Page 67 of The Executioners Three
What time can you meet?
verybadhumanindeed82
7:15
by the fortin crypt u ruined
Freddie choked. She hadnotruined it—NEVER—and now there was no time to properly reply.
LanceInMyHeart2000
Okay. Cya then.
verybadhumanindeed82
that u will, gellar
looking forward to it
14
Looking forward to it.How was a gal supposed to sleep after a comment like that? Needless to say, Freddie didn’t. On the one hand, this meant she didn’t have any disturbing dreams… or kissing dreams either.
On the other hand, it meant she began her day feeling like the Crypt Keeper. And frankly looking like him too. To make her feelthat much better about herself,the Fortin Prep uniform acquired from the Friedmans’ dry cleaners yesterday didn’t fit.
It was intended for the proportions of a teenage boy, which left it too tight in Freddie’s hips and boobs, and too loose everywhere else. But with half-shuttered eyes and a yawn, Freddie managed to squeeze into it. Then she snuck out of her room, ready to meet Kyle and Cat promptly at sevenA.M.
Well,theywere prompt. Freddie was two minutes late because halfway through the kitchen, a button on the shirt decided today was the day it wanted freedom. It wentsproing!, hit the Mr. Coffee, and suddenly Freddie found herself giving those one-boobed paintings a real run for their money.
One safety pin later—the heavy-duty kind—she was finally out the front door and into the still-dark morning. Where she promptly heard “Dreams” by the Cranberries blasting from Kyle’s Jeep. The volume doubled as soon as she opened the back door and clambered in. “Hey!” Kyle shouted overOh, my life is changin’ every day. “Looking good!”
This was quite an overstatement, but Freddie blushed anyway. Kyle’s uniform—despite also being the forgotten leftover of a former student—fit his shapely body to a T. And although Cat (seated in shotgun) didn’t look quite as flawless as Kyle, at least her uniform was intended for someone with breasts.
“Here,” Cat said once Freddie was buckled in. She also had to pitch hervoice over the music. “Put this on your hair! They all know what you look like over there.”
Thethisin question was a plain red baseball cap, under which Freddie did not think her hair would actually fit. But it was at leastsortof a disguise, because Cat was right: the kids at Fortin definitely knew what Freddie looked like. Especially after the Incident with the Kiss.
Laina, Luis, and Divya were not joining for this prank. Laina and Divya had perfect attendance records (who were these people?) while Luis never missed his morning run (ugh). Cat, Kyle, and Freddie meanwhile had nothing to lose—and Freddie had quite a lot to gain.
Kyle of course drove with his usual reckless abandon, which almost became wreck-ful abandon when an entire herd (or was it aclan?) of deer went sprinting across the road. He only hit the brakes in time to miss them because Cat and Freddie both screamed.Loudly.
Really, this could have been added to Kyle’s résumé at this point:Extracurricular activities: near-miss car accidents.
His Jeep careened to a stop right in front of the county park’s trail entrance.Theentrance Freddie had chased Mrs. Ferris to. There was police tape across it now.Those woods aren’t safe right now,Ibrahim had said.First Mrs. Ferris got mauled… and now we’ve got another body.
But there’d been no mention of a body in today’s paper. Freddie had checked. No mention of feds coming to town either, or any clue as to what Ibrahim might’ve been referring to.
Five minutes later, the stone pillars and sign that marked the entrance to Allard Fortin Preparatory School came into view, and Kyle finally slowed his Mario Kart speeds so he could pull in.
“F-U, Fortin Prep,” Kyle said at the sign—followed by a delighted, “Hey, they’re the same letters!F-U, F-P!Say it with me, guys!”
No one said it with him.
The drive curved and crooked upward, forcing Kyle to a slogging twenty-five miles per hour. Every few seconds, Freddie would glimpse a rooftop or window or balcony from the main estate. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but there was at least a grayish haze to brighten the lawns and outbuildings. Students shambled on paths and sidewalks as Kyle drove them ever uphill, and at an intersection leading either toward the main estate or to the dorms, Kyle chose the dorms.
Thirty seconds later, they pulled into a newly paved lot packed with fancy cars. And through a dense row of privacy evergreens, Freddie could see the dorms. She could seeTheo’sdorm.
She could also see the mausoleum—or at least its domed roof—through another row of pines and firs. And of course, those secret-corner yew hedges.
