Chapter 18 Nicola #2
Still, I can’t help thinking about Claire whenever I look at her.
There’s something wild about both of them, untamed, ferocious even.
Like whatever’s inside them is too big to be contained, and at any moment, it might break itself free and go hurtling across the countryside, wind rushing past as its claws dig ruts into the soft earth.
The first time I saw that wildness in Claire, we were sprinting back to campus during a thunderstorm.
Our clothes stuck to our limbs, and our socks squished, rubbing blisters onto our heels, but we were laughing loud enough to wake Cooper Square.
We were gasping with laughter, choking with laughter, until she pulled me into the covered passageway connecting our residence hall to the street.
She slammed me back against the wall, my shoulders scratching against rough brick, and before I could ask what she was doing, her lips were on mine.
Greer turns her head to the side, so we’re facing each other, her curls sweeping across the water.
“Wanna try?”
For a moment, I think she means… But she couldn’t know what’s on my mind. Not like it matters. I’m not interested in Greer that way; I can’t be. I’ve only ever been in one relationship, and look how that ended. I ignore the burning under my skin and ask, “Try what?”
She reaches over and grabs my hand, twisting her body so she’s upright again. “Hold your breath,” she says, and I have just enough time to fill my cheeks with air before she pulls both of us under.
Bubbles spray out around us as we kick our feet, trying to remain suspended. Seaweed brushes against my ankles, and as we sink lower and lower, my toes scrape across algae-covered rocks. Greer stares at me, wide-eyed, sunlight mottling her skin, and I stare back.
We stay down there for as long as we can, but breath seeps out of me until I have no choice but to squeeze her hand before letting go and rising toward the surface.
As I drift upward, I notice something dark and wavering over her shoulder—a shadow hovering in the water.
I break the surface and heave in a deep breath. Greer follows soon after. “Did you see something down there?” I ask.
Her eyebrows scrunch together. “Something? Like what kind of something?”
“Not sure.” I take another deep breath before diving back under.
I’m disoriented at first, caught between green algae and green pines, but then I catch sight of the shadow in the distance.
My hands split the water in front of me.
As I pull myself closer and closer, the shadow sharpens into what looks like…
Oh god.
Seaweed has tangled itself around legs, trapping the body at the bottom of the creek.
It bobs up and down, up and down, with the measured currents of the water.
I should resurface. I’m hallucinating; this can’t possibly be real, and yet, I find myself drifting forward.
It’s turned away from me, so I can’t see its face, but its hands look waxy and soft, like the top layer of skin has come loose and is about to slough off.
Just like in the photos of her on the autopsy table.
Claire.
I don’t want to, but my hand reaches out of its own accord, grabbing a fistful of fabric at her shoulder and spinning her around.
It’s not Claire.
It’s Zach.
All the breath whooshes out of me in a scream that can’t be heard.
His eyes are dull, cloudy, and his skin has the same waxy pallor as his hands, except in the parts where it’s been ripped away—revealing tendons and sinews and bone—and then my legs are kicking as hard as they can, my hands clawing their way up, and he’s dead, he’s dead, but I feel like he’s following me, and at any moment, those bloated fingers will wrap themselves around my ankle and pull me down with him—
My head bursts through the water, and I start swimming back as fast as I can. Greer’s close behind me. “Hey!” she sputters. “Wait up!” The two of us reach the dock, and I heave myself up onto the planks.
“What’s wrong?”
I try to get the words out, but I can’t.
He’s been murdered, just like Claire. He’s floating in the water, just like she was when the police found her, and oh god, this can’t be happening again.
I bury my mouth under my palms, scream into them, until arms wrap around me, pulling me into a warm, bony chest. I sob against the coarse mesh of her bralette.
“Nic,” she says, “Nic.” How long has she been saying my name? “Nic, what happened?”
“He’s dead.”
Her heart stops for just a moment. I can feel the stillness beneath my cheek.
“Who’s dead?”
“Zach.”
This couldn’t have been my father, could it? Panic jabs through my lungs like a fishhook and pulls until I can’t take any more air in, and I’m suffocating, I’m suffocating, and I’m going to die here, too.
“Calm down,” Greer instructs. “Breathe with me.” Her fingers tap a rhythm onto my spine—inhale for four, exhale for four.
Her breath guides mine, and slowly, slowly, my lungs start to release.
We sit there for a long time together, just breathing, and my thoughts gradually rearrange themselves.
My father’s locked up in a maximum-security ward on the other side of the country.
What’s happening now has nothing to do with him. But if it wasn’t my father, then who—
“Hey!”
The dock rattles beneath us. Connor’s charging across the rickety boards, Imogen close behind him. They pound to a stop a short distance away. “Are you all right? We thought you were heading to the lodge.”
Greer’s arms tighten around me. “Zach’s dead.”
“Dead,” Imogen says. “What do you mean, dead?” She turns toward Connor. “What does she mean, dead?”
“In the water. He must’ve drowned early this morning.”
Drowned? What’s she talking about? He didn’t drown. She didn’t see him; she didn’t see how mangled he was. Someone did that to him.
Imogen shakes her head, backing away from the water. “That can’t be right. He was there, last night, at the bonfire. He can’t be—” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Dead.”
Connor unties a canoe from the side of the dock, its paddles wedged under the seat. “Greer,” he says.
Whoever killed him must’ve used a knife.
How else to explain all those lacerations?
What kind of knife? I wonder. A small one, like the ones we kept under lock and key at the hardware store?
Or a larger one that you’d purchase from a specialty dealer?
My father kept both types in our house. I’ve handled them, know their weight in the palm of my hand—
My head’s tilted up by gentle fingers until I’m looking straight into Greer’s eyes. “Nic,” she says. “Nic, we’re going to bring him back. Will you be all right here? Just for a few minutes?”
I inhale, breath shuddering in my throat, before nodding my head.
The hull wobbles as the two of them step into the canoe, then they slowly start rowing toward the spot where we’d been swimming.
“I’ll go…” Imogen shakes her head, having momentarily lost her train of thought, then starts again. “I’ll get the others. They should know.”
I stare at my bare thighs, at the way my muscles are juddering just beneath the skin.
My whole body is shaking. Shock. I’m going into shock.
What I wouldn’t give for my phone right now.
I’d call my father, for the first time in months, just to reassure myself that he’s still locked up thousands of miles away.
Connor breaks the surface, and I can tell he’s hauling something through the water with him.
He grabs ahold of the canoe, catching his breath, and then he and Greer start pushing and pulling the body over the side.
It tumbles in, and she looks like she might retch.
Nothing can ever prepare you for seeing one of your friends dead.
Paddles skim the water as the two of them drift back toward the dock. One of Zach’s hands didn’t make it all the way in; his lifeless fingers drag across the surface.
It’s only then that I remember: He wasn’t alone when he left the lodge.
Where did Steffani go?