When people ask me how I am, I have to struggle not to scream.
—Page 15 of Tessa Waye’s diary
I can’t stop worrying about Griff. I leave school fully expecting to see cops waiting for me in the parking lot, but there aren’t any. None on my way home. Or at the house.
I have no idea what this means, and it kind of makes my head want to explode.
I unlock our side door quietly, but Bren catches me before my feet even hit the stairs. Swear to God, the woman must have supersonic hearing. It’s like her superpower or something.
“Wicket, are you home?” Bren comes down the hallway from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a pale pink dish towel. She makes it about four feet in front of me before her nose wrinkles.
“Why do you smell like meat loaf, Wick?”
Oh God. The cafeteria served meat loaf on Wednesday. Now wearing cafeteria meat loaf is bad enough, but wearing five-day-old cafeteria meat loaf is grounds for vomiting.
I try to nod like it’s no big thing. “Yeah, I’ve been recycling.”
Bren’s brows rise, and I nod harder, mentally willing her to believe me. I don’t know if she does, but thankfully, she doesn’t push it. The last thing I need is my foster mom streaking down to the principal’s office to complain. If that happens, Jenna will make sure No Neck holds me under the garbage bags until I stop kicking.
“Maybe you should take a shower,” Bren suggests.
“Or ten.” I offer her a slight smile, and to my surprise, Bren smiles back. Poor Bren. They don’t cover this shit in her parenting magazines.
I don’t think this really qualifies as a Moment, but it’s still kind of nice. She doesn’t even remind me to put my clothes in the hamper.
Doesn’t even bring me a vat of bleach to douse myself in either, which, honestly, is pretty generous of her. If my kid (or, you know, whatever I am to her) came home smelling like meat loaf, I’d probably hose her off in the yard.
I shampoo my hair for the second time and decide I might be making progress on the Bren front. Until I dry off and realize she’s thrown away all my clothes from today.
Including my Converses.
Scowling, I turn my computer on, wait for the internet browser to load. Plenty of time for me to worry about what’s happening to Griff, what I may have done by telling him about Tessa, and what Griff may do by telling Carson. I rub my eyes, sudden exhaustion making me want to curl up in a ball.
Then there’s Tessa’s attacker. Griff’s right after all. I am taunting a psychopath. He’ll retaliate. I know he will.
But that’s how I’ll catch him.
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself, because the alternative is pretty horrifying to admit. He could come after me. Worse, he could come after Lily.
My Google home page populates, and I use my Gmail account to send Tally a quick message. We need to talk. I want to know more about what Tessa meant when she wrote her mom loved this guy. Maybe Tally will have a few ideas, but I don’t want to explain myself over email, so I ask her to meet me tonight at the path by her house instead. I hit send and feel a little better.
Even though I know I’m obsessing, I type in the Facebook web address. My computer’s history takes me to Tessa’s page, and I’m almost surprised her parents haven’t taken it down. Tessa’s profile picture still grins at me and I scroll, quickly, to get away from it, heading down the page to find my comment and his reply.
It’s still there, but so is something else. Marcus Starling’s written to me again, added a picture, and the image makes a sob claw up my throat.
It’s a picture of Lily. And when I scroll down to the comment below, he’s written:
See who’s next?