The Third Lie's the Charm (4 page)

“Wait!” My lungs burned as I tried to keep up with Bradley, whose pace doubled my own. It was no use. He'd either have to slow down or shout back directions to wherever it was we were going. I was about to lose him. “Bradley.
Wait!
” I stopped, my toes throbbing where my boots pinched them, my head still cloudy from the dust and the note and the shock of it all. I swallowed hard and choked back ridiculous tears.

Bradley slowed and finally stopped too, his shoulders slouching forward under the weight of Alistair's death and my confession. I shouldn't have even followed; I should have turned back to school and suffered through my classes the way I'd planned. If Bradley was anything like me, he'd want to do this alone. But I couldn't just abandon him. Not when I remembered so clearly what losing your best friend felt like. I at least needed to say good-bye.

I finally caught up. “Look, I'm going back. You need time alone…”

He cut me off. “I'm sorry.” Oranges and yellows and browns normally swirled in Bradley's eyes, but today they were muddied and dull. “Don't. I need, I mean I can't do this alone. I know things have been weird after everything that happened.” He ran his hand over his shaved head.

By everything I had to assume he meant the time he kissed me in the middle of the hall. And the fact that I'd kissed him back. The thing about Bradley Farrow and his lips was that they really didn't give you much of a choice. Especially when you'd fantasized about those lips since you were a first-year.

I wasn't really sure how to respond. “Okay?” It didn't even make sense, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. This didn't really seem like the time or place to rehash my crush on Bradley Farrow. Particularly since I'd spent the past couple of months avoiding him like the plague. “So, um, where are we going?” I stretched my neck toward the road. It was quiet during the day, everyone settled into work or school or whatever everyone else settled into on Monday morning.

“Porter. We have to find Porter.”

It was a terrible idea. Porter was Alistair's cheeseball younger brother, and the Reynolds family was one of the oldest and the richest at Pemberly Brown. They were also one of the most private. It was hard to get into the Reynolds family compound on a good day. A few days after they'd lost their eldest son, it was damn near impossible. Even for Bradley.

But that didn't mean we wouldn't try. We'd rung the doorbell an hour earlier only to be shooed away by some well-meaning relative, so now we were stuck stalking the Reynolds house from behind a bush in a bed beside the house.

“What if he never comes out?” I whispered, narrowing my eyes at Porter's front door. We'd watched lines of puffy-eyed people trail in, ill-behaved children bringing up the rear, stooped grandparents being helped out of cars and up the front steps. It didn't look like the kind of house you could slip away from.

“We wait.” A bit of Bradley's rich color had returned to his skin, and his eyes had the smallest hint of gold back in their muddy depths. Never underestimate the value of a good plan.

So we settled in for the long haul. We saw fourteen squirrels, one random cat, way too many ants to count, got pooped on once by a bird, and shared a granola bar. And Bradley was right. Porter wandered out sometime after lunch.

“Psst.” Under different circumstances, I would have made fun of Bradley for the “psst” but I let it slide.

Porter turned stone-faced toward the sound.

“Porter. It's Bradley.” He still whispered, but this time he pushed up on his knees, emerging from the shrub and brushing leaves from his blazer. “And Kate.” He pulled me up too, and I offered a hesitant wave. I had no idea what to say to Porter. I could lose a friend every day to tragic circumstances, and I still wouldn't have any idea what to say to a kid who'd lost his brother.

To say Porter looked pissed would be an understatement. “What the hell are you guys doing here?” Porter looked back at his house, through the windows at the groups of people in black smudged together like ink blots. “My family…Alistair. It's not a good time.”

“I'm sorry.” Bradley's voice cracked over the word, and he clenched his fingers around the now crumpled card stock. Lines of red ink showed through between his fingers.

“Yeah…I know.” Porter looked back at his house again, a silent excuse, and I knew he wanted us to leave.

“It's just that…” Bradley unfurled his fingers and raised his hand out to Porter. “I have this. You need to see it.”

