Truth or Dare (28 page)

Emerson gave her a weak smile. “Promise?”

“Promise,” Caitlin said. “Now, here.” She pulled a hairbrush out of her backpack, tossing it to Emerson. “Make yourself look like the Em I know and love.”

“Thanks.” Emerson ran the brush through her hair, her eyes distant. “I just feel like such an after-school special. I can’t believe he’s going back to his—” She stopped short, looking down.

“To his what?” Caitlin cut in.

“Nothing,” Emerson said hurriedly. “It’s not important.” She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “We should probably get going if we don’t want to be late.”

By the time they got to school, Emerson had brushed the kinks out of her hair, smoothed cover-up over her tear stains, and borrowed a necklace that had been lying around in Caitlin’s car to spruce up her outfit.

“That’s my Em,” Caitlin declared as they headed into school, their arms hooked together.

Emerson tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Who needs him, right?” she said bravely.

Right
, Caitlin would have replied. But at that minute, they stepped into Winslow’s entranceway, and immediately Caitlin saw them: posters pasted to the walls, everywhere she looked.

“Holy shit,” Emerson breathed.

Caitlin dropped Emerson’s arm, running over to the wall. Each poster had a full-color photo on it—featuring Caitlin. Caitlin, crouched
behind a car with Emerson, swigging from a flask; Caitlin in detention, getting the stink eye from Mr. Sims; Caitlin at Tenley’s pool party, looking wasted as she waved her arms through the air. At the top of every poster was the same heading:

Looks like this angel has a bit of the devil in her.

Caitlin took an unsteady step back, breathing hard. Someone had been following her, photographing her…
stalking
her. Out of context, the photographs made her look terrible, the last person you’d want for your student-body president. She was never going to win the campaign now.

She could feel her face burning as she began ripping down poster after poster. All around her, people were whispering, snickering. “Ignore them,” Emerson commanded as she helped her, tearing down posters as fast as she could. Soon Marta was helping, too, and then Tenley and Nate Roberts and a bunch of others. But still the posters seemed to be everywhere.

“Who would
do
this to you?” Marta murmured.

Caitlin shook her head. She could think of only one person who seemed to hate her that much. The mystery darer. But she’d done everything the darer had asked of her!

“Are you kidding?” Emerson said. “It’s got to be Miss ‘I’m as Pure as Snow’ Abby Wilkins. Obviously Abby thought she couldn’t win without some kind of slander campaign.”

Caitlin’s heart seized up in her chest. She reached automatically into her bag, feeling around for her pills. Maybe Emerson was right. Maybe Abby
had
done this. Suddenly a terrible thought struck her.

Maybe Abby was the darer.

She was still mulling over the possibility at the end of the day, as she stopped at her locker before cheer practice. She’d tried to catch Abby
after government class that morning, but she’d flown out of the room—almost as if she’d been expecting Caitlin to come after her. The whole thing was making Caitlin’s insides twist into knots. The idea of Abby being the darer made her almost sad. Sure, they weren’t friends. But they’d been competing against each other in things forever. Was it possible she’d hated her
this
much all along, and Caitlin had never noticed?

Caitlin grabbed her gym bag out of her locker. Her phone buzzed with a text and she reached absently for it as she wondered for the zillionth time that day how Abby or whoever it was had gotten such a clear shot of her holding that flask with Emerson. It was a close-up shot, which meant the photographer would have had to be standing
right
there—or using some kind of serious stalking camera.

When she looked down at her phone, chills spread through her, tingling all the way down to her toes.

It was a text message, from a blocked number.
Dr. Filstone’s files hold a lot of secrets. Go find out the truth about some of your classmates—unless you want Mommy Dearest to learn the pill-popping truth about you. Let’s start with the Ms in honor of Mom—Sydney M to be exact. And don’t worry about getting in: You’ll find everything you need under the gnome.

Caitlin pressed her forehead against her locker, counting out her breaths again and again. But still the panic rose inside her, growing bigger and bigger, like a wave preparing to crash. Dr. Filstone’s files.
Of course
. Everything about Caitlin was in her file: her nightmares, her prescription, her fears about Jack Hudson.

