The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall (11 page)

“See what?” I repeated. Was she jealous because my friends actually came to look for me? “See my best friend, who came to look for me and get closure? Don’t
I
get a little closure?”

She stared at me incredulously. “You honestly think that’s what you’re going to get by watching those two—closure?”

“Those two”? What did
that
mean … ?

Then I turned to look at them.

Landon had edged closer to Nic.

My heart stopped.

No way.

I couldn’t keep myself from walking back toward the couch.

“Nicola,” Landon whispered.

My whole body went stiff. “Since when do you call her that?” I asked. “Nobody calls her that except her grandma. She hates it.”

But instead of correcting him, Nic angled her head … and rested it on his shoulder.

Then he reached for her hand, wrapping her fingers in his own.

Come on
.

She pulled her hand away. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“Oh,” I said, “you
think
?”

I stared at them, a hundred horrible thoughts invading my brain at once.

Had Landon and Nic … had they liked each other all this time? Had my
best friend
been part of the reason he broke up with me? Did he bail on Daytona because he was afraid to be around us both at once? Was the camp girl just an invention to hide their secret?

“Listen,” Landon said. “Neither of us knew what was going to happen. And we were both devastated. You lost a best friend, I lost a girlfriend—”

“Oh, please!” I snapped. “You lost a girl you dumped. Over text. Like a slimy coward!”

“We both loved her. And she loved us. And the thing is …” He reached up and gently touched her cheek. “She would want us to be happy.”

“But not this way,” Nic said. The pitiful note in her voice wasn’t enough to buy my sympathy. She should have gotten up off the couch, slapped his hand away from her face. Instead, she just sat there like a traitorous lump.

“You’re right, I don’t,” I said. “I don’t want you to be happy this way. Have some respect for the dead!”

“Can’t you feel it, though?” His fingers trailed down to her neck. “She’s at peace. Wherever she is, she’s peaceful and happy.”

Nic’s eyelashes fluttered. “Do you really think so?”

“No,” I said.

“I know so,” he said, starting to lean toward her.

No, no, no, no, NO.

NO.

“No!”
I cried out.
“NO!”

But then, in front of my eyes, they were kissing—a sweet, soft, slow kiss. The kind Landon and I used to have. The kind I used to describe to Nic, who listened with starry eyes because she hadn’t had a boyfriend of her own yet. The kind that made me believe that Landon and I might be one of those couples who lasted forever.

When the kiss was over, he started to pull away.

But Nic—
my best friend
—pulled him back.

As I stood there, drinking in the sight of two people who should have, at the very least, had the grace not to kiss in the very place where I had
died
—something began to vibrate inside of me.

Only when the vibrations became so strong that I had already lost control of them did I understand what the feeling was:

Rage.

MY FAVORITE MEMORY OF NIC

Gym class, first day of sixth grade. As if being eleven years old in a pair of baggy blue gym shorts wasn’t hideously humiliating enough on its own, Coach was calling us up, one by one, to assess our physical fitness level.

I sat a few rows back on the bleachers, listening to the clump of mean girls in front of me verbally eviscerate everyone who wasn’t one of their own.

“Thunder thighs,” they would whisper, or, “Jelly belly. Ugh, that hair. You can tell just by looking at her that she
smells
.”

I was petrified, waiting for my turn to make the walk of shame and be judged for my shortcomings.

“Pisani, Nicola?” the coach called.

A tall brown-haired girl with thick glasses and rainbow-hued braces stood up next to me. The mean girls’ heads swung around to get an early look at her.

“Excuse me, Coach,” Nic said. “I don’t actually care to walk up there and be mocked and ridiculed by this pack of cackling witches. I already know what’s wrong with me. I have bad teeth, ugly glasses, and a big butt. So … can you just write that down?”

Everyone was speechless.

But one of the mean girls couldn’t resist. “Don’t forget hairy arms,” she said.

And the mean girls spent the rest of the class running laps around the gym.

When Nic came back from talking to the coach, she sat down. “Your butt’s not big,” I said.

“Sure,” she said with a shrug. “Not compared to yours.”

From that moment on, we were best friends.

I
saw Nic and Landon as if I were watching them through a telescope—singled out, in perfect focus, while everything around them melted into darkness.

“STOP!”
I roared, plunging forward past a little table with a heavy, old-fashioned phone on it. Without thinking, I swung my arm in its direction. The shock of contact reverberated through me, and the phone went flying and landed heavily on the floor with a discordant crash of its bell.

At the sound, the lovebirds on the sofa jumped apart.

“What was that?” Nic searched the room. When she saw the phone on the floor, her eyes widened with fear.

“Oh, are you scared?” I cried.
“Good!”

Nic’s gaze traveled back and forth, as if she was waiting for something else to happen.

I grabbed the little table by one leg and tossed it onto its side. It landed on the floor with a tremendous clatter. Then I stormed over to the dining table, grabbed the closest chair, and hurled it across the floor.

“What’s going on?”
Nic wailed. She retreated until her back was pressed against the narrow strip of wall between two large windows, while Landon stood a few feet away, looking around helplessly.

