Chapter Twenty-Eight

Selena

That Little Thing Called Drama

The bright light.

The biting air.

The black dog.

The pointing hooded figure.

The blood.

All the blood from a hole in my chest. The taste of copper and rust on my tongue. It tasted like fear.

Screaming. Lots and lots of screaming.

Who could it be at this time of night? What could have happened? She sounded like she was in pain. So much pain. I couldn’t take it.

The door to my room burst open, almost tearing from its hinges. A woman in a cotton robe rushed in. Her white hair hung down loosely over her delicate shoulders. A towering man in a shirt and sweat pants, holding a baseball bat, filled the doorway after her.

The screams continued. Hoarse now. The voice was running out of steam.

“Selena!” The woman sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed my arms. She shook me. “Selena! Wake up!”

I wanted to say “stop,” but the cries drowned out the word in my head.

“Slap her, Caroline,” the man said.

The crack of a hand against skin cut through the screams, silencing them.

The sting on my cheek spread, waking me in slow degrees. I blinked dry eyes, panting and swallowing. Over and over I panted and swallowed. My hands white-knuckled the comforter that pooled on my lap.

“Water,” I begged hoarsely.

The man disappeared out my door.

Shivering, I focused on the woman. My brain told me I knew her. That I was supposed to know her. But I couldn’t remember her name. Slowly, I let go of my comforter—one aching finger at a time.

“Selena.” Her brow puckered. “Do you recognize me?”

I ransacked my brain for the right answer and came up with a whole lot of nothing.

The man came back with a glass of water, an equally worried expression on his handsome face. “Here, my dear, drink.”

Taking the glass with shaking hands, I brought its rim to my lips. I reminded myself to take slow gulps, listening to what the man and woman were saying.

“…years since she’s been this way,” the man said.

“Not since they died. That look, that empty expression. Those screams. Oh, David.” The woman covered her mouth with a trembling hand.

“Shhh.” He gathered her in his arms. “She’s strong. She’ll come back to us. You’ll see.”

The screams came from me? I made those horrible sounds? Every sip of water confirmed the rawness of my throat. It hurt to swallow. Then the vision came back to me. I stared at the couple holding each other, finally recognizing them.

“Grams?” My voice was so small, not like what I was used to hearing from me.

Tears raced down her face. “Oh, Selena,” she said. She gathered me into her arms and sobbed into my shoulder.

I looked up at the man. “Gramps?”

“Yes, dear?” He looked so fragile for such a big man.

I pushed away the disturbing images of my death. Closer now, more than ever. I felt it. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Gramps scolded.

Grams broke the hug and dried the last of her tears with the sleeve of her robe. Her piercing eyes held mine.

“What did you see?” she demanded.

I scrambled for a lie. “A nightmare.”

“Are you sure?”

Lying to Grams and Gramps shredded my insides, but I had to do it. I didn’t want them to worry more than they already were. Even if I barely had clear memories of them, I pulled out the big guns: “Mom and Dad.”

Grams’s granite expression softened. She wrapped her arms around me again. Gramps joined in, taking the both of us into the wide expanse of his reach. We all rocked in silence for what seemed like hours.

The darkness outside gave way to pale morning light by the time Grams fussed about making breakfast. I watched them step out of my room like they didn’t want to leave. I kept a smile on my face even though I was dying inside. I couldn’t tell them. I couldn’t tell anyone.

…

A few miles out of Newcastle, Mr. Sloan stood in the aisle of the school bus beside the driver and happily explained what the class could expect from our trip to Mount Rushmore. It seemed like I was seeing him for the first time, my American History teacher. I would have never suspected him of being anything other than the guy smiling and enthusiastically answering questions beside the driver. He was Illumenari. Speaking of which, my gaze landed on Constance and a brunette named Tina giggling. Their heads were close together, whispering and sneaking peeks at Dillan, who sat with a brown-haired boy named Tim two rows in front of them. He ignored Mr. Sloan by staring out the window. The boy who, in one afternoon, flipped my life on its head. I had a feeling he’d rather be doing something else than be stuck sitting on a bus full of teenagers. Maybe policing those he called Supernaturals? I was pretty sure he was about my age, maybe a year older, but sometimes, when he got really quiet like he did now, he seemed older. It still wigged me out how calm I was being about all this. Like the life I had before yesterday wasn’t the one that was normal. I sent a silent prayer for strength to whoever would listen.

Our group rode in the first bus while the other half of the eleventh grade rode in bus number two. Penny grumbled about the fact that she couldn’t ride with our class when we all gathered at Newcastle High’s parking lot that morning. Mr. Sloan insisted she stay with her class in the second bus. I smiled at the memory of Penny’s mock devastation. My phone was filled with frown-y faces—all from her.

