Chapter 14 Avery
Avery
In my life, I like seeing the pieces for something line up, both literally and metaphorically.
What I hate—what I despise—is when something doesn’t make sense.
Over the last Christmas before Dad and Mom finally decided to get divorced—before they hired Caulder’s dad to sell the house I grew up in and everything changed irrevocably—we tried to do a jigsaw puzzle of a bookstore in New York.
It had snow and lights and a little dog wearing a sweater.
It had over a thousand pieces, and we nearly finished it.
Except that Gizmo, our cat, stole one of the pieces. I found it weeks later, under a rug with teeth marks in it. But in that moment, our inability to finish the puzzle felt like a condemnation. On Mom and Dad’s failed marriage. On my inability to bring them together. On everything.
I’m ready for this puzzle to be solved, neatly. I’m ready to go upstairs and be told, yes, Emerson convinced everyone to pull a weird prank on us, probably to try to get some clout going on social media.
But then the noise upstairs. It sounded heavy. Did someone fall running from their hiding spot? Or maybe that’s an additional layer to the prank meant to scare us?
My anxiety’s absolutely zero help in moments like this, whispering in my ear that I actually do need to start freaking out because something awful clearly happened.
This is why I hate doing haunted houses.
I have to spend every moment walking through reminding myself that the people jumping out at me are actors and everything’s fake and the sounds are meant to ratchet up my heart rate.
I try to stay still and unaffected, knowing any sign of fear will bring the actors down on me like vultures on meat.
But it never works. Instead, my brain starts to tell me that one of the scare actors might actually be a serial killer in disguise about to kill everyone because no one will suspect them.
I tell myself that nothing bad is going to happen now.
Dr. Millet would tell me to analyze the situation and determine the worst-case scenario—the one I’m likely to imagine—and then the most realistic alternative.
And now the realistic alternative is that a lamp fell over upstairs or maybe I’m right and someone tripped.
But beyond that, I have no reason to be freaked out.
Caulder’s not, after all. He’s the picture of calm, and right now, I just need to follow him and walk up the stairs to solve the puzzle and put it away.
So that’s what I do. I take the first step, and I breathe.
Halfway up, I can see the second floor where the stairs bisect it, leaving rooms on either side. It’s dark. The teachers must have turned the hallway lights off when they went to bed.
The teachers.
If we heard the thud, wouldn’t they have?
“Which rooms are the teachers in?” I ask Caulder, sliding my hand along the railing as we walk up.
“The rooms to the right,” he says. “I think Dorman’s in the primary bedroom. And Mr. Jay and Coach were in the ones next to it. Why? You think we should let them know?”
“No,” I say quickly. “Just in case we—”
The words die on my lips as the air is sucked out of my lungs. Because there’s something on the ground at the end of the hall.
No.
Not something.
Someone.
Caulder sees them a second after I do, but I’m faster.
I take the remaining stairs two at a time, stumbling on the last one but righting myself before I hit the ground.
I sprint down the hall, reaching the person in a matter of steps, and drop down next to him.
There’s blood. He’s face down, his arms splayed out like a goal post, legs twisted at horrible angles.
“No, no, no, no.” The words fall out of my mouth as I kneel beside him. I put my hand on his shoulder to roll him over, and I choke at the slick feeling there, at the metallic tang of blood hanging over him.
But I have to see him. I have to know. I push him onto his back and see his face.
“Lucas,” Caulder says, just as I scream.