tonight. We have to meet!
DO NOT TELL ANYONE OR YOU COULD BE NEXT.
Instinctively, I angle the phone away from Molly, staring at the words.
“I saw that,” she says softly.
“You did?” Candace almost died? My throat closes with fear. I have to know what happened.
“I saw ‘do not tell anyone’ in caps.” She pushes off the bed. “I suppose that includes your BFF.”
“Molly, come on. This is …” Bigger, worse, and scarier than she could ever understand. “This is …” A matter of life and death.
“I know what this is,” she says, backing away. “This is you blowing me off so you can hang with much cooler girls.”
I shake off all the fear that’s gripping me and give Molly my full attention. “This is not something you can understand easily.”
She coughs and says, “Oh my God,” rolling her eyes. “Of course, only the Sisters of the List can understand.”
“I mean it, Molly. I’ll explain it to you later, but now I …” Can’t tell anyone or I might be next.
Not that I believe that for one minute, but I can’t completely disregard the warning.
“Whatever, Kenzie. Do what you have to do. I’m going home.”
“Molly, please, if I could take you, I would. I swear I would.”
She turns on her way out, a world of pain in her expression. “Then why don’t you?”
Because what if she got hurt? What if she was somehow in danger? What if I was responsible for that? An old familiar ache takes hold. “Because I can’t,” I say simply as the text buzzes again. I ignore it, looking hard at Molly, praying she somehow understands and forgives me.
“Better get your phone, sister,” she says, turning back to the door.
“Molly, please.”
But she doesn’t hesitate, leaving without another word. I stay still for a moment, then pick up the phone to read the text from Dena.
Pick you up in 10?
I type one word in response: Yes.
Mom buys that I’m going outside to ride back to Molly’s house with her so we can do homework together. First I pray Mom doesn’t come outside to wait with me; then I pray that Molly doesn’t come running back to make up after I’m gone. Because that would turn my mother into a screaming, police-contacting lunatic who doesn’t know where I am.
But Molly was pretty mad and I doubt she’s coming back tonight, so I take the chance and hop into Dena’s ancient Subaru that smells vaguely like gym clothes and Gatorade. She’s dressed in sweats, and tells me she just left volleyball practice. But she still manages to look pretty.
“What happened to Candace?” I ask.
“She damn near drowned in her bathtub. Wait till you see her hair.”
“Oh my God,” I mutter, turning in the seat to face her. “What happened to her hair?”
“Her mom had to chop it off to save her life. She was in her mom’s Jacuzzi taking a bath and her hair got sucked into the bubbly thing and it pulled her under. If her mother hadn’t walked into the bathroom …” She closes her eyes and blows out a shaky breath. “We are all in such trouble, Kenzie. We have to do something. We have to stop this.”
“Why don’t we go to the cops?”
“Because they don’t investigate curses that cause unavoidable accidents. And before you say anything, yes, I’m buying into it.”
“Oh, Dena.” I’m disappointed to lose my only ally on the “curses are ridiculous” side of the issue. “There’s no such thing,” I say, but even I can hear the doubt in my voice. Could there be a curse?
“Oh, yeah? Then tell me how come all this weird shit is happening to us? No one was in the bathroom holding Candace under. No one made my cat chew a wire that damn near electrocuted me. No one stuffed peanuts into Chloe’s allergic mouth.”
“You don’t know that.”
She fires a look at me. “Do you?”
“I don’t … Maybe.” I look out the window, half expecting to see the truck. In the distance behind us, I see headlights, much too small and close together to be a truck’s. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“Shannon’s dead grandmother’s trailer.”
“That sounds lovely.”
“Don’t knock a good inheritance.” She veers onto a highway that heads toward Pittsburgh. “Most grandmas leave you their knitting collections when they kick. Shannon got her very own trailer in the country that she can move into when she’s eighteen. Until then, we go there to party sometimes.”