Already dreading what I’ll see—I’m not full for no reason, now am I?—I redirect my attention down at a sharper angle.
Directly below my window, a body lies sprawled on the rocks. Not sprawled, that implies some degree of, what, laziness, contentment maybe?
This is more cracked and smeared, like a raw egg on a flagstone kitchen tile.
It’s hard to see all the details in the dim early morning light with the fog and rain, but light hair covers the girl’s face. She’s on her stomach, and her arms are stretched out to either side, as if she made a belated attempt to catch herself. Blood extends outward from the body on her right side, as if it’s an impact spray from landing on her belly.
Her neck is bent wrong, too far backward, almost as if she’s staring up at me over her shoulder through the cloud of hair.
Strawberry blond hair. Cut shoulder length, and wavy now in the rain, in a way that would never have been allowed during life.
My breath catches painfully.No, no, no.I start to back away from the window instinctively, almost falling off the edge of my bed.
But not quite fast enough to miss a brief clearing of the fog, and the resulting glint of a chunky aquamarine ring on the hand resting on the stones.
Oh, Lennie.
I bolt for the door, not bothering to stop for shoes or a jacket.
Branwick is full of centuries-old character, including tight staircases and sharp hallway corners, making it impossible to getanywhere quickly. It feels like decades before I reach the side door and shove out into the garden.
The cold gritty sidewalk, covered in rain turning to ice, tears into the soles of my bare feet, and I slip to a halt just a few feet from the body.
From Lennie.
The view is more detailed, more graphic down here. One of her ankles, still in a leopard print ankle boot, is caught on a tiny sculpture of a begging squirrel. Lennie’s head is misshapen under the covering of her hair, and the angle of her neck is more dramatic up close and just so wrong. Blood is trickling onto the rocks still, seeping out from her mouth and her eyes and beneath her body.
Last night, she was so upset and I didn’t even try to apologize… oh, God.
I cover my mouth with my trembling hand, fingers tingling.
Worse, though, is that parts of Lennie, chunks of red, purple, and gray that are organs or other insides are now outside splattered across the smooth surface of those rocks. How is that even possible?
I turn away, bile rising in my throat.
“Help, someone help!” On seeing me arrive, Not-Chessa, the runner, seems to break out of her shock. She tries to shout, her voice hoarse. She points at Lennie’s body, seemingly completely unaware of the phone strapped to her shaking arm.
I draw in a deep breath, pulling myself together. “Call 911!” I jab a finger at my arm in roughly the same place where the girl’s phone is strapped to her arm until her blank face registers comprehension.
Not-Chessa blinks at me strangely and then backs away. But she’s fumbling for her phone in its pouch, and that’s good enough.
The combination of rain and sleet pours down on me, soaking my hair and my sleep shirt and shorts. Shivering, I cross the tiny patch of damp and freezing grass to stand at the edge of the garden, toes curled against the cold. Hot tears, though, run down my face.Oh, fuck, Lennie.
Is this my fault? Because of the fight last night? Because of Carter? Had she come here to jump so I would know that it was because of me?
I swipe at the tears streaming down my freezing face, smearing them with the drying blood from my nose. I should have gone with Daan, tried to talk with her. Then maybe she wouldn’t have come here and…
Come here, to Branwick.
I stop, my hand pressed against my cheek, wheels spinning madly in my head.
“Yes, Branwick Hall,” Not-Chessa says into her phone. “Please hurry. There’s a girl… I think she’s dead. Blood. Lots of blood.”
Lennie doesn’t have keycard access to Branwick, especially in the middle of the night. But even if someone held the door for her, she would have had to climb to the top floor, our floor, which she also wouldn’t have had access to. Then, she would have had to get up on the roof via a tiny door in the narrow hallway ceiling, one that’s padlocked and reachable only with a ladder. A ladder that I did not see—or, more accurately, collide with in the narrow hall—on my way down.
And all of this without saying anything to me or Chessa: no banging on our door, no dramatic weeping or declarations. Just a silent leap from above?
That is not Lennie.
