Chapter 3 #2
I grab her wrist before she can drift too far away. “Phone and location on at all times.”
She grins, as if expecting this part. As if it’s as comforting to her as it is for me. “Answer every text,” she says, nodding.
“Pick up every call.”
“Check in every thirty minutes.”
“Don’t go home with strangers,” I recite. A wry smile hooks my mouth. “Especially not with girls named Lake.”
Max wiggles free of my grip. In the harsh flashing colors, her eyes go tender. “Do you want to come with me? Or I can stay here.”
She bites her lip. On the margins of her expression, I see concern. She’s worried I won’t be okay without her.
“What?” I pretend to not be annoyed. “And be the third wheel to your hookup? No thanks.”
She elbows me. “I was being nice.”
I lean down to say, “You failed. Now go. I might vomit if I have to watch Lake stare at you like she wants to eat your face a second longer.”
Even in the room’s shadows, pink pops warmly against Max’s cheeks.
“Every thirty minutes,” she repeats.
“Every thirty minutes,” I parrot.
Max drifts off. I squeeze through the knot of bodies in the other direction.
There isn’t much more room in the kitchenette. People rotate in and out. Some for beers. Others wrench open the refrigerator, faces washed out by the bright interior light. Awkwardly, I claim a space in the corner.
I never went through the party phase my classmates did. I wasn’t interested. Or, well, I wasn’t comfortable enough, even in spaces I knew and felt safe. Between us, London was the social one. The shameless extrovert.
He moved through rooms like the sun, always drawing attention. Always leaving a hint of his warmth behind.
He would fit in here. He wouldn’t be pressed to a wall, avoiding eye contact with all passersby. London wouldn’t wince at the boring music. Or flinch at something crashing to the floor. The sharp pierce of laughter that follows.
“Here.”
I look up, startled.
A boy leans against the counter. He’s long and wiry. His thick black hair shines like a crow’s feathers, ending at his collarbone. In his fingers is a plastic shot glass. He extends it toward me.
Violently blue liquid sloshes over the sides.
“You look like you could use it,” he says.
I inspect the tiny cup, then him again.
He looks older than me, but only slightly. His delicate features—both his defined cheekbones and angular jaw—stand out against russet brown skin. South Asian, I think. He raises a thick eyebrow at me. The shot glass too.
“I’m not a drinker,” I tell him.
“More for me.” He tips his head back. Downs the liquid without spilling.
I watch greens and blues dance across the thin gold necklace he wears. The charm at the end is twin coiled snakes and…wings?
He places the empty cup on the counter. There’s a neat row of them. At least five. But he doesn’t seem drunk. He gestures elegantly toward the stack of cans next to the glasses.
“Bubbly water?”
“No,” I say. “But thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” He crosses his arms, studying me. The attention warms my face. “I don’t know you,” he says.
I let out a short laugh. Mostly out of gratitude. I half expected this party to be filled with familiar faces. Former classmates who knew my history. So far, everyone’s been a stranger.
Including this boy.
“I don’t know you either,” I say, not cruelly. Just a fact.
He smirks. “Are you new?”
“New to Santa Barbara?” I tilt my head. “I’ve been here my whole life. But I’m not an SBS freshman. Yet. Just visiting with—”
“No.” He flaps a hand to stop me. His eyes brighten. They’re light brown, almost amber in the room’s weird glow. “New to this party.”
“Oh.” I swallow. “I came with a friend.”
My eyes flit to the corner. Max is pressed into Lake’s side, talking animatedly with her friends. Lake’s hand is low on Max’s back, her smile high on her cheeks.
“A friend,” the boy repeats.
When I turn back to him, he has a fresh shot cup tipped to his mouth. His grin widens behind the plastic.
“You don’t look like you want to be here.”
He doesn’t say it meanly. Instead, his voice is a warm, curious note above the cacophony of music and talking. Something about his loose posture makes me relax.
“Is it obvious?” I comb fingers through my curls, smiling guiltily. Sweat dampens my scalp and forehead.
The boy shrugs. “Only to me.”
I don’t know what he means by that. He doesn’t explain. With an intense grin, he says, “Where else would you prefer to be?”
For whatever reason, I consider his question. He watches me, waiting. As if he already knows the answer I plan to give isn’t the real one.
My eyes catch on something in the hallway just outside the dorm’s open door. Someone striding past the room instead of into it. Even in profile, his face stops me from saying anything else. In the chaotic lights, he’s a sharp shadow. His name fills my throat like a choking smoke.
Cary.
