CHAPTER 6. Emma was right—there were people everywhere

Emma was right—there 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 didn’t 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 couldn’t see her face because one of the football players—number fourteen—was performing CPR.

But I knew it was Meredith Cole. And I could have told number fourteen that his efforts were wasted; he couldn’t 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 Meredith’s to see if she was breathing. A moment later, Coach Tucker tilted the dancer’s head back and resumed CPR where number fourteen had left off.

Seconds later, the dance team’s faculty sponsor—Mrs. Foley, one of the algebra teachers—raced 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 Rundell’s 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.

Nash, Emma and I fell into the stream of students right behind the huddle of green-and-white football jackets, and as we passed the last picnic table, I looked to the right, where Coach Rundell had now taken over CPR from Coach Tucker. Even sick with guilt and numb with shock, I had to see for myself. Had to prove to my head what my heart knew all along.

And there Meredith lay, long brown hair fanned out across the dead grass, her face visible only when the coach sat up for a round of chest compressions.

My eyes watered and I sniffed back more tears, and Nash stepped up on my right, blocking my view as we climbed the broad concrete steps into the building. Inside, the lights were all off because of the lockdown. But the cafeteria windows—a virtual wall of glass—had no shades and were too big to cover, so daylight streamed in, casting deep shadows and lighting the long room in a washed-out palette of colors, in contrast to the bright light usually cast from the fluorescent fixtures overhead.

At the far end of the room, the jocks had gathered in a silent, solemn huddle around one of the round tables. Several sat with their elbows propped on wide-set knees, heads either hanging or cradled in both hands. Number fourteen—who’d tried valiantly to save Meredith—held his girlfriend on his lap, her face streaked with tears and mascara, his arm around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder.

Other students sat grouped around the rest of the tables. A few whispered questions no one had answers for, a few more cried softly, and everyone looked stunned to the point of incomprehension. There had been no warning, no violence, and no obvious cause. This lockdown didn’t fit with the drills we practiced twice a semester, and everyone knew it.

The tables were all occupied, and several small groups of students sat on the floor against the long wall, holding backpacks, purses, and short stacks of textbooks. Emma looked shaken and pale as we made our way toward an empty corner, and I could feel my legs wobbling, left almost totally numb by the accuracy of my second prediction in three days. Only Nash seemed relatively steady, his bruising grip on my hand the sole indication that he might not be as calm as he looked.

We sat in a row on the floor, Em on my left, Nash still clutching my right hand, each too stunned to speak. My thoughts were chaotic, a never-ending furor of guilt, shock, and utter incredulity. A private cacophony in absolute contrast to the hushed, somber room around me. And I couldn’t make it stop. Could not slow the torrent long enough to wallow in any single emotion, or puzzle out any one question.

I could only sit, and stare, and wait.

Minutes later, sirens blared to life down the street, warbling softly at first, but growing in volume with each passing second. The ambulance came to an earsplitting halt at the front of the school, but by the time it rolled carefully around the building and past the cafeteria windows, the electronic screeching had gone silent, though it still echoed in my head, a fitting sound track to the mayhem within.

The ambulance stopped out of sight of the windows, but its lights flashed an angry red against the dull brown brick, declaring an optimistic urgency I knew to be unnecessary.

Meredith Cole was dead, and no matter how long they worked on her, she wasn’t coming back. That bitter certainty ate at me, consuming me from the inside out until I felt hollow enough to echo with each aching thump of my heart.

While the medics worked outside, teachers came and went from the cafeteria, occasionally answering questions from anyone brave enough to speak up, and at some point, the senior guidance counselor pulled up a chair at the jocks’ table and began speaking softly to those who’d been close enough to actually see Meredith fall.

Eventually, the vice principal came over the intercom and declared that the school day had been officially suspended, and that we would all be dismissed individually, once our legal guardians had been contacted. By that time, the red lights had stopped flashing, and though no one had yet made the announcement, it echoed around us like all-important truths, unvoiced, and unwanted, and unavoidable.