Porter smoothed the card and read the words, the wrinkles on his forehead deeper than ever. He handed the card back, his eyes filled with sadness, and asked us to wait. Only a minute after he disappeared into the house, Porter burst back through the front door, not even bothering to close it behind him.

He held an envelope of the same material as the paper. There was no return address or stamp, just one word in red.
Frater
. Brother. Bradley took the envelope and placed the card on top of it. The two were a perfect fit.

“Someone dropped it off Friday just as we got home from school. It was a black car, dark windows. Totally sketchy. I've seen it before. Parked at the end of the street or driving by slowly without lights.”

“Did Alistair say anything about it?” Bradley asked, tucking the envelope and letter into his blazer pocket. “Did you even ask him?”

I'm sure he hadn't meant for his question to sound accusatory, but I could tell Porter was offended. His jaw tightened.

“Not sure if you remember,
Farrow
,” he spat Bradley's last name, “but my brother and I weren't exactly friends. I asked him a lot of questions. None of them were ever answered.”

“I'm…” Bradley began, but it was no use. Porter had already turned to the house. “Porter, come on.” But Porter didn't
come
on
. Instead he slammed the door.

The roller coaster above us sat still and silent, as though a brake were pulled mid-ride, screams hushed, people plucked away one by one. I hadn't come here since before the park closed, so I only remembered the long lines and excited squeals of weekend visits, not the broken-down, overgrown wasteland that surrounded us now. The towering beams of the track surrounded us like ancient dinosaur bones on display at the history museum, and the paint on the bench we sat on disintegrated between my fingers like ash.

“I still can't believe they shut this place down.” I looked across the small, sparkling lake that sat in the center of the abandoned amusement park. “My parents met here.” I expected Bradley to snort or at least roll his eyes, but it was my favorite story to listen to growing up. How my dad thought it was a good idea to impress a pretty girl by riding the Tilt-A-Whirl more times than he could count. He said he didn't feel right for a week, but he got the girl. Apparently my mom couldn't resist a good Tilt-A-Whirl challenge. I glanced over at Bradley, but his eyes were blank, fixed on some spot across the lake.

“We used to come here sometimes. Alistair and me.” He stood up and started walking. I followed. What else could I do? “We were first-years when they shut this place down, and the Brotherhood staged all kinds of stupid initiation stunts here.” He shook his head at the memory. “They got bored with it eventually, but we never did. There's just something about it here.”

“Yeah, can't say I really see it.” It just felt wrong to be in a place that should have been crowded with people on a bright spring day and have it be completely empty. The rides were all stopped in haphazard positions, like legs, arms, and necks splayed at unnatural angles. There were too many places to hide and all kinds of strange smells that whispered like ghosts of happier times. It just felt wrong.

“What do you know about the Sacramentum they referred to in the note? Factum whatsits?” I asked.

“Factum Virtus? It's a feat of strength. No one has done one in years. The Brotherhood banned them in the '60s when that kid got creamed by a train.”

I winced at his choice of words, thinking of Alistair and his car crash. Bradley must have had the same thought, because he froze mid-step and his skin turned an ugly gray color.

“Do you know who was involved?” I pulled a Seth and kept the questions coming in hopes that it might keep him distracted. Also, couldn't hurt to get some more information. Whoever had sent that letter to Alistair had either wanted him very scared or very dead. Maybe they didn't care which. But we had to find out who had done this to Alistair. And we had to find out why.

“You know how that stuff is. More legend than fact. I always figured it was something the older boys told us to make sure the hazing didn't get out of hand. Whoever sent it wasn't a Brother, I can tell you that much. They're trying to scare us. Trying to keep us in our place.”

I thought of the Sisterhood, of Bethany and Taylor as they walked away triumphant after I inadvertently helped them destroy the very boy I stood beside. When would they stop? When would enough be enough?

