Teen Hyde (High School Horror Story #2)(45)

I counted out the beats. Four, five, six. This time, when I twirled in step with the other Oilerettes red swam in front of my vision and I saw myself clutching a knife and plunging it deeper and deeper into cold skin. I stumbled out of the spin and righted my balance using Ava’s arm.

Her eyes bugged, but she held me upright. “Are you okay?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“Fine,” I said. I missed the next two dance moves and then fell into formation. My teeth pressed into my tongue, giving me something on which to focus besides Lena and the images swimming before me. My stare couldn’t help landing on Lena every few seconds. Why was she watching me like that? What had she been talking about the other night and why didn’t I remember her when she clearly thought she knew me?

I didn’t remember a lot of things.

It was nearly halftime. My throat was bone dry. We were in the middle of one of my favorite cheers—“Let me hear you stomp your feet!”

I ducked to set down my pom-poms in preparation for our first stunts. We’d been working on the lifts for weeks. My body was fever raging, forehead flushed with burn. The sellout crowd stomped their feet in response and it shook my heart. I huddled in with my stunt group. Ava held a poster with the word Fight painted on it. Ashley took the other side. I tried to focus. But all I could see was blood. All I could see was me in it. The hypnotist’s memory hovered halfway between real and a dream, but how could it not be real when the evidence was buried in my backyard … wasn’t it? Statistically speaking, any other option didn’t make sense.

“Count, Cassidy,” Ashley hissed. She had her fingers locked together, ready to grab Ava’s—our flyer’s—foot in the hold.

“What?” I blinked. “Right. Sorry.” I clasped my hands together, too. I realized I’d lost track of whether the Oilers were winning or losing in the game behind us. “Five, six…” Ava gripped my shoulder. “Seven, eight.”

The soles of Ava’s sneaker found my hand. I bent my knees and rocketed her into the air. Her body went rigid. I watched her from my vantage point on the ground as she held up the sign. Days ago, I’d felt renewed strength coursing through me. Today, my arms felt flimsier than cooked spaghetti.

Holding Ava’s foot in one hand, I turned out and thrust my fist into the air at an angle. I held the pose and recited the lines of the cheer. My enthusiasm was bleeding out. I couldn’t focus.

Just a little bit longer. I watched Ava closely. It was time for the catch. I felt the pressure on my hand as she bent her knees. She jumped and touched her toes. A shooting pain split through the center of my skull and cracked open the camera-eye view in which trickles of red streamed down a boy’s face like a sad, violent Harlequin doll.

“No!” I screamed, and jerked away reflexively.

But gravity worked fast. Ava was free-falling. Her dark hair trailed her like fluttering streamers. One foot nailed Ashley in the mouth. As she stumbled back, Ava’s other foot hit the floor at an unnatural angle. There was a sickening crack and she crumpled on the gym floor. A collective gasp sounded from the crowd. A whistle blew and the sneakers behind us stopped screeching.

I turned to see the basketball clutched at Liam’s side. The whole team stared. On the ground, Ava was writhing. Her thigh bone jutted out in a way that it shouldn’t. A thick bulge showed a sharp split in the bone of her leg. My stomach churned.

I glanced wildly at Ashley. She was hunkered over. Blood poured into her cupped hand. Erica’s arm was already wrapped around her back. Ashley’s red mouth worked and then she spit a tooth into her palm.

The weight of the entire gymnasium’s stares bore down on me. “I—I’m sorry.” My voice was paper-thin. “I didn’t mean to—”

Faceless adults began rushing onto the courtside. I took a step back. Then another. And another. I turned my back and I ran. My shoulder crashed through the double doors and I sprinted through the halls of Hollow Pines High until, half-blind with panic, I found the exit and fell gulping for oxygen into the fresh air.

I crouched in the fetal position outside where my knuckles pushed against the concrete. What was happening to me? What was wrong with me?

Oh god.

I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed that the earth would either swallow me whole or self-destruct.

“Cassidy?” Liam’s voice came from behind me. It now seemed a lifetime ago that I would have swooned at the mere mention of my name on his lips.

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and stood up. “What?” The word scratched my throat.

“I figured someone needed to check on you, too.”

“Don’t you have a game to play?”

Sweat glistened off his arms. “We’re taking a brief intermission.” He flashed me the same lopsided grin that had managed to sneak through my walled-up defenses that night at the party when all I’d wanted was to be alone. Didn’t he realize that he was intruding again? “While we wait for the ambulance to arrive.”

I grimaced. I tried to imagine myself through his eyes. Did he wonder what had happened to Cassidy Hyde the Homecoming queen? Or did he think that he had it all figured out?

“It’s not like she’s going to die, you know,” he said. “Ava’s too big to be a flyer anyway.”

“That’s not true,” I mumbled.