Oh god. I feel awful. I shouted at her and made her cry.
Like we don’t already have enough to deal with.
I can’t stand the sight of Shannon with her hands over her face like this. I shuffle closer and put my arm over her shoulders.
She lets herself lean against me. I pull her into a hug, wrapping my arms around her. She melts into my chest and tucks her head under my chin and cries and cries.
Her hair smells like watermelons.
After a while her sobs ebb into sniffles, but she’s shivering. We sit like that for I don’t know how long. Until she stops crying, I guess.
Shannon wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands, leaving behind dark streaks from her makeup. She gives a quavery laugh.
“That was weird,” she says. She’s still leaning against my chest.
“What? That wind under the floor?”
“No, the crying. Well, yeah, the wind too.” She takes a shuddery breath. “I haven’t bawled like that since I was maybe ten.”
I give her a little squeeze. “Fear’ll do that to you.”
She looks up at me. Her eyes are pretty in the lamplight. Her lashes are still wet.
Cat’s eyes.
“I guess,” she says. She gives me a little half smile.
And before I even think about what I’m doing, I’m kissing her. I feel her gasp of surprise, but she’s right there to meet me, her hands twining up around and behind my neck. Her mouth feels like velvet.
We pull away and look at each other, shocked. She stares at me, wide-eyed, her hand covering her mouth, like we’ve just done something outrageous.
What am I doing?
More.
Shannon reaches for me, and I pull her close, sliding my hands into her hair. She presses herself against me. I feel the blood rushing into every part of my body. Hot. Dizzy. Her mouth opens under mine, and I imagine how the hard steel of her piercing will feel against my tongue. I taste her breath against my lip—
My phone beeps.
Shannon and I fly apart. We stare at each other, terror mixed in with something new.
With shaking hands, I pull my phone out of my pocket and look at the display. If it says anything crazy like Jessica, I know I’m headed for permanent residency in the insane asylum.
Assuming I get out of here, that is.
No ghost. It’s just some random telemarketer. They’re always calling around dinnertime.
But sitting there, staring at the phone in my hand, I have an idea. How did I not think of it before?
I look at Shannon, and right there, I see it in her eyes too. She nods, silent. Excited.
I’m going to call someone and get us hauled out of here.
I raise my thumb to key in my password. But then I stop.
My mind flashes back to having my fingers slammed in the door.
The burning.
The hot pokers in my eye sockets.
I take a long, slow breath in.
The air in the boathouse has gone unnaturally still. It’s utterly, deafeningly silent.
Everyone’s waiting.
On me.
I’m feeling torn. I want to call, but I’m terrified of what might happen. So really, there’s only one reasonable decision to make.
Only one decision that guarantees no one gets hurt.
I exhale slowly. I reach forward—slow-mo—and place my phone on the floor in front of me. Moving carefully, I push it away so it’s out of reach.
I feel Shannon sag against my chest a bit when I put the phone down, but I think she understands. Disaster averted.
The phone grazes the yearbook, which is still sitting open on the floor beside us. Still open to the page full of chirpy cheerleaders.
I pull the lantern toward the pages and lean in for a closer look.
“Which one is Jessica?” I run my finger along the list of names under the photo, looking for a J.
Shannon points at a girl sitting in the center of the group. Front row, seated on a low bench. She balances a huge trophy on her lap. Big grin.
Shannon was right. She’s a babe.
“What’s the trophy for?” I ask.
“The Laurel Cup,” she says. “It’s given to the top cheerleading squad. It went to Wildwood last year.”
“And Jessica’s holding it because she’s the captain?”
“Well, the team won because of her,” Shannon says.
I look at the girls. Their happy, smiling faces. Eerie to think that one of them is now dead.
My eyes skip down to Jessica again.
Specifically, that one.
“Hey,” I say, leaning closer. “Is that like the necklace you found in the bin?”
“Where?”
“Right there.” I point to a girl sitting beside Jessica in the photograph. Her hair is tied back, the end of her ponytail curled loosely beside her open collar. She isn’t laughing like the others. Instead, her smile looks tight.
Shannon peers at the picture.
“Yeah, it’s the same one. The BEST. Weird.” Her mouth drops open. “Oh my god,” she breathes.
When her eyes meet mine, there’s a sudden understanding in them.
“That’s Sam Stokes.”
I’m drawing a blank.
“Sam Stokes?” I ask. “Who’s she?”
Shannon releases a long breath. “She’s Jessica’s best friend. Or she was. Or at least I thought she was.”
I look back at the photograph. Slowly, things begin to slide into place.
“So…” I say. “Sam’s got one half of the necklace. And…”
“Jessica would have had the other half,” Shannon finishes.
We both look to see whether the matching half is around Jessica’s neck. But you can’t see her neck because of the Laurel Cup.
“The cup’s in the way,” I say. “So we have no way of knowing whether she had the other half or not.”
Shannon looks at me. “Yes, we do.”