I rested back against my pillows and wound up the music box again. As I looked around the room, my eyes landed on all the many gifts he’d sent since we’ve been apart. I still find it hard to believe some days that he actually feels for me the same way I feel about him, and I’ll be forever grateful that he was brave enough to make the first move because I could never have.
His love is the only thing keeping me sane in this sea of misery I now find myself in. I held my latest gift close to my chest and let the warmth envelop me, if only for a little while, before letting my eyes fall on the note that I’d dropped on my bed unopened when I walked in. It’s the third one so far, and I have no doubt that it contains more of the same of what its predecessors shared.
I knew it was too good to last, the feeling of joy and excitement that has been with me since Mandy was sent away. At first, I worried about being left behind while the others went off to college. I feared that things might go back to the way they were before Sian became my champion. But with Mandy gone, the rest of her entourage seems to have lost their teeth.
I found out only later that Jace and the guys had left stern warnings behind that if anyone even so much as looked at me cross-eyed, there would be hell to pay. It filled me with such joy the day Sian retold the story of how Alex had ordered some of the seniors to watch my back or else.
I had no idea any of this was going on or that he’d even have the presence of mind to think of doing such a thing. No wonder some of the older kids who I barely knew were overly courteous whenever our paths crossed. Some even go out of their way to search me out at least once or twice a week. People that I’m sure wouldn’t have given me the time of day otherwise.
Eden High had continued to be pleasant because of this, so I’d been hitting my stride, finally enjoying school and life with my nemesis gone and looking forward to seeing my Alex again when the dam broke, and a dark cloud was once again on my horizon. This one was even more ominous because I have no idea who or where the enemy is.
I picked up the note turning it this way and that in my hand, tempted to toss it but knowing that I wouldn’t. I was more afraid of not knowing what it said than of rereading the words that were sure to be there.
‘Tick-tock, it’s time to pay the piper. If you don’t tell the truth, I will.’ My blood runs cold each time I read those words, and the fear is even worse because I have no idea how much time I have left. The first one came in the mail, and at first, I thought it was Mandy until I learned that anything mailed from a correctional facility would be stamped as such.
The sender hadn’t added a return address, and everything was computer-generated, even my name and address. I soon stopped focusing on her, though, when the next one showed up in my locker at school a few days later, same as this one had. Now I’m paranoid about what comes next. Part of me wants to tell Alex and let him protect me, but the girl who was always left in the shadows, that wallflower that still lives inside of me, is deathly afraid of doing anything that might push him away.
But if I don’t do something, my mother will be in trouble. I have no doubt that the messages are about her. That somehow, someone had seen her that night, the night she went to Mandy’s. I guess I always knew that something was going to happen because of all that had happened that night. Even though the cops hadn’t found anything so far, and I have no idea what’s going on with the case now that Mandy herself is in jail for her own crimes, I always knew there would be a day of reckoning.
But why now? Now when things were finally looking up for us. Mom and dad were finally getting back to the way things used to be; my little brother is growing like a sprout, and I have Alex. But it can all turn to dust if I don’t handle this right. I just don’t know what the person wants since they haven’t asked for anything other than spilling the truth.
If I could pay them, I’d be willing to give up all that I own to make this go away. I’d give them my entire trust fund and be glad of it, but no, they seem hell-bent on destruction; they seem only to want me to tell the truth about what happened that night, which is the one thing I can’t do. And that brings me to the question of how do they even know I was there?