But social camouflage wouldnt work. Death would find the one it wanted, and I couldnt warn the victim if I couldnt find him. Or her.
And it was a her. I could feel that much.
Shes doing it again.
I heard Emma as if she were speaking from far away, though I knew dimly that shed moved to sit next to me. I couldnt look at her. I had eyes only for the crowd hiding the soon-to-be-dead girl. I needed to see who she was. I had to see.
Then the crowd parted and the applause began. Music played; someone had brought out a small stereo. Girls were tossing their jackets onto a pile on the ground. They lined up in the grass, forming a zigzag formation I recognized from the competitions my aunt and uncle had dragged me to. The dance team was doing a demonstration. Showing off the routine that had captured the regional trophy.
And then I saw her. Second from the left, three down from Sophie. A tall, slender girl with honey-brown hair and heavily lashed eyes.
Meredith Cole. The team captain. Shrouded in a shadow so thick I could barely make out her features.
As soon as my eyes found her, my throat began to burn, like Id inhaled bleach fumes. Devastation drenched me, threatening to pull me beneath the surface of despair. And that familiar dark knowledge left me shivering where I sat. Meredith Cole would die very, very soon.
Kaylee, come on. Nash stood, tugging on my arm, trying to pull me up. Lets go.
My throat tightened, and my breaths grew short. My head swam with the bitter chaos building inside me, and my heart felt swollen and heavy with grief. But I couldnt go. I had to tell her. Id let Heidi die, but I could save Meredith. I could warn her, and everything would be okay.
My mouth fell open, but the words didnt come. Instead, a scream clawed at my throat, announcing its arrival with the usual burst of panic, and this time there was nothing I could do to stop it. I couldnt speak; I could only scream. But that wouldnt be enough. I needed words to warn Meredith, not in-articulate shrieking. What good was my gift if I couldnt use it? If all I could do was scream uselessly?
The keening began deep in my throat, so low it felt like my lungs were on fire. Yet the sound was soft at first. Like a whisper I felt more than heard. I clamped my jaws shut in horror as Nashs eyes widened, his irises seeming to churn again in the bright sunlight.
My vision darkened and went dull, as if that same foggy gray filter had been draped over the entire world. The day was dimmer now, the shadows thicker, the air hazy. My own hands looked fuzzy, as if I couldnt quite bring them into focus. Tables, students, and the school building itself were suddenly leached of their vibrancy, like someone had opened a drain at the base of a rainbow and let all the color out.
I stood and clamped a hand over my mouth, begging an oddly faded-looking Nash with my eyes for help. The keening sound rolled up my throat now and stuck there, like a growl, offering no release.
Nash wrapped one arm around my waist and nodded for Emma to take my other side. Calm down, Kaylee, he whispered into my ear, his breath warm against my neck, stirring the fine hairs there. Just relax and listen to
My legs collapsed, even as my gaze was drawn back to Meredith, now dancing between Sophie and a petite blonde I knew only by sight.
Nash scooped me into his arms and held me tight to his chest, still whispering something in my ear. Something familiar. Something that rhymed. His words fell on me with an almost physical presence, soothing me everywhere they touched me, like a balm I could hear.
Yet still the scream raged inside me, demanding a way out, and apparently willing to forge an exit itself, if I offered no alternative.
Emma walked ahead of us to the end of the English hall and around the corner, out of sight of the quad. No one else noticed; they were all watching the dance squad.
Nash put me down against the short wall at the end of the building, next to a door that only worked as an exit. He sat beside me again, and this time he wrapped his arms around me while Emma knelt next to us. Nash was warm at my back, and the only sounds I could hear were his whispers and my own soft keening, persisting in spite of my struggle to suppress it.
I stared over his shoulder and past Emmas concerned face, at the weirdly gray field house in the distance, concentrating on my efforts to speak without screaming. Something rushed across the left edge of my vision, and my gaze homed in on it automatically, trying to bring it into focus. But it moved too fast, leaving me with only a vague impression of a human silhouette, out of proportion in no way I could explain with so short a glimpse. The figure was misshapen, somehow. Odd-looking. And when I blinked, I could no longer be sure of where Id seen it.
A teacher, probably, rendered unrecognizable by the weird gray fog that had overlaid my vision. I squeezed my eyes shut to avoid any future distractions.
Then, as swiftly as it had struck, the panic faded. Tension drained from my body like air from a beach ball, leaving me limp with relief and fatigue. I opened my eyes to see that color and clarity had returned to the world. My hands relaxed, and the scream died in my throat. But an instant later it tore through the air, and it actually took me a second to realize that the shriek hadnt come from me.