Bradley stopped in front of a peeling wooden sign printed with “The Big Dipper” in peeling yellow paint. “Come on.” He grabbed my hand and started weaving between the old metal bars that led up to the roller coaster like a maze. I resisted the urge to swing my body along the bars as I'd done while waiting in relentless lines, anticipation bubbling with every inch forward. Now we could move freely, the bars containing nothing but air, and I wished for the lines.

By the time we made it up the ramp to the platform, we were both out of breath. We leaned over the edge of the railing and stared down at the remains of the park below us and the sparkling lake that glittered in the middle of it all.

“Kind of beautiful, right?” He nudged me with his elbow.

“Yeah, it kind of is.” My hand still burned where he'd held it. His fingers seared into my palms. Looking out over the empty expanse of the park reminded me that it was just the two of us here. No one had any idea where we were. It would take them days, maybe weeks to find us if we were to jump off the ledge.

My stomach dropped at the thought. There was nothing between me and a concrete nosedive except a thin bar of metal. And Bradley Farrow's hand.

“Why would he have done it? The Factum Virtus, I mean?”

Bradley shook his head.

“It was his brother, right? The note said something about Porter.” I considered the words in the letter:
A
Brother
will
be
sacrificed.
It was no wonder Alistair had agreed to the challenge. Whether he and Porter hated each other or not, they were still brothers.

Bradley dropped my hand then and turned away from me completely. I'd pushed him too far. I knew it as soon as I said the word “Brother.” But if I was going to help Bradley, I needed to know everything. And I wanted to help him. I wanted to right the wrong of Alistair's death, and I wanted to do it for Bradley. And for me.

“Not Porter.” Bradley turned to look at me then. The breeze kicked up, and some stray leaves left over from our long fall and winter swirled at our feet. “Me. The letter was referring to me.”

“You're late.” Dr. Prozac didn't like to be kept waiting. It was a fact that I could never quite wrap my head around. I mean, he got paid regardless of how long I sat in that sagging chair. He should have been happy when I strolled in ten minutes late.

“Sorry, this was all kind of last minute.”

“You didn't want to come today?” His brow furrowed in a way that was meant to convey an interest in my response.

I shrugged in a way that was meant to convey my complete disinterest in this entire visit.

“Your parents are worried that Alistair's death is going to cause you to regress.”

Ah, the old pretend-to-lay-all-your-cards-on-the-table trick. A year ago, this might have worked. I might have trusted him. But this wasn't my first rodeo.

“My parents have nothing to worry about.”
Yet
. I added the word silently in my head, but I might as well have said it. Even Dr. P. in all of his pomp and jackassery heard it.

“Ah, well, it's important to remember where you've been, Kate. You have come such a long way in the time we've gotten to know each other. You must let yourself feel, let yourself grieve, let yourself remember.”

“Right. Got it.” I gave him a little salute hoping that these were his parting words of advice. And I had to admit, he kind of had a point. Part of me had to go back to where I was when Grace died over a year ago. I had to go back there so I could help Bradley through this. And maybe there was value in going through it all a second time. Maybe this time around, I'd do it right.

“Practice makes perfect.” I hadn't meant to say the words out loud. Dr. P. looked up from whatever he was scribbling on his pad of paper, took his glasses off, and looked at me closely.

“That's not quite what I meant, Kate. Grief isn't a linear process. It goes in fits and starts; it zigs and zags.” He leaned forward and rubbed his chin. “Let yourself feel. Let yourself grieve. Perhaps even take this time to help someone else work through their own feelings. Learn to be a friend.”

And just like that, my bizarre relationship with Bradley Farrow got the Dr. P. crazy-pants stamp of approval. His secretary already had my follow-up appointment scheduled and scrawled onto a white business card that she handed me on my way out the door, just like all the other times. But as I pocketed the card and pushed through the heavy glass door into the bright spring sunshine, something felt different. I couldn't be sure whether I was zigging or zagging, and there was no doubt the spring air was charged with a sense of change, but Dr. P. was wrong. I was
feeling
and I was
grieving
. That's exactly how I ended up here in the first place.