Fatal (24 page)

More snow had piled up on the walks and the grass between the buildings during lecture. I wanted several times to just stop and enjoy the pristine look of it, but I couldn't.

And now, the cold in the air became a hindrance. It burned in my lungs and left my throat, mouth, and nose feeling dry. I even had to step off the path onto the snow covering the grass as a little orange plow with a blue flashing light on top came by, pushing white mounds of the stuff off and scattering what looked like dirt behind it.

The man driving it smiled and waved at me from inside the little, glassed-in cabin.

When it passed me by I realized I hadn't been watching Eric and Joseph. My heart lurched as I speed-walked down the sidewalk, weaving around the knots of other students heading one way or another, trying to catch a glimpse of those red shoulders.

We were still on the way to the frat house, I knew.

I also knew that I hadn't thought of this through very clearly. Was I prepared to follow them into the frat house to find out just what the hell was going on?

I reminded myself that Vick wasn't around anymore. Who knew what would happen if those two jerks caught sight of me in there?

"Hah!" I said under my breath as I passed two big guys taking up most of the sidewalk.

Up ahead, Eric and Joseph were walking. The whole time, they never looked behind themselves. Why would they? They had no reason to believe they were being followed.

I used the element of surprise to my advantage as much as I could. As we got farther away from dorms and other campus buildings, the crowd on the walk thinned out until it was only we three using it. I timed my steps so that my feet hit the ground at the same time as theirs.

When we came up to the bend in the road that lead to the frat house, I shifted over into the trees and brush, still following them from maybe fifteen feet back or so.

It looked like they were going into the house. I started readying a few choice insults and words for myself over wasted time and how stupid I was being with the whole thing.

Eric stopped were the path to the front door began. He looked around. I hugged my body against a
tree trunk, willing myself to blend into it.

His eyes passed over my impromptu hiding spot. He grabbed Joseph by the arm, as though the shorter man was a little kid he was about to drag off and scold.

"Hey! That hurts!" Joseph complained.

"Quit your bitching, big mouth."

Eric pulled Joseph off to one side of the house. I shifted from tree to tree, and from bush to bush. My boots crunched the snow and dead branches under my feet, and I held my breath the whole way.

I thought for sure I was being too loud, but the two of them seemed too preoccupied to notice.

At the side of the big house, Eric threw Joseph against the wall. He looked around again. This time, his eyes stopped about where I was lying down behind some dead brush.

I stiffened, trying not to move a muscle. It was difficult. I had my knees pressed against the ground pretty hard, and the snow quickly chilled them.

Some more of it had managed to make its way down the top of my coat, and I could feel the cold, wet spot spreading across my shirt, leaving the flesh beneath clammy and uncomfortable.

Look away, I thought. Come on, there's no one hiding here, trying to listen in.

Eric's eyes lingered for a few moments more, then passed me by. I let myself breathe, shifting my knees slightly in an effort to warm myself up again.

"Sorry, Eric, what did I do?" Joseph said.

Eric threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. Joseph misinterpreted it as a threat and cowered, moving his own arms to protect his face.

I almost felt bad for poor Joseph.

"You flapped those big, stupid lips of yours and nearly gave the whole thing away!" Eric said.

"I didn't mean to..."

"Shut up! See what I mean? Is there no filter between that pea brain in your skull and your mouth? You know, something that might catch you before you tell everyone about what we did to that stupid Goth bitch?"

I went cold again, but not because I was lying in the snow. I could feel the blood withdrawing from my face, from my arms and legs. A horrible realization was trying to dawn on me, and I was doing my best to find some sort of mental shelter to avoid it.

I wanted to get out of there right then, to jump up and run away. But I couldn't. I was stuck there until Eric finished with Joseph. I was stuck there, forced to hear whatever they had to say next.

"Sorry, Eric.
It just made me think of when she said you had a tiny dick, you know?"

"I do, dummy. I also remember what we did to her because she said that. So, next time you feel any stupid shit about to spray out of your mouth, think about what happens to people who say things I don't like."

He let that threat hang in the air, let Joseph slowly absorb its meaning.

But I was much faster than Joseph. My body trembled against the ground so much that the branches and snow started making crunching noises beneath me.

I couldn't stop myself.

When you're so totally overwhelmed by horror and guilt, you really can't do much of anything.

Adam hadn't killed Jenn that night. Eric had. Eric, with Joseph's help.

And only a few days ago, I helped a monster hunter trap Adam so that he could be taken away and killed like some wild, rabid dog.

What really twisted the hot knife blade in my stomach was Adam himself. He still truly believed that because he'd lost control one night, someone was dead.

He believed he needed to be punished for it. He was going to die believing it was
all his fault.

It was really all my fault.

"Are you sure it was still okay?" Joseph said.

"Yeah, man. Bitch had it coming. Hell, she probably even liked most of it. If it wasn't us, it would have been someone else."

Hot tears started rolling down my cheeks. They froze in place when they tried dripping from my jaw.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. How could it have all gone so wrong? The wrong person was being punished.

And I knew these two killers were probably going to come out of this whole mess smelling like roses. Eric, at least, wasn't remorseful at all.

I wanted to hurt
them, I wanted to make them feel the pain twisting inside me. The worst part was knowing that I couldn't. I was just one person, one girl. They'd already proved they could overpower me once.