After that, the first group of students was called to the office and Emma leaned against me while I leaned against Nash, letting his scent and his warmth soothe me as I settled in for the wait. But minutes later, Coach Tucker stopped in the cafeteria doorway and scanned the faces until her gaze landed on me. I sat up as she navigated the maze of tables, heading right for us, and stood when she reached out a hand to pull me up, barely sparing a glance for Nash and Emma when they rose. “The dancers are understandably upset, and we’re calling their parents first. Sophie’s not taking it well. Her sponsor spoke to your mother, and they’d like you to go ahead and take your sister home.”

I sighed, grateful when Nash’s hand slid into mine again. “She’s my cousin.”

Coach Tucker frowned, as if details like that shouldn’t matter under the circumstances. She was right, but I couldn’t bring myself to apologize.

“Don’t worry about your books.” She eyed me sternly now. “Just get her home.”

I nodded, and the coach headed back through the cafeteria, motioning for me to follow. “I’ll talk to you guys later,” I said, glancing from Emma to Nash as I squeezed his hand. She smiled weakly, and he nodded, digging his phone from his pocket.

I’d just stepped into the hall, heading toward the office, when my own phone buzzed. A glance at the screen showed a blinking text message icon. It was from Nash.

Don’t tell anyone. Will explain soon.

A moment later, a follow-up message arrived. It was one word: Please.

I didn’t reply, because I didn’t know what to say. No one would believe me if I tried to explain what had happened. But the premonitions were real, and they were accurate. Silence no longer seemed like an option, especially if there was any chance I could stop the next one from coming true.

If I could at least give the next victim a warning—and maybe a fighting chance—wasn’t I morally obligated to do just that?

Besides, hadn’t Nash suggested I tell my aunt and uncle the day before?

“Kaitlin! Over here.” I glanced up to find Mrs. Foley waving me forward from the atrium outside the front office. Sophie sat on the floor behind her, beneath the foliage of a huge potted plant, surrounded by half a dozen other red, mascara-smeared faces.

“It’s Kaylee,” I muttered, coming to a stop in front of the stunned dancers.

“Of course.” But the sponsor didn’t look like she cared what my name was. “I’ve spoken to your mother—” but I didn’t bother to tell her that would be impossible without a Ouija board “—and she wants you to take Sophie straight home. She’s going to meet you there.”

I nodded, and ignored the sympathetic hand the dance-team sponsor placed momentarily on my shoulder, as if to thank me for sharing some venerable burden. “You ready?” I asked in my cousin’s general direction, and to my surprise, she bobbed her head in assent, stood with her purse in hand, and followed me across the quad without betraying a single syllable of malicious intent.

She must have been in shock.

In the parking lot, I unlocked the passenger’s side door, then went around to let myself in. Sophie slid into her seat and pulled the door closed, then turned to face me slowly, her normally arrogant expression giving way to what could only be described as abject grief.

“Did you see it?” she asked, full lower lip quivering, and for once absent of lip gloss. She must have wiped it all off, along with the tears and most of her makeup. She looked almost…normal. And I couldn’t help the pang of sympathy her misery drew from me, in spite of the bitch-itude she radiated every other day of my life. For now, she was just scared, confused, and hurting, looking for a compassionate ear.

Just like me.

And it kind of stung that I couldn’t totally let my guard down with her, because I had no doubt that once her grief had passed, Sophie would go all Mean Girls on me again, and use against me whatever I’d shown her. “See what?” I sighed, adjusting the rearview mirror so I could watch her indirectly.

My cousin rolled her eyes, and for a moment her usual intolerance peeked through the fresh layer of raw sorrow. “Meredith. Did you see what happened?”

I turned the key in the ignition, and my little Sunfire hummed to life, the steering wheel vibrating beneath my hands. “No.” I felt no great loss over having missed the show; the preview was quite enough to deal with.

“It was horrible.” She stared straight out the windshield as I buckled my seat belt and pulled the car from the parking lot, but she obviously saw nothing. “We were dancing, just showing off for Scott and the guys. We’d made it through all the hard parts, including that step where Laura usually skips a beat in practice….”

