Page 2 of They Never Tell


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The two ate in silence for a few minutes before she spoke again. Reluctantly. “I’m not sure why, but I just have a weird feeling. I’ve had it all night.”

Marcus chewed rapidly, something he did when he was agitated. “Don’t start with that, Lady. You know I hate when you do that.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

It was a bad habit, to be sure. Her pastor had counseled her about it. He’d repeatedly told her what the Bible said, what she already knew but couldn’t make herself believe: that worrying adds not a single moment to your life. She had tried for years to deal with her feelings of impending doom, but to no avail. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone a whole day without imagining herself or someone she knew suffering some tragic fate.

She swallowed hard. “You know how I am.”

“I done told you about all that doom and gloom.”

Marcus took her issues as a personal affront. He loved reminding her how good she had it, baffled that all the hours he worked and things he bought weren’t enough to overcome her constant paranoia.Hewasalwayshappy, or at least appeared to be, and she’d spent years wondering what that felt like.

She resumed eating her dinner, but she still couldn’t shake her uneasiness. She briefly considered calling her daughter, but in the end, she decided it was better to leave her be and let her have some fun. She’d earned it.

BriaLanestumbledtowardthe staircase. She wasn’t drunk, but she definitely wasn’t feeling like herself. The two apple martinis she downed had ice in them, a source of great amusement for her friends, but whoever mixed them was heavy-handed, and now she was unsteady on her feet and in desperate need of a toilet.

The bathroom on the main floor was occupied. Somebody—maybe Danielle—had told her there was a bathroom upstairs, so Bria made a beeline for the steps. But once she was standing there at the bottom, she began to have serious second thoughts.

It was pitch black at the top of those stairs, and even at seventeen years old, she was still afraid of the dark. Her father had put a light inside her closet, one of those round, battery-operated ones you press with your palm. She turned it on faithfully each night before bed and let its soft yellow light chase away the shadows of her childish fears.

But that little closet light was all the way down the street in her bedroom; it couldn’t help her now. She briefly debated grabbing Danielle or Avianna and making them accompany her, but there simply wasn’t time. Her bladder felt like it could burst at any second. She climbed the stairs and prayed for the best.

Her palms brushed against the unfinished wood banister as she ascended the steps, and when she was almost at the top, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief. There actually was some light up there, way down at the end of the hallway.

A lone pool table sat to her left collecting dust. Bria dragged her fingers across the soft green felt as she passed it and looked toward the light. Her uneasiness began to fade away. She was almost there. Almost.

Then she saw something that made her stop short.

A figure stood just inside and to the right of the doorway at the end of the hall. Bria squinted and tried to make out who it was. It had long hair, so it was definitely female. Bria stopped walking and tried desperately to focus her eyes. The figure was wearing a white dress. It had to be Nyleah.

Bria let out another breath. She and Nyleah weren’t nearly as close as they had been before, but a run-in with that traitor was definitely better than…whatever Bria had been afraid of. She started walking toward Nyleah, her relief palpable but short-lived. As she crept closer, something felt off. Nyleah appeared to be standing in a weird pose. Almost at an angle.

What the hell is she doing?

Bria’s heart pounded harder and faster. She moved closer on heavy feet, fear creeping into her subconscious. Nothing about this was right. The lighting was strange, Nyleah looked strange, and she wasn’t moving. Why would she be posing in a room by herself? Was she taking a selfie?

Bria stopped mid-step, about halfway to Nyleah, and squinted, still unable to focus her eyes. Her breaths grew ragged and irregular. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, and her hands shook violently. She took a gingerly step, then another, even though her mind was screaming at her to turn around.

At long last, when Bria was about ten feet from that room, that lighted place she thought was safe, her brain finally registered the reality of the situation.

Oh, my God. No, please no!

Her mind seemed to snap, breaking into a thousand little shards that fell all around her like so much confetti. She froze where she stood and sank slowly to the floor as her knees buckled beneath her, filled with sheer terror as she saw things clearly.

Nyleah wasn’t standing. She was hanging.

CHAPTER TWO

TWOMONTHSLATER

Bria had a lot to be thankful for. It was a Monday, the first day of her senior year of high school, and she was turning 18 in two months. And she was still alive, which meant she could still find reasons to get out of bed every day. Late in the day, most times, but still. She hadn’t given up on life.

She tried not to think about it, but she did. Every day. This was supposed to be the best year of her life, but the incident had cast a shadow over everything that mattered to her. She took comfort in the only thing she could—the knowledge that each day that passed brought her closer to the moment she could finally get the hell out of this town.

That’s why this year had to go well. One reason, at least. The other was that she needed to get into a good college. And then she needed to actually graduate from that college with a bachelor’s degree. Her daddy had an associate’s, but he was fond of telling her it didn’t really count. Her mother had started college but never finished, and her big sister Carmen was a sophomore at North Carolina A&T. But that wasn’t going to end well. In the Lane house, expectations were high and patience was low, and the pressure was making life unbearable. Carmen was cracking, and Bria was right around the corner from it. Their parents were none the wiser.

But there was a good explanation for it, at least for Bria. Nyleah was never far from her mind. The image of her lifeless body hanging from that wooden beam was seared into Bria’s brain, as was the feeling of her own legs buckling under her, forcing her to her knees. She had crawled to the stairs and used the banister to help herself stand, but her legs refused to support her.

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