Feral (29 page)

“Dr. Sanders and I would like a word with you,” she said. She wasn't cocking her head to the side anymore, wasn't talking in a syrupy tone or promising second chances. She clenched her jaw until she gave herself creases in the flawless skin around her mouth. She tilted her head down, casting shadows that stretched from her eyes halfway down both cheeks.

Wordlessly, Claire followed Isles through the crowded hallways, straight into the front office.

“Two of you?” Sanders asked, at the sounds of two pairs of feet approaching his desk.

“It's me,” Isles said. “And Claire. You're expecting us.”

“Yes,” Sanders agreed, leaning back in his chair. He frowned above the collar of a striped shirt and the jacket of a gray suit that fit him every bit as poorly as the brown suit he'd worn on Claire's first day. “Ms. Isles brought a matter to my attention this morning. Regarding a test retake.”

“She did?” Claire asked, her mind reeling. Why would Isles tell him about the test? About the answers she tried to provide?

“Like I told you this morning,” Isles said, her sweetness returning as she leaned forward to address Sanders directly, “Claire obviously misunderstood the entire situation. I give all of my students a retake opportunity.
All
of them. Like you and I discussed at the beginning of the year, I want my students to learn the material. Period. I'm in the business of educating. Not punishing with bad grades. So it's very,
very
important to me to give my students retake opportunities.

“It was also very important to me,” she continued, “to give Claire a special opportunity to retake the exam in light of her recent experiences. I'm sure that scene in the woods would have impacted
any
student at Peculiar High. But Claire—why, the information in her file that you shared with me—”

“Wait,” Claire said, her insides feeling unsteady, shaky. “You told her? She knows—?”

“Ms. Cain,” Sanders said. “I cleared it with your father, the day of your arrival. You must have already left to change into a uniform when he gave me permission to share your history with faculty on a need-to-know basis. I would not have had to discuss that situation with Ms. Isles had there not been a problem in her classroom. I felt she needed to know your background. Just as she felt it was important to share the retake problem with me. We want to do what's best for you.”

Claire fumed as she stared into Ms. Isles's porcelain skin. She was apparently an expert on manipulation—coming to Sanders before Claire had a chance to report her cheating scam meant that Claire had no recourse, not now, sitting in this office with no one else to corroborate her side of things. Her first inclination was to go get Rich, to insist he tell them the truth. But would that mean they would tell him about her, too? Tell him everything that had happened in Chicago? Would Rich then start looking at her like Sanders and Ms. Isles were right now—like she was damaged goods?

Anger was starting to burn a hole straight through Claire's rib cage. She hadn't misunderstood Ms. Isles's intentions. No more than she misunderstood the facts surrounding Serena's death. Peculiar, Claire swore, was a horrible place—filled with lies that people gulped down whole, even when the truth was staring them right in the face.

Isles and Sanders were ganging up on her, making her feel utterly powerless. The same kind of powerless she once felt standing in a Chicago parking lot, listening to feet stomping closer.

Without a word, she grabbed her backpack and rushed from Sanders's office.

She was halfway down the hall when the front door swung open and Rich stepped inside.

“Hey,” he said, waving her down. “I was coming to look for you. I didn't know where you'd gone.”

“Forget it,” Claire barked. “Let's go.”

“Aren't we going to try to look for—the phone—didn't you say in journalism—?”

“Forget it, I said,” Claire thundered. “I need to get home.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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C
laire regretted being so short with Rich. She started to dial his cell a few times that night, her antique iron bed squeaking beneath her as she squirmed nervously, but felt in the end that it was better to act as though she'd never snapped at him at all. To shrug if he brought it up the next time she saw him, act as though she had no idea what he was talking about.