My brow wrinkled at my seatmate after I deleted yet another message with a frown emoticon. “What did you say?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kyle asked, angling his head to get a better look at me. I shrank away from him, pushing my phone back into my pocket. “Your eyes look all puffy.”

“Just didn’t get a lot of sleep. Was super excited about today.” The lie, once it started coming out of my mouth, sounded like the truth. I twisted around and grabbed his hand, examining his bruised knuckles so he couldn’t stare into my eyes. “What happened here?”

He shrugged. “Slammed into something, I guess.”

“Like what? A wall?”

“Don’t you just love field trips?” Kyle asked. His expression was unrepentant.

Whoa! Sudden topic change. Great. The amount of things we kept from each other seemed to pile up now. How long until we stopped sharing things with each other altogether?

I glanced out the window.

“What happened after you left me on the porch?” The question came out of me when I couldn’t take the silence between us anymore. At least give me an A for effort. I was trying.

After a long, deep breath, he finally said, “I had an errand to run. Honest.”

“Close to midnight?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I remembered Riona asking me to buy her some pasta.”

For the first time in our years of friendship, Kyle lied to me point blank. It hurt more because he didn’t even try to hide it. My chest ached. He was deliberately keeping things from me, and he wasn’t even very good at it. But then my own secrets surfaced. I lived in a glass house and I was throwing stones. I saw no point in arguing when he clearly didn’t want to tell the truth. I breathed away my rising temper and let the lie go.

…

When we got to the memorial, the entire eleventh grade gathered around Mr. Sloan in the parking lot. He passed out brochures with a map and information about the monument while explaining that we had the day to explore. By two in the afternoon, everyone needed to meet back at the amphitheater to watch a program describing the construction of the site. After one last warning about staying on the Presidential Trail, Mr. Sloan allowed us to break into groups.

I called for Penny to join Kyle—the big fat liar—and me on the trail. This was right about the time Bowen—the lying, cheating ex—grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. I stumbled and glared up at him. Before I could call him out for being rough, he’d already asked his question.

“Can we talk?”

“Selena?” Kyle waited, worry in his eyes.

I debated making him stay or letting him go. Something about the earnest way Bowen looked made me want to find out what he wanted. If this got ugly, I didn’t want any witnesses. This was my problem, and I’d handle it.

“Go ahead with Penny. I’ll catch up.” I waved Kyle away.

After some hesitation, Kyle shrugged and joined Penny at the entrance. When I was sure he was out of earshot, I folded my arms and glared at Bowen. “Ouch, by the way. Handle me like meat, why don’t you?”

His brows came together as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Sorry. I just really wanted to talk to you.”

“As far as I’m concerned, we have nothing to talk about.”

Bowen’s expression combined serious and something else—something that whispered of dark nights and scary things. I caught a malicious spark in his eyes I’d never seen before. My fingers twitched. I squeezed my arms tighter and reminded myself to keep calm.

He closed the gap between us and placed his hands on my shoulders. “I miss you. I miss the way we used to be together.” He trembled as he spoke, a fire in his eyes that turned the black coffee color into pure inky midnight. “Cheating to make you jealous was a mistake.” A frightening, obsessed stalker-like determination tinted his words. “I wish I’d shown you how I felt earlier, but I thought to take my time. That got me nowhere. Now, I’m showing you all my cards. I want you back in my life.”

Self-preservation, the type that came from years of human evolution, snapped me out of my daze. I unfolded my arms and held on to his wrists. My fingers wouldn’t even go all the way around them. I stepped out of his hold.

“Enough,” I said. “We can’t be together. Not anymore.”

“Why not?” His expression clouded over, danger in the hard set of his jaw. This was worse than that afternoon at the supermarket.

“I just can’t.”

“You have to give me a reason why.”

I scrambled for the one reason he might buy. If he thought I’d moved on then maybe he’d drop this ludicrous idea of us getting back together. I focused on his eyes and willed my rapidly beating heart to slow. I needed to sound convincing or he wouldn’t believe me.

“I like someone else,” I forced myself to say with conviction.

He cocked his head to the side. “Who?”

I scanned the last of our classmates heading for the Presidential Trail and found the guy I was searching for.

“Dillan!” I called and he turned to face me. I waved him over and he raised an eyebrow at me. Great. Now wasn’t the time for him to be a jerk, especially after insisting he’d protect me. Some lame bodyguard he was.

“Him?” Bowen scowled at Dillan over his shoulder.

Finally taking the hint, Dillan trotted to my side. And in a move I hadn’t expected, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. I did my best not to step away despite the rush of warmth spreading over my cheeks.

