“No, but Rita, listen. I’m worried about Summer. She’s said some weird stuff.”
A flock of blackbirds lifts off the field behind the cabin and flies over me like a black cloud. “What kind of weird stuff?”
“Ever since you brought up those journals at lunch, she’s been saying she needs to go get hers.” A shiver runs down my spine. “Summer said shewas worried about hers being found.” Kat sighs. “You know, we all wrote so much in those things.”
Not all of us, I think. I turned in my diaries like Meadow, Ivy, and Jasmine. Summer, Katrina, and Heather. But unlike theirs, my diaries were blank.Rosenever wrote a fucking word.
“There’s something else,” Kat says. “I don’t think it’s a huge deal, but you should know.”
I head for the truck. “What?”
“My dad told me Rosalie Adair called him wanting to meet, but he told her it would be a cold day in hell before he met with her. What was she thinking? I’m worried, though. What if she called Summer? You don’t think she’d meet with Rosalie, do you?”
I’m in the truck, whipping out of Johnny’s driveway before she can finish. The call drops as I race for Rosalie’s gate. My dad was meeting someone down here and he brought his shotgun.
The gate’s locked when I pull up and slam the truck in park. I crawl through it like I did the first time and start running, my tote slapping against my side.
When I get to the house, there are no cars parked in front. Wherever he’s meeting her, it’s not here.
As I turn for the truck, a scream echoes through the woods behind Rosalie’s house. I freeze and listen as another scream fills the air.
Then I start running.
Branches scratch my face, and thorns snag on my clothes as I run in the direction of the school on a narrow trail leading away from Rosalie’s backyard. Another sound comes from behind me, thundering footsteps. Johnny. I wasn’t the only one who heard those screams.
I pick up my pace on the trail, leaping over deadfall and avoiding washed-out holes. I clench my phone in my hand and thank God I have it and my tote.
I keep my fast pace for several minutes until I finally burst free from the forest to find myself in a weed-choked field. A dilapidated picnic table sits in front of me and, behind that, looms Poison Wood.
My breath comes in short, fast bursts. I hear a sound behind me and turn to see Johnny exiting the trail, his giant chest heaving.
We make eye contact, and I toggle my phone open. No bars. No signal. I reach into my tote for the stun gun and start for the corner of the building when I hear a car approaching. I scan the area for Johnny, but he’s disappeared.
Late-afternoon sun filters through the tall pines around me and casts deep shadows as I ease up to the side of the building. Pearl Ann is parked in one of those shadows. Next to it is the SUV I saw Summer and Katrina arrive in at Johnny’s press conference here. My breath catches in my throat. Next to that is Rosalie’s white sedan.
The driver’s door opens on the sedan, and Rosalie steps out. I pull myself back against the wall as she opens her back door and reappears holding her shotgun. My heart thunders against my ribcage.
“Help!” a woman yells from inside the school.
Rosalie spins in my direction, and I race to the threshold at the back of the building. Summer is standing there, her face ashen.
“Rita?” She runs to me, out of breath. “Rita, your dad. It was an accident. You have to believe me.”
I pause but only for a second. When someone says I have to believe them, I usually don’t. “Where is he?”
Her voice cracks. “The basement.”
I race past her and into the dark school. Slivers of daylight shoot through a few cracks in the boarded-up windows, but it’s not enough to ward off the darkness. I turn on my phone flashlight as glass cracks under footsteps behind me. Summer is following me.
“What is going on, Summer?”
“This is so messed up,” she says between breaths. “We got here and your dad was here and it’s just messed up.”
I keep moving but glance back at her. “Breathe. Who iswe? Is Katrina with you?”
“What are you doing here?” Her voice sounds like a whimper.
I fling open the basement door and barrel through it, my veins pumping blood that feels as if it’s on fire. Someone moans at the bottom of the stairs, and I scan my phone’s flashlight to the staircase. Several steps are damaged. The same ones I fell on.
