Walking in the Shadows (23 page)

I had to bite my tongue to prevent myself from spitting in his face
,
but I knew everyone was watching—at least all the single girls were.

“Typically, when your whole family is murdered you move away
—
especially when the murderer m
ight want you. So if you
give a shit, which I highly
doubt you
do
,
I would keep your god damned big pop
singing mouth shut,
” I snapped
,
poking my finger
into his chest.

He stepped bac
k throwing his hands up
.
“That’
s not the response I expecte
d when I just serenaded you
.”

“In case you didn’t notice
,
I wasn’t l
istening
!
” I
growled
.
“Your little dedication could raise suspicion—I know you hate me
,
but really? Get me killed?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,
”
Brian stuttered
as his face paled.

“No
,
you wanted me to feel like crap because you always enjoyed doing t
hat. Guess what...
I don’t need your shit
!
”

“You’re
different,
”
h
e commented
,
stepping back another step from me.

“Yeah, I grew up.”

“Became
a
bigger
bitch is more like it
!
”
h
e mumbled to himself.

I raised my hand to slap him and he flinched. I put my hand down and clenched it in a fist.
There was already enough attention on us, and I didn’t need to give Tad a reason to come to my rescue.

“You
aren’t worth it
—y
ou never were,
” I
said
,
and I
turned on my heel before he could respond
.
Tad
was
standing next to the
science
teacher
,
pretending to listen to him talk. I rushed
out the door knowing
that
I should
never have
come. When I
re
ached my car I
noticed that the person parked next to me had
left
their driv
er side door open
.
I went around my car to close it. The scream that escaped my mouth could have woken the dead and in my head it had. The girl was laying half
out of her car with
her head o
n
the cement and her eyes begging
me to help. Her skin was pale and the bite on her neck was stained crimson with blood
between
the dark purple marks of murder
.
I choked
,
falling forward as I
smelt the iron filling the air and
the contents of my stomach t
hreatened
to come up
.

“
Vera
!
Vera
!” Ta
d shouted
,
seeing me fall to my knees
. When
he reached me his mouth dropped
.
“Oh, shi
t!
”

There were people rushing out of the building towards where the scream had come
from
. My mouth moved
,
but no words came out and Tad was dialing his phone as he pulled me
up into his arms.

“There’s a
dead student at the Amherst Winter Formal
,” h
e
said as he began
shaki
ng. He
pushed my head
gently
into his shoulder
to force
me to look away from the corpse
.
“It looks like a
murder—vampire. Where’s the dance
? The Marriot, please hurry…a student found
her.
”

He looked over his shoulder at the crowd th
at was coming towards us
.
“Paul,
Amy
,
please
keep the students away from here. The poli
ce and ambulance are coming now,
”
h
e ordered.

The teacher named Amy came towards us as Paul hel
d back the students who had begu
n to come out of the building.
A slight scream escaped her throa
t before she could stop herself
.
“Did she find her?”

“
Yeah
,
and
I don’t know what to do,
”
Tad choked
,
stroking my hair as I sobbed into his shoulder
.

“It will be okay, hone
y. Knightley
,
get her away from here. She has to stay because she found her, but she does
n’t need to be right next to it,
”
Amy said
,
placing her hand on my back.

He led me to his car
,
taking his suit jacket off and wrapping it around my shoulders. I leaned against the hood of his c
ar looking at my feet
.

“Crap,
Vera
. Why did you have to find her?”
Tad wondered out loud with his hands stuck in his hair. I would have wondered the same thing had I been able to form a logical thought.

Silent tears were f
alling down my face as I choked out the words playing in my mind
.
“I’
m cursed.”

“Are you scared?”
His eyes were racing across my face, and I could tell he wanted to hold me in his arms as much as I wanted him to hold me—but there was just too many people around
.

I nodded my head trying to hold
the sob inside me, but I couldn’
t and
it burst forth like the scream
,
uncontrolled and frantic.

Tad
gave up and
pulled me into his arms as the whirr of the police echoed in the
distance
. In seconds they were there
and they
rushed forward
to push the
students back. I could tell which one was the chief by the wa
y he held himself.
They
always held themselves as if they had more
of a job to do tha
n the others
. He
went to the scene and knelt down to where I kn
ew the body was. He spoke in hushed tones
to the EMT who jumped out of the ambulance, barked orders to get all the students out of here and headed towards the teacher who had instructed Tad to lead me away. She pointed in our direction and he walked to us with passion and power. He had his pad out and
ready by the time he reached us
.

“I know this is emotional
,
but I need some information from you
,” he explained.

I pulled aw
ay from Tad
,
swallowing my tears
.
“I know.”

“Your name?”
t
he chief began.

“
Vera
MacI
ntyre
…I mean Abigail Martin.
”

His confusion was apparent
in his
jerking motions
.
“
Huh?”

“It’s Abigail Martin. I’
m under witness protection, so my name is also
Vera
MacI
ntyre
,
”
I explained
,
sniffing.

“Martin? So this isn’t
the first time
you’
ve seen this
?”
t
he chief questioned,
his eyes sharpening beneath his furrowed brow.

“No,
I had to I
D my parents
,
”
I replied.

Oh, God, not the accusations again
!

“How did you find her?”
h
e asked
,
and it was the first of many questions I could barely answer.

~~~

It was in the moment that I saw the body bag that I truly lost it. I had been
holding myself together
as the chief went on
and on with questions, but in that
instant I was injected unwillingly into a memory. It was a memory t
hat
I had never wanted to relive and
feel again. I could sense the world around me vanishing as my mind thrust me into it
,
and I logically tried to push it away. There was no way out of it though
;
it would come.

The two body bags were placed in front of
me and the coroner’s firm hand
pushed me forward. I had not understood why they wanted the d
aughter to identify the bodies and
to confirm what they already
knew.
I saw
the scene
as if in
a mirror. The corone
r was behind me; my hands twisted in front of me as he came around and unzipped the bags. In perfect unison he used
both hands to thrust open the bag
s
, so I could
see their face
s and pierced necks.
All I did was nod my head
.

“Yeah, that’s them,” I said without emotion.

What was wrong w
ith me? The picture is
turned around and I am doing, against my will, what a good daughter would have done. My mind
tried to fight the emotions and
bury them
back where they belonged. I was
coming apart at the seams in my own head because of
some other body
—
a body I didn
’t
even know. The scream tha
t escaped
my lips
was
f
illed with agony
.

“Not them, no
, no it can’
t be them!”

I could feel
hands on my damp face
,
and then Tad’s
handsome face came
into view.

“
Vera
,
it’s
okay
;
that already happened. They’re already—“

“Dead,” I
finished
as I
placed my hands over his
,
squeezing my eyes shut as my chest heaved with fr
antic breaths. Tad helped me up, and
his face
was
strick
en with an emotion that I couldn’t grasp.

Paul, the science
teacher that had relieved
him of his duties
,
came around the ambulanc
e that had
blocked the view of the other s
tudents still waiting for rides
.

“Knightley, I don’t think she should drive home. You should drive her.”

“Um
...isn’t that against a te
a
cher student policy?” Tad asked, but I could see that was exactly what
he
had planned on doing.

“I think that policy went ou
t the
window when she saw a…you know,
” Paul replied.

“As long
as I don’t get in trouble for this,
”
Tad answered
,
trying to sound reluctant.

“She doesn’t have anyone else
,
Knightley
—
bring her home. You have my word, in front of the police that
this will not come back on you. Y
our actions are admirable,” t
he superintend
e
nt of
schools interjected
as he
walked up behind Paul with a sigh.