“Because I’m sexy and I know it?” he sings, giving his shoulders a playful shimmy.
I’m still smiling at him, maybe—just maybe—starting to feel that sensation I’ve been waiting for. He’s funny, he’s cute, and, holy hell, he likes me. And, added bonus, he hasn’t been escorted out of school by the police today. Why am I fighting it so much? Why am I thinking about the wrong boy?
“Seriously, babe,” he says, fleetingly making me prefer Fifth in the nickname department. “I didn’t realize you were such good friends with Chloe.”
“I wasn’t.” To be honest, I didn’t even like her. But that doesn’t make this any easier. “It’s still sad.”
“School’s a wreck,” he agrees. “Nobody’s doing anything. Me and Ty are cutting out. Did you get my text?”
I nod.
“Well? Wanna come?”
The idea of cutting class is so foreign to me I almost laugh again. “I don’t …” Wait a second. Why not? Who’s going to know, today? I’ve always wanted to just walk out of school and not care, to go have fun and laugh and hang out with kids who don’t worry about declensions or trig identities or passing the AP exams. And God knows I could use a change of scenery.
“Okay. Where to?”
“Let’s just drive.” He gestures toward my locker. “Ditch your books and we’ll go. Ty’s in the parking lot already.”
A few minutes later, I’m sitting in Josh’s Audi, inhaling the smell of leather and listening to really annoying rap music. Tyler Griffith, another football player, is slouched in the back, earbuds in, his attention firmly on his phone.
Josh keeps one hand on the gearshift, tapping the other on the steering wheel as we pull out of the parking lot, the image of a young man in control, cool and calm. That helps me—a lot. With each passing minute, I consider the possibility of sharing the whole curse business with him.
Ty isn’t paying attention, but will Josh think I’m a nutcase and tell everyone, and the other girls will want to kill me? What if there’s something to the secrecy? What if telling someone about the curse brings it to fruition?
Stop it, Kenzie. You’re too smart for that crap.
“So what’s everyone saying about this?” I ask, hoping to get information instead of giving it.
“Other than that the Sterling dick was arrested?”
Ire shoots through me at the assumption. “He wasn’t arrested, was he? I heard they just took him in for questioning.”
“Whatever. If anyone is capable of murder, it’s that kid.”
“Murder? Who said anything about murder?”
“Like, everybody. And Sterling’s a complete bag of douchery, if you ask me.”
No, he’s a kid with dyslexia whose mother is in a mental institution, and he carries a bunch of guilt in his back pocket because of an accident that paralyzed a girl. And he disappeared on me half an hour before another girl was found dead.
“Being a douche bag doesn’t make him a murderer.”
“Haven’t you heard he tried to kill some chick in his old town?”
“I don’t think he tried to kill her, but—”
He turns hard onto the main drag, his jaw set a little. “Kenzie, you know he was at the quarry, right?” He says it like the statement is proof positive that Levi pushed Olivia off the cliff.
“Did you know the whole incident is on tape?”
He shoots me a look. “Doesn’t mean Sterling didn’t give her a nudge off camera.”
I don’t know why I have to defend Levi, but I do. With everything in me. “Last time I checked, this was America, where you’re innocent until proven guilty.”
“Bullshit. If someone killed those chicks, he’s the one, and you better hope like hell they lock him up.”
I turn and look out the window, watching a strip mall roll by. “What if no one killed them?” I say.
“Then we have one hell of a weird coincidence at Vienna High this weekend.”
I can’t argue with that. “What if … I mean, I heard people saying there’s a curse.” I slide him a look to get his reaction. It’s a slow, sly smile.
“Cool.” The word comes from the back, startling me because I’d kind of forgotten about Ty.
“Cool?” I ask, turning to look at him. “What is cool about that?”
“I totally dig all that paranormal shit.” Ty doesn’t take his earbuds out, so I have to assume he’s heard the entire conversation. “A curse? Man, that’s just cool.”
Speaking of douche bags. I manage not to roll my eyes as I look away. “I personally don’t think it’s anything but creepy. And bogus.”