The darer must have gotten into her file, which meant he or she knew more about her than anyone. She had no secrets left.

The panic grew stronger. She dug one of her pills out of her bag and, without thinking, tossed it back, swallowing it dry. For a minute she just stood there, trying to clear her mind, think of nothing but the
pill working its way through her. But her thoughts kept rearing their ugly heads, snapping like sharks. There was no way she could let her mom find out how often she took her pills. She’d probably ship her off to that nearby rehab center, Sunrise, in the beat of a heart.

No. She would have to do what the darer wanted.

Someone tapped Caitlin on the shoulder and she let out a scream, covering her mouth with her hand.

“Whoa! Sorry. Didn’t realize you were expecting Freddy Krueger.”

Caitlin whirled around. Tim Holland was standing in front of her, an amused expression on his face. He was wearing a pair of faded, beat-up jeans and a white T-shirt. His eyes crinkled in the corners as he smiled at her, and she couldn’t help but think what a cool color they were: a blue so dark they were almost sapphire. She took a deep breath, her pulse slowly returning to normal.

“I forgot my razor-blade hand,” Tim said apologetically. “Hope you’re not too disappointed.”

Caitlin was shocked to feel a tiny laugh bubbling out of her. The pill must have started to kick in already. “It was really the burned face I was looking forward to,” she said.

Tim smiled. “You okay? You look a little… pale.”

Caitlin forced a smile. She had a feeling
pale
was a euphemism for
run over by a truck while caught in a tornado in negative-ten-degree weather
. “I’m just a little on edge today,” she said.

“The posters?” Tim asked.

Caitlin sighed. “So you saw them?”

“The overall consensus of males in the school is that you look hottest in the party picture, but almost as hot in the flask picture. But my personal favorite is the detention one, since I was there. I figure it makes me famous by association. Or maybe it’s proximity.”

Caitlin shook her head. “I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my humiliation so much.”

“Humiliation?” Tim hit her playfully on the arm. “Come on, there isn’t a guy in school who doesn’t want to date you after seeing those photos, Cait. You’re going to win the election by male votes alone.”

Caitlin smiled in spite of herself, and it hit her suddenly that it was her first real, nonforced smile of the day. “I doubt that, but thank you.”

“Any idea who did it?” Tim asked.

“Zero. Though believe me, I’d like to know.”

“I’ll keep my ears open. So, any chance you’re heading back to detention today?” Tim gestured toward Mr. Sims’s room, which was just a few doors down.

“No way.” Caitlin slung her gym bag over her shoulder. “I think I filled my yearly quota already. Why, are you?” She jokingly wagged a finger at Tim in disapproval.

Tim looked sheepish. “I wasn’t
planning
on skipping first period today, but then I made the mistake of taking Ocean Drive to school and the waves were so stellar… I just couldn’t make myself drive away.”

Caitlin shook her head. “Good thing the weather will be cold soon, or you might end up with a monogrammed seat in Mr. Sims’s room.”

“Eh, cold weather doesn’t do much to deter me,” Tim replied. “Though ice I have to give in to.”

Caitlin made a face as she imagined dipping even a
toe
in the water during a Massachusetts winter. “You must really love surfing.”

“It’s my life,” Tim said automatically. He fiddled with the zipper on his bag. “When I’m out on a wave, it’s like nothing can touch me, you know?”

Caitlin nodded. “That’s kind of how I feel about running. Or how I used to feel.”

“Mr. Holland?” Mr. Sims stuck his head out of the classroom. “Do you actually plan to set foot inside the classroom this afternoon? Or are you just going to loiter outside it?”

“Coming, Mr. Sims,” Tim called out sweetly. “Looks like my public awaits,” he told Caitlin.

“That’s what happens when you’re famous.”

“And I have you to thank for it.” Tim gave Caitlin a wave before heading into the classroom. “Miss me today, Mr. Sims?” she heard him ask.

Caitlin laughed to herself as she headed toward cheer practice. She had such a long night ahead of her: practice and the Festival Committee meeting and homework and finishing her campaign speech and calling Theresa, and, of course, figuring out what to do about this latest dare. But for once, thinking about it all didn’t make that knot of panic rise in her chest. She swung her bag at her side as she turned into the girls’ locker room. Must be the pill, she decided.