“Snapped?” she'd say, pretending to be shocked it had come across that way. “Guess Dad was right—I did need some rest.” Because she remembered the way he'd talked about Isles—
He doesn't want to get involved in it
, she thought. Even if there was a way to get him to tell Sanders about Isles without learning the truth of what happened to Claire, he might very well resent being drawn into a situation he had purposefully decided to keep out of. She didn't want him to wind up resenting her so much that he pulled away from the rest of it, too. He was the one who knew the town—maybe not in the same way she did—but he knew the history of it. The urban legends. She needed him.

When her doorbell rang early the next morning, she raced down the stairs, her smile already shined up and glowing before she even tugged on the knob.

“Hey, Rich,” she said, all singsong and happy.

But instead of seeing Rich, she found Becca standing in front of her, flashing her own smile beneath her large black winter hat with the earflaps.

“Thought you could use a ride,” she said, pointing at the Honda in the drive. Owen sat in the driver seat, impatiently drumming the side of his hand against the top of the wheel.

Feet crunched halfway through the yard, forcing Becca to turn and see Rich making his way toward the front door.

“Rich drives me,” Claire said apologetically, pointing at the figure that stood less than two feet from her porch.

“I just thought we could start making some plans for Friday,” Becca said cheerfully.

Rich eyed Becca a moment—maybe, Claire thought as she took in his serious expression, he was even remembering that scene in the church, and Becca's tears. Maybe he was thinking, as Claire was, about how odd Becca's guilt was. How the only real way to find out more about her guilt was to talk to her.

“Go ahead,” Rich said. “I'll follow you guys.”

Claire nodded, even as she and Rich passed a questioning look between them. The kind of look that reminded each other of all the answers they had yet to find. She turned toward the Honda, where Becca was already opening her own door. Rich tugged a hat on his head and stepped toward his Ram.

They locked eyes again, just for a moment, before Claire reached for the handle on the back door of Owen's car. As she began to slip inside, a hand flew out to knock some empty soda cans off the seat, onto the floorboard. She hesitated, surprised to find someone else already in the back.

As if they were in the midst of some daily ritual, Chas motioned for Claire to slide in. She paused once more before lowering herself into the car and slamming the door shut behind her.

Claire kept her fingers gripped around the door handle until she heard the Ram roar to life across the street.

Owen backed his Honda out of the driveway, while Becca tugged at her hair, glancing over her shoulder at Claire.

“I just thought maybe you'd like a ride,” Becca repeated. “I thought maybe you'd even like to come over, after school. Seeing as how the dance is the day after tomorrow. Maybe you'd like to see those earrings.”

“Earrings?” Claire shifted inside her coat, feeling flushed and hot. Every time she moved, she disrupted another city dump pile of garbage—old class papers, fast-food containers. Balled-up paper napkins. The seats themselves had a funny stickiness about them—almost like movie theater seats that had been coated in half-melted Skittles.

Becca frowned at her, her eyes like wounds. “I told you I had some earrings that would look nice on you. Remember?”

Claire glanced through the back windshield at the Ram on their tail.

“Earrings. Right.” When she faced forward again, she caught Owen staring at her in the rearview. She straightened her back, pretending nothing was wrong and that she was not covered in nervous sweat. As she glanced down at her feet, she saw that her shoe had adhered itself to a napkin smeared with lipstick—old-fashioned red. The red bothered her. She'd only known Becca's lips to look nude, light pink. Maybe, she thought, Becca was right about Owen. Maybe there was someone else. An out-of-town cheerleader. But why would Owen be so brazen, if that were true? Maybe Becca wore red on special occasions, or when she went out at night. She dismissed the lipstick, kicking the napkin under the passenger seat in front of her.

Her leg brushed up against the car door, though, and she winced. Her ankle was getting awfully tender beneath her bandage. She'd actually bathed that morning with her leg hanging out of the tub. If the bandage didn't get wet, she figured, she wouldn't have to change it. She didn't want to look—she was afraid to know what was going on under the gauze.

“I thought maybe we could all do something together afterward—you and Rich and the three of us,” Becca finally said.

Chas grumbled wordlessly and rolled his eyes.

