Vengeance (13 page)

“Mike! Don’t get too close,” Carolina said.

“That was intense,” he responded. “We all could have died.”

He was practically smiling as he said it. Some kind of death-wish thrill seeker, I guessed. I coughed a few times, trying to dispel the grime from my lungs, as Carolina pushed herself up and dusted off the front of her T-shirt and jeans. She offered me a hand and I took it gratefully. My arm throbbed as if my heart were stuck between my broken bone and my skin.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” I replied, glancing up at the torn cords dangling around the pallet. “I think.”

Larry jogged toward us, while his assistant shouted at various startled-looking workers, trying to figure out what had happened and who was to blame. I turned in a circle, glancing at all the Easton buildings, at the small klatches of people who had stopped upon hearing the mayhem. I narrowed my eyes, searching their faces, looking for Missy or Paige or that mysterious blond specter I’d seen lurking about—looking for someone who wasn’t surprised or who looked disappointed that I hadn’t just died.

But all I saw were stunned, wide eyes and pale, frightened faces.

“Are you all right?” Larry asked, grasping Carolina’s elbow as he arrived. He was practically doubled over panting and I knew he was
more winded from the near-death experience than from the run.

“We’re fine,” Carolina told him. She tucked a sweaty curl behind her ear and dusted her hands off again with a laugh. “You know, I brushed that reporter off the other day when she asked if this site was cursed, but now I’m starting to wonder,” she said jokingly.

Larry laughed as well. As the camera panned to me, I tried to join in, but I found that I just couldn’t. Carolina and Larry didn’t realize that around here, curses were no laughing matter. Around Easton, and Billings in particular, they were all too real.

“What are we doing up here?” I asked Ivy as we stepped out of the woods into the clearing surrounding the Billings Chapel. The sky was a dark cobalt blue, thanks to a gleaming full moon, and peppered with a million stars. The whitewashed tower of the church rose toward the heavens, looming bright and familiar. We hadn’t been to the chapel in months—not since Mr. Lange had died.

“You’ll see,” Ivy said, drawing her hands up inside the sleeves of her gauzy white sweater. We slowly approached, and she blew into her hands, even though it was a relatively warm night.

“Does Noelle know we’re here?” I asked. For the tenth time since we’d left campus and started up the hill, I pulled out my phone and checked it. Josh still hadn’t called. He
had
to have heard about my latest brush with death. And even if he hadn’t, he’d told me he’d call. He had pinkie-sworn. So where the heck was he?

“She does,” Ivy replied, mounting the stone steps. “She kind of invited us.”

I blinked, confused, but before I could say anything, she threw open the double oak doors and all my friends jumped out from behind columns and pews.

“Surprise!”

My hand flew to my heart and for a second I thought I was about to find out how it felt to be scared to death. Then I saw the hundreds of candles aglow around the room, the huge banner strung over the pulpit reading, “Congratulations, Reed!” and what seemed to be at least two hundred black and silver balloons cramming the lofty ceilings.

“Congratulations?” I breathed, as Kiki and Lorna swooped in for hugs and Tiffany snapped about a dozen pictures.

“For surviving your latest near-death experience!” Astrid shouted, letting out a celebratory cheer that was echoed by the rest of the group.

I laughed, shaking my head at their ridiculousness as the Twin Cities pulled me into the room. Half the girls were swigging bloodred punch from china cups, the other half toting delicate flutes full of bubbling champagne. “Wow. You really will find any excuse to throw a party.”

“You know us
so
well,” London chirped. She grabbed a cupcake off a pastry cart at the front of the room and handed it to me. The frosting was green and looked like grass, and a black cookie stuck out from the top with the letters A.R.I.P. piped on in white letters.

“Arip?” I asked.

“Almost Rest In Peace,” Portia explained, pointing at each corresponding letter in turn.

I rolled my eyes and handed the cupcake to her. “I’m laughing on the inside,” I said wryly. “What else ya got?”

“We have Death by Chocolate, black M&Ms, rocky road ice cream . . . ,” Vienna said, walking around the pastry cart and pointing things out like a game-show hostess. “And . . .”

“Our drink choices are Cristal, some crazy blood punch London’s brother taught her to make, and . . . Johnnie Walker Black!” Shelby announced, proffering a bottle of scotch. “Want some?”

