Truly Devious (Truly Devious #1) - Maureen Johnson Page 0,68
Nothing was real. There was a far-off noise, a rupture in the air. Larry leaned forward and looked up as the lights of a helicopter appeared overhead and landed on the green. The ambulance had come, but the patient was gone.
She had wanted to see a dead body—but not this, not a real someone. Not sneakers upturned at the end of those legs, the legs that had been squatting so stupidly on Stevie’s floor only days before. The kneecaps—the patellae—the real human who was now still and cold, and somewhere behind them in the dark.
When they arrived at Minerva, Larry told Stevie to wait a moment, so she waited. He spoke to Pix just outside the door. Stevie saw Pix put her hand over her mouth as she got the news, and then she came over to the cart and grabbed Stevie’s hands.
“I’m okay,” Stevie said.
“Stevie.” Larry leaned in from the driver’s side, his hand on the roof of the cart. “I’m going to ask you not to say anything to anyone else in the house right now, just for a little bit. Do you understand?”
“You don’t want to cause panic and you need to keep the area clear to investigate what happened,” Stevie said.
“That’s right,” Larry said. “That’s real good, Stevie.”
“Stevie,” Pix said. “I’ll take you up to my rooms. . . .”
“If you take me upstairs, the others will know,” Stevie said. “I’ll just go to my room. I’m okay. I can do this.”
Larry nodded.
“She’s doing good,” he said. “You just go to your room and get into bed, Stevie. Just stay there and I’ll be back for you in a while. We’ll need you again.”
Stevie tested the ground before she stepped out of the cart and found that her legs were steady. She resisted Pix’s offer of an arm around her shoulders. Once inside, the common room now seemed very bright. The wall vibed red and the moose on the wall seemed grotesque. Janelle had gone but Ellie and David were still on the sofa, their feet facing each other, laughing at something. They stopped when Pix and Stevie came in.
“What’s up?” Ellie said. “Is Hayes in trouble?”
“No,” Pix said quietly.
David was looking at Stevie. She saw him peeling away her blank expression and attempting to go through her thoughts.
“I’m heading for bed,” Stevie said, turning away.
David followed her with his eyes. Then she heard his phone chirp.
“Someone saw a helicopter,” he said to Pix.
“I thought I heard something weird,” Ellie said.
“Pix, is there a helicopter landing?” David asked.
“It’s fine,” Pix said.
Stevie hurried to her room and shut the door. She leaned against it, her head banging against the hook. A wave of nausea passed over her, and she moved to the trash can in preparation, but it passed. She climbed into bed fully dressed and pulled the comforter up around her.
Six had gone up the mountain, and then there were five.
Maybe she would go to sleep . . .
Shock. She was slipping into it. She sat up straight. Paper. She needed paper now. She went to her desk and snatched her anatomy notebook. She needed to write everything down, now, fresh. What had she seen? What did she know? Just write down everything, plain, without thinking about what any of it could have meant.
There was a knock at her door, and it creaked open before she could reply.
“Hey,” David said. There was no humor in his face now. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t,” Stevie said, bending over the notebook, her brow furrowed.
“What are you doing?”
“Can’t. Talk.”
“What?” he said.
“It messes with your memory,” she said impatiently.
“Something is going on,” he said. “There are only a few reasons they send a helicopter. You also look like you just had three pints of blood removed. What the hell is happening?”
“I can’t,” she said. “I need to write it down now. Stories can change accidentally once you start to talk so I can’t talk. Please, just shut the door.”
There was a faint tremble in her hand. She balled it into a fist to steady it and jammed it under the covers. David backed away slowly, closing the door behind him.
Stevie pressed on her mind. Just list it. What did you see, Stevie? She let herself write. It started Thursday.
• Moved ramp and supplies to the garden
• Set up fog machines
More granular, Stevie. Put it in order.
• A few nights before, we went into the tunnel. We