She’d had to explain this before, but for some reason, trying to find the words to tell Chelsea was harder. And infinitely more important.
She bit her lip as she lowered herself to the ground in front of the boulder, sitting in front of her friend. She drew her knees against her chest and hugged them tightly. “It’s weird,” she started. “It’s like an itching under my skin at first, like everything inside of me is tingling. Sometimes I don’t even realize it’s happening, I’m just pulled in a certain direction, almost against my will.” She glanced up, stealing quick glimpses at Chelsea as she leaned her chin against her knees. “As I get closer, it changes, and every body develops a unique energy all its own. It’s like a signature. I call it an echo, but only because that’s what my grandmother called it.”
“Your grandmother knew too?” Chelsea asked, her voice small and awed now.
“My grandmother had it too,” Violet told her. “These echoes can be anything, a taste, a smell, a color, a sound, a sensation. No two are alike, at least that I know of. And here’s the weird part . . .”
“Dude. There’s a ‘weird part’?”
The corner of Violet’s lip pulled up. “Right?” she said, agreeing that it had already reached maximum weirdness. And then she plunged ahead. “Whatever that echo is also attaches to the killer too, exactly the same. I call it an imprint.”
Chelsea only missed a beat before she quietly said, “Now you blew my mind. So there are freaky killers walkin’ around out there that you can smell and taste? And they don’t even know it?”
“Totally.” Violet nodded. “But not just bad-guy killers. Cops and hunters, too. And people who’ve been in wars. I can’t tell them apart.”
“And animals?” Chelsea asked, already sorting through the pieces.
“My cat always comes home with imprints. Drives me crazy sometimes.”
Chelsea took a breath and leaned back on her hands as she studied Violet through brand-new eyes. “Is it weird?” She shook her head, as if trying to imagine it.
Violet scowled playfully. “I find dead bodies, Chels. How could it not be weird?”
Chelsea nodded, as if realizing how stupid her question had been. “Were the people at the lake the first . . . you know, humans you’ve ever found?”
Violet thought about how to answer that. She didn’t want to lie, not anymore. But she didn’t want to tell the whole truth either. There were still things she didn’t want to share, things she shouldn’t—and couldn’t—share. Like about her team.
She waited too long and Chelsea leaned forward, waiting expectantly, knowing there was more.
“When I was eight, I found a girl buried in the woods near my house,” Violet finally answered, skirting the issue by giving part of an answer. “And you already know that Jay and I found that body in the lake last year.” She didn’t tell Chelsea about all the other bodies she’d found.
“Oh yeah . . . the floater. Gross.” She wrinkled her nose. “So I’m guessing that wasn’t an accident. You didn’t just happen to see it while you were out on the lake the way you said you did?”
Violet shook her head.
“What are they like, the bodies? Does it freak you out? I gotta admit, I think I might pee my pants if I were in your shoes.”
Violet stifled a giggle against the tops of her knees. “Well, I haven’t peed yet, but I’ll definitely keep you posted.” And then she shrugged. “It’s definitely not like on TV. There, the bodies still look”—she struggled for the right way to describe it—“like real people. Like they could just sit up and start talking to you. But real bodies, the ones I’ve seen at least, are obviously dead. The girl in the lake was so bloated that her skin didn’t look like it even belonged on her anymore. It was shiny and blistery looking, and didn’t sit right on her features. And I could see right through her skin in places. It was like looking at a water-logged roadmap.” Violet kept her gaze on Chelsea, making sure she wasn’t being too graphic. “The girl who was buried near my house when I was little already had bugs on her when I found her. They were eating her.”
Chelsea cringed, and Violet thought about the family at the lake house, about their wounds, and wondered what Chelsea would think if she knew how their necks had looked, about the way the edges weren’t smooth and clean the way they would have been if it had been on television. Instead they were ragged . . . as if they’d been gored rather than sliced.
But Chelsea didn’t need to know such things. No one did.
Violet got up and held her hand out to her friend. “Come on, Chelsea. We should get back, it’s been a long day.”
Chelsea followed Violet’s gaze, looking up at the sun through the filter of leaves overhead. It wasn’t late. Not really. But it felt like it was.
It felt like they’d been out there forever.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
“PLAY IT AGAIN.” KISHA CLAPPED, HER ENTHUSIASM making her look younger, less tired. Less strung out.
Evan grinned back at her, laying his guitar aside. “Maybe later, Kish, I’m tired.”
He wasn’t really; he could play all day, especially in the park where his playing drew attention . . . a real audience.
Except that today they had another purpose. Today was meant as a scouting mission.
He looked over to where Butterfly tried to get comfortable on the blanket Boxer had spread out for them. She squirmed, her body racked by an unexpected, relentless tremor, and he wondered if she even realized what was happening to her as she reached down to resume picking at the scab on her hand. It was easy to recognize the nervous energy she was trying to release, easy to spot an addict craving a new high.