They All Fall Down (17 page)

Kylie and Amanda look at each other, silently communicating their agreement. Then, in perfect unison, they whisper, “The curse.”

There’s a second of quiet, then a chorus of female voices, high-pitched enough that I think the old glass door’s going to shatter. Kylie shushes them but not before a few demand, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You can’t really believe in a curse,” I say.

Kylie lifts a shoulder as if to say yes, she can. “It’s not a matter of
believing
, Kenzie. Two girls are dead by freak accidents.”

“Or not,” I say.

“This is what happens,” she says, her voice low. “This is how it works.”

Seven sets of horrified eyes are the only answer to that.

“There’s a curse on the list,” Kylie whispers. “Chloe told us everything Saturday night.”

“And are you going to tell us?” Dena asks.

“As much as we can—”

A chorus of arguments rises, and Kylie holds out her hand until we’re quiet again.

“Amanda and I were sworn to secrecy.”

“Well, screw secrecy,” Dena mutters to a round of agreement.

“We can’t. That’s part of the history of the curse. She shouldn’t have told us.” The pain in her eyes intensifies. “If she hadn’t, maybe she’d still be alive.”

“What?” I practically spit the word. “This is ridiculous. There are cops arresting kids and two girls are dead and you think there’s some kind of ancient curse?” I feel like my head’s going to explode.

“It’s not ancient,” Amanda says. “It started with the list in 1984.”

“And girls have been dying ever since then? And, like, no one noticed?” I can’t keep the disbelief out of my voice. “This isn’t a campfire game, you guys. This isn’t some sorority hazing joke.”

Kylie takes a step forward and levels me with one hell of a frightening look. “Don’t you think I know that? I’m third. I’m
next
.”

“Then you should talk to the police and get help.”

There’s a catch in Kylie’s voice as she says, “That’s the last thing I want to do. That’s why all these girls have died.”

“What?” The question comes from several other girls, but I’m still staring at her, processing this.

“Who’s died besides Olivia and Chloe?” I demand. “All the seniors from last year are fine. And no one died when we were freshmen.” Except … I shake off the thought. I will not let Conner’s death into this conversation. They’ll turn it into some sign from the list gods or something.

“Trust me,” I continue. “If teenage girls were getting killed on a regular basis and they all were on the same list, don’t you
think
60 Minutes
or
Dateline
would be in here in a heartbeat sniffing a story?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Kylie says. “It’s not always teenage girls who die. Sometimes grown women who’ve been on the list have accidents. Sometimes it happens when they’re in college. Some years no one dies. But every time, it’s an
accident
—always accidents, and always girls, or women, who’ve been on the list.”

“Accidents happen to other people, too,” I say softly.

But she and Amanda are having none of it, shaking their heads.

“And no one has investigated this?” I ask, incredulity rocking me to the core.

“There’s nothing to investigate, Kenzie,” Amanda insists. “There’s no
murder
. There’s no crime. There’s no
killer
when it’s an accident.”

Just like Conner. No one had investigated his death; it was ruled an accident. No one had ever asked why he’d gone to the storeroom and no one had ever found my necklace and added two and two together to get … guilt. Who knows better than I do that sometimes there is guilt even when there is no crime?

“Every single person who’s ever died after she’s been on the list was killed in an accident,” Kylie tells us. “Not one has ever been murdered.
Ever
. No foul play, no investigation, no open case. Accidents.”

“How do you know that?” Shannon asks.

“I just do,” Kylie says, relying on a favorite answer of teenage girls who actually know nothing.

Candace makes a sound as though she’s thinking the same thing. “How much of this did Chloe know before she died?”

“A lot,” Kylie says. “And she shouldn’t have told us or she might still be alive.”

“Does the curse always kill in order?” Bree asks, earning a disgusted sigh from Dena.

“This has never happened before.” Amanda crosses her arms and looks at me. “But this is the thirtieth year.”

So we’ve heard. “And that means what?” I ask, tamping down every imaginable emotion and frustration at this insanity.

“It means this year might be different,” Kylie answers. “This year might be
everyone
on the list.”

“We’re all going to die?” Ashleigh shrieks.