It had come from the quad.
I knew what had happened without even looking. Meredith had collapsed. My urge to scream died the moment she did.
Again, Id known someone was going to die. And again, Id let it happen.
My eyes closed as a fresh wave of shock and grief rolled over me, followed immediately by guilt so heavy I could hardly lift my head. My fault. I should have been able to save her.
More shouts came from the quad, and someone yelled for someone else to call an ambulance. Doors squealed open, then crashed into the side of the brick building. Sneakers pounded on concrete steps.
Tears of shame and frustration poured down my face. I buried my head in Nashs shoulder, heedless as my tears soaked into his shirt. I might as well have killed her myself, for all the good my warning had done.
Around the corner, the buzz of chaos rose, each terrified voice blending into the next. Someone was crying. Someone else was running. And above it all, Mrs. Tucker, the girls softball coach, blew her whistle, trying ineffectively to calm everyone down.
Who is it? Emma asked, still kneeling beside us, eyes wide in shock and understanding as she brushed back a strand of my hair so she could see my face.
Meredith Cole, I whispered, wiping tears on my sleeve.
Nash squeezed me tighter, wrapping his arms around mine, where they clutched at my stomach.
Emma stood slowly, her expression a mixture of disbelief and dread. She backed away from us, legs wobbling. Then she turned carefully and peeked around the corner. I cant see anything. Therere too many people.
Doesnt matter, I said, mildly surprised by the dazed quality of my own voice. Shes already dead.
How do you know? Her hand gripped the corner of the building, nails digging into the rough mortar outlining the brown bricks. Are you sure its Meredith?
Yes. I sighed, then rose and pulled Nash up, wiping more tears from my cheeks. He stood to my left, Emma to my right. Together, we turned the corner and entered the chaos.
CHAPTER 6
Emma was rightthere were people everywhere. Several classroom doors had opened into the quad, and students were pouring out in spite of protests from their teachers. And since there were still ten minutes left in second lunch, the cafeteria was now emptying its usual crowd onto the grass too.
I saw at least twenty students on cell phones, and the snatches of conversation I caught sounded like 911 calls, though most of the callers didnt actually know what had happened, or who was involved. They only knew someone was hurt, and there had been no gunfire.
Coach Tucker loomed on the edge of the green-and-white central throng, her sneakers spread wide for balance, pulling kids out of the way one at a time even as she shouted into a clunky, school-issue, handheld radio. Finally the crowd parted for her, revealing a motionless female form lying on the brown grass, one arm thrown out at her side. I couldnt see her face because one of the football playersnumber fourteenwas performing CPR.
But I knew it was Meredith Cole. And I could have told number fourteen that his efforts were wasted; he couldnt help her.
Coach Tucker pulled the football player away from the dead girl and dropped to her knees beside the body, shouting for everyone to move back. To go back into the building. Then she bent with her face close to Merediths to see if she was breathing. A moment later, Coach Tucker tilted the dancers head back and resumed CPR where number fourteen had left off.
Seconds later, the dance teams faculty sponsorMrs. Foley, one of the algebra teachersraced across the quad from an open classroom, stunned speechless for several seconds by the chaos. After a quick word with a couple of students, she gathered her remaining dancers into a teary huddle several feet from Meredith and the softball coach. The other students stared at them all in astonishment, some crying, some whispering and others standing in silent shock.
As we watched from the fringes of the mayhem, three more adults jogged down the cafeteria steps: the principal, who looked too prim in her narrow skirt and heels to even make a dent in the pandemonium; her assistant, a small balding man who clutched a clipboard to his narrow chest like a life raft; and Coach Rundell, the head football coach.
The principal stood on her toes and whispered something into Coach Rundells ear, and he nodded curtly. Coach wore a whistle and carried a megaphone.
He needed neither, but he used them both.
The shriek of the whistle pierced my eardrums like a railroad spike, and everyone around us froze. Coach Rundell lifted the megaphone to his mouth and began issuing orders with a speed and clarity that would have made any drill sergeant proud.
We are now on lockdown! If you do not have second lunch, return to your classroom. If you do have second lunch, take a seat in the cafeteria.
At some signal from the principal, her assistant scuttled off to make the necessary lockdown announcements and arrangements. Teachers started herding their students inside in earnest now, and one by one, the doors closed and a tense quiet descended on the quad. Mrs. Foley, looking overwhelmed and on the verge of tears herself, gathered her sobbing dancers and led them into the building through a side entrance. The principal began ushering the lunch crowd back into the cafeteria, and when her assistant showed up again, he helped.