The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek(51)

Whitewood stared coldly, his hands still wrapped loosely around her neck. “I asked you a question, Candidatus.”

Alicia was on the verge of saying yes.

She decided to split the difference between rebellion and submission.

“Whose room was that?” she asked. “Who was that girl, Ruby?”

A cloud of rage passed over Whitewood’s features as he dug his thumb into her neck, his face reddening. He scream-grunted through gritted teeth as he again shoved her underwater.

Alicia immediately regretted asking. She should have just said yes.

But it was too late. Whitewood was screaming things above the surface.

For the first time since arriving at the Whitewood School, it hit her: She could die here. Is this what had happened to the students who’d been in those freak accidents over the years? Had they just pushed Whitewood too far?

When he brought her to the surface again, she would say yes. It was time. She would rather be a living Alicia with a compromised sense of self than a dead Alicia with no self at all.

But Whitewood was still yelling, showing no indication that he’d be lifting her anytime soon.

Her entire body was flooded with the panic she’d been holding back since the moment she’d seen Whitewood in that room instead of Josefina. She squirmed, twisted, and thrashed her legs, striking Whitewood’s shins and calves, which only inspired him to stiffen his grip.

She realized with horror that she might have missed the moment to save her own life.

And then, suddenly—just like she’d seen in movies but had always doubted could actually happen—her thoughts became a patchwork of disjointed memories.

She remembered her family watching Honey, I Shrunk the Kids on movie night, her mom and sister cracking up the whole time, her dad bemoaning the irresponsible parenting of the Rick Moranis character.

She remembered daring Leif and Rex to shoplift a Krackel bar from the Short Stop and neither of them being able to go through with it.

She remembered the day earlier that summer when she’d gotten so angry at them, the day she’d decided to show up uninvited at their island of stupid rocks in the Cape Fear River—the one place where their group friendship didn’t seem to extend to her, a reminder that no matter how close the three of them became, Rex and Leif would always have their own special, impenetrable thing—and overheard them coming up with the idea for PolterDog, laughing and high-fiving and congratulating each other on their brilliance. Another genius plan that the boys’ club had devised without her input. She’d lost it, getting back on her bike and pedaling furiously away. Then, when she’d seen the dopey mannequins in ridiculously puffy pleated khakis in the storefront of the Belk and realized they vaguely (ever so vaguely) resembled Rex and Leif, she’d gone inside and pantsed the crap out of them. And three others, too. It had felt very cathartic.

But even the most frustrating parts of her friendship with Rex and Leif were a billion times better than everything that had happened since she’d arrived at the Whitewood School.

She was going to miss them.

And there was something else, too.

About Leif.

She was finally allowing herself to think it. Seconds away from death—the world around her beginning to blur into hues of yellow—but still.

It had started that summer as they froze in position, Rex figuring out camera angles for the scene where Jessica tells her father that Mr. Bones has been run over. They were staring at each other so Rex could get the eyelines right, and Alicia was struck by Leif’s eyes. Had they always been so blue? Leif gave a goofy grin to break the inherent awkwardness of holding eye contact for so long, and Alicia smiled back, horrified by the part of her brain that was imagining what it might be like to kiss him. She’d pushed the thought away, then and always, for a billion reasons, one of which was that Leif definitely didn’t reciprocate the feeling, as he’d started to seem very irritated every time she was around. It was a ridiculous idea anyway. And now Leif would never kn—

Her head was lifted up out of the water.

Air.

She tried to consume as much as her lungs could handle, loud, greedy gulps that still weren’t enough. Her head pounded.

It took her at least a minute to even understand where she was, that Wayne Whitewood was still holding her by the neck, that she was alive.

She was alive.

Whitewood was saying something.

“…to follow?”

Alicia stared at him.

“Come on, Candidatus! I said: Are you ready to follow?”

She’d been given a second chance.

She nodded. She said, “Yes.”

Whitewood looked surprised. “What?”

Alicia nodded again, as vigorously as she could with hands clamped around her throat. “Yes,” she said for the second time.

Whitewood didn’t seem satisfied; he seemed taken aback. “Well, you— It’s too late!” He dipped Alicia back into the water, a quick dunk this time, but shocking nevertheless.

He wasn’t understanding her. Alicia must be miscommunicating somehow. She tried to get her mouth working, to tell him as clearly as she could: “I…will…follow.”

“No!” Whitewood practically screamed into her face. “You’re too late! It’s done, all right? It’s done!”

Alicia didn’t understand. What kind of a heinous mind game was this? Maybe she was dead. Maybe she was dreaming. Maybe her brain had been severely compromised by her time underwater. “But…I’m…” She searched for the right words, in case she wasn’t dead yet. “I…will follow.”