Pathetic.

I swept a decorative bowl off the dinner table and hurled two more chairs in their direction.

Nic’s thin scream of terror echoed through the room. Her fear filled my head … and fed my fury. My anger and the power it gave me were like a drug.

I stalked over to where she stood, made a fist, and propelled it through the panes of the window to her right—

One, two, three,
they shattered. Glass showered the floor around her.

“Oh my God!” she cried. “Landon, what’s happening?”

“What’s
happening
,” I said, “is that you stole my boyfriend!”

Landon was rather un-heroically frozen in place. “Nic, get away from the window!”

She ducked her head and started to run forward, her hands covering her face, but I pushed her back. She hit the wall with a frightened yelp and then tried to escape a second time. Again, I simply reached out and pressed on her shoulders. She couldn’t see me, so she couldn’t dodge or duck away from my touch.

She slammed back into the wall, then gave up and helplessly sank to the floor.

Finally, Landon leapt into action. He raced toward her—but all I had to do was shove his chest to send him flying backward, tripping over the scattered chairs and landing in a heap.

I turned my attention to the second window, the one on the other side of Nic, and
one, two, three!
punched through the glass. Then, because releasing the energy felt so incredibly satisfying, I kept going—
four, five, six, seven!
—until I’d rammed my fist through every single pane.

I was beyond hearing Nic’s terrified weeping, or Landon’s dismayed moans. All I could hear was the voice in my head—a monstrous voice fanning the flames of my wrath.

Traitors,
it said.
Filthy, disgusting, bottom-feeding traitors. They deserve this. They deserve the pain, the fear …

They deserve to die.

Then they’ll know how it feels.

Finally, I caught myself and staggered back, surveying the scene.

Landon sat on the floor, cradling his left arm close to his chest. Nic was bent into a quivering little ball on the ground.

Eliza hurried by, elbowing me out of her way. Her voice was icy and filled with righteous judgment. “What have you
done
?”

I didn’t answer. I stared at my best friend, who hadn’t even raised her head to look up.

“Nic,” Landon grunted. “I think my wrist is broken.”

There was no answer.

“Nicola?”

Still, she didn’t answer. Eliza knelt by her side.

“Nic?” I asked, stepping toward her.

“Delia,” Eliza whispered, her voice chilled. “Get the boy’s attention.”

I stared. “Why?”

“Get the boy’s attention!”
she snapped. “Now!”

“How?” I asked. I reached for a stack of magazines on the little table behind the couch, but my hand whooshed right through them.

“It hurts,” Landon muttered to himself.

“Oh, for the love of—” Eliza said. “I’ll do it.”

She stood up, reached through the broken window, and sent a small shower of glass tinkling to the floor.

“Nicola?” Landon asked, looking up and then hesitantly coming closer. “What’s—”

Suddenly, Nic raised her head and looked at him. Her skin was dull gray but her eyes were bright and surprised looking. Her left hand held tightly to her right wrist.

Only then did I see the puddle of red spreading on the floor by her—blood. Blood that came pulsing out of a gaping wound on her forearm.

Landon gasped.

“You think it’s an artery?” Nic asked faintly. “It’s … kind of a lot of blood, isn’t it?”

“Nicola, oh my God. Oh my God. Here—” Landon ripped off his shirt and ran to her side. “Raise it above your heart. Can you raise it? Let me …”

He tore the sleeve off the shirt and wrapped it around the wound. Immediately, it was soaked through with dark, brilliant red.

“Hold that,” he said. “Hold it tightly. I’m going to call an ambulance—”

“No cell service,” she whispered.

“Okay, okay.” He was panting, on the verge of panic, trying to make a plan. “Then we’ll have to drive, but the car’s parked out front. Can you walk that far?”

“I’ll wait for you,” she said.

“I can carry you—”

“No, I’ll wait here,” she said softly. “Go get the car.”

He looked at her helplessly, then ran out the door, shouting over his shoulder: “Keep the pressure on it!”

She nodded and took a few weak breaths, straining the air through her teeth. But after he’d gone, the grip she held on her wrist slackened, and her head fell limply to one side.

“She’s passed out,” Eliza said. “She’s lost too much blood.”

I dropped to the ground and reached for Nic’s wound, trying to press my own hand on it.

But I couldn’t even do that much. My hand wouldn’t make contact with the soaked shirt.

Oh God, she’s going to die. I killed her.

I killed my best friend.

“Please, Eliza, help me,” I said. “Please!”

“Get out of the way,” Eliza said, and she crouched at Nic’s side. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she pressed her fingers on the dressing and held firmly. “If he can get her to the hospital soon enough, she’ll probably be okay.”

“But it’s snowing,” I said. “The roads are iced over.”

“Well, you should have thought about that before you tried to murder her!” Eliza barked. “Honestly, Delia. She could die here, and it would be
your
doing. I thought you said she was your best friend.”

“I know,” I said, and then I started to shake. My whole body quaked so violently that my vision blurred. “It was an accident—I never meant to—”

Eliza looked away, as if it embarrassed her just to witness my feeble uselessness. “Hold yourself together,” she said quietly. “The very least you can do at this point is not make things worse.”

