Hysteria (36 page)

The phone was shattered in the hall. My cell was somewhere upstairs. The door was
the closest thing. “Just hold on,” I whispered in his ear, though he made no indication
that he’d heard me. “I’m sorry,” I said. Which were, quite possibly, the most inadequate
words to ever leave a person’s mouth in the history of the world.

And then I ran. Pushed through the back door, into the rain, into the night. Pushed
through the swinging gate, leaving a trail of red behind me. I ran into the alley
and screamed, “Help! Somebody help!” Then I ran into the neighbor’s gate and pounded
on the back door, screaming for help. Then through the next gate. And the next. I
painted the whole street red with his blood. People came out and I screamed, “Help!”
But they looked at me like I was the one needing help.

I pointed a single finger toward my backyard. “He’s bleeding!” I cried. And they started
to run.

But what I’d really meant to say was
he’s dying.

It hadn’t been enough. Not nearly. They couldn’t stop the blood either. Or else there
was no blood left to stop by then. I never asked.

I wiped my hands on my jeans and started running faster, toward Monroe.

In the distance, the
M
rose from the horizon, like a dark sun, dripping ivy. Campus was dead. Everyone must’ve
been at dinner. I felt exposed walking across campus, like there were eyes watching
me from the dorm windows, secrets spreading like a virus.

I pushed the door open to my old dorm, and the lounge was empty. Stiflingly empty.
Then I remembered that Reid had said half of campus was deserted, anyway. I walked
down the silent hall, toward my old room, still marked off with crime-scene tape.
I wondered if Colleen had been there. Been here.

A door slammed somewhere upstairs, and the echo carried all the way down the steps,
through the hall, to me. I paused in front of Bree and Taryn’s door. Bree, at least,
knew who Colleen was. Or, if not her name, at least she’d know who I was talking about.
I knocked on her door.

Bree opened the door quickly, and opened her mouth like she had been ready to say
something, like she was expecting someone, but definitely not me. When our eyes met,
she froze, her eyes wider than I thought humanly possible. She took a step back into
her room, her arm preparing to swing the door closed on me.

“Wait,” I said, diving toward her room. I wedged my foot between the door and the
frame so she couldn’t shut me out. I had a grip on her sleeve, and she was staring
at my hand, her nostrils flared. “I need to talk to you.”

“Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “Are you out of your freaking mind?”

I removed my hand but took a step closer, my entire body now standing in her entryway.
“I’m looking for my friend. Colleen. I think she was here, and she’s . . . missing.”

Her eyes grew wide again and she stuck her head out into the hall, peering out toward
the stairs in the corner. “You better leave. They’ll come for you, you know.”

“Who? Who’ll come for me? Krista? Taryn?”

She shook her head. “Get out of here.”

“I know you set me up, Bree. And I’m not leaving until I find Colleen.”

“So stupid,” she mumbled. “She was taken,” she whispered, just as I heard footsteps
echoing down the stairwell. “And you’ll get taken too.”

Bree grabbed onto my arm and pushed us both into the hallway. I thought because she
was scared or nervous or something.

But then Krista rounded the corner out of the stairwell and raised her eyebrows. Bree
dug her fingers into my arm even harder and said, “Look what I found.”

“What
—
” I started, and then I realized who took Colleen, who Bree was talking about. She
meant all of them. Including her.

Krista jerked her head toward Bree’s open door, but I wedged my foot against the corner
of the wall and wouldn’t budge. Krista didn’t smile, but I could’ve sworn she wanted
to. “So much like that friend of yours.”

I lunged for Krista, and her mouth dropped open in surprise. I had her pushed into
the wall, Bree looking on in surprise. “Where is she? What did you do?”

She swatted at my arms, which were pinning her to the wall, but something coursed
through my veins, making me stronger than I thought I was.

“Bree,” she said. “Do something.”

“Yeah, Bree,” I said. “Like always. Do what Krista tells you to do.”

Bree gripped me around the waist and started to pull, so I said, “Tell her why you
killed Jason, Krista.”

Bree’s arms went slack. Krista grimaced. “
I
didn’t kill Jason,” she said.

I opened my mouth to argue, then saw her grin. She must’ve convinced Bree or Taryn
to do it. Maybe she even watched. She definitely planned the whole thing. But I guess
she took that English class lecture to heart: it’s nearly impossible to convict a
mob. Where does the blame lie? With her? Or the ones that listened?

“Bree,” I said, still holding Krista against the wall. “I heard Jason threaten Krista
to keep you from telling what happened with him under the bleachers. What happened
to you?”

“Nothing,” Bree said, getting closer. “Thanks to Krista. She showed up . . . ?before.
She helped me.”

She tugged at my shoulders, trying to pull me off Krista, but her arms were so weak.
I remembered Bree showing up in my room, terrified. Was Krista planning this all back
then? Had she scared Bree off? She must have. Bree went back to her. But Bree was
not solid, not like Taryn. She was the link that could be broken. She was the thread
barely holding everything together.

So I pulled.

“And Krista convinced you not to tell anyone, right? You know it happened with Taryn
too. Krista convinced her not to tell anyone. She wasn’t on your side, Bree. She was
on Jason’s side. She did everything for Jason. She had to. Otherwise he’d tell about
her.”

“Tell what?” Bree asked.

