Last Breath (13 page)

She knew she wasn’t going to try to find the bike. It could have landed anywhere in those woods, and she had no flashlight. Even if she found it, she didn’t have the strength to drag a crumpled pile of metal all the way back to campus.

Taking a deep breath, she set off down the road on foot, anxiously glancing around for any sign of the TransAm as she hiked. She walked on the berm for what seemed a very long time, and had just passed the second curve when she saw a faint light coming toward her.

Her heart began to pound furiously. The TransAm? Coming back to finish the job?

No. The arc of light on the highway was too small.

A bicycle.

Finally! Someone from the club had realized that one of their riders was missing.

Although her breathing had become painfully ragged, Cassidy picked up her pace. Anxious to reach the approaching bicycle, she broke into an unsteady lope.

Her steps slowed when she recognized the rider.

Travis.

“Where have you been!” he shouted when he reached her. “I thought you were right behind me, and…where’s your bike?”

More than one sarcastic reply sprang to Cassidy’s lips. But she was too shaken to spar with Travis. “In the woods,” she said instead. “A car hit it. It’s totalled, I think.”

He jumped off his bike. “A car? What car? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I wasn’t
on
it at the time. I had a flat tire, so I stopped, and then…” She couldn’t go over it all again.

Travis glanced around. “Cassidy, there hasn’t been any traffic on this road for the last hour. Anything that passed you would have had to pass me, too. Nothing has. Not a single car.”

Cassidy’s stomach somersaulted. Not again. It wasn’t happening again.

No. No, that wasn’t possible. The car had
been
there, of course it had, and it had hit her bike. She couldn’t be wrong about that. “Well, there must be a side road then,” she said uncertainly. How could Travis not have seen the car? “A turnoff somewhere between where I was and where you were. Because my bicycle is lying in the woods somewhere back there, probably smashed to smithereens. If you don’t believe me, come on, give me a lift and I’ll show you.”

When she was seated behind him, her arms around his waist, and they were on their way, she said into his neck, “It was the TransAm, Travis. Prom the car wash. Remember? The guy that gave me all that money?”

“The money that disappeared,” he said bluntly over his shoulder.

Ignoring that, Cassidy said, “I saw it. It slammed into my bicycle, sent it flying into the woods, and then drove away slowly, as if it had all the time in the world. The guy, whoever he is, is totally psychotic!”

When Travis didn’t answer, Cassidy realized that his helmet, combined with the whooshing sound of the wind as they rode, had kept him from hearing her.

She decided that was okay with her. He’d be more likely to believe her after he’d seen the bike, anyway. It was there, waiting in the woods, ready to prove to one and all that it really had been struck by a car. There were probably traces of black paint from the TransAm on it somewhere. She would call the police this time. What the driver had done was a crime, and he wasn’t going to get away with it.

She recognized the spot immediately. It was exactly halfway between the two sharp curves. As they approached it, she tugged at Travis’s sleeve, signalling him to stop. She climbed down behind Travis and tugged her helmet off. Then she turned to check once more to make sure they were in the right spot.

The first thing she noticed was that there was no glass anywhere on the road. Although her leg still stung and the small cut was surrounded by dried blood, the glass from her bike light had disappeared. There wasn’t a trace of it on the asphalt. Not a trace.

And then she realized that Travis was staring at something lying on the berm of the road. “Cassidy?” he said in an odd voice. “What did you say happened to your bike?”

Even before she moved to join him, she saw it. Lying peacefully by the side of the road, as if it had been carefully placed there by loving hands. Red. Silver. Black, padded seat. Not a scratch on it anywhere. Round, silver light, completely intact, nestled securely on the handlebars.

“That’s not mine,” Cassidy said, as a sickening bewilderment swept over her. She moved closer to the bicycle. “It can’t be. No way.”

Travis reached down and plucked the water bottle from its holder. He held it up in front of her as she arrived at his side. “Your initials,” he said bluntly. “C.K. That’s you, right?”

“This can’t be my bike,” she repeated through stiff lips. “Mine is in the woods, probably wrecked. I
saw
it happen.” But when she reached Travis’s side, she saw the chip in the left pedal where she’d run into a cement curb last summer. “No,” she said softly, “no, this is not possible.”