I laughed and waved her off. “No, thank you. But I
will
have some of that rocky road. . . .”

“Wait! We almost forgot the costumes!” Amberly called out as everyone dug into the desserts. “Where’s Noelle?”

“Right here! And no, I don’t need any help, thanks for asking,” she said, rolling her eyes. She shoved a rolling wardrobe rack out from one of the alcoves on the side of the church, its wheels creaking and squeaking as she tried to maneuver it over the old chipped and warped floorboards. The rack appeared to be packed with black and white clothing, everything from satin to tulle to rubber to spandex.

“Costumes?” I asked warily, sucking the ice cream off an almond before crunching into it. “What kind of costumes?”

“It’s up to you,” Noelle said, dusting her hands off before leafing through the choices. “You can be the angel of death, a priest, a nun, an assassin, a zombie—a sexy zombie, of course . . .”

“Do they sell any other kind?” Ivy asked, taking a sip from her punch glass.

Already my friends were attacking the rack, always up for a fun wardrobe change. Their chatter filled the room, crowding my chest with its giddy excitement.

“What about this?” Noelle said, emerging from the throng with a grim reaper mask. “I figure the reaper can’t come for you if you
are
the reaper.”

I put my dish of ice cream aside and plucked the mask from her hands, then sat at the end of the nearest pew, staring down at its gaping eye holes.

“This was your idea?” I asked her.

“I thought I’d take your mind off things without entirely ignoring the unignorable,” she said, lifting her palms. “Brilliant, no?”

I tilted my head. “Either that or highly inappropriate.”

“Can’t it be both?”

Noelle grabbed a black veil from the end of the rack, along with a comically huge black tulle skirt. She shimmied out of her jeans, exposing her string bikini underpants and the scar just above her hip. I felt myself staring at it, as always, and quickly looked away.

“Whoa. What happened to you?” Ivy blurted.

Everyone sort of froze and the conversation died completely. In the two years I’d known Noelle, no one had ever asked her about the scar. I had almost done it a dozen times, but had always stopped myself. Because I thought it would be rude. Or because I didn’t want to know. The scar was angry and red and jagged. It just
seemed like the story behind that couldn’t be anything but bad.

Of course, Ivy had no such concerns.

“Oh, this?” Noelle concaved her stomach and looked down at the scar, running her finger over it. “That was from my own near-death experience.”

I swallowed against a dry throat. “When?”

Noelle narrowed her eyes as she stepped into the tulle skirt. “I was, like, seven years old, riding horses with my cousins at my grand mother’s ranch—this would be my mom’s mom, not
our
grandmother,” she clarified. “Anyway, my horse got spooked and threw me and I fell onto an old gardening fork thing that someone had left out.”

“Ugh.” Amberly stuck out her tongue.

“Gross.” London shuddered.

“Yeah. Even grosser? The country hick MD who sewed me up,” Noelle said with a wry grimace. “Thus, the scar.”

She jammed the black veil down onto her head and flipped the front piece of lace over her face. I stared at her as everyone else got back to dressing.

“That’s it?” I said.

She lifted the veil and cocked one eyebrow. “What? You expected something more sinister?”

“Can you blame me? I mean, considering our history . . . ,” I said.

Noelle let the veil fall again. “Just goes to show you, Reed. Not everything is part of some big conspiracy.” She plucked the mask out of my hands and brought it down over my face. “Some things just . . . happen.”

The mask smelled of new rubber and I instantly felt dizzy. But not
in an exactly bad way. More like that sugar-high-from-Halloween kind of way.

“Come on,” she said, pulling me up by my good arm. “I’ve always wanted to dance with death.”

Someone cranked up the music and Noelle swung me around toward the open area of the church, in front of the first pew. I had a vague inkling that this was somehow sacrilegious, a feeling that only grew as Rose, dressed up as a devil, and Tiffany, decked out as a priest, started twirling around us, holding hands. But considering all I’d been through in the past few days, I decided to just go with it, and within a few minutes I was laughing, relaxing, forgetting.

Maybe Noelle was right. Some things just happened. And even though I didn’t exactly believe that my broken arm and my stitches and the broken pallet and the crashing cement truck weren’t part of something bigger, tonight I would pretend that I did believe it. Just for my friends. Just for tonight.

