pressed her fingers to her lips and shook her head again, I frowned harder.
TV , I realized. She’s crying about something on TV .
My gaze trailed upward to the program that had affected her so strongly. When I saw what my mother was watching, I froze.
It wasn’t a sad movie, as I’d hoped. Not even a particularly moving commercial. The news played out across her small, outdated screen, just like I’d expected it would. And right now, the news featured a very familiar face.
At first, I desperately hoped that she was just a newscaster. That she only appeared on the screen because she was giving a report on a violent car crash, as the headlines indicated. After a few more seconds, however, it became clear that the blond woman on the TV wasn’t smiling prettily from a newsroom. The picture was a head shot, the kind of photo that reporters place on camera when they can no longer show the real thing. When the person in the picture no longer exists to interview.
As if to confirm my fears, the headline beneath the photo shifted. Previously, it had read:
VIOLENT MIDNIGHT CAR CRASH
Now, in two lines of garish, breaking-news red, the banner proclaimed:
FORMER WILBURTON RESIDENT SERENA TAYLOR, 32,
DEAD IN CRASH AT HIGH BRIDGE
I didn’t have the chance to catch any more of the story because the sourness in my stomach finally rose to the surface. I dove to the edge of the porch, just in time to be violently ill off the side of it. Then, without a backward glance at my mother or even at Joshua, I ran away from that house as fast as I could.
Chapter
TEN
I didn’t remember when Joshua stopped me, nor did I remember how he convinced me to get back into the truck without being able to touch me. All I knew was that I went from tearing a feverish path through the wilderness near my mother’s home to sitting motionless in the passenger seat of Joshua’s truck as it bounced us down a roughly paved road.
“What . . . what happened?” I asked hoarsely. I had a bad taste in my mouth, and I had a bad feeling about how it got there.
“You were sick,” Joshua replied plainly. He kept his gaze trained firmly on the road, almost as if his life depended on how hard he could concentrate on the task of driving. I’d never seen him so intent on not looking at me.
“Do you hate me now, knowing that I caused someone’s death?”
My question dripped with self-pity, and I hated myself a little for asking it. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t want to know the answer anyway.
For a long time—an eternity, to someone who’s asked that kind of question—Joshua said nothing. When he eventually cleared his throat, I cringed, ready for something awful. Ready for him to tell me, finally, that I’d put him at too great a risk.
“Amelia, I love you.”
He said it so earnestly, so fiercely, that I leaned back in surprise.
“I love you,” he repeated. “And hell itself won’t stop that. Sorry to put it so dramatically but, well, it’s the truth. And I’m terrified because I can’t keep you or me or anyone we know from what’s coming. From what’s already here .”
I nodded bleakly.
“It must have happened right after we left. I don’t know how they convinced her to drive on that road again.” Then I recalled one image from the night of my death: a young girl with crazed, possessed eyes, watching while I drowned in the river below her.
“Actually,” I amended, “I have a pretty good idea how they did it. But I just can’t believe they would choose . . .”
When I trailed off, unable to finish, Joshua spoke one, low word.
“Serena.”
For some reason, I chose that moment to lose it. I dropped my face into my hands and began to sob messily, not bothering to hide my misery from Joshua. I cried like I hadn’t done in months, letting the full force of what I’d seen on my mother’s TV wash over me in a brutal, guilty wave. And as I sobbed, other things started to seep in along with the details of the morning
TV , I realized. She’s crying about something on TV .
My gaze trailed upward to the program that had affected her so strongly. When I saw what my mother was watching, I froze.
It wasn’t a sad movie, as I’d hoped. Not even a particularly moving commercial. The news played out across her small, outdated screen, just like I’d expected it would. And right now, the news featured a very familiar face.
At first, I desperately hoped that she was just a newscaster. That she only appeared on the screen because she was giving a report on a violent car crash, as the headlines indicated. After a few more seconds, however, it became clear that the blond woman on the TV wasn’t smiling prettily from a newsroom. The picture was a head shot, the kind of photo that reporters place on camera when they can no longer show the real thing. When the person in the picture no longer exists to interview.
As if to confirm my fears, the headline beneath the photo shifted. Previously, it had read:
VIOLENT MIDNIGHT CAR CRASH
Now, in two lines of garish, breaking-news red, the banner proclaimed:
FORMER WILBURTON RESIDENT SERENA TAYLOR, 32,
DEAD IN CRASH AT HIGH BRIDGE
I didn’t have the chance to catch any more of the story because the sourness in my stomach finally rose to the surface. I dove to the edge of the porch, just in time to be violently ill off the side of it. Then, without a backward glance at my mother or even at Joshua, I ran away from that house as fast as I could.
Chapter
TEN
I didn’t remember when Joshua stopped me, nor did I remember how he convinced me to get back into the truck without being able to touch me. All I knew was that I went from tearing a feverish path through the wilderness near my mother’s home to sitting motionless in the passenger seat of Joshua’s truck as it bounced us down a roughly paved road.
“What . . . what happened?” I asked hoarsely. I had a bad taste in my mouth, and I had a bad feeling about how it got there.
“You were sick,” Joshua replied plainly. He kept his gaze trained firmly on the road, almost as if his life depended on how hard he could concentrate on the task of driving. I’d never seen him so intent on not looking at me.
“Do you hate me now, knowing that I caused someone’s death?”
My question dripped with self-pity, and I hated myself a little for asking it. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t want to know the answer anyway.
For a long time—an eternity, to someone who’s asked that kind of question—Joshua said nothing. When he eventually cleared his throat, I cringed, ready for something awful. Ready for him to tell me, finally, that I’d put him at too great a risk.
“Amelia, I love you.”
He said it so earnestly, so fiercely, that I leaned back in surprise.
“I love you,” he repeated. “And hell itself won’t stop that. Sorry to put it so dramatically but, well, it’s the truth. And I’m terrified because I can’t keep you or me or anyone we know from what’s coming. From what’s already here .”
I nodded bleakly.
“It must have happened right after we left. I don’t know how they convinced her to drive on that road again.” Then I recalled one image from the night of my death: a young girl with crazed, possessed eyes, watching while I drowned in the river below her.
“Actually,” I amended, “I have a pretty good idea how they did it. But I just can’t believe they would choose . . .”
When I trailed off, unable to finish, Joshua spoke one, low word.
“Serena.”
For some reason, I chose that moment to lose it. I dropped my face into my hands and began to sob messily, not bothering to hide my misery from Joshua. I cried like I hadn’t done in months, letting the full force of what I’d seen on my mother’s TV wash over me in a brutal, guilty wave. And as I sobbed, other things started to seep in along with the details of the morning
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