice sounds harsh out in the open air, and I remember that I've left my black clutch sitting on the table, my phone tucked inside, but I couldn't care less. There's no reason to stay here, not anymore. Ben and Delilah, the look on their faces, caught red-handed—it all reminds me that there's no going back, that there's nothing left for me here. I should've gone to my grandmother's when I had the chance, moved in with Grace—anything but stayed here, the place I will always be known as Luke's sister, the guy who murdered fifteen people, gunning them down like animals. I've been holding on so tight that I've barely noticed that there's nothing left to hold on to at all, my fists closing around miles of empty air. I've fought so hard against the idea of running away, starting over, and now, standing here in the parking lot, stars hidden by thick clouds, it's hard to remember exactly what I've been fighting for. If I leave here, no one besides my mother will care, no one at all. I'll become a faded memory, a ghost haunting the town when the nights are long and cold.

You know whose sister she was, right?

“Okay,” Riley says, his body stiffening slightly, fishing his keys from his pocket. I don't know what he's thinking or if he's angry with me, Ben, or just the whole world. “I'll take you home.” He begins to walk toward the parking lot, and I call out, glitter shining on the shoulders of his jacket.

“Riley!” He stops, turning around. “Not home. I don't want to go
home.
I want to get
out
of here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Out of this crappy town, out of this state, maybe even out of the fucking country.” I can feel the desperation seeping out of every orifice of my body, out of the follicles of my hair, the pores of my skin.

I take a step toward Riley, then another, the ground shaky beneath my feet, and then I am in his arms, breathing deep, his hand coming around to draw me closer. We are holding on to each other as if we are lost at sea, our bodies the only thing keeping us afloat. I need him right now, need something, his hair soft in my hands.
Lost.
I close my eyes and think about disappearing into the darkness inside Riley's car, his hand on the gearshift, the heavy purr of the motor drowning out the possibility of thought.

We are lost.

“All right,” he mumbles, pulling me against him more tightly now until I can barely think, barely breathe. “Let's go.”

The
road stretches out before us, black as licorice. Dark candy. Outside Madison, we stop for gas, and Riley takes off his jacket, rolling up his shirtsleeves. On the freeway, he drives with one hand, sitting back as if he's parked on a beach somewhere, all the time in the world at his fingertips. The headlights illuminate only patches of the interstate at a time, and I'm transfixed by the crimson swirl of taillights, the smell of cold air and exhaust, how the pavement looks shiny, almost wet, in the absence of daylight.

“Where do you want to go?” Riley turns down the music, his iPod playing old blues tunes, low-pitched growling amid the plucking of guitars, strings vibrating through the speakers.

I watch the exit signs as we pass by, the turnoff to Chicago looming up ahead. The freeway will fork in two—just like my life. There will always be the memory of my life before the shooting. And after. My whole existence reduced to two separate, distinct spheres that have little to do with each other.

“What about Chicago?” he suggests before I can speak. He puts on his blinker and changes lanes effortlessly, barely looking in the rearview mirror. “I've never been there,” he admits, glancing at me briefly. I can't tell if he's worried about the fact that we're leaving or if he's as relieved to be getting out of town as I am. I don't dare ask when we're coming back, what we'll do for money after tonight, or even where we'll stay. It's enough to be here in the car with him, the green glow from the radio, the heat pumping from the vents wrapping us in a cocoon that sways in the dark.

“Me neither,” I say, although I think I was there once, with my parents and Luke when I was super little, but since I can't remember the trip or what we did there in detail anyway, I decide that it doesn't really count.

“Chi-town it is,” Riley says decisively, switching lanes again to follow the exit. “Do you want to call your mom?” he asks lightly, trying not to make a big deal of the question. I picture my phone tucked inside my purse, sitting innocuously on the table draped with cloth and crepe paper, ringing intermittently beneath the heavy thump of the music.

“Not really,” I answer, because I don't. “Not now.”

I imagine her panic rising through the phone, latching on to my body, my brain, my heart beating faster. I know that she is waiting up for me, a book in her lap, unread. Tomorrow will be soon enough.

“What about you?”

“Don't worry about me,” Riley says briskly, an edge to his voice that makes me sorry I asked.

I watch the speedometer as it creeps up to seventy-five, then back down to seventy with the release of his foot on the gas. Riley is a pretty good driver, and for that I'm grateful. I may be seeing dead bodies come to life on a regular basis, but I have no desire to go spinning off the earth any time soon. We drive for a while without speaking, the silence between us a quiet lull, and I watch the way the headlights from the adjacent lanes of traffic sweep over the planes of his face, lighting it up like a strobe. There is an exit coming up, gas, food, lodging, and without warning, he eases the car over and onto the off-ramp, the wheels following the gentle curve of the road.

