The Escape. Part 13

Each time her bare foot made contact with a stair, she forced herself to breathe, a long, whooshing in and out like she had learned in yoga cla.s.s. It was supposed to nourish and steady the mind, but it was making her light-headed. When she was on the last step, a gust of wind tore through the house. Avery shuddered. Whoever was in the house must have left the door open, probably for a quick escape.

With thoughtless rage tearing through her, Avery clicked on the Maglite and shone the bright beam into the living room screaming, "My dad is the chief of police. You better start running, a.s.shole!"

Avery sucked in a shaky breath. "Oh my G.o.d."

The lamp from the end table was on the floor, its bulb shattered. The half-dozen family pictures were on the ground too. Another gust of wind snapped the pages of the magazines she and her dad had on the coffee table-a catalog for police gear, an out-of-date CosmoGirl, a circular from the grocery store. But the destruction wasn't what was terrifying to Avery.

It was the windows.

Every single one, the whole bank lining the wall, was wide open, with curtains billowing like ghosts in the wind and wet leaves sticking to the screens like hands trying to claw their way into the house.

Eighteen.

"You sound just like my dad," Avery snapped.

Fletcher had been awake and out the door early, the world heavy with that weird sense of eerie renewal that always happened after a storm. Avery was mad at him, stomping ahead.

"I'm only saying it was possible," he said, trying to make his voice light.

Avery rolled her eyes as they entered the school together. "I guess it could have been a dream," she said finally. "But it felt so real. I know I walked down the stairs. I know I saw all those windows open. I felt the wind on my face."

"But didn't you call your dad? And then you said you went downstairs..."

Avery rolled her eyes and picked at the seam on her jeans. "Yeah. I went downstairs and waited for him."

"And?"

"Everything was fine down there. As if it never happened."

"Maybe because it never did."

Avery's eyes flashed and Fletcher flinched. "But it was real. I can't believe you don't believe me. We know that someone is out there, someone who attacked you and killed Adam. Maybe that person is lurking around town."

Fletcher didn't want to think that whoever had come after him and Adam would go after Avery. If Avery got hurt, it would be all his fault. Just like what happened to Adam...

"So did your dad check around or something?"

"He didn't find anything. Outside or inside. He thinks..."-Avery looked away, then glanced back at Fletcher-"that I am probably just freaked out, that I had a bad dream."

Her cheeks flushed pink. Fletcher liked it.

"But the lamp was missing," she hurried on. "The one that was broken on the floor? It was missing when I got up this morning."

"Did you tell your dad that?"

"Yeah. Only..."

"Only?"

Avery looked slightly annoyed but fidgeted with the strap of her backpack like she might be nervous. "I told my dad about the lamp, and he said it hadn't been there in weeks. He said he broke it awhile ago and got rid of it."

Fletcher wanted to say something to comfort her, something to let her know that he knew that batty, paranoid feeling she was describing.

"You know how it is when there is a detail you know that you're missing, but you just can't get to it?"

Fletcher stiffened and Avery apologized. "I mean...sorry. Of course you do. You-I just-"

Fletcher shook his head and shook off the comment.

"It's just weird..." she said, her words trailing off. "It was just really weird."

Fletcher grimaced. He had spent the night before trying to fall asleep, but he kept thinking about Avery, about how she'd mentioned hypnosis just before the phone died. What if he could remember what happened after he and Adam were attacked?

What if I don't want to?

The voice in his head came out of nowhere, but it shot ice water through his veins.

Adam was my friend, he repeated to himself, his teeth gritted so hard that his jaw ached.

"What's with you?" Avery asked.

Fletcher snapped back to the here and now. "It's nothing. I was just... Yeah, I know what you mean about forgetting-"

He stopped in the hallway, his words dying in his mouth. "Oh, oh my G.o.d."

Avery saw it too.

As had the large group of teens who had congregated off to the side, whispering and staring at Fletcher's locker. "KILLER" was scrawled across the metal in thick, red ink.

Fletcher felt the piece of toast he had eaten for breakfast pushing its way up his throat. He knew Avery was talking to him. He knew he should respond, but he could only stare at the word: KILLER.

Fletcher turned, only aware that Avery had her hand on his arm when he shook it off to ran for the bathroom. He went for the nearest stall, bent over, and dry heaved, tears clouding his vision, snot running from his nose.

He was a killer.

He hadn't been able to save Adam in the woods. And so the kids at school had branded him a killer. A murderer.

He heaved again, then flushed the toilet, leaning against the wall of the bathroom stall.

Why couldn't he just remember?

Lately, the visions were all the same. Adam calling out to him, then a flash of sunlight so bright it burned, then that sickening, overwhelming smell of blood. He heard Adam screaming for him: "Fletcher! Fletcher!" His shoulders screamed, his forearms burning as he swung blindly, going for something or someone who, in his memory, was nothing but a hazy blur. That blur killed Adam and tried to kill Fletcher too.

Avery stood in the hallway, stunned, as Fletcher strode away from the gathering crowd. "That dude is crazy," someone murmured.