“Yes, Mallory,” Krista said. “Tell what?” She knew I didn’t know everything. But she
didn’t know that I did know something.

“She’s not his cousin, you know.”

Krista tensed under my weight. But then she relaxed a little, and she laughed. “No,
that’s right. He’s not my cousin.” She laughed again, shaking her head. “He was my
brother.”

I lost my grip on her from surprise, and she wiggled free. We stood across from each
other, three points of a triangle, the whole hall tense, waiting to pop. Waiting for
one of us to make a move. Waiting for Bree to pick a side.

“Yeah, so that’s the truth. He’s my
brother
. Only nobody could know. Because my own father doesn’t want me.
Nobody
wants me, Bree. I had nobody until Taryn and you.” Bree looked between me and Krista,
but Krista didn’t give her time to think. “The state took me from my mom, which definitely
was not the worst thing in the world
—
but you know what
is
kind of shitty? Foster care. And you know what’s even shittier? Tracking down your
dad and finding out he’s fucking rich. And you’ve been poor. Know what’s even worse?
Finding out he already had a family, and nobody’s supposed to know about you. He’s
not evil, though, and he wasn’t about to send me away. He just wanted me to keep it
a secret. From Jason and his wife. If I kept it a secret, I got to stay. He’s not
evil. He’s just an asshole. You know who was evil, though? Jason. And he overheard
the whole damn thing.”

Krista took a step toward me, blocking me in. She looked to Bree, but Bree stayed
against the wall. “You know what Jason would’ve done to you? Did you want to end up
like Taryn? She’s drugged and sleeping upstairs until her daddy shows up. You want
to be like her? Everything I’ve done is because I care about you guys. Jason was a
predator. He’s a fucking psychopath. You know that, right? I hated him, it’s true.
I had to do what he said
—
always. You can imagine what that was like. But I did it for you guys.”

“I thought you said you didn’t do it,” I said.

She cut her eyes to Bree and said, “I didn’t do it
alone.
”

Bree let out a moan and Krista stretched an arm toward her, but she couldn’t reach.
So she said, “Listen to me, Bree. We’re going to be
fine.
Again. But you have to listen to me.”

But Bree wasn’t listening. I knew Krista was losing her, and Krista could sense it
too.

“Bree,” she said again. “I
love
you.” And Bree lifted her head up.

But I thought of the things Krista was doing for Bree and Taryn, and I thought of
the things Colleen had done for me, and I knew it wasn’t even close to the same.

“No, Bree,” I said. “If she cared about you at all, she would’ve warned you about
him. She would’ve kept you away from Jason to begin with. She
hates
you. She hates you all.”

Then I took a risk. I ran for Bree, grabbed her around the waist, and dragged us both
into her room. I slammed the door and locked it.

Bree stared at the locked door and started to shake. “She has a master key,” she whispered.

Of course she did. Jason must have too. Easy to get when his father was the dean of
students. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. Someone had to break into my room to take the
sleeping pills. Someone had to break into my room to kill him there.

So I walked to her dresser, bent over, and put my weight behind it. “Help me,” I said,
and Bree pushed against the side with me until it was in front of the door.

“Where’s Colleen, Bree? What happened?”

She shook her head and her face went even more pale than normal. She moaned and started
pacing the room. “Oh God,” she said.

Bree crumpled to the floor and put her head in her hands. Then she looked up, higher
than where I was and choked out, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I almost cut her off, told her it was too late for that. That those words meant nothing.
That there was no going back now. That she’d made her choices and now she had to live
with them. But instead I crouched down in front of her and said, “I know you are.”
Then I put my hands on her shoulders and said, “You can help. This doesn’t have to
be all of you, you know?”

She broke in my arms, as the realization of everything crashed down on her. And I
held her. Until we heard the lock turn and the door push against the furniture. The
dresser held, but I wanted to shake Bree. Make her talk. I guess she sensed my urgency
because she gritted her teeth and then the words came tumbling out. “She was looking
for me, I guess. Because she found me on the way to breakfast. We walked toward that
old student center, I guess for privacy, I don’t know. But she just kept heading that
way. She didn’t know that Krista and Taryn were watching. Following. And she kept
talking.
It was so obvious she knew something. So Krista . . .” She stopped talking. Krista
was pounding on the door, calling Bree’s name, and Bree was staring at the dresser,
like the whole situation was just some curious thing happening to some other person.

“Krista what?” I said louder.

Bree looked anywhere but at me. “Hit her with a brick.” Then she dropped her voice
even lower. “She had to hit her twice.” Everything inside of me went dark. I felt
like that day in the lifeguard shed when Danielle called Colleen a slut and I wanted
to hurt her. Only this was a thousand times stronger. And the only one in the room
was Bree.

I made myself back up toward the window. “Where is she?”

“We took her down the path past the old student center. There’s a dropoff. It’s pretty
far, though.”

No
, I thought.

“Like a ravine really.”
No
, I thought again. “We
—
” Bree took a big breath and said, “She’s at the bottom of the ravine. So it would
look like an accident.”

No
.

I pushed her window open just as Krista wedged the door open a few inches. “Bree,”
I said. “I’m going to find her. Get help. Now.”

She glanced at the door, then went to her desk and pulled out her pink lighter. Then
she climbed on top of the desk, flicked the top, and held the flame directly under
the smoke detector.