Travis turned to look at her. He was frowning, his lips tight. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“He
hit
it!” she cried. “I saw him hit it. I was over there.” She pointed a trembling finger. “And my bike was here, on the berm, and the TransAm came around the curve and sent it flying up into the air. All I could think about was, if the tire hadn’t been flat, I’d have been on it when he hit it and I’d have gone flying into the air, too.”

“Cassidy.”

“What?”

“The tire isn’t flat. Sophie had it fixed, she told me she did. Look at it. It’s not flat.”

Cassidy looked. He was right. There was nothing wrong with the rear tire.

She couldn’t bear the look on Travis’s face. “But I…”

“Just get on it,” he said wearily, “and we’ll get going, okay? It’s late. I’m beat.” And he turned away to walk back to his own bike.

“Travis!” Cassidy cried, anguish in her voice because it was, after all, happening again. The same now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t that had happened before. She couldn’t stand it. Not again. It was like falling into a deep, black hole that never stopped. “It happened, Travis!” She was screaming now. “I didn’t imagine it, I didn’t!”

“I don’t know what’s going on, Cassidy,” he said as he climbed on his bike, “but I think you need some rest. I know I do. Let’s go.”

He began pedalling away again. Terrified of being left alone a second time, Cassidy picked up the bike that couldn’t possibly be hers but looked and felt exactly like it and got on. She began pedalling after Travis, her legs moving automatically, while her mind struggled frantically to make sense of the past hour.

How could this possibly be her bicycle? It
looked
like her bike, and it even
felt
like her bike, and there was that chip in the pedal. But…

Travis didn’t believe her. She couldn’t blame him. She had said her bicycle was in the woods, and it wasn’t. She had said it was totalled, and it wasn’t. She had said the tire was flat, and it wasn’t.

Travis was only thinking what any sane person would think, under the circumstances.

Any
sane
person.

Does that let
me
out? she wondered. She felt like she was sinking into quicksand. Something awful had happened back there on the highway and now it looked as if it hadn’t happened at all, and she didn’t understand that.

They rode, single file, all the way to school in silence.

When Travis left her at the Quad, he said only, “Get some sleep.”

His prescription for a nervous breakdown, apparently. Dr. Travis McVey, noted shrink.

She locked her bike in the rack, and ran into the building.

Sophie was sitting on Ann’s bed, reading. She looked up when Cassidy burst into the room. “Whoa! Who’s chasing
you
? How was your bike ride? You’re so late. How can you ride in the dark? I’d be nervous…Cassidy? What’s wrong?”

Cassidy had collapsed on her bed as if she’d run all the way from the state park. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.” She was very, very cold. Wrapping the comforter around her, she said, “Sophie, how much do I owe you for the bike repairs?” because she was hoping and praying that Sophie would say, Oh, gee, Cassidy, I’m sorry, I forgot to take your bike in. How did you ride with a flat tire?

Because if Sophie said that, wouldn’t that mean the whole horrible business with the TransAm really had happened? Wouldn’t that mean that she had
had
had a flat tire, and she had stopped on the highway, and the car had come around the curve and sent her bike flying into the air…

But Sophie didn’t say that. What Sophie said was, “It was only two dollars, Cassidy. Don’t worry about it. They never charge very much at the bike shop.”

Pulling the flowered comforter more tightly around her, Cassidy began to tremble with cold and confusion and fear. But she wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet. She couldn’t. It was too hard to give up. Too painful. “Do you have the receipt?”

Sophie looked startled. “Oh, yeah, sure. It’s here somewhere.” She jumped off the bed and went into her own room. She was back a moment later with a messy handful of papers. But several minutes of rifling through them left her looking perplexed. “Well, it should be in here,” she said. “I know this is where I put it.” She glanced up from the papers. “Honestly, Cassidy, forget the two dollars, okay? You can buy me lunch this week.”

“It’s not the money,” Cassidy said, knowing she should drop the subject. The quicksand tugged at her feet, threatening to swallow her up. But she couldn’t stop now. She had so many questions. Why couldn’t Sophie answer them for her? What kind of friend was she? “It’s…well, the tire felt a little flat, that’s all, and so I thought maybe you’d forgotten to have it fixed.”