“It won't be the same for you, though. Without Serena,” Claire said, and watched in the car's side mirror as pain tightened Becca's face like a screw.

“No,” Becca agreed. “It won't.” Her eyes glittered as she added, “I hope you don't think I'm treating you like a stand-in for Serena. I hope I'm not—well. I guess I've been missing Serena so much . . . Serena was so sweet.”

Owen snorted.

Claire fought a fidget, trying to look solid beneath Owen's continued glare in the rearview. But inside her coat, she was sweating so profusely that she was now completely drenched, soaked, as though she were wading in a pool. Even the growl of the Ram behind her could no longer make her feel safe.

“She wasn't perfect, Becca,” Owen reminded her. “You used to get annoyed with her all the time. Did you already forget? How she got on your nerves? How you made fun of her? Sometimes, with all that crap about the paper—she could get kind of bitchy about her dumb stories. Don't you remember?”

Becca flinched. “I shouldn't have been that way. I regret it. I'll always regret it. . . .”

Claire blinked, rubbing salty sweat from her eyes. Becca's voice sounded strange—softer, almost far away. She tugged her hat off, as a dry, brutal broil filled the entirety of the space around her. She could see ripples of heat in the car, the way an August swelter could make ripples above the highway.

As Claire coughed, struggling to force the heat from her chest, Owen removed his own stocking cap, the fringes of his hair dark and wet. Chas unlocked his seat belt and peeled his arms out of his coat.

Owen fiddled with the dials on the dash as a silver stripe of sweat trickled down his flushed cheek.

It's not just me
, Claire thought.
They all see this, feel this. They can't ignore it.
But her cough grew raspy, hoarse, painful against her raw throat.

Becca began to cough, too, fighting for air as she reached for the vents, flicking them closed.

But the vents popped open again on their own, like jack-in-the-boxes that didn't need any cranking.

And still, the heat grew, swelled, as if someone had turned an oven to broil. The windows steamed. Becca tugged the collar of her coat away from her flushed throat. She tried to press the power control for her window, but nothing happened.

“What's wrong with this stupid thing?” Becca asked anxiously.

Owen tried the control on his own window, slamming his finger against the button repeatedly, to no avail. “I dunno.”

He reached forward to clear a path through the moisture on his windshield with one hand, and tried to steer with the other, through the streets close to Peculiar High.

“What's going on?” Becca shouted.

“I really don't know,” Owen said nervously, trying his own hand at shutting the vents.

They only popped open again.

He flicked the air conditioner on, but the dials no longer seemed to have any effect on the temperature control.

The heat swelled, built, bloomed.

Claire held her scarf to her mouth, gagging against the heat. The heat built walls, a lid. Heat was a grave she had fallen into. Even as the searing blast of air fell across her eyes, forcing them to droop like a saggy clothesline, she raised her arm, banged against her own steam-coated window. “Open this thing.”

“I can't,” Owen said as he careened into the Peculiar High lot, squealing his tires. Through the swirls of heat, Claire could faintly see Becca and Owen. She heard them screaming and tugging on door handles. Their voices grew louder as they banged against windows. Beside Claire, Chas removed his coat and tried to signal for help.

“Help,” Becca pleaded. “Help us.”

Owen stopped abruptly, right in the middle of the lot.

Brakes squealed behind them. When Claire turned, she found the front bumper of Rich's Ram close enough to kiss the back of the Honda. She began to write in the steam on the back windshield: HELP!

Rich lunged for the job box propped on the bed of his truck.

“Please, Rich!” Claire called. She was drowning in the heat. She had to use every shred of strength she could muster to keep raising her fist, knocking on her window.

No air left
, Claire thought repeatedly, as her lungs struggled to pull in a single breath.

Until a sound hit the air like a bomb detonating, and the back windshield shattered, sending glass scattering over the insides of the car. Shards flew with enough force to strike the dashboard, the backs of the front seats.

Claire turned, glass chips sparkling in her hair like New Year's glitter.