Bad Like Us, page 13
My eyes stray to the door, and the wall that divides us and the others. Rain hammers on the roof and streams down the windowpanes.
“Does anyone else know you’ve got this phone?” My voice sounds ragged.
She shakes her head. She’s nervous, scratching at her hands. “I asked around to see if anyone had lost their phone last night, but at that point I didn’t realize it was Piper’s.”
“Alright. Whoever was with her in the cave might not know she’d been trying to record them. They probably don’t know she dropped her phone, otherwise they would have picked it up themselves, right?”
“That would make sense,” she agrees. “After I heard the scream last night, I heard someone run away. Maybe they panicked when she fell, and they just got out of there fast.” She presses her fingertips to her eyelids. “I can’t believe this is real,” she murmurs. “I don’t want this to be real.”
I fold my arm around her, and she leans into me, resting her head on my shoulder. It feels more natural than it should, but we both need comfort right now. We need each other.
“Last night at the fire,” she says, quietly. “After I left, what happened?”
I stare at the window and the rain spilling down the glass. “Alice and Miles took off after you,” I answer, piecing it together from what I can remember. “I went with Javier to get more wood for the fire, and that’s when we ended up talking for a while. Away from the others.”
She sits up straighter to look at me. “What did Javier say about Piper?”
“Only that he cared about her a lot, and he wanted to fix things. He wasn’t mad at her, but he didn’t know if he could trust her. That note got into his head. Danny got into his head.”
Eva nods slowly. “So, he didn’t seem angry, exactly?”
“Not angry enough to kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Her gaze drops to the floor. “I didn’t mean... I didn’t think that...”
“I know,” I say, drawing her eyes back to mine. “I get it. Anyway, I told Javier that Danny wasn’t interested in Piper anymore, but I know he didn’t believe me. And now that I’ve read that note, I get why.”
“Well, if he thought Danny wrote those things to Piper...” she trails off.
“By the time we got back to the fire, Danny was gone. So was Piper.”
Eva laughs under her breath, but there’s no humor to it. “Oh, great. Hardly reassuring for Javier.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Karly and Noah were still there. Apparently, Piper had gone looking for Javier a couple of minutes before we got back, so he went to go find her.”
“But he ended up coming back to the rooms alone.”
“According to Danny.”
“What time did Javier go looking for Piper?” she asks.
“I don’t know. But it must have been after midnight. Maybe half past.”
“So, the only people who were technically alone at that time were Javier, Piper, Danny, and me...”
“And me,” I add. “Because I left right after Javier. And Karly and Noah, or Alice and Miles, too, if either of those pairs split up at any point.”
Eva heaves a sigh. “Great. So, that narrows it down to all of us.”
“All of us,” I agree.
She holds my stare, and my heart thumps in my chest. Now she knows the truth. If she shares this with the cops, or anyone, then I’ve just blown up my own alibi. And Danny’s.
But it’s not just me who’s taken a leap of faith. Eva told me about Piper’s phone. She didn’t have to. Even if I’d seen her with it, I’d never have guessed that it belonged to Piper.
I told her my lie, and she told me hers. We’re in this together now.
And if I’m going to put my trust in anyone, it’d always be her. Eva was that kid in elementary school who’d ask her mom to give us a ride home from school when our own mom forgot to show. She’d do it subtly, acting like it was no big deal when we made up some weak excuse about Mom’s car being in the shop. But I knew she knew. She’d always invite us to her parties, too, even though back then our clothes never fit right and always had a couple of holes or rips. She never judged us or made us feel less than her. She never labeled us as the bad kids.
I trusted her back then, and I still trust her now.
We both jolt as the door handle twists.
Karly steps into the room and closes the door behind her. Her eyes are smudged black and tear tracks are marking her cheeks. She notices me sitting beside Eva on the bed, and she falters. It only takes a second for her to shake it off and continue to her side of the room, but I saw it, that look she gave me. She crawls onto the other bed and hugs a pillow to her chest. “My mom’s driving out today,” she says to us.
Eva inhales slowly. “That’s good. I should try calling my parents again.”
Karly starts fiddling with the corner of a pillowcase. She’s blinking fast, like she’s trying not to cry.
“Are you okay?” I ask. I cringe as I say it because anyone can see she’s a long way from okay.
She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t look at me.
I stand from Eva’s bed. “I’m going to go.”
When I start for the door, Karly mutters something under her breath. I swear I hear the words...back to Danny. I stop at the door, gripping the brass handle. “Are we good, Karly?”
She hugs the pillow tighter and brings her gaze to me. “Yeah, of course. I just...” She gives way to a small breath, swiping at a tear as it rolls down her cheek. “I just can’t believe Javier killed Piper.”
The ways she says it, though. It’s not that she can’t believe it—it’s that she doesn’t believe it.
THREE MONTHS EARLIER
“Let’s do this.” Javier slaps his hands together.
I stare down at the gray water fifty feet beneath us as it surges and churns. The sun is just rising, and it’s cold out this morning, well into winter. The icy wind bites.
