‘Go, Kara!’ Locke yelled from the back seat.
She did.
When we made it to the highway, the adrenaline that streaked through us subsided and our fear was replaced with laughter. I hadn’t noticed that Kara’s foot was still firmly on the accelerator. None of us had. The curve came up so fast. She braked, but it was too late. The car spun, hit the graveled shoulder. There were last-minute shouts.
‘Turn!’
‘Kara!’
‘Stop!’
Kara was crying and screaming, desperately turning the steering wheel. We were tossed about, none of us having bothered with seat restraints in our rush to leave the party. The car skidded, then rolled when the shoulder turned to cliff, a blurred, chopped nightmare where sound and light cut through us. I was screaming, flying. Tumbling. Glass sprayed like a thousand knives, and the world had no up or down. The fear was so complete it webbed together our screams and motion. Blinding white heat and light. Flying free and the sickening thud of my skull on soil. Or was it Kara I heard, landing next to me? And then the sudden sharp contrast of quiet sounds, like tinkling crystal. Dripping. Hissing. A drawn-out crackle. And soft moans that seemed to hover in the air above me. And finally just blackness.
I never saw Kara and Locke again.
I heard them. For a few seconds I heard their breaths, their sighs, their screams. I heard them. Like I do now.
And for all those months, in the dark place where I waited to be reborn, not knowing if I would ever see light again, between my own voiceless cries and pleading, those were the sounds I heard over and over again, the hellish sounds of Kara and Locke dying.
Self-preservation
They are my witnesses. They alone know that I didn’t drive.
Someday, sometime, someone will come for me. And I will have Kara and Locke to help me. Save me.
I can keep them.
The entitled Jenna.
How bad could it be to exist in a box forever?
The Last Disc
The cut-glass panes of the living room cabinet prism my reflection into a dozen distorted pieces. I search those pieces, the borrowed blues, reds, and violets, blended with glimmering flesh. I look for a shine, a difference. But I see nothing that says I am different from Dane.
Versions of me and my friends are trapped where I never want to go again. And I won’t help them. Blues. Reds. Violets. Flesh. Fragments. Almost human. The same reflection Dane might have.
I turn from the cabinet and go to the credenza that takes up a large portion of the living room wall. I rummage through the drawer, looking for Year Seven / Jenna Fox, the year where I can watch a girl who was still a child and didn’t know about expectations. A year when blue birthday cakes and surprises were all that mattered. Year Seven, probably the last year before I knew I was special.
Mother has straightened the drawer and the disc is not where I left it. I run fingers along the file of discs, searching for it, when I notice something else. The camera. It is at the back of the drawer in a space that has been saved for it, but it has been jarred. A disc has partially popped out. I reach in and pull it loose and look at the label.
JENNA FOX / YEAR SIXTEEN—DISC TWO
It shakes between my fingers. This is the last disc. The real last disc.
This is the one Lily wanted me to watch.
A Recital
Jenna floats across the stage. Her movements are precise. Her arms are curved in a graceful arch. Her feet pointing, her legs extending, arabesque, Jenna…
… chassé, jeté entrelacé …
…plié … pas de bourrée, pirouette, Jenna.
All at perfect angles, perfect timing. She raises en pointe, her balance pure elegance.
But her face is dead. The performance is all in her arms and legs and muscles, and none of it is in her heart.