“Or it might not,” Amanda says. “You know what Chloe said.”

“What did she say?” About six of us ask in perfect unison.

Kylie waves us all in closer, putting her arms around Amanda and Candace, forming a huddle. We all follow suit, even though Dena and I share a look that tells me she thinks this is as dumb as I do.

“Sisters of the List,” Kylie says breathlessly. “We have to appease … the keeper of the curse.”

No one says anything for a moment; then Shannon inches in closer, frowning. “What does
appease
mean?” she whispers.

I shoot her a look, my patience waning. “It means this is sheer idiocy,” I say, jerking out of the huddle. “You can’t mess around with BS like this when people are dead.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Kylie hisses.

“Who the hell is the keeper of the list?” Dena wants to know.

Another shared look, but Kylie shakes her head. “She didn’t tell us.”

Amanda agrees. “No one knows who … 
or what
 … it is. Just that it has to be appeased.”

More questions and comments, but Shannon stomps her foot. “Will someone please tell me what that effing word means?”

“
Appease
means …” Kylie hesitates. “ ‘To pay off.’ ”

“Not exactly,” I correct. “It means ‘to make peace.’
Pais
is
peace
in Latin.”

“So is there, like, a war?” Shannon asks. “Like vampires versus zombies?”

I puff out an impatient breath.

“It’s more like blackmail, Shannon,” Kylie says. “We have to pay so we don’t die.”

“How much?”

“Pay in some way,” Amanda explains.

All around, eyes widen and cheeks pale. Except mine, because this ranks with the stupidest, most preposterous conversations I’ve ever had. “Or we could go upstairs and talk to the cops about the weird things that have happened to us.” I look at Dena. “Have any close calls lately? Any almost accidents?”

She frowns, then her eyes pop wide. “My cat chewed my charger wire and I got shocked.”

“Really?” Bree steps closer. “That’s weird, because a power line fell on our roof the other night and my dad said if any of us had been touching anything electric, we’d have died.”

Kylie lets out a soft groan and looks around. “Anyone else?”

Candace pales and looks at Ashleigh. “Tell them.”

“We were stuck on the railroad tracks in my car yesterday. The car stalled and …” She closes her eyes. “We just got off, like, five seconds before a train came.”

“Holy shit,” Bree murmurs.

“I told you guys,” Kylie says.

Amanda looks around and sighs. “We may have to make an offering.”

“Like at church?” Shannon asks in a shaky whisper.

“Like a sacrifice,” Kylie adds, looking at Amanda. It’s clear these two know a lot more than they’re telling us. Not that anything they know makes a damn bit of sense, but everyone in the room is riveted.

“What kind of sacrifice?” someone asks.

Kylie closes her eyes. “A blood sacrifice.”

Chaos erupts around me, but I don’t move. Once again, Kylie calms the others down.

“Oh, brother.” Dena pulls away, disgust on her face. “This is totally bogus. I have class and I’m out of—”

“You can’t leave!” Amanda shouts. “We have to have a plan and a vow of silence and a chain to stay in constant contact. Mostly we need more information. Unfortunately, the only person we can think to ask is Chloe’s mom, but how can we?”

“We have to!” Shannon insists, her voice rising.

“No!” I bark the order, imagining Mrs. Batista. I don’t know her; I’ve never met her. But I know what a mother is like after she’s lost a child. “We can’t ask her anything right now. But I know someone we can talk to.”

“No,” Kylie says. “We can’t tell anyone. If you tell anyone, you’re next.”

“Not even the police?” I ask.

Amanda and Kylie suck in simultaneous gasps. “You might as well write your will tonight, Kenzie,” Kylie says.

I open my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out. What if she’s right? We need help. I glance down at my hand and
have my answer. Someone who told me I might need “protection.” Will Nurse Fedder be normal or believe us? But I’m not willing to get into a fight over who I can talk to right now, so I stay quiet.

“Listen, I’ll call the next meeting,” Kylie says.

“Well, what do we do until then?” Shannon asks, a distinct note of panic in her voice.

Kylie gives her a mirthless smile. “Be really careful.”

