White Rabbit(51)
Glancing over at Sebastian, I recognize anxiety in the set of his jaw, and decide not to share these bleak little observations. Two of his friends are dead now and, thanks to me, the lies he’ll have to tell about what’s happened to them are still piling up. Preoccupied with his fears for Lia’s safety, he’s probably not in the best place for more bad news right now, and I can tell I should maybe not mention yet that the night’s agenda might also include rooting around in the private business of a homicidal drug lord.
The fact of the matter is this, I suddenly realize: I have to lose him, one way or another. For his own good, I have to figure out how to make Sebastian go home and let me finish this by myself. After weeks of wishing all kinds of terrible fates for him, the thought that he might actually suffer one because of me makes my mouth go dry. He’s an ass, and I hate him; but I hate him because, no matter what I do, I can’t seem to stop feeling fucking feelings for him. It sucks. It really, really sucks.
The Jeep screeches to a sudden halt, and I rebound against my seat, my heart jolting anxiously. Glancing up, I realize we’re back at Lia’s house, and as I catch my breath, Sebastian thumbs her a message. We’re here. Coming around to the basement.
He doesn’t wait for a response—just jumps out of the car and sets off across the lawn, darting for a narrow side yard. As I follow, once again trailing in Sebastian’s wake, I shiver. The mist has thickened further, the air clammy and dense, and I feel it cling to my skin like cellophane. I can barely see onto the neighbor’s property, have no clue whether the block is truly as deserted as it seems, and I pick up the pace.
Down a flight of concrete steps, illuminated by an outside light styled as an old-fashioned lantern, a door opens into a finished basement. Lia’s waiting for us just inside, standing in the dark, her wide eyes shining eerily in the glow from her cell phone’s display—evidently in the middle of texting Sebastian a reply. Thick carpeting swells under my feet as we enter, giving off the scent of a recent cleaning, and through the shadows I can make out the looming bulk of a widescreen TV, a plush sofa, and a pool table. The Santos family might not be quite as rich as the Whitneys or the Williamses, but they’re doing a damn sight better than the Holts.
“What happened?” Lia asks immediately, her voice hushed but high-pitched, as though she’s worried about waking someone. “Is he okay? Hayden didn’t hurt him, did he?”
Sebastian doesn’t answer right away, his hesitation presaging bad news, and when he does speak his voice is thick. “Lia…”
“Just tell me,” she whispers.
Sebastian lets out a breath. “Arlo … he’s dead, Lia.”
Her phone’s glowing display chooses that exact moment to time out, and her face is plunged into shadow. She makes a strange noise, something between a gasp and a cough, and a high, thready whine drifts out of the darkness. “No…”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no, no, no…” Lia’s silhouette wobbles, she sucks in another strangled gulp of air, and then she drops altogether to the floor as though her legs have been swept out from beneath her. She begins to sob silently, her breath hissing out in convulsive bursts before being sucked back with a wet gurgle, and Sebastian gets to his knees to comfort her. Pitifully, Lia moans, “It doesn’t make sense! He said it would be okay!”
My scalp prickles. “What would be okay?”
“He said not to worry, he said it would be okay.” She rocks back and forth, her hands crawling through her hair. “He said it would be okay, he said he had a plan and everything would be okay. All I had to do was … was…”
“Was what?” Sebastian coaxes gently. “Lia, what happened tonight?”
She looks up, a bar of light from the window in the basement door illuminating the lower half of her face, making her tears shine as they slip down. Barely audible, her breathing still choppy, she confesses, “We went back.”
“You went back. You mean, to the lake house?” In a flash, I’m down on my knees, too. “When?”
“After everyone left.” She blinks miserably, her glistening eyes finally visible to me again as my own adjust to the dark. “Race and Peyton took off, and Arlo wanted to go back inside. He was really pissed at Fox, you know? He was so angry, I was afraid of what would happen, so I talked him down. I told him he’d better take me home, or he’d have to fight me, too. So he agreed, and we got on his bike. But…”
“But?”
“Halfway to town, he stopped. He pulled off the road somewhere in, like, Colchester, and just sat there for, like, a full minute. And I was like, ‘What the fuck are you doing? Take me home!’ But, instead, he turned back around and started for South Hero again.” Her sobs have settled, but her voice remains choked as she goes on, “I was, like, hitting him the whole way, trying to make him stop, because I knew he’d decided to go have it out with Fox after all, but he just ignored me. He ignored me.”
“What happened when you got to the cottage?”
“He was so pissed, he actually cut across the neighbor’s property—like, off-roaded through somebody’s garden and almost got clotheslined by a tree branch—because it was shorter than going all the way up to the actual driveway. We just about crashed into the Whitneys’ water heater because he hit the brakes too late, and he didn’t even apologize for almost getting me killed!”