He walks with purpose around the sea of bodies trying to enter. His bored expression says this party is the last place he’d want to be.
But he’s not alone.
Following close behind is a tall girl with pale white skin. Long hair flows down her back like an obsidian river. Her hand grips his.
Without thinking, my eyes leap back to him.
His head turns, as if he feels my stare. Our eyes meet. A chill slithers down my spine. There’s a hint of surprise in Cary’s face, like yesterday. The disbelief quickly dies, replaced by hard eyes, his arrow-shaped jaw straining against his skin.
Before my next breath, he disappears. The girl does too.
For a moment, I’m frozen. Shocked. Anger burns that feeling away. He knows what happened to Hal. And I want answers.
Now.
“Leaving so soon?”
The not-drunk boy inspects me, another drink hovering just shy of his amused lips. I forgot about him. I forgot what we were even talking about. My brain can only focus on one thing:
He’s leaving.
“I have to go,” I say, my voice tight with urgency.
One corner of his mouth goes higher. “Found the place you want to be?”
I don’t respond. Who was that girl and what was she doing with Cary?
I’ll never find out standing here.
“Sorry, it was nice to meet you,” I say in a rush, already shoving my way into the hallway and down the stairs.
The night’s air wraps around me like a fist. This close to the sea, the draft is strong. I can taste the salt in my throat as I look left and right.
No one’s here. Only a wide green campus that I know very little about.
It’s a maze with its identical palm trees and ivory buildings. I turn in circles. Suddenly, I can’t remember which way we walked earlier. And there’s nothing to indicate what direction Cary went. Not a single footprint in the lush grass.
Where is he?
I run, fast and determined. My feet pound against the stone walkways. I cross through an empty quad. Past the library lit orange by streetlamps. My eyes search hastily around.
A buzzing noise loops in my head. I ignore it, just like I ignore how my lungs swell and shrink too quickly. The exhausting ache that climbs up my legs.
Nightfall reshapes the campus until I’m not sure if I’m farther or closer to where I started.
Finally, I stop in another quad. A large fountain sits at the center. Sweat drips down my brow as I walk around it. My heaving chest fills with disappointment.
He’s gone. Again.
In the middle of the stone fountain is a sculpted warrior on a pedestal. A Trojan, Santa Barbara State’s mascot. Water leaps in clear streams from the well surrounding him. It falls back down in a splashing melody. Beneath that, I hear the buzzing again, loud, incessant.
It’s my phone.
“Where are you?” Max yells the moment I answer.
“I don’t know.” I turn in another circle. “Nearby? I think I see a cafeteria.”
“Why’d you leave?” Her voice is a mix of fury and frustration and fear.
“I saw him.”
“Saw who?”
“Cary.” His name is like sand in my mouth, coarse and unwanted. “He’s on campus. I need to find him and—”
“God, August,” Max groans, the last syllable breaking wetly. “I don’t have time for this.”
My back stiffens. “What’s wrong?”
“Th-there’s—” She pauses to clear her throat. “There’s a dead girl. In one of the dorms down the hall from the party. Someone found her. Everyone’s freaking out. We don’t know what happened.”
With every word, my heart races.
I’m dizzy. Max is still talking. I hear her, but distantly.
“I don’t even know who she is,” she is saying, breaths as shallow as mine. “I’ve seen her before…I think? She’s so tall and pale. Always wears her hair down—”
“Does she have black hair?” I ask.
Max sniffs. “Yeah, why?”
I flop down on the edge of the fountain. The girl walking through the hall with Cary. But how could she be back in the dorms already? Did they ever leave? Did I…imagine everything?
My eyes dip to the water. I blink, confused.
In the ripples I see them: Cary and the girl. They’re upside down, and not on campus anymore. Somewhere different, stranger.
The moon is half-full, throwing a soft silvery glow on the water’s surface. Maybe it’s a trick of the light. Except, no, they’re there, talking. Oblivious of me watching.
“August? Are you still there?”
I pull my phone from my ear. My free hand trembles as I reach for the water. “It’s not possible,” I whisper.
Cold creeps up my skin as my fingers break the surface. The image doesn’t fade. It buckles and re-forms. I sink my wrist into the water. I wait for whatever I’m seeing to just be an aftereffect of my grief.
Instead, I feel a light grip, like getting your feet caught in the wet sand. Then a stronger tug. I try to lurch back, but my arm can’t escape. It’s as if the water wants me, refusing to let go until it wins. And it does.
Before I can scream for help, I’m dragged into the fountain.
Under, under, deep into the darkness.