“It went flat? Gee, I’m sorry. They must not have done a very good job patching the leak. But they
did
patch it, Cassidy. I didn’t forget to take the bike in.” Sophie thought for a minute and then asked, “If your tire went flat, how did you get home?”

The quicksand tugged harder. “Well…it wasn’t as flat as I thought it was,” Cassidy said lamely.

When Sophie gave her a questioning look, Cassidy got up and went into the bathroom. She never should have brought up the subject of the bicycle.

When she came out of the bathroom, ready for bed, Sophie glanced up again. “You okay, Cassidy? You look a little weird. Maybe that bike ride was too much for you. I mean, with your asthma and all.”

Tm not an invalid, Sophie.” Actually, her body seemed to be doing just fine, even after the long, strenuous day it had had. It was her mind that was malfunctioning. And that was so much worse. “I’m just a little tired. All I want to do is sleep.”

Sophie took the hint. She picked up her book, and headed for her own room. In the doorway, she said, “Oh, by the way, Sawyer called. I think he was worried. Because it was getting late and you weren’t back yet. You should probably call him.”

“Too tired,” Cassidy murmured. And the thought of trying to explain something to Sawyer that she didn’t understand herself was exhausting. Tomorrow…she’d be able to think more clearly tomorrow.

Then again, maybe she wouldn’t.

What if she was never able to think clearly again, ever, in her whole life?

The thought filled her with raw, icy terror.

In psych class the following morning, Cassidy, pale and tired, listened with growing uneasiness as Professor Bruin talked at length about “breaking points for the human mind.” I don’t want to listen to this, Cassidy thought. Her hands felt like ice. She couldn’t seem to get warm these days, no matter how many clothes she wore.

“Stress can weaken even the strongest among us,” the professor lectured. “There are documented cases of hallucinations caused solely by stress. No drugs were involved, no hypnosis, and no diagnosed mental illness.”

Cassidy turned her head just then and found Travis looking directly at her.

Are you okay? he mouthed silently.

Yes, she mouthed back, hating his concern for her.

But she knew she was lying. She was far from okay. She wouldn’t be okay until she knew exactly how close to the brink of insanity she was dancing.

But she wasn’t giving up without a fight. After class, she called Sawyer’s friend Tom at the administration building and asked him for a favor.

“I’m doing a survey,” she told him. “Do you think you could run the car registrations of all the faculty for me?” It had occurred to her, in one of her more lucid moments that morning, that if the car existed, it could belong to a faculty member. Sawyer had only asked Tom to check the students’ registrations. She was reaching, she knew. Why on earth would a teacher be tormenting her? Maybe grasping at straws was what people did when they thought they were losing their minds.

“And we are looking for what, exactly?” he asked affably.

“The same thing we were looking for among the student population. A black TransAm.”

“What is it with that car?” he asked. “You got a thing for black sports cars?”

But she could hear him clicking keys as he talked and knew he was doing what she’d asked.

She held her breath. Please, please, she prayed.

“Nope,” Tom said a few minutes later. “We got your Mercedes-Benzes, we got your Chevys and your Fords and a couple of motorcycles and a Jeep and two pickup trucks. But no TransAm.”

“Are you sure?” she pressed, disappointment slashing at her like a razor blade.

“Cassidy, I know what I’m doing here.”

“Well, could you try the employees, then? You know, the maintenance staff and the cafeteria and dining hall workers and the administration building clerks. Please?” She wondered if he could hear the frantic desperation in her voice. Probably. Now he’d believe the rumors about her.

He sighed, but the keys began clicking again.

She waited.

“Sorry,” he said finally. “As far as I can tell, there is no black TransAm anywhere on this campus.”

T
HAT AFTERNOON, CASSIDY WAS
replaced as chairperson of the dance committee.

She didn’t even argue about it. Although her cheeks burned when the result of the vote, which Tobie Shea had insisted upon, was announced, and although she wanted nothing more than to slide from her chair to the floor where no one could see her, Cassidy didn’t argue. They were right to worry about how she would perform her duties. How could someone who was having trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy accomplish everything necessary for this dance?