Page 41 of To the Grave

Jace had been back a week and my hunger for them was growing to a fever pitch, my resolve to make them keep groveling dwindling.

And theyweregroveling.

Otis had washed and detailed my Mustang even though I was hardly allowed to go anywhere without them and Wolf was always playing my song so that it echoed through the house like some kind of siren’s song to my traitorous body. They brought home my favorite food and rubbed my feet while we watched TV, did my laundry and folded my delicates exactly the way I liked.

Jace was the only one who wasn’t trying, like he knew no amount of takeout or cleaning or laundry could make up for what he’d done.

Like he knew he’d have to make it up to me some other way.

The thought sent a shiver up my spine and a rush of heat to my cunt, which had really taken on a mind of its own at this point.

A clattering came from the other side of the door and we stepped back a little as it opened.

A guy in his twenties with short blond hair stood on the other side, wearing blue coveralls and carrying a set of keys.

“Hey,” he said.

Wolf nodded. “Hey. Thanks for letting us in.”

“You bring the money?” the guy asked.

Wolf fished in his pocket and handed over a wad of cash. The guy stuffed it in his coveralls and stepped back to let us in.

The door shut with horror-movie finality and we were plunged into the near darkness of the back hall of Blackwell High. My nose was immediately assaulted by the smell of cleaning products and the residual musk of hundreds of bodies. I was suddenly sixteen again, ducking through the halls, trying not to draw attention to myself, trying to adjust to my fall from grace as Blackwell’s first-daughter turned suspected-murderer.

I glanced at Wolf and saw something like regret pass over his features, wondered if he was remembering all the hours he’d spent here with Blake, before things had gone bad.

“You know where it is,” the guy said, heading down the hall. “Yearbooks are at the back. I left the door unlocked for you.”

He disappeared around the corner and we started for the library.

I stayed close to Wolf and Otis even though as far as I knew, no one besides the guy who’d let us in was around. “This is weird.”

“Very,” Wolf said.

Our shoes squeaked on the old linoleum and I heard a vacuum start up somewhere in the building. I would definitely have preferred coming during daylight hours, but the school had screening procedures and none of us had a good excuse for snooping around the place.

I thought about Ruth as we passed the closed classroom doors, wondered what it was like for her here. I was guessing she was popular. She had that air about her, an air I recognized both because I’d had it and because I’d lost it.

Breezy. Entitled.

I felt the distance between us like a canyon I couldn’t cross. Not too long ago, we’d been close. Now I had no idea what was going on with her, no idea who she really was, and honestly, I was pretty sure she’d say the same about me.

Finally we came to the library. The door was propped open, just like Dylan had promised, and we walked in and headed for the back.

Here the scent was familiar in a better way: carpet and old paper.

I’d spent a lot of time here after Blake’s death. It had been a safe place, a place to hide when the not-so-subtle stares of my classmates got to be too much, when the loss of Blake and the belief that his best friends had killed him got to be too much.

Here I could hide in the stacks, sit on the floor if I needed to, anything to dodge the new reality of my life. I’d read everything I could get my hands on, and Mrs. Spearing, the librarian, had never asked me if I had a pass or told me I couldn’t eat my lunch there even though it was against the rules to have food in the library.

I wondered if she knew she’d made a difference for me. I hoped so.

“Back here,” Otis said, leading the way through the bookshelves that reached almost to the ceiling.

We came to the back of the library and started looking at the reference manuals stacked there. It took less than a minute for Wolf to speak up.

“Got ’em.”

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