White Rabbit(80)
“Rufus!” Sebastian’s voice comes with the harsh, staccato urgency of a hammer striking glass, and I swing around instantly. “Someone’s coming.”
He stares in the direction from which we arrived, the spiked limbs of birch trees and evergreens reaching for us like fingers emerging from a swamp. Out of the blue-tinged haze before us, a form begins to congeal—a figure trudging through the damp grass, steps almost soundless, footfalls deadened by the close, heavy air. I scramble to Sebastian’s side, my pulse thudding in my temples as the new arrival takes on shape and solidity: a bulky sweatshirt with the hood up; head bowed, hands jammed into pockets; long, slim legs.
“Race?” I call out sharply, telltale anxiety pitching my tone high, and the figure stops abruptly. We stare at each other across an empty patch of grass, my hands tingling as adrenaline throttles my heart, trapped by our mutual apprehensions. “This is good—that’s close enough. Whatever you wanted to say to Lia, say it to us instead.”
My words fall on deaf ears, the figure taking two more steps forward. Sebastian and I both tense—preparing for what, I’m not sure, because we never make it that far. As we watch, the person before us reaches up, pulling back the sweatshirt’s hood to reveal a cascade of blond ringlets and a pair of sharp green eyes that glint in the scant light.
It’s Peyton.
25
For a moment, we all just stand there, three pairs of eyes reflecting the same mix of confusion, mistrust, and disbelief. Finally, she demands, “What the hell are you two doing here?”
“What the hell are you doing here?” I sputter, too nonplussed to come up with anything snappier.
Peyton’s wary gaze darts between me and Sebastian, then drifts over the yawning cavern of the shelter behind us, her weight passing from one foot to the other. She looks like she’s trying to make her mind up about something. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone.”
“Lia?” Sebastian challenges, evidently wondering if maybe Race and Peyton are both responsible for Fox’s death after all—and conspiring to cover it up. I look at what she’s wearing: an oversize Ethan Allen lacrosse hoodie, baggy track pants, battered tennis shoes. Did she dress like her boyfriend deliberately? Or am I reading too much into a slouchy outfit she threw on over her pajamas for an early morning rendezvous?
“Why the fuck would I come all the way out here to some abandoned, bug-infested shit-swamp on the dark side of nowhere just to talk to Lia?” Peyton retorts, and it would take a logarithmic equation to express the amount of scorn she’s managed to pack into so comparatively few words. “I don’t even like Lia.”
Sebastian wrinkles his nose. “You’re one of her best friends.”
“So? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Peyton, if you’re not here to meet Lia, then who did you come here for?” I ask impatiently.
“None of your business.”
“Hello? Are we not all standing in the middle of the same bug-infested shit-swamp at five thirty in the morning?” I toss my arms out. “Just give us an answer, okay?”
“Fine. I’m supposed to be meeting my boyfriend, all right?” Even in the silvery morning shadows, I can see her cheeks turn pink. “Is that all right? Is that okay with you, Rufus?”
Sebastian and I share a curious and uneasy glance, and I lick my lips. “Why did Race ask you to come to Fernwood Park?”
“I don’t know!” Peyton starts fingering the coiled blond waves that spill over her shoulders, a gesture that radiates insecurity and makes me feel strangely ill at ease. Peyton Forsyth is someone I grew up resenting quite comfortably, as throughout my adolescence, I could always count on her to make the cruelest and most cutting of verbal attacks. Knowing how protected she is by her popularity, how little chance there is of any successful retaliation against her, she’s never shown any mercy or expressed even an ounce of remorse for her bullying. In fact, I’ve never seen her exhibit a single iota of vulnerability at all until this very moment. Tugging unhappily at a lock of her hair, she mumbles, “He wouldn’t tell me why. Things are kind of … he’s really mad at me right now, and I was just glad he was willing to see me at all.”
I nod slowly. “We heard about the fight you guys had.”
“Great.” Her hands slap down at her sides. “So the whole fucking world knows.” She fixes me with a venomous glare, waiting for further remarks, but I just let the silence grow until she feels the need to fill it again; when she does, though, it’s only to turn the tables. “So why are you here? And what does Lia have to do with it?”
Sebastian and I exchange another glance, a silent debate passing between us about how much we should share—or if there’s really any reason to hold back—and then he reveals, “Race wanted Lia to meet him here, too, but she was scared. So she asked if we would come instead. He didn’t say anything to you about her?”
“No,” she replies, bewildered. “No. I mean, it was a text—when he told me to come out here, it was in a text—and all it said was, like, ‘Meet me at the Tidwell Pavilion in Fernwood Park,’ period. I’d been calling and texting him for hours and it’s the only thing he’s written back.” Peyton does a frustrated turn, scanning what little we can see of the surrounding area, then jams her hands back into the pockets of her hoodie. “I don’t understand any of this! Why did he text Lia? Why did he ask her here? And what the hell do you mean, ‘She was scared’? Scared of what?”