Translucent (8 page)

Liquid. Or was it a solid?

It seemed like both at the same time. Slimy when you first touched it, then sticky if you rubbed it together . . . and finally rubbery. Like rubber cement. But when left alone, it melted back into a liquid.

So weird.

Someone out there had to know what it was. Determined to get to the bottom of this, I entered a search into my phone:
invisible substance from space
.

Surprisingly, reputable sites popped up. 

Not UFO hack sites like I’d expected. These were educational articles from CERN, National Geographic, NASA. Starting from the top, I clicked through each one.

Each article mentioned a prevalence of invisible matter permeating the entire known universe.

They referred to it by a name.

Dark matter
.

The hairs rose on the back of my neck.

I sat up straight, my finger feverishly tapping through links, my eyes tearing across page after page to take in all the information. I couldn’t believe it.

Yes, there was stuff out there we couldn’t see. Tons of it.

We knew it was there because we could observe its gravitational effects. Apparently, galaxies were spinning way too fast. If you added up the masses of all the stars and black holes in a galaxy, it wasn’t enough to hold everything together. Not enough by far. Everything should have been flying apart.

But it wasn’t.

There was something out there that held everything together, something invisible. A bunch of it.

In fact, what we
could
see through telescopes was only a fraction of the total mass in the universe. The rest—about eighty-five percent—was this dark matter stuff. No one knew what it was or where it came from. No one had ever seen it. They speculated that it wasn’t even on the periodic table, that it wasn’t even in the Standard Model—which included all known particles like electrons and quarks. It was something else.

Something that had never been observed in any laboratory or particle accelerator.

And it wasn’t just hypothetical. Its existence was accepted without question as one of the greatest mysteries of cosmology.

What the hell? So this was a real thing, and people weren’t getting up in arms about it? They should have been talking about this on the news, at school, in church! An invisible substance that filled our whole universe that we knew absolutely nothing about? That sounded like a big deal.

I felt like I was being watched.

I straightened up, instantly alert, and heat raced up the back of my neck. My eyes darted to the corners of my room, the bare walls washed in light.

Nowhere to hide.

A slow, shaky breath filled my lungs.

My door hung open a crack, the hall outside pitch black. My eyes strained to see what lay beyond.

Nothing there.

Just my own paranoia.

A cold sweat clung to my palms, which I wiped on my jeans. My gaze flicked to the contact case.

Dark matter.

Was
it
watching me?

A suffocating silence hung over me, and suddenly, I didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want to be in the same room as it—

My phone buzzed, making me flinch.

I had to stop doing that.

Megan calling.

“Yo, what’s up?” The calm in my voice pleased me.

“I know you’re not going to like this,” she said, “but I have an idea.”

“I don’t like it,” I said.

She took a deep breath. “You know that cute guy in your English class?”

I screwed up my eyes. “
Andrew?
”

“You know how he’s throwing a party tonight?”

My lungs seized up. “No, Megan.”

“Everyone’s talking about it,” she said. “Come on, it’ll be good for us. We need to get out. We need to be around other people.”

“I’m not going,” I stated.

“What are you going to do instead, huh? Mope at home all night? You can’t keep doing that.”

“I don’t care. I can’t be around other people. I just can’t, okay? Don’t pressure me on this.”

“You made it through school.”

“Yeah . . . barely.”

“No one thinks it was you,” she said.

“It’s a party,” I said, growing feverish at the very thought. “Everyone’s going to be staring. I’m going to freak out and do something stupid, and then they’re going to know. They’re going to know it was me. They’re going to know I did it. Besides, I don’t have any clothes.”

“What the hell was all that stuff we bought last weekend?”

“Megan, I’m not going.”

“I just pulled up to your house. Listen—” The honk of her car drifted in.

“You ass,” I said.

“You coming?”

“Why don’t we just watch a movie or something, hang out just you and me. Like summer.”

“I want to go to Andrew’s party.”

“Have fun.” I hung up.

The silence rushed in like ice water, and I threw myself down on my bed, frustrated at everything. Before she’d called, I had planned on reading a little, doing a little homework, maybe snuggling up with a warm glass of milk and honey and watching a Disney movie. Now that sounded pathetic.

