They All Fall Down (26 page)

My knees weaken. Levi? They’re going to blame these deaths on him?

“You
think
they’ll stop,” one of the boys says.

“They’ll stop,” Josh insists. “That’s how the curse works.”

He believes in the curse, too?

“Hey, you guys!” A female voice cuts through the night, and I instantly step back into shadows when a cell phone shines a beam not ten feet in front of me. “Where did you go?”

It’s Shannon; I recognize her singsong voice. “We’ve killed the blunt without you. Hey, what’s going on?”

They don’t answer right away.

“You guys?” The aroma of weed wafts toward me along with her giggle. “And guess what else we’ve killed?”

“Shut the hell up, Shannon!” Josh says in a harsh voice. “And turn that thing off.”

“Why?” But she does snap off the light.

I hear one of the male voices again, and another snorts. “Jeez, she’s annoying. Wish she was higher on the list.”

A couple of males laugh in response to that. I grab the tree trunk, trying—and failing—to take it all in. I don’t know what they’re talking about, but I do know this: I have to find Levi.

No, I have to
help
Levi and I don’t have a phone.

Josh’s voice echoes in my ears and I back up while I listen to the two groups converging. I slide behind a bush, ducking low and working back the way I came, as silent as possible.

I hear laughter and talking and the normal sounds of a—

A hand clamps over my mouth so hard I jolt like I’ve been burned, and another wraps around my chest, revealing my phone.

If I were the fainting type, I would have.

“Kind of hard to stay in touch when you drop your phone.”
Levi’s voice is like sweet, hot caramel all the way down to my soul, making me feel so safe in spite of the way he’s holding me. “We have to climb.”

I shudder, trying to turn to face him.

“We have to hide, Mackenzie. They’re after me.”

I nod, dimly aware of the boys and Shannon talking and messing around about thirty feet away. He’s still covering my mouth but I sense that his hand is more protective than predatory.

“Wait until they’re gone,” he says.

After a few seconds, they continue back to where the girls are, their voices growing distant. I can feel Levi’s heartbeat slamming into my back and tuck deeper into the warmth of his body. I have to tell him about Jarvis, but not now. Not yet.

When we’re alone, he slowly takes his hand off my mouth and I turn, desperately needing to see his face, needing to be completely reassured by his presence, needing to see the confidence and certainty in those jet-black eyes.

I see all that and more, the impact making me wrap my arms around him and take hold. He clutches me back, as if he senses he has to right then. But not for long. Before I even begin to feel secure enough, he pulls us both about ten feet away to a thick tree.

No, not a tree. It’s an old telephone pole, with homemade ladder rungs. He boosts me up without a word and my fingers grab the nearest two-by-four, clinging with all I have. The first few steps are easy, but my arms quickly start to burn.

The sound of a motorized vehicle breaks through the silence of the forest, a loud rumble vibrating the whole pole I’m clinging to.

“Hurry!” he orders, giving my backside another push.

Forget burning. Forget pain or height or the possibility of falling hard. I have to move. Clenching my teeth, I hoist myself higher, straining every muscle as I shift my foot back and forth to find the next rung.

In the distance, I see two blinding lights from a four-wheeler rolling across what must be a dirt path in the woods. And then a single beam, as bright and wide as a klieg light, shoots through the forest just ten or fifteen feet from our pole. And it moves slowly, searching us out.

I hear a girl scream—not bloodcurdling, but playful. I think. I hope.

And I finally feel the thick wooden platform. It juts out over my head, so I’ll actually have to bow my back, reach for it, and swing up to the top.

“You can do it,” Levi whispers. “Once we’re up there, we’re safe.”

Not exactly, but safer. Bending backward, I close my fingers over the wood.
I can do this
, I say to myself.
I have to do this
.

The spotlight crosses over the base of our pole. That’s all I need to grab and swing and heave myself up to the platform, rolling onto the wood toward the center. Before I so much as sit up, Levi follows, rolling right into me.

“Stay low,” he orders. “Flat as you can.”

