Teen Hyde (High School Horror Story #2)(5)

TWO

Marcy

An eerie green glow was cast by a neon sign in the shape of a pair of boots that hung over a slick, pinewood bar. The club was dimly lit with places to disappear into the shadows for those who wanted to. Those who were like me.

I’d been here before. I knew that in the academic sense. Only this time felt different. I rested my elbows on the counter and pretended to wait for a bartender while I searched the faces gathered there for one that I recognized. No luck.

I turned my back to the bar and scanned the crowd. Come out, come out, wherever you are, I thought darkly.

The small town of Dearborn, which neighbored Hollow Pines, only had a few hot spots to serve all of the college’s campus. This was by far the most popular.

Five faces had been seared into my memory. When I recognized none of them at the bar, I slinked into the mass of clubgoers. My mind flashed through the lineup of them. Nameless. Heartless. They could only hide for so long.

I reached my hand into the light jacket I was wearing. A wash of comfort blanketed me as my finger traced the blunt side of the knife stashed inside the pocket.

Strobe lights flashed across the dance floor. I studied the face of every boy that I saw. Laughing. Smiling. Drinking from frothy cups. In the cutting lights, they all looked like they had fangs. I stroked the hidden blade, biding my time. Soon, I told it. Soon.

And in a soft voice, I began to sing:

“Hide and seek, hide and seek,

In the dark, they all will shriek,

Seek and hide, seek and hide,

Count the nights until they’ve died.”





THREE

Cassidy

When I was a kid, I had a name for that place between sleeping and wakefulness. I called it Sleep Space. As in outer space. That little pocket of time when I was so relaxed in bed that I was practically weightless, a black hole between two different universes, left dreaming in no-man’s-land.

Sunlight trickled through the blinds in my room, warming my face. I buried my head deeper into the pillow and clung to Sleep Space as though I could stop the pull of gravity.

The door of my bedroom creaked open. Through it, the scent of bacon wafted, causing my stomach to growl. When was the last time I’d eaten? I wondered as I finally lost my hold on Sleep Space. My last meal had to have been dinner. Did I remember to eat dinner? I couldn’t recall. I took a deep breath in and my mouth watered.

“Cassidy?” My little sister’s tentative voice came from the doorway.

When I propped myself up on my elbows, I had to remind myself she wasn’t so little anymore. Honor was already one semester into her freshman year at Hollow Pines, tall for her age with cheeks splashed with freckles and hair two shades lighter than my own that fell to the crooks of her elbows. She’d been named after my grandmother, who passed away a few months before Honor was born, and ever since, the name had been a constant source of anxiety for her.

“Morning,” I said.

“Mom told me to tell you that she made breakfast,” she said, taking a step onto my carpet. “I told her you probably wouldn’t come down, but she made me tell you anyway.”

“Okay … well, what’d she make?” I moved a pillow behind my back and propped myself upright.

Honor looked at me like I was pulling a prank on her. “Mom’s making chocolate chip pancakes and Dad’s cooking bacon. Why?”

I licked my lips. My stomach growled loudly enough for both of us to hear. A smile tugged at Honor’s lips.

“You had me at chocolate. I’m coming down.” I wrestled my legs free from the covers.

“Uh, Cass?”

“Yeah?” My bare feet hovered a few inches off the pink floral rug laid across the hardwood floor.

“Did you go to a party last night?”

“Yeah…” I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the vanity across from my bed. “Oh.” I was wearing the same dark skinny jeans from last night and a fitted black shirt. Mascara and lipstick were smeared on the side of my face so that I resembled the Joker. I covered my mouth with my right hand and stifled a giggle. “I guess I need to clean up first, huh?”

Honor’s face brightened. “I’ll stall Mom?”

“Don’t let any of the chocolate chips get eaten without me.”

She grinned and scampered off. I heard the sound of her footsteps fading down the stairs. My chest squeezed as I remembered that this was the first conversation in weeks that involved me responding with more than one word.

Wiping the last threads of sleep from my eyes, I made my way into the bathroom and twisted the nozzle on the showerhead. Steam filled the room, fogging up the mirror, and I quickly stripped off my clothes, which reeked of smoke and alcohol, and jumped under the downpour.

I’d never fallen asleep in my clothes from the night before. Why hadn’t I changed when I’d gotten home? I closed my eyes and let the water cascade over my head. Actually, I had no recollection of getting home, period. I ran my fingers through my soaked mane, racking my brain for the last thing that I could remember. My fingers reached the ends of the front strands of hair on the right side too quickly. I felt around the chopped-off edge like I was touching the end of a missing limb and suddenly the sound of a scissor snip replayed in my mind. Liam barging into the bathroom, the tiny, yellow pill, and then … Sunshine.