I had no idea what step she was talking about, but I let her ramble on, because it seemed to make her feel better without putting me on the figurative chopping block.

“…and were nearly done. Then Meredith just…collapsed. She crumpled up like a doll and fell flat on the ground.”

My hands clenched the steering wheel, and I had to force them loose to flick on my blinker. I turned right at the stop-light, exhaling only once the school—and thus the source of my latest premonition—was out of sight. And still Sophie prattled on, airing her grief in the name of therapy, completely oblivious to my discomfort.

“I thought she’d passed out. She doesn’t eat enough to keep a hamster alive, you know.”

I hadn’t known, of course. I didn’t typically concern myself with the eating habits of the varsity dance squad. But if Meredith’s appetite was anything like my cousin’s—or my aunt’s, for that matter—Sophie’s assumption was perfectly plausible.

“But then we realized she wasn’t moving. She wasn’t even breathing.” Sophie paused for a moment, and I treasured the silence like that first gulp of air after a deep dive. I didn’t want to hear any more about the death I’d been unable to prevent. I felt guilty enough already. But she wasn’t done. “Peyton thinks she had a heart attack. Mrs. Rushing told us in health last year that if you work your body too hard and don’t fuel it up right, your heart will eventually stop working. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers, and the glitter in her nail polish flashed in the bright sunlight. “Do you think that’s what happened?”

It took me a moment to realize her question wasn’t rhetorical. She was actually asking my opinion about something, and there was no sarcasm involved.

“I don’t know.” I glanced in the rearview mirror as I turned onto our street, and wasn’t surprised to see Aunt Val’s car on the road behind us. “Maybe.” But that was an outright lie. Meredith Cole was the third teenage girl to drop dead with no warning in the past three days, and while I wasn’t about to voice my suspicions out loud—at least not yet—I could no longer tell myself the deaths weren’t connected.

Nash’s coincidence theory had hit an iceberg and was sinking fast.

I parked in the driveway, and Aunt Val drove past us into her spot in the garage. Sophie was out of the car before I’d even turned the engine off, and the minute she saw her mother, she burst into tears again, as if her inner floodgates couldn’t withstand the assault of sympathetic eyes and a shoulder to cry on.

Aunt Val ushered her sobbing daughter through the garage and into the kitchen, then guided her gently to a stool at the bar. I came behind them both, carrying Sophie’s purse, and punched the button to close the garage bay door. Inside, I dropped my cousin’s handbag on the counter while Sophie sniffed, and blubbered, and hiccupped, spitting out half-coherent details as she wiped first her cheeks, then her already reddened nose with a tissue from the box on the counter.

But Aunt Val didn’t seem very interested in the specifics, which she’d probably already heard from the dance-team sponsor. While I sat at the table with a can of Coke and a wish for silence, she bustled around the kitchen making hot tea and wiping down countertops, and only once she’d run out of things to do did she settle onto the stool next to her daughter. Aunt Val made Sophie drink her tea slowly, until the sobs slowed and the hiccupping stopped. But even then Sophie wouldn’t stop talking.

Meredith’s death was the first spear of tragedy to pierce my cousin’s fairy tale of a world, and she had no idea how to deal with it. When she was still sobbing and dripping snot into her lukewarm tea twenty minutes later, Aunt Val disappeared into the bathroom. She came back carrying a small brown pill bottle I recognized immediately: leftover zombie pills from my last visit with Dr. Nelson, from the mental-health unit.

I twisted in my chair and arched my brows at my aunt, but she only smiled half regretfully, then shrugged. “It will calm her down and help her sleep. She needs to rest.”

Yes, but she needed a natural sleep, not the virtual coma induced by those stupid sedatives. Not that either of them would have listened to me, even if I’d offered my opinion on the subject of chemical oblivion.

