Anna Dressed in Blood - Kendare Blake [27]
“What’re you going to do about Mike?” Thomas’s eyes are wide and round over the rim of his Coke can.
“Damage control,” I say, because there’s nothing else I can do. I’d have more options if I hadn’t been unconscious all last night, but that’s spilled milk. I need to find Carmel. I need to talk to Will. I need to shut them both up. “So you should probably take us to school now.”
He raises his eyebrows like he’s surprised that I’ve ceased attempting to ditch him.
“What did you expect?” I ask. “You’re in it. You wanted in on whatever this is, well, congratulations. No time for second thoughts.”
Thomas swallows. To his credit, he doesn’t say anything.
* * *
When we walk into school, the hallways are empty. For a second I think that we’re busted, screwed, that there is some kind of candlelight vigil for Mike going on inside every closed door.
Then I realize that I’m an idiot. The halls are empty because we’re in the middle of third period.
We make stops off at our respective lockers and evade the questions of roaming faculty. I’m not going to class. We’re just going to wait around until lunch, hovering near Carmel’s locker in the hopes that she’s here and not pale and sick and lying in bed at home. But even if she is, Thomas says he knows where she lives. We can make a stop there later. If I have any luck left, she won’t have talked to her parents yet.
When the bell rings it just about jolts me out of my skin. It does nothing for my headache. But I blink hard and peer through the crowd, an endless flow of similarly dressed bodies striding into the hallways. I sigh with relief when I see Carmel. She looks a little pale, like she might have been crying or throwing up, but she’s still dressed well and carrying books. Not terribly worse for wear.
One of the brunettes from last night—I don’t know which one, but I’ll call her Natalie—bounces up to her elbow and starts prattling away about something. Carmel’s reaction is Oscar-worthy: the cock of her head and attentive gaze, the roll of her eyes and laughter, all so easy and genuine. Then she says something, some diverting something, and Natalie turns and bounces away. Carmel’s mask slides off again.
She’s less than ten feet from her locker when she finally raises her eyes high enough to notice I’m standing in front of it. Her eyes go wide. She says my name loudly before glancing around and walking closer, like she doesn’t want to be heard.
“You’re … alive.” The way she chokes on the phrase speaks of how strange she feels to be saying it. Her eyes move up and down my body, like she expects me to be oozing blood or have a bone exposed. “How?”
I nod to Thomas, who is skulking to my right. “Thomas pulled me out.”
Carmel spares him a glance and a smile. She doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t hug me, like I sort of thought she might. The fact that she doesn’t makes me like her more for some reason.
“Where’s Will? And Chase?” I ask. I don’t ask whether anyone else knows. It’s obvious by the demeanor of the halls, the way that everyone is walking around chattering like normal, that nobody else does. But we still need to settle things. Get our stories straight.
“I don’t know. I don’t see them until lunch. I’m not sure how many classes they’ll be going to anyway.” She looks down. She’s getting the urge to talk about Mike. To say something that she feels like she should say, like she’s sorry, or how he wasn’t really all that bad and didn’t deserve what happened to him. She’s biting her lip.
“We need to talk to them. All together. Find them at lunch and tell them I’m alive. Where can we meet?”
She doesn’t answer right away, fidgeting around. Come on, Carmel, don’t disappoint me.
“I’ll bring them to the football field. Nobody will be using it.”
I nod quickly and she walks off, glancing back once like she’s making sure that I’m still there,