Thanks, Megan.

Maybe a party would help me move on. It was either that or spend Friday night alone. My parents were out at some UCSB lecture and wouldn’t be back until late. They’d probably grab drinks with friends afterward.

So I was alone.

It was embarrassing. My parents had a better social life than I did—

You’re not alone.

My body stiffened. The words had just popped into my head. My voice, but silkier, as if someone else had spoken them. Slowly, almost fearfully, I turned and stared at the contact lens case.

The dark matter
.

It was here with me. I wasn’t alone.

That realization made me sick to my stomach.

Fear crackled in the air, and the ceiling light flickered.

“Screw this.” I snatched up my phone and called Megan back, already fleeing my bedroom, and when she answered I blurted out, “You win. I’m coming.”

Chapter 8

“I shouldn’t have
come,” I whispered, edging closer to Megan and doing my best to ignore the predatory stares following us up the tiled steps to the front door of Andrew’s Riviera mansion, presided over by palm trees swaying against the night sky. “I never should have come. This is stupid. This is so stupid.”

“Will you shut it?” she hissed.

“We’re so stupid. We’re so fucking stupid.”

“
You’re
stupid,” she said.

I risked a glance behind me and saw a bunch of guys I didn’t recognize glance away and sip their red cups, and panic wrenched my heart. “They were staring at me . . . they were all staring at me.”

“They’re staring at
us
,” she said.

“They
know.
”

“Because we look hot.”

Okay, maybe.

In the car I’d thrown on wedges and a silky black shirt with an open back. Megan had done my makeup.

I shouldn’t have come.

This was so stupid. Just a little get-together, my ass. This had to be half the school.
What the hell, Andrew?

We slipped through the front door into a brightly lit foyer. The light made me want to shrink. More eyes flicked in my direction, and my heart began to pound, my face flushed, I started breathing fast.

I couldn’t be here.

“Leona, sweet, you made it!” Andrew materialized out of the packed living room and gave me an awkward side hug. “There’s a couple kegs in the back. They’re almost tapped out, though.” He leaned in close, fumigating me with his beer breath. “But I got some Grey Goose upstairs in my room. Can’t pass that out to just anybody, you know what I mean? Come on, I’ll get you guys some—” He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the stairs.

Alarmed, I glanced back at Megan, who shrugged, as if to say,
If you want to.

I couldn’t do this.

I shouldn’t have come here.

He thought I was a normal girl. And when he found out I wasn’t, when he found out what I’d done . . .

The thought terrified me.

A door opened and a drunk girl stumbled into the foyer, emerging from a bathroom.

Salvation.

“Be right back—” I tugged my hand out of Andrew’s grip and veered into the bathroom before anyone else did, locking the handle behind me. Slumping against the door, I caught my breath, and the prickles of anxiety slowly ebbed from my limbs.

At the sink, I splashed cold water on my face.

I could do this. I could be normal.

You have to act normal, or they’ll know.

Just go with it.

My reflection lurked somewhere in my periphery. Tentatively, I raised my head to look myself in the eye, and for a split-second, I did. For a split-second, my haunted face stared back at me.

And I couldn’t bear the sight of it.

YOU MURDERED HER!

I gasped and flinched away. I had to leave. Now. Get out. Fumbling with the handle, I yanked open the door and staggered out into the crowd, going into full panic mode. I shoved toward the door. Elbows jostled me, I stumbled, tripped.

Someone caught me, stood me back up. Andrew’s face swam in front of me. “Leona—” One look at me and his voice faltered. “Whoa, you okay?”

“Let go . . .
let go!
” I broke free and ran to the door, to freedom.

I never made it.

A guy stepped in from outside, blocking the doorway. The porch lights outlined his blond hair like a halo and contoured the sharp jut of his cheekbones. I froze.

Emory Lacroix.

He stood there a moment, scanning the party, and then sauntered in, hands stuffed in a letterman jacket.

And then our eyes met.

Over the last two months, I had learned to carefully control my expression, maintaining a look of cold indifference so as not to give myself away. But this time I wasn’t ready. Staring at Emory Lacroix, I had no defenses.

And he
saw.