My phone beeped in my back pocket and I let go of Noelle to dig it out, figuring it was Josh. But instead it was a text from MT. When I saw the words, my heart all but stopped.

“Is it him?” Noelle asked, looking down over my shoulder.

I took a deep breath and lifted the phone so she could see it better. “Yep.”

The text read:

U DON’T WANT 2 GO 2 THE AWARDS BANQUET TMRW. TRUST ME.

“So we’re agreed?” Tiffany said as we walked toward the dining hall for breakfast on Thursday morning. “No more putting yourself in mortal peril? At least until
after
graduation?”

I glanced around at her, Portia, Rose, and Ivy and forced a laugh, thinking of MT’s latest text and wondering for the millionth time whether I
should,
in fact, trust him. “I’ll try.”

Ivy gave the others a wry smile, her dark hair falling forward over her sunglasses. “Unfortunately, I think that’s the best we’re going to get out of her.”

The others rolled their eyes collectively. “Fine,” Portia said, shrugging her tweed cropped jacket off and hooking it over her arm. It was a warm morning, and everyone on the quad looked like they were already dressing for summer. “But honestly? I think you should have tried to graduate early. You need to get the HOOHFG.”

“Whatever that means,” Rose joked, nudging Portia with her hip.

We were still laughing when Josh jogged up next to me and joined us. I wasn’t sure whether to be happy he was still alive or irritated he hadn’t called all night last night.

“Hey,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Can I talk to you?”

Finally!
I wanted to scream. “Sure.” My friends paused in a semicircle for a moment. “I’ll catch up to you guys.”

“Fine. But Josh, you keep an eye on her,” Tiffany warned, raising a finger and waggling it between us.

Josh’s brow knit in confusion, but he nodded. “Okay. I’ll do that.”

My friends traipsed off and Josh took my hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you last night. Tiff told me they were taking you out to distract you and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Oh. Well, you could have texted me to tell me that, at least,” I said, feeling relieved nonetheless.

“Sorry.” Two almost-perfect circles of pink appeared high on his cheeks. “Come on. We need to talk.”

“We
so
do.”

He tugged me toward the nearest oak tree and tossed his canvas jacket down beneath it for me to sit on. I chuckled at his chivalry, but accepted it. This was one of those rare days when I’d chosen to wear a skirt and I didn’t love the idea of twigs and rocks jabbing into my bare skin. I sat down and cradled my cast against my chest, feeling warm and nervous, wondering where this was all going.

Josh sat down next to me and bent his knees, resting his forearms
atop them and lacing his fingers together. He blew out a sigh, looked at me sheepishly, and began.

“Okay, here’s the thing,” he said, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He closed his eyes for a second, like he was building up his confidence. “I wasn’t exactly accepted at Cornell.”

I blinked. Whatever I had imagined was coming, that wasn’t even close. “Wait, you were rejected?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what?” I asked, baffled. Josh had told me back in March that he’d gotten his acceptance letter.

“I was wait-listed,” he admitted, ducking his chin. He looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Do you hate me?”

“Hate you? Are you kidding? No!” My voice had gone shrill out of relief. This was so much less bad than anything I had conjured up in my mind. All I wanted to do was get up and do a happy dance. But Josh was not looking quite so elated. “I guess I’m just . . . confused,” I told him. “I thought you got in weeks ago.”

“I know. I lied,” he said, turning slightly toward me. “I’m so sorry, Reed, I was just so embarrassed. My entire family went to Cornell. I mean, everyone except Lynn, but he did get in. I’m the first ever to not get in.”

“But you didn’t
not
get in,” I said. “You got . . . maybe-ed.”

“I know. It was just so humiliating. And even worse because . . .”

When he trailed off, my heart thumped fretfully. There was more?

“Because I didn’t apply anywhere else.”

My jaw dropped.

“I know! I’m such an idiot!” He covered his face with his hands, one of which was peppered with purple paint spots. “I thought it was a lock and I didn’t really want to go anywhere else anyway, so—”

“So what you’re saying is, as of right now, you don’t have a school to go to next year,” I clarified slowly. A light breeze rustled the green canopy of leaves over our heads, and I leaned back against the tree’s rough bark.