Our legs hang over the precipice. Javier, Noah, and me, sitting side by side on the cliff edge, shoulder to shoulder. Ready to jump.
“Okay,” Noah says, shaking out his arms. “Okay. Let’s go.” He hesitates and looks left to right, glancing at both of us. “Unless we for real just go. Home.”
Javier laughs and smacks his arm. “Don’t be saying shit like that, man.” The wind tosses around his jet-black curls. “This is living. This is the moment.”
Noah pulls his jacket tighter. “It’s goddamn freezing up here.”
I look over his head, catching Javier’s eye and grinning. “You’re about to get a lot colder down there,” I say to Noah. I rub my hands together for warmth as the wind whips at our hair and clothes.
“You all suck,” Noah says, puffing a fogged breath into the air. “Next year, I’m out.”
Javier grips his shoulder. “What?” His smile is wide. “You can’t be out. This is tradition! There is no out.”
“It’s the worst tradition ever,” Noah grunts. “We’re lucky we haven’t gotten hypothermia. Or broken our necks.”
I look down at the water below, gray and frothing as it slaps the rock wall. “Wasn’t this your idea to start with?”
Noah snorts and rakes his hands through his shaggy hair. “Yeah. But I was, like, twelve years old. I didn’t know about hypothermia and broken necks back then.”
Javier keeps a grip on his shoulder, still smiling big. “Noah, man. This is tra-di-tion, and we’re keeping it going until we’re old men smoking on our pipes up here.” He props a cigarette into Noah’s mouth and sparks up the end, shading the lighter’s flame from the wind.
“We might not even be here next year,” Noah says in a breath of smoke.
We all look down at the snapping jaws of the water.
Then Noah clears his throat. “I mean, college and all that. We’re all going to different places. We might not be home for winter break.”
Javier’s mouth falls open. “Have you heard this guy?” he says, leaning forward to talk to me over Noah. “Not even finished the year yet and he’s already planning on dropping us for his shiny new college buddies. Last year he was all for blowing off college, and this year he’s an A-student, not even coming back for winter break.”
Noah laughs and shoves Javier’s shoulder. “Yeah, well, maybe my shiny new college buddies won’t make me jump off cliffs.”
Javier grins and holds up his palms. “Hey, man. Ain’t nobody forcing nobody. This is your own free will.”
“Speaking of free will,” I say to Javier. “Have you told Piper you’re not applying to LA with her yet?”
“No way,” he says, shuddering. “She’ll lose it. She’s already got our whole year planned out.”
Noah grins. “Good luck with that. If this jump doesn’t kill you, she will.”
“Anyway,” Javier says, “I’m thinking it’d make life easier if I just go with her. I want to be with Piper, so...”
I frown back at him. “Are you sure? What if you guys break up? Then you’re stuck with her plans instead of your own.”
“We’re not going to break up. I love her.” He says it with such conviction that I almost laugh.
“Already? You’ve only been together for a couple of weeks.”
“Yeah, but I just know,” he says, pressing his fist to his heart. “She’s the one for me, I’m telling you. And if I have to go along with some stuff to make it work, I will. It’s called compromise, man. I’ll do what I’ve got to do.” He looks between us, seriously. “Noah, what was it your uncle told us? Go hard for what you want.”
“Yup,” Noah says.
“So I’ll do whatever it takes.”
I toss a pebble over the edge, and we all watch as the water swallows it. “Alright.” I stand and brush the dirt from my hands. “For what might be the last time, let’s do this.” I start walking away from the precipice. I hear the crunch of earth behind me as they do the same. But I don’t look to see if they’ve followed because I know that they have. I close my eyes and sprint back to the edge.
“Sink or swim, boys!” Javier calls.
My sneakers leave the ground, and I’m falling through the air.
The ice-cold water envelops me.
EVA
When the door clicks shut behind Colton, I cross the room and join Karly on her bed. “How are you holding up?”
She dabs at her eyes with her sleeve. Strands of hair are clinging to her damp cheeks. “Not good,” she whispers. “You?”
“Not good, either,” I murmur.
“Piper,” she says, and her voice catches. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe Javier...” She ends the sentence with a fractured breath. “Do you think that’s why the police took him? Because they think that he...”
I shake my head. “Honestly, I don’t know. It doesn’t—”
A knock on the door makes us both stop. I look at Karly, and she nods.
“Come in,” I call.
The handle twists and the door opens. Alice ducks into the room, shying away from the rain sweeping across the deck. She pushes the door closed behind her, trapping the wind outside. But the flurry of cold air still makes me shiver.
“Hi,” I manage.
She musters a weak smile. Without a word, she crosses the room to join us on the bed. I shuffle closer and pull her into a hug. When we break apart, Alice’s eyes rove over Karly’s tearstained cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, reaching out to take her hand.
“Yeah,” Karly answers, gently squeezing Alice’s fingers in response. “Me, too.”
“I just got off the phone with my parents,” Alice says. “They’re going to come here today.”
“Mine, too,” Karly tells her.