We both smash ourselves onto the wood, side by side, our ragged breaths deafening. In the distance, the sound of the others drifts toward us, coming from the direction of the house. I turn my head to look over the treetops and I can see the roof and second floor of Josh’s mansion.

Lights are coming on around the house and lawn, not like the show Rex put on for me when he went into the garage, but like someone is home. The party must have moved back there.

Does Josh wonder where I am? Does Rex? Does … 
Jarvis
?

The roar of the four-wheeler rumbles closer now, almost under us. The light is moving slowly, in a circular pattern. Searching for us. At one point it shines right up to the platform and only the planks of wood nailed together hide us.

But they do hide us, and after a few minutes, whoever is in that four-wheeler continues his search in the rest of the woods. We stay perfectly still, turning only our faces to each other.

“They want to hurt you,” I whisper.

“I heard.”

“They want to pin the accidents on you. They think it will stop the curse.”

He nods.

“I won’t let them.”

Closing his eyes, he inches his face forward so that our foreheads touch. “I won’t let them hurt you, either, Mack.”

“Oh, and there’s one other thing,” I say, tipping my head so I can see his reaction. “I’m pretty sure I saw Jarvis Collier.”

His eyes widen.

The woods are quiet now, the four-wheeler far enough away that we don’t hear the engine, and the kids are back at the house.

“We can’t stay out here all night,” I finally say.

“It’s safer than anywhere else.”

That’s not true. “Can we get to your bike?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I know where to go,” I tell him. “The safest place I know to spend the night. And you have the added benefit of another witness.”

“Where’s that?”

“My home. And you’re staying there all night.”

CHAPTER XXVI

I
’m grateful we’re on a motorcycle, because I don’t want to talk on the way home. I want to replay everything, every word, every image that is burned into my brain.

But I fail; all I can do is remember one face, one sentence, one life-changing piece of information.

Of course, he talked quite a bit more than you. Right up to the very end
.

Over and over the words play in my head until we’re pulling into my driveway. I’m relieved that the house is dark and there’s no sign of Mom’s car, but she’d texted me that she was still with Dad. That’s good because she probably wouldn’t be thrilled that I brought Levi home—on a motorcycle, no less.

“So tell me everything this guy said to you,” Levi says as he pulls out a kitchen chair.

“He talked about … my brother.”

“What?”

I didn’t reply right away, knowing that if I share anything with Levi, I have to share everything.

I take a shaky breath. “Jarvis … or whoever that man was …”

“Yeah?”

“He knew my brother.”

He waits for me to continue, but I’m still battling how much I want to reveal. I’ve never told anyone my role in Conner’s death, but I’ve carried the weight of it for two years, and it’s getting heavier by the day. But what if that accident wasn’t my fault? What if it wasn’t even an accident?

I reach for Levi’s hand and tug him toward the stairs, something inexplicable drawing me to that room where we never go. “You didn’t live in Vienna two years ago,” I say softly. “So you didn’t know my brother.” I add a smile. “He called me Mack.”

Levi angles his head in a silent apology for using the nickname. “I’ve heard about him,” he says, coming with me. “I’ve heard he was a force to be reckoned with.”

That makes me smile. “He was that and more.” We climb the stairs. “Did you hear how he died?”

“An accident at a store where he worked?”

I’m not surprised he knows that much; it had been huge news at the time and was still talked about. I come to a stop at the top of the stairs, feeling unnatural next to Conner’s door. Normally, I breeze right by it and go into my room.

“I’ve always thought it was an accident.” I look up at him and hold his gaze.

I feel his hand on my shoulder, comforting and strong. On
a low, slow exhale, I turn the handle and push the door, the paint sticking a little in the jamb.

For a moment, I don’t breathe, but then I do, inhaling the musty, stale smell of a room that hasn’t been used in two years. It’s very dark, but my eyes adjust quickly, taking in the Pittsburgh Steelers comforter on the double bed, the books piled up on the desk—some textbooks I’m using now for AP Calc and Latin.

There’s a bookshelf—or five—of trophies. From his days playing Pop Warner as a five-year-old to the year Vienna won the division when Conner was a sophomore, he collected hardware. I’m drawn to the shelf, the physical memories of games I watched from the stands. Why didn’t I pay attention? Why was I so bored?