For a moment, I envied my cousin her innocence, even as I watched it die. I’d learned about death early in life, and as inconsolable as Sophie was at the moment, she’d had fifteen years to prance around in her plastic-wrapped, padded, gaily colored, armor-plated existence, where darkness dared not tread. No matter what happened next, no one could take away her happy childhood.

Aunt Val watched Sophie swallow a single, tiny white pill, then walked her daughter down the hall into her room, where the bedsprings soon creaked beneath her slight weight. Ten minutes later, she was snoring obnoxiously enough to leave no doubt in my mind that my cousin had inherited just as much from her father as from her mother.

While my aunt put Sophie to bed, I grabbed a second Coke from Uncle Brendon’s shelf in the fridge—the one realm Aunt Val’s sugar-free, nonfat, tasteless regime had yet to conquer—and took it into the living room, where I checked the local TV station. But there was no news on at two-thirty in the afternoon. I’d have to wait for the five o’clock broadcast.

I turned off the TV, and my thoughts wandered to the Coles, whom I’d only met once, at a dance-team competition the year before. My eyes watered as I imagined Meredith’s mother trying to explain to her young son that his big sister wouldn’t be coming home from school. Ever.

Glass clinked in the kitchen, momentarily pulling me from the mire of guilt and grief I was sinking into, and I twisted on the couch to see my aunt pouring hot tea into a huge latte mug. My brows furrowed in confusion for a moment—maybe Aunt Val needed a sedative too?—until she stood on her toes to open the top cabinet. Where she and Uncle Brendon kept the alcohol.

My aunt pulled down a bottle of brandy and unscrewed the lid. Then she dumped a generous shot into her mug. And left the bottle on the countertop, clearly planning on a second helping.

She took a sip of her “tea,” then turned toward the living room, remote control in hand. The moment her gaze met mine, she froze, and her cheeks flushed.

“It hasn’t hit the news yet,” I said, and couldn’t help noticing how tired and heavy her steps looked as she crossed the tiles into the living room. Aunt Val and Mrs. Cole had been gym buddies for years. Maybe Meredith’s death had hit her harder than I’d realized. Or maybe she was unnerved by how upset Sophie was. Or maybe she’d connected Meredith’s death to Heidi Anderson’s—to my knowledge, she hadn’t yet heard about Alyson Baker—and had started to suspect something was wrong. As I had.

Either way, her skin was pale and her hands were shaking. She looked so fragile I hesitated to add to her troubles. But the premonitions had gone too far. I needed help, or advice, or…something.

What I really needed was for someone to tell me what good premonitions of death were if they didn’t help me warn people. What was the point of knowing someone was going to die, if I couldn’t stop it from happening?

Aunt Val wouldn’t know any of that, but neither would anyone else. And in the absence of my own parents, I had no one else to talk to.

My fingers tangled around one another in my lap as she sank wearily onto the other end of the couch, her knees together, ankles crossed primly. The frown lines around her mouth and the tremor in her hand said she was not as composed as she clearly wanted to appear.

That, and the not-tea scent wafting from her mug.

The last time I’d tried to tell her I knew someone was going to die, she and Uncle Brendon had driven me straight to the hospital and left me there. Of course, at the time, I’d been screaming hysterically in the middle of the mall and lashing out at anyone who tried to touch me.

Presumably, they’d had no choice.

Surely it would go better this time, because I was calm and rational, and not currently in the grip of an irrepressible screaming fit. And because she was already one shot into a bottle of brandy.

My nerves pinged out of control, and I reached absently for the scent diffuser on the end table to my left, stirring the vanilla-scented oil with a thin wooden reed. “Aunt Val?”

She jumped, sloshing “tea” onto her lap. “Sorry, hon.” She set her mug on a coaster on the end table, then rushed into the kitchen to blot at her pants with a clean, wet rag. “This thing with Meredith has me on edge.”

I knew exactly how she felt.

I exhaled smoothly, then took a deep breath as my aunt returned to the living room, the wet spot on her slacks now covering half of one slim thigh. “Yeah, it was pretty…scary.”