“Javier...” Alice folds her arms around herself. “I mean...” She exhales in a long breath. “We were with him this morning, freaking out, everyone wondering what was going on, and he acted as clueless as the rest of us. I just can’t wrap my head around this.”
Karly holds her pillow tighter.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” I reason quietly. “Just because the police have taken Javier into the station, it doesn’t mean that he had anything to do with what happened to Piper. They only wanted to talk to him.”
“But if he did,” Alice says, meeting my gaze, “that means that he stood there this morning and lied to all of our faces. Knowing...” she trails off and swallows.
My eyes are drawn across the room to my bed and the corner of Piper’s cell just visible beneath the comforter. A wave of guilt flips my stomach. I’m the fraud. I’m the liar.
“Guys.” I hear the tremor in my voice, but I can’t back out. Between the scream and footsteps I heard last night and the incriminatory video on Piper’s phone, it’s looking likely that someone in our group killed Piper. The three of us, we can’t afford to lie to each other. If I want them to be honest with me, I need to be honest with them. I need to make the call on who I can trust, and who I can’t. And I trust them. I hope. “There’s something you should know.”
Both their stares are immediately on me. They’re sitting straighter now, holding their breath.
“What?” Karly presses.
I stand, weakly, and walk to my side of the room. As they watch, I retrieve the phone that I’d slipped beneath the blanket when Karly walked in.
The confused expressions on their faces last a couple of seconds. Then Karly draws in a small breath. “Where did you get that?”
“I found it in the cave, right after I heard Piper scream.”
Karly stares steadily at me, and Alice’s brow crinkles.
“Wait, what?” Alice says. “Whose phone is that?”
I type in the passcode and scroll to the last video Piper filmed. Bracing myself, I hit Play.
You think you can threaten me? I’m done with this. I’m telling everyone what you did—
Alice sucks in a sharp breath. “What?”
Karly presses her hands to her mouth. Tears begin to spill down her cheeks. “I don’t want to hear this,” she rasps. “I can’t.”
I exit the video and set the phone down on the nightstand. Through its splintered face, Piper’s background image—the selfie in front of a pool—smiles at us until it fades to black.
“Javier?” Alice asks, looking quickly between us. “Piper knew what he did? What did he do?”
“Or...” My pulse starts to race as I prepare to say the words. “If it wasn’t Javier, then who?” Wind rattles the windowpanes, and rain pelts the glass.
Something shifts, then. The way in which they’re looking at me. The way Alice sits straighter, and Karly shrinks away from me.
My stomach plummets as the thought hits me. What have I just done?
“How did you say you found this phone?” Karly asks in a trembling voice.
A bolt of fear shoots through me. “Okay, I know it looks bad,” I say, holding up my hands. “But I promise you, I found it in the cave. I didn’t see anything. It was dark and—”
I don’t get to finish my sentence because I’m interrupted by someone pounding on the door.
EVA
“I’m coming in, okay?” Danny’s voice reaches us from the corridor.
I quickly plug Piper’s phone into the charger and slip it out of sight. Given the way Alice and Karly responded to my admission, I’m not sure I’m ready to include Danny into this conversation, too. Not yet, anyway.
The door swings open, and he stands in the threshold, still gripping the handle. His dark hair is drenched, and the shoulders of his T-shirt are spattered with rain. There’s a hardness to his expression, his jaw tight, and his eyes narrowed. “Eva,” he says. “We need to talk. Right now.”
Blood rushes to my head as I look between Alice and Karly. I turn back to Danny where he waits in the doorway, letting in a stream of cold air. “We’re kind of in the middle of something.”
“Eva,” he says again. His eyes are fixed only on me, conveying something I can’t understand. “For real. I need to talk to you.” He glances toward the outer corridor, where the growing gale is sweeping sheets of rain through the wooden structure.
“Can it wait?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
With a resigned sigh, I climb off the bed. I give Karly and Alice one last look as I leave the room, hoping that they still trust me. They frown back at me, their brows furrowed in confusion. Perfect. Between Piper’s phone, and Danny’s secretive we-need-to-talk outburst, I can only imagine what they’re thinking.
Alice is my best friend, but right now, the way she’s looking at me, the way she’s leaning closer to Karly, I feel like a total stranger.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell them hoarsely.
I jostle Danny into the corridor and close the door after us. “You have the worst timing,” I say under my breath. “I was in the middle of trying to not look like a murderer.”
“Do it later.” He starts for his room, and I cross my arms tightly as I follow him. Rain lashes against the slanted roof above the deck, drowning out the sound of the ocean. Across the clearing, the trees are bowing to the wind and their branches are groaning and cracking. Danny herds me into his room and shuts the door.
I stop in my tracks, standing still in the little room. Colton is seated on his bed with his hands locked. He looks up at me and shakes his head, mouthing, “Sorry.”
“Eva,” Danny says, raking his hands through his hair and pushing back the wet strands. “You need to listen and trust me when I tell you this.” He stands before me, stooping to meet my eyes. “You need to get rid of that phone.”
My mouth falls open and I look at Colton. “You told him?”