CHAPTER XVIII

I
have a moment of panic when I learn Nurse Fedder isn’t in her office, but then I see her behind a glass-walled conference room, huddled around a table with a few other adults and two girls I don’t recognize.

But I know grief counseling when I see it. The parent volunteer at the desk gives me a pitying look when I ask for the nurse. “Can you wait? She and the counselors can probably see you in a few minutes. There’s no one else in front of you.”

I don’t want to talk to the counselors, but I know there won’t be any other way to get to Nurse Fedder today. After about fifteen minutes, they all come out.

Nurse Fedder spots me immediately. “Kenzie, how’s your finger?”

“Healing. Can I talk to you?”

One of the counselors, an older man, steps forward. “You can talk to all of us. I’m Dr. Horowitz, a psychologist.”

I shake my head and gesture to the nurse. “I just want to talk to Nurse Fedder.”

“Don’t be put off by the profession,” the doctor says. “We can just talk. And this is Pastor Eugene.” He indicates another man.

“Hello, dear,” the pastor says, his voice so gentle and kind I’m almost tempted. But I doubt my questions about a curse would go over big with a pastor.

“Please?” I ask Nurse Fedder.

“I know this young lady.” She reaches for my arm. “We’ll talk in the clinic.”

The shrink looks like he’s about to argue, but another student comes in looking for counseling and helps me out. I follow Nurse Fedder down the short corridor to the same room where she’d bandaged my hand.

She closes the door and turns to me, as pale as I must have been the last time I was in here.

“This is bad,” she says simply.

Whoa. Wasn’t expecting that. “Yes, it is,” I agree.

“I’ve been waiting for one of you to show up.”

I assume she means one of the girls from the list. “We were too busy having a coven in an empty lab downstairs.”

Her expression flickers. “A coven?”

“Talking about curses and stuff …” I eye her carefully, praying for her to look at me like I’m crazy. Like Kylie and Amanda are totally wacked out and there is nothing remotely true about this.

Instead she nods. “This could be a bad year,” she says solemnly.

My weak knees bend and I sink into the patient cot. “What are you talking about?”

She glances at the door like someone might barge in. “We can’t talk here.”

“Why not?” I demand, despising the note of panic that hitches my voice. Why isn’t she just waving this off as nonsense? Has everyone who’s ever been on that list been brainwashed or something?

She sits next to me and closes her clammy hands over mine. “Most of the time, actually almost all the time, the girls on the list are … fine.”

“Fine.” I whisper the word. “What about the rest of the time?”

She closes her eyes and blows out a slow, noisy sigh. “There have been accidents.”

So I’ve heard. Frustration and fear mix into a black ball of nausea in my stomach. I want to know more … but I kind of want to run away and never hear that word again.

“Are you sure they’re accidents? Not …”
Murder
. “Intentional?”

“They’re fatal. Never anything but bad luck or, more accurately, cursed luck.”

“Nurse Fedder.” I am fighting for calm, trying to ignore the quivering of terror and irritation in my body. “I don’t believe in the supernatural. I don’t believe in a curse.”

Her smile is wry. “No one comes into this believing. But after a while … There’s no denying that the hand of something very powerful is on this list. Something insidious and unpredictable, something that thrives on the unexpected and never leaves a trace of crime in its wake, only the stink of a curse.”

How could someone so smart—trained in medicine and, one would assume, science—fall for this crap?

“Nurse Fedder—”

“Christine,” she corrects. “Call me Christine.”

“What I’m calling you is crazy.” I don’t care what I sound like. “I don’t believe in curses or supernatural garbage or any insidious hands that … whatever you said. I don’t buy any of that.”

She gives a shrug that says it all: what I think matters not one bit.

“I think these deaths might be …”
Murder
. Levi’s face flashes before me. If someone is accused, it’ll be him. “Not accidents.”

“They’re not,” she agrees readily. “But if you think someone killed anyone who’s ever been on the list, think again. Not one death has ever been anything but a freak accident. No crime, no evidence of murder, no other person involved. Believe me, we’ve investigated.”

“We? You mean other women who’ve been on the list?”

She nods. “We hired a private investigator who found absolutely no shred of evidence that any death was anything but accidental. Of course, there were two suicides.”