“Busy guy.” Levi’s voice surprises me; I’d forgotten him for a moment because in here, there was only Conner. Tall, loud, funny, talkative, beloved by everyone, even me—even when I wanted to hate him because I’d never be him.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “He was something.”

“Must have been quite a shadow to live under.”

“Yes and no. It could be overwhelming, but he was also really encouraging. Every single day when we’d get to school, whether we were on the bus in elementary school or in the car in high school, he’d say goodbye to me the same way. ‘Go get ’em, Mack.’ And that made me believe I could. Like I could do
anything
.”

He smiles. “That’s a good brother.”

I sink onto the bed, emotions bouncing around my chest and off these walls. “It makes me feel even more guilty.”

Levi turns from the bookshelf to give me a questioning look. “Why would you feel guilty?”

It’s time
, a little voice whispers in my head. “I’ve always thought I was responsible for—for his accident.”

“Why?”

I pick at a black thread on the bed and run my fingers over the diamond design on the Steeler logo. “Because he wouldn’t have gone down into that basement if I hadn’t dropped my necklace on the conveyor belt.” The words feel harsh and foreign. Words I’ve thought a thousand, maybe a million times in the past two years. Words I’d never dared to speak out loud.

Levi doesn’t move, waiting for more, giving me space.

I inhale and exhale, the sound loud in the silent room. “He had to work and I didn’t want to be home alone,” I say, taking the story back a bit. “I whined and complained and he dragged me to the store, where I was supposed to be doing homework, but I was bored. In the back room, I found this conveyor belt they used to take stock from the basement up to the main floor.” My voice cracks and Levi takes a step closer, but I hold up my hand.

I need to get this out. I need to tell him. “I was playing with my necklace and dangling it over the conveyor belt and I dropped it.” I close my eyes. “Maybe on purpose because I wanted to go down to the basement to see what was down there.”

I take a second, swiping my hand through my hair, closing my eyes to see the gold M with tiny diamond chips—fourteen of them—swinging back and forth over the belt. M for Mackenzie.

“I loved that necklace,” I whisper, touching my neck as though I might somehow find it still hanging there. But the necklace was long gone … like my brother. “Mom gave it to me for my fourteenth birthday.”

“Kenzie …”

I don’t open my eyes to see the sympathy in his. I don’t want sympathy. I don’t deserve it. “I dropped the necklace on purpose, certain it would just get carried down to the basement and we could go down together and get it. But he wouldn’t let me come. He made me stay in the back room and …” I drop my head into my hands, the pain of the admission too much for a second.

“Kenzie …”

“He went down there and I guess he had to dig behind the conveyor belt to get it. He must have bent over the belt to reach for my necklace and his shirt got caught and …” My voice fades into a sob as grief and guilt gang up on my heart and squeeze. “If I hadn’t done that, he’d be
alive
.”

“Kenzie.” I feel Levi’s weight on the bed next to me. “You’re forgetting something,” he says softly.

“That’s just the problem. I
can’t
forget anything. I can’t forget that necklace or that decision or that moment or that long, long wait until I had to find someone and then …” The screaming. The sirens. The look on Mom’s face when she got there. The look that has never—

“You’re forgetting what that guy said to you. And the accidents that have happened. Maybe you’re not responsible.”

I grab that hope, wanting to cling to it, but it’s dashed with what I’ve learned. “Only girls on the list have those accidents.”

“Are you sure?”

Not of anything
. He touches the light switch and bathes the room in brightness, making me blink. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“Let’s look around.”

“Why?”

“Has this room ever been cleaned out?” he asks.

I shake my head. “My mom refuses to touch a thing. My dad has threatened to come in here with boxes and trash bags, but that always ends up in a screaming match. It’s why they separated.”

With the light on, the room is less ominous and sad. There’s a strange life to all these awards and trophies and books, a lingering energy that emanated from Conner. No wonder Mom didn’t want to take it all down and turn it into a guest room or something. Conner was still alive in here.