In that instant, he saw right through my skin like I was translucent.

Maybe if I had acted calm and said something like,
Hey
,
Emory
, I could have played it off.

But I wasn’t calm.

I took one look at him and I ran.

He followed.

I made it to the back door and had it halfway open, a sliver of freedom, before his weight crushed into my back and our combined weight slammed the door. I whipped around, darted to the left. His palms thudded into the wood on either side of my shoulders, trapping me between his arms. I went right, ducked out from underneath him. He caught me around the waist and shoved me back against the door, held me immobile by the wrists, panting heavily in my face.

“Who killed my sister?” he growled.

“I have no
idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

“I think you do. I think you know something, but you’re too scared to tell me.” He glanced behind him, then hustled me into a back room—a tiny office—and slammed the door behind us, shutting out the sounds of the party. “Who killed her?”

I swallowed hard and backed away from the door. My butt hit the edge of a desk, which I grabbed to steady myself, nudging aside a group of picture frames. They began to tip over like dominoes. I swung and tried to right them, but my jerky hands wreaked havoc among the frames. Finally, the whole bunch cascaded to the floor with a crash of broken glass.

I inhaled sharply, suddenly woozy.

“Maybe you can break some more stuff,” he said, nodding to a rack of blinking servers behind the desk. “Those look expensive.”

I ignored his taunt and stooped to clean up the mess, grateful to have an excuse not to look at him.

He watched me the entire time.

As I picked up glass shards, my heart tugged in two different directions, galloping uphill. Part of me urgently needed to run, but part of me didn’t want to let him out of my sight. Part of me craved his nearness, as if to see just how close I could get to the raging fury in his heart before I got burned. Part of me wanted to stay and atone for my sins, and that part craved that he would guess the truth. That maybe I wouldn’t have to confess . . . maybe he would just
know
.

Maybe that was why I kept slipping up around him.

Part of me wanted him to know.

But I couldn’t let him know. I couldn’t tell anyone. Ever. No one could know. I had never been more aware of that than right now, locked in this room with him. I set the frames back on the desk and tucked my hair behind my ear, taking shallow breaths.

Here it comes . . .

“Who killed my sister?” he said.

“No one killed her,” I said, my voice dry and raspy.

“Look at you, you’re a nervous wreck. I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you or pissed off.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” I said.

He crossed his arms and nailed me with a probing glare. “I got all night. So do you. We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. Either way, you’re going to tell me what you know.”

“I don’t know anything,” I said, my voice rising.

“You’re not acting like someone who doesn’t know anything.”

I lowered my eyes, straining to draw in air.

“You going to puke again?”

“Shut up.”

“What do you know?”

I said nothing.

“Leona . . . Leona . . . oh,
Leona
—”

I shot him a glare.

“What’s your deal? You freak out every time I show up. You freak out every time I mention my sister.” He leaned forward, eyes menacing. “Why do you freak out?”

Suddenly, I had an idea.

Something Megan had said . . .
looking up a hot senior isn’t weird, Leona

I looked Emory straight in the eye. “Because I’m in love with you.”

“Bullshit,” he said, calling my bluff.

“Yeah, my friend pointed you out on the first day of school, and I’ve had a huge crush on you ever since. You looked at me, and I got so nervous I threw up. I do that sometimes.”

His eyes narrowed a little. “Double bullshit.”

“You don’t believe me? Ask my friend Megan.” Knowing her, that would be her default story, anyway.

Emory shook his head and muttered, “Hard way it is.” Then he stepped closer, invading my personal space.

Instinctively, I stepped backward, knocking another frame off the desk. “What are you doing?”

“You want to play games?” He backed me into the wall, eyes menacing. “Let’s play games.” He cupped his hand behind my neck and kissed me roughly on the mouth.

Huh?
Caught off guard, I twisted my face away from him and shoved him away hard, more stunned than anything. “What are you doing?”

“You’re a liar,” he spat.

He’d just called my bluff.

I fumbled around for an explanation. “I . . . I wasn’t ready.”