What about the cops? I could call the police. When they were out of earshot, I could dig out my phone and dial 911. But I remembered how Jim had talked about Eric being involved in other cases. His rich daddy would just lawyer him up and he'd still get away with the whole thing.

I squeezed balls of dirty snow in my shaking fists, not caring about the cold any longer.

"Come on, I'm getting hungry," Eric said.

He patted Joseph on the shoulder, all buddy-buddy again now that he'd delivered that threat about airing dirty laundry in public.

I watched them through a red haze that had settled over my eyes as they made the
ir way back around the side of the house. I waited until I heard the front door shut behind them.

Slowly, I pushed myself to my feet. Wet clumps of snow plopped down at my feet, falling from my body. I leaned against a nearby tree trunk as my legs turned to rubber.

This new knowledge shocked every single part of me to numbness. It was all so bad I could hardly believe it. It couldn't be a dream, though. It hurt too much for that.

"Adam..."

My thoughts flashed back to the night of the trap, to the night of my betrayal. It hurt to recall them, but I broke down that wall I'd built and threw myself into those memories.

I remembered Vick, standing by Adam's still form, pleading with me to run before his family arrived to help him cart Adam away. I pushed deeper, there was something else.

I relived that moment when Vick pulled the needle out of its pouch and pumped its contents into Adam's thigh. I thought of my own reaction, of what I'd said.

I'd asked if Adam was dead. Vick told me that he wasn't. He was unconscious, being readied to take to some ceremony where Vick would have to deliver the final, killing blow himself as the last gruesome initiation into his family's line of work.

It had only been a few days. Maybe Adam was still alive.

Maybe there was still time to save him.

Chapter 36

On unsteady legs, I lurched away from the frat house and the two murderers inside it. I wanted so badly to deal with them right now, but I knew I couldn't.

They would still be there tomorrow. Adam might not be. For all I knew, he could be dead already. I didn't know what this ceremony entailed, how long it was, where it was going to be. Anything at all, really, aside from the fact that Vick would be the one performing it.

Vick, whose doubt about Adam had been written across his face that night.

I stepped over roots and dead branches, bracing myself against tree trunks that scraped my hands with their rough bark. Now that I was in a hurry to get out of there, it felt like it took forever.

Finally, panting, my lungs and throat burning, I made it back to the sidewalk. A guy and a girl holding hands gave me a look as I brushed a few dead branches off myself.

Everything seemed to be against me. I shoved my hand down my pocket, trying to dislodge my cell. All the moisture from lying in the snow made the cloth damp and clingy.

I walked down the path away from the frat house, my eyes scanning the dorms, the trees, the big lecture halls.

Finally, I freed my cell from my pocket. My fingers were so numb I had trouble unlocking it and navigating to the contacts. An incredible relief washed through me when I saw that I hadn't deleted Vick's number in the aftermath of the trap.

He'd told me to forget about him, about all that. I'd tried so hard to do just that, but you can't let go of things that easily. Especially when you know, deep down, that what you did was wrong.

I stopped for a moment to cough before hitting the call button. The air was so dry here.

I put the phone against my ear, listening to it ring. Once, twice, three times. After the fourth, I heard that click of an answer.

I rushed right away into the whole thing.

"Vick!
You have to stop! Don't let anything happen to Adam, we were wrong, it wasn't him. It was..."

There was another voice trying to talk over me. I stopped. I managed to catch the last few words.

"...Please leave your message after the tone."

Voicemail.
I got his god damn voicemail. The tone sounded, and I stared dumbly at the phone for a few seconds before pressing it back to my face.

"Vick, call me when you get this. It's
Steph. We were wrong about Adam."

I ended the call. It felt like too little, too late. Vick didn't even really have any good reason to believe me, either. He saw the state I was in when the trap went down. He could put this down to sudden guilt and remorse. Maybe he'd even think he was doing me a favor but not calling me back, by keeping me out of the whole thing.

According to my phone, I had another hour before my next class. Just thirty minutes ago, I thought I'd be spending that time grabbing a bite and catching up on reading.

Now I knew I'd be spending the next while waiting for Vick to call back, hoping that he hadn't gone through with the ceremony yet.

Chapter 37

Despite all that had happened, I found myself in the exact same situation as before. I sat on my bed, my phone in my lap. The clock said it was a few minutes shy of seven in the evening. I'd missed my second lecture of the day, as well as tutorial.

There was no way I was leaving my phone unattended. If Vick called back I had to talk to him straight away.

I'd tried calling him back four or five times. After the third try, I didn't even leave a message anymore.

All I could think about was that he was going through with it right now. In my mind, I pictured some wickedly curved knife being handed to him from some ornate, gold-frilled pillow. The blade was silver, of course (what else killed a werewolf?).

Vick wore a robe, his face shrouded in shadow from the large hood. Because what kind of secret ceremony like that didn't have people wearing robes, right?

Adam would by tied up or chained down to some table, forced to watch as Vick came up beside him, hoisting that cruel blade high into the air, ready to plunge right into his heart.

Hey, I didn't say anything about this fantasy being accurate at all.

What hurt the most, though, was the feeling like I was completely unable to do anything to help.

It was like when mom first got her diagnosis. She was the one with cancer. I was the one who spent all that time locked away in my bedroom, feeling useless. She had to coax me out of there, telling me that just being with her and trying to keep happy helped her to cope so much.