“Really?”
“Yeah, so now you can write my paper for me.”
Henry whacked him in the arm with the book.
“Hey!” Adam laughed. “You’re going to make me crash.”
“So many hazards on this road,” Bram chimed in from the back. “You could swerve straight into a cornfield, or even plow onto a pillowy soft bed of wildflowers.”
Mariana giggled again. “Or into a man made out of straw.”
At the sound of her voice, Adam darkened. “Whatever. Something happens to this car, it’ll be one more we have to fix today for free.” He felt the tension flood the space, as if it had wafted through the open windows, becoming trapped inside with them. He didn’t dare look into the rearview mirror this time.
They reached the gate at the end of the property, on which hung a sign forAbbott Auto Repair. Henry hopped out to open the gate. Once he’d settled back inside, the car wound up the paved road of their property, veering left at the fork in the direction of the car repair shop.
Tucked away behind the hill, it wasn’t the most optimal locationfor a business. Despite the sign, out-of-towners often drove right past the massive gate. Fortunately, locals knew the place, as they’d been coming for years for tune-ups, oil changes, and even major repairs.
When Mariana had driven her car up to the shop two days ago with a litCHECK ENGINElight, Bram tried to convince his brothers to take on the job for free. Of course, Henry had readily agreed, and Adam was about to, thinking that perhaps it might be the right time to enact his plan. But then he noticed that Mariana herself wasn’t at the shop. “Where is she?” he’d asked.
“In the Mustang,” Bram had said. “I’m giving her a ride to the library.” After school, Mariana worked at Silver Creek Town Library. It was one of the reasons all the old people knew and loved her.
Adam had a change of heart then. “I’m not going to work for free.”
“She’s my girlfriend,” Bram had pressed.
“Well then,youhandle it,” Adam had responded. “I can take Mariana to the library, and you can check the car.”
They both knew that Bram was the worst of the three of them at diagnosing an engine problem. “I’ll take all your chores for the month,” Bram had mumbled broodily, an offer Adam had accepted.
Now, Adam parked the Mustang and took out the key to the shop’s lock. Instead of following him and Henry to the garage door, Bram tugged on his backpack. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Just going to walk Mariana up to the house.” It was a ten-minute walk back up the road, taking the right fork that winded up to the Abbottmansion. Bram would certainly not be “right back.”
“Wonderful,” Adam muttered under his breath as he watched Bram sling an arm around Mariana’s delicate waist.
Adam’s heart clenched, but he couldn’t look away this time. The grass around him swayed and shivered, and when a bee buzzed too close to his ear, he swatted at it. It settled onto a wildflower, the buzzing sound drifting away.
But Adam kept hearing something. Something like the wind whispering through the tall blades of grass. It spoke to him of that thought, that plan.
The whispers said it had to be today.
3
“What was that?” I ask, not really wanting to know.
“Maybe we should just go,” Adam says, slipping into the driver’sseat.
“But Bram isn’t even here,” I protest.
The screams continue. A few yards away in the lot, a girl begins to drift toward them. A group of freshmen boys gathered on the front steps get up and skirt the building, also following the wretched, bone-chilling shrieks.
“Oh my god,” I breathe, my chest tightening at a horrible realization. Bram is always the first one out to the car. He and Adam have a long-standing competition for the driver’s seat. Bram always wins since he rarely stops to gather books at the end of the day. But he isn’t in the parking lot now. I start to run.
My mind is spinning a million miles per hour. Behind me, Henry is shouting something. I hear my name but nothing else over the sound of my heartbeat and my shoes pounding the asphalt.
I round the building, expecting to see a crowd on the grass or the basketball courts. Maybe even a cheerleading stunt gone wrong. But the sounds are coming from farther away, in the woods beyond the school grounds. There’s no fence separating the campus from the woods, and a few students leave the fields to duck through the trees, seeking out the source of the commotion. I follow them.
By the time I spot where everyone is gathering, the screams have turned to sobs. I can’t see through the onlookers to make out who is crying, or why.
Penelope is at the edge of the crowd, and when she turns away from the scene, her tear-filled eyes lock onto mine. She hurries toward me, and even though we barely speak outside of art class, she throws her arms around me. My heart plummets. Bram wasn’t in the lot, and now Penelope is hugging me like I just lost a friend.Because it’s him.