“I'm pretty beat,” he says, and now that I'm looking for it, I can see it in his face, the exhaustion hanging over his features, sharpening them to a fine point. “The thing is, we've still got a ways to go, and I don't like to drive when I'm tired.” He rubs one eye, digging his fingers in roughly, and I want to grab his hand, tell him to stop. “Okay if we find somewhere to crash for tonight?”

“You mean like . . . a motel?”

The thought of being alone in a motel with Riley makes my mouth suddenly dry, the car slowing as we exit the freeway.

“Unless you want to sleep on the side of the road somewhere.” Riley laughs, and I watch out the window as we pass fast-food restaurants, a gas station. At the end of the block there's a Motel 6, the sign glowing like a neon savior.

We pull into the parking lot, driving up to the office. Through the window, I can see a tired-looking woman seated behind the desk, engrossed in a magazine, her long fingers turning the pages idly, a mass of blond curls tumbling down around her face. When Riley walks in, she looks up and pushes a sheaf of papers toward him, pecking blindly at her computer.

The room is like every nondescript motel room scattered across the country: drapes the same unremarkable shade of dirty-looking beige, plastic-wrapped water glasses in the bathroom, the caustic smell of bleach emanating from the sheets and towels, washed to a shade stark as bone. I sit on the bed and wait for Riley to return from the gas station with supplies, flip the TV on to a talk show, then flip it off again, too restless to pay attention to anything.

I hear a jangle of keys and sit up as Riley pushes the door open, a bulging paper sack in his hands, a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips sticking out of the top. He grins, dumping the bag onto the bed, kicking his shoes off one after the other, and tossing his crap around the room in that special way that only boys can do, marking his territory.

“Hardly anything was open,” he says, sitting down on the bed and facing me cross-legged. He reaches into the bag, pulling out the chips, some candy, a bag of popcorn—and, last, he yanks out a six-pack of beer with a ridiculous flourish that immediately cracks me up.

“How'd you get that?” I say through my laughter.

“Please.” He rolls his eyes, feigning irritation that I would even ask, twisting the top off of one of the bottles and handing it to me. I take a long drink, tilting my head back, and the coldness of it, the bubbles tickling my dry, scratchy throat, feels so good that it's everything I can do not to drain the entire bottle in one long gulp. I watch as he tears open the bag of chips, popping a few into his mouth and moaning with exaggerated pleasure. “Mmmmmm . . .” he mumbles, “I didn't realize how fucking hungry I was until I got in there.”

We sit there munching in unison, fingertips crusted with salt, knees touching. The room is warm, shielding us from the early spring chill, the curtains drawn. It's almost cozy, being here with Riley, the door locked and bolted, the lamps casting a soft glow over the bed, the sheets, the white marble slabs of the pillows awaiting the insistent crush of our heads. I finish my beer and Riley opens two more, passing one to me.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” I grin at him, the malty scent hanging between us.

“It's prom night,” Riley says, taking a long drink, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand. “It's a goddamn
tradition,
or haven't you heard?”

I think of the gym, the dim blue lights sweeping the dance floor, Ben and Delilah wrapped in each other's arms, her dark hair pinned up so the back of her neck is exposed, vulnerable and defenseless. I close my eyes for a minute, sickened.

“I wonder what it would've been like if everything hadn't happened the way it did,” I mutter. Maybe it's the alcohol flooding my system, maybe it's being in a strange place, an anonymous room so far away from my real life that I can say anything. I open my eyes, one thumbnail absentmindedly picking the label off the bottle in my hand. Riley takes another swig of beer, tilting his head back. “I mean if I had gone to prom with Ben. If none of this had ever happened. Would you be there with Janelle right now? Would we be happier?”

There is a stabbing sensation in my head, a constant reminder of all that has been taken from me, the wound raw and bloody, refusing to heal. I can almost
feel
Ben and Delilah together, see the way he takes her by the hand and leads her to his car, the place we spent so many hours, our mouths moving against each other's bodies, the windows fogged and steaming.

“I guess we'll never know, will we?” Riley's expression shifts slightly, and I can see the anger and sadness rising in him, making its way to the surface. He shoves the bag of chips to one side of the bed so that there's nothing between us now but a few paltry inches of air. “Luke made sure of that.”

A wave of shame sweeps over me, and I want nothing more than to vanish. I wonder if it will always be like this, my brother and I so intricately connected that, like Siamese twins, we will never again be separate entities.

“Maybe it's better this way,” Riley says flippantly, breaking into my thoughts.

“How can you say that?”

The idea is inconceivable to me. Monstrous.