“Oh?” She stopped several feet from her chair, eyes narrowed at me in concern laced with…suspicion? “Were you there?” Had she already guessed what I was going to say?

Maybe Nash was right. Maybe I should keep my secret a little longer….

I shook my head slowly, and my gaze flicked back to the sticks protruding from the tiny oil bottle. “No, I didn’t actually see it—” she exhaled in relief, and I almost hated to ruin it with the rest of what I had to say “—but…You know the girl who died at Taboo the other day?”

“Of course. How sad!” She returned to her chair and took a slow sip from her tea, eyes closed, as if she were thinking. Or maybe praying. Then she took a much longer drink and lowered her mug, eyes wide and wary. “Kaylee, that girl had nothing to do with what happened today. According to the news, she was drunk, and may have been on something stronger than alcohol.”

I hadn’t heard that last tidbit, but I got no chance to question it because she was talking again. Like mother, like daughter.

My aunt gestured with her mug as she spoke, but nothing sloshed out this time. It was already empty. “Sophie said Meredith collapsed while she was dancing. That poor child ate almost nothing and lived on caffeine. It was really only a matter of time before her body cried ‘enough.’”

“I know, and Sophie may be right.” I let go of the scent sticks and bent the tab on my Coke can back and forth, carefully working it free from its anchor to avoid seeing the pity and skepticism surely lurking behind her cautious sympathy. “The way they died may have nothing to do with anything.” Though I certainly had my doubts. “But, Aunt Val, I think I’m the connection between them.”

“What?”

I made myself look up just in time to see my aunt’s eyes narrow in confusion. But then her forehead actually relaxed, tension lines smoothing as if she’d just figured out what I was talking about, and it came as a relief.

If the return of my “delusions” put her at ease, what on earth had she expected me to say?

Her expression softened, and the familiar, patronizing mask of sympathy stung my pride. “Kaylee, is this about your panic attacks?” She leaned forward and whispered that last part, as if she were afraid someone would overhear.

Anger zinged through me like tiny bolts of lightning, and I made myself set down my half-empty drink can before I crushed it. “It’s not a joke, Aunt Val. And I’m not crazy. I knew Meredith was going to die before it happened.”

For an instant—less than a single breath—my aunt looked terrified. Like she’d just seen her own ghost. Then she shook her head—literally shaking off her fear of my relapse—and donned a stoic, determined mask. I’d been right all along. She wasn’t going to listen. Ever.

“Kaylee, don’t do this again,” she begged, a frown etching deep lines around her mouth as she stood and carried her empty mug into the kitchen. I followed her, watching in mounting irritation as she lifted the teakettle from the stove.

“I know you’re upset about Meredith, but this won’t bring her back. This isn’t the way to deal with your grief.”

“This has nothing to do with grief,” I insisted through gritted teeth, dropping my half-full can into the recycling bin.

It landed with a thud, followed by the fizz and gurgle of the contents emptying into the plastic tub.

I read frustration in my aunt’s narrowed gaze. Desperation in the death grip she had on the teakettle. She probably wished she could knock me out as easily as she had Sophie. And some part of me knew that talking to her would do no more good than trying to warn Meredith had. But another, more stubborn part of me refused to give up. I was done with secrets and sym pathetic looks. And I was definitely done with hospitals and those little white pills. I was not going to let anyone else call me crazy. Not ever again.

Aunt Val must have seen my determination, because she set the teakettle back on the stove, then planted both palms flat on the countertop, eyeing me from across the bar. “Think about Sophie. She’s already traumatized. What do you think a selfish, attention-seeking story like this would do to her?”

My jaw tightened, and tears burned behind my eyes. “Screw Sophie!” My fists slammed into the bar, and the blow rever berated up my arms like a bruising shock wave of anger.

My aunt flinched, and I felt a momentary surge of satisfaction. Then I stepped deliberately back from the bar, my hands propped on my hips. “I’m sorry,” I said, well aware that I didn’t sound very sorry. “But this isn’t about her. I’m trying to tell you I have a serious problem, and you’re not even listening!”

