White Rabbit(6)

With most of the blood washed away, it’s even more apparent that she’s physically unharmed, her slight, pale frame streaky and textured with goose bumps but otherwise pristine. I sit her down on the lid of the toilet, and she stares at the white tiles of the floor, shivering and blank. Breathing hard from the exertion of holding her up, I ask, “Are you feeling better?”

A long second passes where she just gazes up at me, and then she gives a faint nod. “Yeah.”

“Where are your clothes?”

She raises her arm like it weighs two hundred pounds, and points vaguely into the master bedroom. “In there. Is … is Fox—”

“Get yourself cleaned up, put your clothes back on, and then I’m gonna need you to tell us what happened tonight, okay?” I try to deliver it like a statement, mimicking the way my mom “asks” me to do chores—I need you to mow the lawn, okay?—but my voice is shaking. I clamp down hard against the fear. I cannot lose control. Take a step back. “Can you do that for me?”

April nods again, and mumbles, “Yes.”

As I herd Sebastian back into the chaos of the living room, shutting the bedroom door behind us, I hear the shower turn on again. My ex-boyfriend gives me an incredulous look, his soft, kissable lips scrunching up like a cat’s anus. “You’re letting her take a freaking shower, man? She’s covered in evidence!”

“This whole place is covered in evidence,” I fire back, waving my hand around the connected rooms. We’ve tracked Fox’s blood across the pinewood floors, and streaks of it cling to Sebastian’s clothes, arms, and face. I’m standing there, trying to compartmentalize, fighting to think, when I notice his eyes bob up and down the length of my torso and I finally remember that I’m still shirtless. Even in the midst of all the shock and disorder, I feel a wave of wildly inappropriate satisfaction as my ex-boyfriend gets a look at how toned my chest and abs have become in the weeks since he dumped me.

I had this whole plan to turn into a crazy-hot sex god over the summer, to build muscle like an underwear model and then have Lucy take some “candid” photos of me that I could post on Facebook and Instagram and anywhere else Sebastian might see them and realize how awesome I was doing without him—so he could see the newer, hotter Rufus Holt and eat his heart out. My biology proved unequal to the fantasy, however; my upper body hardened a bit, but after putting on exactly two extra pounds of muscle, my narrow-shouldered physique seems to have just plain given up. No matter what I try, I appear to be stuck permanently on lanky. Still, I look way abs-ier than I did the last time Sebastian saw me without a shirt on, and I guess that’s all that matters.

“We have to call the police,” he insists next.

I shake my head. “Not yet.”

“What the fuck do you mean, not yet?” Sebastian demands, his voice climbing into the realm of hysteria. “Why not? Fox is fucking dead, Rufus!”

“Not until we hear what April has to say! We need to know…” We need to know what we’ve walked into. “We need to know what happened first.”

Something’s not right. On the surface, it sure as hell looks like April killed her boyfriend with a big old knife … but why? And why did she call me for help? At the risk of sounding selfish, this is the real reason I don’t want to involve the police just yet. Instead of her doting parents or her close friends or even our take-charge asshole of a brother, she’s involved me in this thing, and I want to know exactly where I stand before I start getting all reporty with the cops. My recent history with the law is dodgy, anyway, and I can’t exactly afford any misunderstandings.

“Just wait until she’s told us, okay? Just wait.” I try to sound authoritative again as I turn and start for the front door, my brain speeding while I struggle to close off any avenue of thought that doesn’t lead directly forward.

“Where are you going?” Sebastian asks, indignant.

“I just want to have a look around outside. I think— Let’s just know as much about what’s going on here as we can, okay? Before we call anybody?”

Sebastian is silent for a moment, his lips still pursed tightly. He looks more than a little freaked, but he gives me a short nod. “Okay. Okay.”

The second the door closes behind me, I sprint to the porch rail, barely covering the three steps before I start to heave. Nothing comes up but an unearthly retching sound, my stomach convulsing, drool running over my bottom lip as I struggle to breathe and fight my nausea into submission. The air outside is still heavy and warm, but it’s not until I start sucking in great mouthfuls of it that I realize how good it smells. For all its rarified trappings, the lake house reeks inside with the metallic stench of blood.

I will my stomach to settle, my head to clear. When I’m finally breathing evenly again, I step back and begin a methodical circuit of the house, eyes sweeping left to right as I look for something I can’t even begin to anticipate. Nothing special catches my eye, though—just more Solo cups and cigarette butts—and I soon reach the end point of the porch. A set of steps descends to the yard on my right, while on my left, a patio door affords me a full, Technicolor view of the kitchen and Fox’s body—still swimming in a lap pool of his own congealing blood.

With a shudder I quickly reverse course, tugging my phone out of my shorts. It’s damp from the shower but seems to have avoided the worst of the spray, and it still works. I’m definitely not ready to talk to the cops, but I haven’t totally lost my mind, either; I know an adult needs to be involved in this slasher-movie nightmare. But it has to be one that I trust.