Read Online Truth or Dare by Jacqueline Green - Free Book Online Page B

letting the cool breeze lift goose bumps on her arms.
    Without thinking, she reached into the glove compartment and pulled out the photo she kept tucked behind her registration. The shot itself wasn’t anything special—a mediocre image of buttercups sprouting between blades of grass. But it meant more to her than any other photo she’d ever taken. It was her first attempt at photography. And the first photo she’d taken with Guinness.
    She’d been thirteen then, and recently sent off to the Sunrise Center, a treatment center for adolescents not far from Echo Bay. All she’d wanted was to burrow away in her new white-walled room for the whole summer and never come out again. But her counselor had insisted she take a class in the art-therapy program. She’d chosen photographyat random; it sounded more fun than knitting and less messy than papier-mâché.
    But in one session she was hooked. It wasn’t just the ritual of taking a photo she loved—how the viewfinder let her hide from the world even as she was studying it, how in the instant between the shutter opening and closing everything became silent—but also the boy who was assigned as her mentor. Guinness.
    He was a little older than her, and had been in treatment for long enough that he’d earned mentoring responsibilities. She was instantly awed by him. And because his dad had a summerhouse in Echo Bay, they’d had something in common right away. He’d been the one to explain perspective and composition and lighting to her. She loved his passion for photography and the way he furrowed his brow when he studied a shot. She loved how serious his eyes were and the unusual tattoo that wound around his wrist: three thin black lines. When she finally worked up the courage to compliment him on the tattoo, the smile he’d given her had almost broken her heart. “Things aren’t always what they seem, Sydney,” he’d said. At the time, she’d had no idea what he meant. All she knew was she wanted desperately to find out.
    When Sydney had arrived at Sunrise, she’d been filled with a cavernous anger that had terrified people, chased them away. But Guinness had met her head-on. She remembered her worst night at Sunrise, when the anger had gotten so big, so strong, it threatened to swallow her right up. She’d snuck into Guinness’s room and even though it was the middle of the night, even though she was breaking every single rule by being there, he didn’t hesitate, didn’t even blink.
    “Come with me,” he’d whispered. He’d taken her to the darkroom and given her a lesson in developing. As they moved steadily throughthe dark stillness of the room, methodically dipping the paper in bin after bin, Sydney actually felt calm.
    It had felt so nice, having someone know about her issues with anger—and
not care
. She’d even come close to telling him the secret she carried everywhere with her. But at the last minute, she’d stopped herself.
    Sydney let out a frustrated sigh. None of this was helping. She needed something to take her mind
off
Guinness. Shoving the photo back into the glove compartment, she gunned the engine and pulled her car out of the apartment building’s lot. Tonight was the perfect night to try to shoot the ghost lights again. She patted the side of her car as she turned onto Ocean Drive. “Don’t die on me now, baby,” she murmured.
    She’d been trying for years to catch the ghost lights on camera. But this summer, with Guinness M.I.A., she’d become almost obsessed. She wasn’t sure what it was that drew her to the lights. Their elusiveness, maybe. How ephemeral they were. Anyone could photograph the Phantom Rock; to catch the lights on film would be the ultimate coup.
    But it was more than that. It was their weight of possibility, what they might mean: that in those few flickering seconds, they were back. The Lost Girls.
    When she’d told her mom what she was trying to do, her mom had balked. “The lights are nothing but