Thursday, 2:15
PM

BY THE END OF THE DAY ON THURSDAY, SYDNEY
couldn’t wait to get out of school. All day long, she’d felt as if she were in a fishbowl; everywhere she turned, someone could be watching. When her gym teacher gave them free time during the last period of the day, she’d slipped away, taking respite in the darkroom. She couldn’t stop thinking about Tenley. What the hell had she been doing in Sydney’s apartment last night? Sydney shivered as she remembered the expression on Tenley’s face when she saw that note from the darer. She’d looked almost… deranged.

It wasn’t until Sydney had finally calmed down that she began to wonder: What had Tenley meant by “this proves it”? Was it possible Tenley knew about the dares? All day long Sydney had considered approaching Tenley, just asking her flat out. But something held her back. What if she was wrong? What if Tenley knew nothing? The last thing she needed was Tenley making school more miserable for her than it already was.

Tenley had been the worst part of her first few years at Winslow. She had this uncanny ability to make Sydney feel like she wasn’t just poor, but a leper, too. She remembered one game of truth or dare she’d witnessed down at the beach—when Tenley had made a big deal of trying to get Sydney to join the game. She’d dared her to swim after Patty Sutton and try to pull her underwater. She’d been such a bitch about it, acting like she was doing Sydney a
huge
favor by letting her play. Sydney had refused, of course—people weren’t toys; you couldn’t play with them as if they were—but it had made her feel terrible all the same.

Sydney slumped down on the floor of the darkroom. The less she had to do with Tenley the better, she decided. She could handle this on her own. With a sigh, she rested her chin in her hands, wishing the final bell of the day would ring already. She didn’t have the energy to develop photos right now. Between Tenley’s break-in and her latest dare, her head felt fried, as if it had been jammed into an electric socket. This last dare was just plain strange. Why did she have to kiss
Joey Bakersfield
?

When Sydney had first started at Winslow, in second grade, she and Joey had actually been semifriendly. She’d been the Dread scholarship girl, and he’d just been released from the hospital after getting mauled on the arm by a dog, earning him his Rabies Boy reputation. No one wanted to talk to either of them, so they’d congregated together at recess. Even then, Joey had never been much for words. Sometimes he wouldn’t say a thing all recess long, directing most of his attention to one of the toy trains he was always lugging around.

It didn’t matter back then. Sydney was just happy not to be sitting alone.

But then third grade rolled around, and fourth, and suddenly words began to matter more. To count. The silence that had once seemed so natural began to press in on them from every side.

By the end of fourth grade, Joey had stopped coming to recess, spending the period in the library instead, his nose buried in a book. They didn’t talk for years after that. But when Sydney got back from Sunrise, she began taking photos at Art Walk. It had actually been Dr. Filstone’s idea. The Sunrise Center had required her to have three sessions with Dr. Filstone after her release, to help her “acclimate” back into home life. When Sydney had admitted in one of the sessions that she was worried about letting go of photography now that she was home, Dr. Filstone had suggested she find a place that meant something to her here in Echo Bay, and start photographing it right away. “Bring your photos and your home together,” she’d said.

Sydney had chosen Art Walk because of what it stood for: a chance to actually
belong
in Echo Bay. One day, her photographs would be hanging in one of those galleries, and then it wouldn’t matter that she’d grown up in the Dread or that she’d been sent away to Sunrise or that her dad was a scumbag. All that would matter was what she’d become.

Joey worked at Rocky Crescent, one of the galleries on Art Walk. One night when he was closing up, he’d seen Sydney taking photos outside. He’d offered to keep the gallery open for a few more minutes so she could shoot inside. It was the first time Sydney had heard him talk voluntarily in years, and she found herself saying yes. Soon, minutes had turned into hours, and he let her stay there all night, taking hundreds of shots, while he watched silently from the corner. She’d had to lie to her mom and tell her she was staying over at a classmate’s house to work on a project, but it was worth it. One of her very best shots, the one that had won her an award from Byrne Theater, had been taken early the next morning, just as the sun was starting to rise.