Teen Hyde (High School Horror Story #2)(61)

“Are you sick?” she asked with concern. “You’re soaked.”

I felt the length of my sticky body to where my tank top clung to my ribs like Saran Wrap. Moisture glued strands of hair to my forehead. I rolled over to stare up at the ceiling, feeling weak and twisted but impossibly heavy all at once.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”

She turned into me, her freckled face inches from my cheek. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Cassidy. About what I did, what I said, all of it. I was an idiot.”

I sighed. “No, you weren’t. You were just … I don’t know … young.”

She tilted her head and rested it on my shoulder. “Thanks,” she said. And that was all she had to say because we were sisters and I would love her from now until eternity no matter what she did or who she became. I wanted to be someone that Honor could be proud to call her older sister, the way she used to be, but it seemed that every single thing that I tried failed. I was losing hope and options.

The only sliver of optimism available to me was the fact that another line had not appeared on my wrist. There were still only two. That was something.

“Do you want to know something crazy?” she asked.

I doubted anything that she could tell me would top any of the crazy confessions I could make, but “sure,” I told her.

“My friend Meghan said that Teddy Marks was rushed to the hospital yesterday.” If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a waver of something that sounded suspiciously like a giggle in her voice.

“Yeah?” I tried to keep my voice neutral, but my mind raced. The pictures. The poison. These memories, unlike the ones that had been played back to me, felt more like my own. Bright and real. And yet what had come over me? Had I really poisoned a sophomore?

“People are saying I cast a voodoo curse on him. I know they’re kind of kidding, but can you believe that? Me? It’s funny. Sort of. I mean, don’t you think?” She reached for my clammy hand, laced her fingers between mine, and squeezed.

“Probably not to Teddy,” I said.

Honor let out a soft one-note laugh. “No kidding.”

I lifted my chin. “Is he going to be okay?”

She wriggled free of me. She sat up and flipped her hair back behind her shoulders. “Yeah, he’s fine. Just some abdominal cramping, vomiting, you know that kind of thing. Meghan said he’s supposed to come home from the hospital later today.”

I exhaled a long breath of relief. That was good news. I was lucky. Teddy was fine. Maybe it hadn’t been such a bad thing that I’d done then after all. My sister saved some face. Teddy believed he’d gotten a karmic smackdown. He didn’t have to know that karma actually came in the form of a junior at his high school.

It wasn’t so bad. At least not this part.

I cracked a sort-of smile. “Well, at least he won’t try that again.”

I rubbed my temples with my knuckles.

Honor laughed but quickly stifled it with the back of her hand. “Sorry, I shouldn’t.”

But then we both laughed, only when I laughed it felt like something was stuck in my throat. There was no joy behind it, either. It was as paper-thin as I was. As though I even knew who I was anymore.

“You better wash that stuff off your mirror before Mom sees,” Honor says. “She’ll think you’ve gone off the deep end or joined some weird emo cult.”

I followed her gaze to the mirror above the vanity. My breath seemed to metastasize in my chest. There it was. A warning. HIDE AND SEEK, HIDE AND SEEK, IN THE DARK, THEY ALL WILL SHRIEK. Straight from her. It was like she was there preparing to reach through the glass and strangle me. Three more tally marks, and she was going to make sure she was the one to put them there.

My mouth felt dry, my tongue coated in dust. “I—I—was just messing around. Some … song I—”

But Honor cut me off. “Hey, when did you get that?” She slid her ankles off the bed. She reached toward the music box, and for a second I worried she’d open it up and find the tablet of Sunshine hidden inside. But her hand passed over it and she reached to the other side. She cradled a camcorder in her palms.

I jerked upright, quickly unsnarling my toes from the contorted blankets. “Um, hold on there—” I didn’t own a camcorder. I had no recollection of ever seeing this one before. So far things I didn’t remember didn’t have a great track record.

But my sister was already opening up the viewfinder, pushing the power button. There was a little chime to indicate that it was working. I made a grab for it and she snatched it away. “What is it?” she squealed. “Is it a sex tape?”

“No! God, of course not.” Or I hoped not.

“Whoa, Cassidy! Was … when was this?” Her nose wrinkled and she peered closer.

“Give it back.” I yanked just as she released the camcorder and I rolled backward so that my skull knocked against the headboard. “Oof!”

“Okay, okay.” She dusted her hands together to show that she’d let go first. “Geez.”

The effort left me panting.

“Was that Lena Leroux?” she asked.

The footage was already playing. I fumbled for the “stop” button while the video played and I was caught, mesmerized. It was shot at my school—worse—my school at night.