He glared at me. “What the hell was that? That wasn’t a kiss. That was bullshit . . . just like every goddamn thing out of your mouth, Leona. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.” He whipped to the side and delivered a violent kick to the desk, which wobbled violently and dumped the frames back to the floor. His shoe dented the wood. “That wasn’t a fucking kiss.”

I had to do something.

“No,
this
is a kiss.” I grabbed his letterman jacket and yanked him in to kiss him for real this time. Even though my entire body protested, I made him believe it, until he pushed me away and slumped against the wall.

“You have no idea what it’s like,” he moaned through gritted teeth. “No idea . . . hoping every day, hoping maybe, just maybe, she’s still alive out there. Wandering around, lost. That’s the worst part . . . that tiny little bit of hope. It’s like a piece of glass right there—” he pointed to his heart. “A little piece of glass stuck right there.” His eyes teared up, and he wiped his face with his hands. “I was supposed to protect her, my baby sister . . .” He pounded the wall and sobbed into his elbow. “I was supposed to protect her!”

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe.

His words closed around me like a noose.

He looked up, eyes red. “Can you tell me
anything?
”

Feeling like my throat had sealed shut, I nodded.

He needed to know.

In order to move on, he needed to know.

So I told him.

“Your sister Ashley is dead. I saw her die.”

Later that night
I shivered on the edge of my mattress, suffering wave after wave of icy dread as I stared down into the open contact case.

I saw her die.

Those words would come back to haunt me.

Emory hadn’t asked me any other questions at the party. He’d merely nodded with a vacant look in his eyes as if he sensed my sincerity . . . and sensed that I couldn’t tell him more than that.

Maybe just knowing was enough. Maybe he would leave it alone now, leave
me
alone. Maybe he would be able to have closure now, and I would be able to heal. Maybe it would be enough.

It wouldn’t be enough.

I rocked forward and backward, chewing the skin off my lip as a little voice tormented me.

Why’d you tell him, Leona?

You already got away with it. Why’d you tell him?

I shut my eyes, trying to squeeze it all out. They were only lulled right back open, my gaze drawn right back to the bottom of the contact lens case.

You kissed him.

Why’d you kiss him, Leona?

Can you imagine if he knew . . .
 
?

That he kissed his sister’s killer?

Can you imagine, Leona?

“Shut up, shut up,” I breathed through my fists, trying desperately to warm my chilled fingers. I had left the party and hiked down Mission Ridge Road to catch a bus home, and it had been oddly cold for a September night. I hadn’t bothering to tell Megan I’d left.

She would be furious.

Technically, I hadn’t told Emory anything he hadn’t already suspected. I’d just confirmed that Ashley was dead . . . because that was the right thing to do. I hadn’t admitted guilt.

He can see right through you.

He knows
.

A quiet shuffle sounded out in the hall, yanking my gaze off the contact case. My pulse rose in tempo. I listened.

Nothing.

My door hung open an inch. Through the gap, just blackness.

My parents still weren’t home.

“Who’s there?” I called.

No answer, no other sounds. Just my own thudding heart. I leaned over and hastily screwed on the lid of the contact lens case, in case someone accidentally kicked it over—

My bedroom door creaked.

I tensed and glanced up. The door inched open, creaking on its hinges until it came to rest a foot open, wobbling a little. The light from my bedroom spilled through the gap into the dark hallway, gleaming off the old pictures of family lining the walls.

“Who’s . . . who’s there?” I stammered. “Mom? . . . Dad?”

I would have heard their car.

I rose and tiptoed to the doorway, paused for a nerve-wracking second, and lunged out.

No one.

Then what opened the door? It couldn’t have been a draft, all the windows were shut. A smell wafted through the air. Recently disturbed dust, a hint of ash—

Warm air blew against my fingertips, and my hand recoiled.

Petrified, I gaped into the blackness at my feet. Slowly, my eyes adjusted. On the wall, a rectangular shape came into view.

I recognized it.

A vent.

I breathed out a sigh of relief.

The furnace had just come on, blowing air through the house. That was what had swung the door in. Probably the first time the heat had come on in months, hence the smell of singed dust. Summer was almost over—it was mid-September—and the night did have a particular bite to it.

I retreated into my bedroom, pulling the door shut behind me, grateful for the warm air swirling through the house.