“You ready to go?” he asked me without paying attention to the fuming Bowen in front of us.

“You’d better leave before I wipe that grin off your face.” Bowen growled.

“Oh, you’d like that.” Dillan grinned wider. “But this isn’t the time or place to teach me some manners. Do you really want to get kicked off the swim team?”

His words hung in the air until Bowen said to me, “I hope you’re happy.”

A chill ran down my back as he turned around and stalked away. Not knowing what to think, I focused all my attention on the first thing I saw.

“Where’d you get that?” I reached for Dillan’s bruise.

He tilted away, dropping his arm. “I ran into something.”

“Huh. Kyle said the same thing on the bus.” For some reason my shoulders felt empty without the weight of his arm there. “You two aren’t fighting, are you?”

He gave me a half grin. He thumbed the bruise. “You know guys. We talk best with our fists.”

“You’re shitting me.” I shifted my weight, unsure which to do first: be pissed at Dillan or worry about Kyle. I settled for worry. “What did you two fight about?”

“I’m kidding.” He raised both his hands. “I don’t know what happened with Hilliard. I really did run into something.”

Something told me not to believe him, but the distraction worked to calm me down. “Thanks for the back up.”

“Yeah, what was that about?”

“Hopefully showing Bowen I’d moved on.”

“Huh.” He smiled. “Moving on wouldn’t happen to be in my direction is it?”

I rolled my eyes and walked away. “Don’t kid yourself.”

Without comment, Dillan let me lead us to the Presidential Trail. I flipped open the brochure Mr. Sloan gave out and followed the marked path. It didn’t take long until we caught up with Penny and Kyle at the Grand View Terrace.

The grandeur of the site washed over me. My encounter with Bowen became a distant memory compared to seeing the magnificent granite carvings of four influential presidents in American history. I reminded myself not to let anything else spoil my day. Every little piece of normal I could get mattered. My vision left me no other choice. If I was supposed to die then I’d live every second of my life—not that I was giving up on finding a way around the vision. Just, right now, I wanted to live in the present.

Penny excitedly bounced to my side. “There you are!”

Her voice was so loud birds flew out of their perches. She winced and had the sense to look guilty. Pushing away the last of my morbid thoughts, I listened to her upbeat explanation of the history of the memorial. From Gutzon Borglum’s planning of how the structure would look to the origins of the mountain’s name, Penny didn’t miss a thing. She even narrated the story of how Borglum’s son took over after his father died in 1941, complete with dramatic pauses and grand hand gestures.

The amount of trivia she knew didn’t surprise me. She was my information central after all. But after a while, I noticed something different about her. Penny’s eyes seemed glazed and unfocused, like she stared past me instead of at me.

Kyle called out from a few yards away, “Let’s go, ladies. We have to start the trail if we want to see the Sculptor’s Studio and Borglum’s Viewing Terrance before the amphitheater.”

I waved at him, chalking up what I saw in Penny’s eyes to paranoia. “Kyle the control freak. Never gets old.”

“You got that right.” She linked her arms with mine. The picture perfect friend. To the boys, she said, “We’ll take it slow, guys. Go on ahead.”

I added, “We’ll be fine.”

Dillan and Kyle shared a glance then shrugged at the same time.

Penny and I giggled.

“Boys,” she said.

“Boys.” I sighed. This was good. Time outdoors. Some fresh air. The company of a good friend. Just what I needed.

I matched my pace with her ambling as Kyle’s and Dillan’s long legs ate up the trail. I said a silent prayer of thanks that Penny wanted to go slow. The beauty of the Presidential Trail would have been wasted if we went as fast as the boys did.

Nature upon nature. Snapdragons, sunflowers, and violets scattered everywhere, giving the abundance of green from the pines a much needed punch of color. The cool breeze spread the woodsy smell of the place. I breathed it in deep.

The guys had just disappeared around a bend when a prickly sense of anxiety beat with my heart. An invisible hand slowly closed its clammy fingers around my neck. My eyes darted to Penny. My friend’s expression stayed content. But her silence was unusual. She should have been talking my ear off about the other things she’d learned about Mt. Rushmore. Or at least ask me about my talk with Bowen.

The feeling of something being really wrong twisted in my chest. Searching for the source, I didn’t notice Penny had pulled away from me until I saw her walk up to a snapdragon at the side of the trail. The sense of being watched choked my every breath. The guys were too far away now to call out to without shouting. No one else walked the trail with us. Odd. The number of tourists who visited the site should’ve meant we were never alone.

When I returned my attention to my best friend, debating whether to tell her what I felt or not, she smiled at me. My small measure of relief shattered when she stepped into the forest. Gut twisting panic overrode the voice inside my head warning me not to go after her.