Besides the fact that I should have been dead.
“Can we come in?” I asked.
Bethany planted her body firmly in front of the open door. “My dad could come home any second. You shouldn’t be here when he does.”
“Then can we go somewhere else?” I gave her a look. “We need to talk.”
“I can’t leave,” Bethany replied without hesitation. “They’ll know if I do. My dad said everything was going to be okay. He said he’d take care of it, but I have to stay here.”
There was something in her eyes when she talked about her father—not quite anger, not quite fear.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” I didn’t mean for the words to come out of my mouth with an edge to them, but they did. Bethany had left me on the side of the road. Maybe she hadn’t had a choice. Maybe they’d forced her to go, but she’d left me broken and bleeding on the ground and hadn’t lifted a hand against the people who’d put me there.
“You were already dead!”
The vehemence of Bethany’s words took me by surprise.
“You were dead, and it was my fault. I was the one driving. I was the one who got bitten. I couldn’t—I can’t do this again.”
Again?
“There was nothing I could do for you, Kali.”
“But there was something you could do for someone else.” Skylar tilted her head from one side to the other and then back again, staring intently at the lines of Bethany’s face. “Someone you love.”
Bethany’s eyes hardened, and she stepped back into the house, ready to slam the door in our faces. Unfortunately for her, I was quick.
Too quick.
Quicker than I would have been two days before.
There are some benefits to being bitten.
As Zev’s words echoed in my head, I realized how very close I was standing to Bethany. How fast her heart was pounding. How hungry the thing inside me was. I was fast and strong and more than I’d been two days before—and the chupacabra wanted blood.
Twenty-one hours and nine minutes.
“You can’t come in,” Bethany snapped, bringing me back to the present.
“Evidence would suggest otherwise,” Skylar commented, following my lead and stepping into the house.
“Get out.”
“Nope.” Skylar grinned. “I want to see Château Davis. You’ve been dating my brother for six months, and you’ve stolen my tampons twice. The least you can do is give me a tour.”
“Skylar,” Bethany said, her voice cracking. “Please, both of you, just get out.”
“Bethany?”
I half expected to run into Bethany’s father, but instead, the voice that had issued that query was clearly female.
“You guys need to go,” Bethany said again, her voice low and urgent.
“Bethany, dear,” the voice called from the other room, “have you seen Tyler?”
Bethany flinched. A moment later, her face was a blank canvas, flat and unreadable. She plastered on a smile and turned around, just as a woman wearing heels and a white silk bathrobe stepped into the room. She had long, wavy hair that straddled the line between blonde and red. Her eyes were wide, her smile inviting.
“Oh dear,” she said. “I didn’t realize Bethie had guests.”
“They were just leaving,” Bethany said.
“Don’t be silly, sweetheart. They should at least stay for breakfast. Have you seen your brother? It’s omelet day, and you know how he feels about those.”
Bethany stood up a little straighter, and her face softened. “Okay, Mom. Okay.”
I wasn’t sure what Bethany was saying “okay” to, but it seemed to satisfy her mother, who ran a smoothing hand over the white silk robe.
“I ought to get dressed,” she said absentmindedly. “Something’s not right.”
“Everything’s fine,” Bethany said. “I promise.”
Her mother nodded, and a second later she was gone, leaving the three of us in the foyer, silent, the air thick with all of the things we weren’t saying.
“She’s the one you’re helping,” Skylar said. “Your mom. What did your dad say he’d do for her if you kept your mouth shut about what happened out on the highway this morning?”
In my mind, I rephrased Skylar’s question—what did he say he’d do to your mother if you didn’t?
“It’s none of your business,” Bethany said, her voice low and full of warning. “You never saw her. She’s fine.”
I couldn’t shake the look in Mrs. Davis’s eyes, the singsong tone to her voice. I’d seen her before, at university functions. She’d seemed fine.
Normal.
Like Bethany, only older.
What’s wrong with her? I wondered, but that wasn’t the kind of question you asked out loud.
So instead, I asked something else. “Who’s Tyler?”
16
Bethany left us in the foyer. She didn’t say a word, didn’t respond to the question. If I’d had more practice with the whole “friend” thing, maybe I would have known what to say or do next, but I didn’t.
“She’ll be back,” Skylar said. I wasn’t so sure, but up until now, Skylar’s instincts had been right on point. Unfortunately, she chose that moment to turn her focus from Bethany to me. “Bethany wasn’t wrong,” she said slowly. “Was she? About you going through the windshield, about your broken neck?”
Don’t tell her.
This time, I didn’t object to Zev weighing in or the advice he was dispensing. That was how I’d always gotten by, how I survived. By not opening my mouth. By keeping people at arm’s length.
“My neck isn’t broken,” I said stiffly. “I’m fine.”
“People only ever say they’re fine when they’re not.” With those words, Skylar’s eyes went from my face to my stomach. Even clothed in the tank top, I felt naked. I felt like she could see straight through me.
I don’t know what would have happened next, if Bethany’s mother hadn’t interrupted our little standoff. All smiles, she came back into the room garbed in a twin set and jeans, every inch the suburban soccer mom. For a moment, I thought she was going to offer us lemonade or something, but instead, she fixed her gaze on a spot about a foot in front of Skylar and me.
“Tyler,” she said, in one of those mom voices—halfway between exasperation and indulgence. “Stop pestering Bethany’s friends.”
It took me a moment to digest her words. I stopped breathing.
“I am so sorry, girls,” Mrs. Davis continued, a smile dancing across her face, her eyes flitting back and forth, like she was tracking someone’s movement, even though there wasn’t anyone there.
I looked at Skylar. She looked at me. The two of us looked at the spot on the floor.
“C’mon, Ty,” Mrs. Davis said. “Leave the girls alone. I’ve got an omelet with your name on it and a big glass of milk.”
She held out her hand and beckoned. After a brief pause, she flitted away, her movements purposeful and graceful. As I watched, she reached out, like she was tousling someone’s hair and then she paused.
She turned and looked back over her shoulder.
And for a split second, maybe less, it looked like she might crumble to the ground. Like she knew there wasn’t anyone in this room but the three of us. Like wherever her Tyler had gone, Bethany’s mother wished she could go there, too.
That split second of clarity was fleeting, and a moment later, the bright smile returned, but I was left with an aching sadness. I watched Mrs. Davis walk out of the room, murmuring gaily to nobody at all.
Beside me, Skylar wiped the back of her hand roughly across her face.
“You okay?” I asked her. After what we’d just seen, I wasn’t entirely certain that I was okay.
Skylar shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “It’s just—she’s so sad. She’s drowning.”
For once, Skylar didn’t elaborate, and when Bethany came back in a moment later, I struggled to hide my own emotions, to make it seem like Skylar and I hadn’t just seen into the intimate depths of her mother’s broken mind.