"How can they even let him back in school?" someone else asked.

Avery fisted her hands, holding them so tightly that she could feel her fingernails cutting into her palms.

"Who did this?" She didn't recognize her own voice when it came out.

No one answered, but the chatter continued, students flooding over to see what the commotion was about.

Fletcher is not a murderer.

"Fletcher is not a murderer!" She screamed and a few kids nearby shot her weird looks. Tim stood in front of Avery, hands gripping the straps on his backpack.

"Avery, you should stay away from that kid." His chin jutted after Fletcher.

"He's not-" she started, but Tim's hand on her arm stopped her.

"Adam's dead." His eyes were serious. "You don't know what happened out there in the woods."

"That's just it," Avery said, jerking away from Tim's grip. "No one knows what happened out there."

Tim said, "Fletcher knows."

He disappeared into the crowd and Avery stood there, feeling very alone. These people didn't know the facts. The evidence. They didn't see Fletcher that day in the woods, his face bloodied and battered, the look of sheer and utter relief that had washed through his tired eyes when he recognized her, when he knew he was going to be saved.

They didn't find me, Avery. You did.

The late bell shot her back to reality and Avery looked around, realizing the hall was mostly empty. She ran to cla.s.s, huffing by the time she reached the door.

"It's not like he couldn't have done it," a blond girl named Stacey or Sarah or something with an S said. "He wasn't that much smaller than Adam."

"Why would he?" another girl asked. "What would be the point?"

"Jealousy?" Tim was in the circle, his desk turned inward so he was facing the S-girl.

Avery looked around for their teacher. They shouldn't be having this conversation, she thought. This isn't right.

"Where's Ms. Holly?" she finally managed.

Kaylee spoke up from the circle. "Admin office." She held up a few newspapers and magazines. "We're supposed to talk about trial by media."

Then Avery noticed that all the desks were sectioned off into little circles, some students talking about the a.s.signment, most typing on contraband cell phones. Her eyes went back to Kaylee, to the newspapers. One headline blared out at her: Is Fletcher Carroll a Suspect in the Marshall Murder?

Her stomach dropped into her shoes. "Why-why would you-they-think Fletcher did this? He's just a kid. A nice kid. Like us."

"It's not that we're accusing him," Tim said carefully. "We're just not excluding him as a suspect. You have to admit-"

"And just a kid?" Kaylee's eyes were hard and sharp. "Have you seen the news? It's full of fifteen- and sixteen-year-old murderers."

"I blame video games!" someone screamed from the back of the cla.s.s.

"No, it's that rock music!" someone else yelled to a chorus of laughter.

"The devil made me do it!"

More quips. More laughter. More anger raced through Avery's veins.

"One in three kids is a sociopath, you know," Kaylee said, her gaze still fixed on Avery. She pointed to the student next to her as she counted off. "One, two..." Her last finger landed on Avery. Kaylee smiled. "Three."

Tim said, "Fletcher is seriously a sociopath."

"Psychopath."

Avery stood there, blinking and incredulous. It had been twelve days since Adam had been found dead and Fletcher wounded. Adam and Fletcher were their cla.s.smates. And now these kids were tossing around the suspicion that Fletcher was some kind of killer.

"He didn't do this," she spat out.

Kaylee turned back to Avery, her baby-blue eyes full of false innocence. "If not him, who?"

Fletcher waited in the library stacks until the bell rang. Apparently, the need for atlases and world maps wasn't huge, and he had the s.p.a.ce to himself. No one questioned him. No one called him a killer. But the flashes were coming again. Hard. Fast.

Adam lying in the dirt, his hand outstretched. "Come on, man," Adam was saying. "Come on, man. You have to help me."

Fletcher slunk down and pulled his knees up to his chest, resting his forehead against them.

Come on, think! he commanded himself. His thoughts went to Avery and hypnosis. Don't you want to know what happened out there?

Panting, his breath tore through his lungs.

"Come on, Fletch!" Adam had him by the shirtfront. Tears streamed down Adam's face. "Fletcher!" He could feel the bursts of Adam's breath washing over his cheeks, and Fletcher wondered why he couldn't see Adam clearly. It was if there was a fog between them.

His head was throbbing. His brain wasn't functioning He wasn't himself. All he could feel was the rage overtaking him.

In the library, Fletcher felt the muscles across his back tense. The sweat on the back of his neck chilled, and he shivered so hard that his teeth chattered. He wanted to sink into the library floor and disappear. Everything would be better if he just disappeared.

He thought of his mother's anguished face when he'd opened his eyes at the hospital. He thought of Avery, Chief Templeton, and Adam. He had to remember something. They were all counting on him.

He pushed himself up from the floor as the bell rang. In the hallway, he blended into the swarm of students, although he felt as if everyone were watching him, blaming him.

"Hey, Fletch," Avery said. "I've been looking all over for you."

After what had happened that morning, Avery didn't seem scared of him. Relief rushed over him. "Yeah," he said over the sound of students' voices. "I just needed some time."