Aunt Val closed her eyes and took a deep breath, like she was practicing yoga. Or searching for patience. “We all know you have problems, Kaylee,” she said when her eyes opened, and her quiet, composed tone infuriated me. “Calm down and—”

“I knew, Aunt Val.” I planted both hands on the countertop again and stared at the granite. Then I looked up and made myself say the rest of it. “And I knew about the girl at Taboo too.”

My aunt’s eyes narrowed drastically, showcasing two sets of crow’s feet, and her voice dropped dramatically. “How could you, unless you were there?”

I shrugged and crossed my arms over my chest. “I snuck in.” I wasn’t about to rat on Emma or her sister. “Ground me if you want, but that won’t change anything. I was there, and I saw Heidi Anderson. And I knew she was going to die. Just like I knew about Meredith.”

Aunt Val’s eyes closed again, and she turned to stare out the window over the sink, gripping the countertop with white-knuckled hands. Then she exhaled deeply and turned back to me. “Okay, this other girl aside…” Though we both knew she’d readdress the clubbing issue later. “If you knew Meredith was going to die, why didn’t you tell someone?”

A fresh pang of guilt shuddered through me like a psychological aftershock, and I sank onto one of the cushioned bar stools facing her, my arms crossed on the countertop. “I tried.” Tears filled my eyes, blurring my aunt’s face, and I swiped at them with my sleeve before they could fall. “But when I opened my mouth, all I could do was scream. And it happened so fast! By the time I could talk again, she was dead.” I looked up, searching her face for some sign of understanding. Or belief. But there was nothing I recognized in her expression, and that scared me almost as badly as listening to Meredith die.

“I’m not even sure that saying something would have helped,” I said, feeling my courage flounder. “But I swear I tried.”

Aunt Val rubbed her forehead, then picked up her mug and started to take a drink—until she realized she hadn’t poured one. “Kaylee, surely you know how all this sounds.”

I nodded and dropped my gaze. “I sound crazy.” I knew that better than anyone.

She shook her head and leaned across the bar for my hand. “Not crazy, hon. Delusional. There’s a difference. You’re probably just really upset about what happened to Meredith, and your brain is dealing with that by making up stories to distract you from the truth. I understand. It’s scary to think that anyone anywhere can just drop dead with no warning. If it could happen to her, it could happen to any of us, right?”

I pulled my hand from hers, gaping at my aunt in disbelief. What would it take to make her believe me? Proof was pretty hard to come by when the premonitions only came a few minutes in advance.

I slid off the stool and backed up a step, eager to put a little space between us. “I barely knew Meredith. I’m not scared because I think it can happen to me. I’m scared because I knew it was going to happen to her, and I couldn’t stop it.” I sucked in a deep breath, trying to breathe beyond the guilt and grief threatening to suffocate me. “I almost wish I were going crazy. At least then I wouldn’t feel so guilty about letting someone die. But I’m not crazy. This is real.”

For several seconds, my aunt just stared at me, her expression a mixture of confusion, relief, and pity, like she wasn’t sure what she should feel.

I sighed, my shoulders fell. “You still don’t believe me.”

My aunt’s expression softened, and her posture wilted almost imperceptibly. “Oh, hon, I believe that you believe what you’re saying.” She hesitated, then shrugged, but the gesture looked more calculated than casual. “Maybe you should take a sedative too. It will help you sleep. I’m sure everything will make more sense when you wake up.”

“Sleep won’t help me.” I sounded acerbic, even to my own ears. “Neither will those stupid pills.” I grabbed the bottle from the bar where she’d left it and hurled it at the refrigerator as hard as I could. The plastic cracked and the lid fell off, scattering small white pills all over the floor.

Aunt Val jumped, then stared at me like I’d just broken her heart. When she knelt to clean up the mess, I jogged down the hall and into my room, then slammed the door and leaned against it. I’d done the best I could with my aunt; I’d try again with Uncle Brendon when he came home.

Or maybe not.

Maybe Nash knew what he was talking about when he said not to tell anyone.