I nodded and shut my mouth, but I couldn’t stop the tremors that coursed through me. I stared at my best friend’s pale, unconscious face, wondering if some part of her knew it had been me who did those terrible things.

What kind of best friend was I? Nic wasn’t stealing my boyfriend. He wasn’t even my boyfriend anymore. And more significantly, I was
dead
. You can’t steal anything from a dead person.

What had I done?

I was desperate for Landon to return, to put her in his car so they could race to safety. I ran to the front window and watched the SUV come around the corner of the house. Leaving the engine running, Landon jumped out and came inside.

His face paled when he saw Nic slumped over, but after finding her pulse, he relaxed minutely. Groaning with effort, he pulled her away from the window in an attempt to lift her. But his left arm was limp and useless, and as he tried to pull her up, he let out a primal yell of pain.

“You need to wake up,” he said. “Nicola, come on, wake up.”

She stirred, but her eyelids didn’t even flutter.

Again, Landon tried to hoist her off the floor, and again he cried out in pain.

“Please, Nicola, come on,” he begged. There was a tone in his voice I’d never heard before … a tenderness he’d never used with me. And it was mixed with crushing fear. When I looked at his face, I was shocked to see terrified tears streaming from his eyes.

He genuinely cared about her. More than he’d ever cared about me.

“He can’t pick her up with that arm. She needs to wake up.” Eliza stared at the ground for a second, came to some decision, then shot a sharp glare at me. “You stand well back.”

“Why?” I asked. “What are you going to do? Are you going to carry her for him?”

She looked at me like I was crazy. “Carry her? And how would that look? You don’t understand anything about how the world works, do you? Do you want spiritual mediums and two-bit psychics crawling all over this place? Now,
stand back
.”

I stood back.

“Farther,” she said. “On the other side of the table. I don’t want her to see you.”

To
see
me? I obeyed wordlessly.

Eliza closed her own eyes and inhaled—but instead of taking in air, her body seemed to breathe in light. She glowed slightly, kind of like Florence had in the lobby with Maria. But that light had been fierce and vivid—this had golden warmth to it.

She leaned forward and placed her hands on Nic’s cheeks.

“Wake up, then,” she whispered. “Come, Nicola, wake up.”

Nothing happened.

Eliza leaned forward so her forehead touched Nic’s, and a bit of her glow ignited a flush of warmth under my best friend’s graying pallor.

“Wake up, sweetie,” Eliza said, a bit more tersely. “Enough of this foolishness. Wake up.”

But nothing happened.

Eliza shot me a despairing look, then turned back to Nic. Her voice rose and became firmer. “Nicola—
wake up!
Wake up, you idiot! Trust me, you do
not
want to die here! Wake up!”

Nic’s eyes suddenly popped open.

She stared right at Eliza.

“There’s a good girl,” Eliza said, stroking her cheek gently.

Nic was transfixed, staring at Eliza with wonder in her eyes. Then Landon grabbed her face and, pulling it toward his own, smothered her forehead with kisses.

“Oh, God,” he said, his voice thick with tears. “I thought I was losing you.”

Nic looked surprised to see him, and then she turned her gaze back to where Eliza had been sitting—where she still sat, though she was invisible to Nic now.

“Let’s stand up. Wrap your arm around my neck,” Landon said. He shuffled her into position, and she got to her feet, swaying slightly.

“Where’d she go?” Nic asked, looking around the room. “The girl with the dark hair … did you see her?”

“No, I didn’t see anybody,” Landon said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

They reached the door, and Landon pushed it open with his foot.

Just before they stepped outside, Nic made one last visual sweep of the room.

And she called out, “Delia? Are you here, too?”

Then the door closed.

I stayed in the corner, where I’d been since Eliza ordered me there. Through the frosty windows, I watched Landon load Nic into the passenger seat and then run around to the driver’s side. The car bumped away from the house and disappeared around the corner.

Eliza sighed and sat back. She looked drained.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for saving her life.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been necessary if—” Her harsh words cut off suddenly. I saw deep sadness in her eyes, and I saw them grow even sadder as she stared into mine. Slowly, she got to her feet. “Delia, you need to be more careful. You can’t go on this way.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded, and I could tell her thoughts had strayed to something heavy and painful, from some distant time.

“Why did you ask me about the smoke?” I asked. “Did something happen to you when you were here?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said. “The past is in the past. And if you’re wise, you’ll learn to accept your place and stop trying to change the way the world works.”

“But why?” I asked.

“Because,” she said. “You’re still just a child, aren’t you? And there’s no limit to the destruction that a child can cause.”

Her words went through me like a knife. For once I saw my actions from someone else’s point of view. Saw the stupidity of my recklessness.

“If the past is kind enough to disappear into oblivion, we should be grateful,” Eliza said, staring at the floor. “We should take it for the gift that it is. Trust me … I know.”

Then she walked away and disappeared through the wall, leaving me alone in the wrecked and bloodied room.