“Think about it. Maybe we'd be at prom right now, having a totally miserable time. Maybe you'd be hiding in the bathroom wishing the night would just hurry up and be over because Ben turned out to be an A-hole anyway. Maybe I'd have gotten totally shitfaced just so I could deal with Janelle's endless bullshit, just so when I woke up tomorrow morning, I wouldn't remember anything at all.”

I smile, despite myself.

“This isn't so bad, you know? Me and you here together. We've got beer.” He points at the bottle in front of me. “Snacks. What else do we need—bad music?”

“True,” I say grudgingly, laughing a little. “Still, I wish it had never happened. Any of it.”

“Even being here with me?”

He is staring at me intently. If I reached over and touched his leg, the bare skin of his forearm, we would tumble into each other, falling backward onto the bed and inhaling each other's breath, drunk on it.
Dangerous,
I am thinking as I look at him, fighting the urge to turn away.
This is very dangerous . . .

(—“Don't,” Luke said, his annihilating heat permeating the room—)

“What do you think Luke would've thought of . . . this?” I say, the tension in the room like so many pounds of air crushing my chest.

“What,” Riley asks. “You and me?” He smiles a funny half smile, full of pain, pointing in my direction, then at himself. “He would've hated it.” He laughs, a short, rough sound that comes out more like a yelp, nothing expressing happiness or mirth. “He probably would've killed me.”

I can feel the warmth draining from my body as soon as the words leave Riley's lips.

Killed. Because that's what Luke is

(was)

A killer. A liar. Someone who fooled us all expertly, so seamlessly, that we didn't know we were being fooled at all until it was way too late. Until there was blood streaking the floors of the library, the hallways, the asphalt in the parking lot.

I must look terrible because Riley stops, taking my hand gently, carefully, in his own, and holds on tight. I feel queasy, and I lean over and put my beer bottle on the floor without breaking contact.

“I miss him,” I say, my voice barely audible. “Most of the time I wasn't sure he even liked me.” I am ashamed to admit this somehow, and I drop my head, afraid of Riley's reaction. “I mean, it's not like we were close anymore. Most of the time he barely spoke to me, and I just pretended that everything was fine because that's what we
do
in my family. And even though I'm so mad at him for what he did, I can't help it—every time I walk into that house, I miss him so much. I miss hearing him come home at night, the sound of the door closing behind him, knowing he was in the next room, right where he was supposed to be. I miss the way he'd listen at the door of my room when I practiced sometimes, so quiet I didn't even know he was there until he clapped, and we'd just crack up together. I miss watching him argue with my mom at breakfast, the way he wouldn't eat a goddamn thing in the morning. I miss his stupid fucking sugar packets in his stupid fucking Cokes.”

I break off. Unable to find the words to go on, staring at the bedspread, the pattern of leaves and vines crawling across the rough fabric.

“Hey, Alys.” Riley lets go of my hand, tilting my chin up to meet his eyes, wet with tears I know he's too proud to spill. “I know,” he says, almost resigned now. “Believe me, I know. He shut me out,” he says bitterly, “just like he did everyone else.” We sit there for a long moment, just looking at each other, and I'm trying to hold it together, trying not to break into a million pieces when Riley speaks again.

“And he definitely liked you—I know he did. Hell, he
loved
you. You were his
sister.
”

I want so much to believe him. It's hard to keep looking at Riley, like staring straight into the sun, the force behind his words, the insistence and surety of them making me dizzy.

“I see him sometimes.”

My voice shrinks down even further, a murmur, and Riley leans in closer.

“You see him? Like in a dream?” Riley looks first confused, then worried when I don't answer right away. “I have those too. I told you, Alys. They're not real.”

It takes everything I have to keep talking, to get out what I need to say, what I need somebody, anybody, to hear.

“No. I mean, I
see
him. In the house. In my room. Even at school, sometimes. He just shows up. He won't leave me alone.”

I am racked by sudden sobs, the air stopped in my chest, syrupy and thick. I keep my head down as tears run over my face, scalding it, and Riley pulls me to his chest. The sounds I am making are incomprehensible, my body shaking violently. Riley holds on tight, drawing me into his lap. He moves from side to side, rocking me, my face buried in the salty folds of his neck.

“Shhhh . . . Alys,” he says quietly. “It's okay. It's not real. It's going to be okay.”

I lift my head, aware that I'm a mess, makeup streaked across my face, hair coming down from the bun my mother fixed so many hours ago.

“What if it
won't
?”

Outside, a car pulls up and a door slams shut, and the lamp on the table buzzes and hums, a moth flitting around inside the shade, wings beating heavily. Riley looks at me, his face crumpling slightly as he begins to cry, and the very sight of his tears, his face so open and vulnerable, strikes a sharp chord inside me, moves me in a way I can no longer deny.