Shadowlands (Shadowlands 1)

“This morning. You didn’t hear?”

I rolled my eyes. It was so natural for him to think that everything about his life reached every ear in school in a nanosecond.

“No. She didn’t…I haven’t even seen her,” I said.

“Well, I broke up with her because I couldn’t take it anymore,” Christopher said, squatting down in front of my chair like he was taking his catcher’s stance. “For the last few weeks, whenever you’re here…” He paused and reached for my fingers. “Rory, whenever you’re here, all I can think about is this.”

Then he leaned forward and kissed me again. I put my arms around his neck and he hugged me to him, tugging me up so we were both standing. I couldn’t believe any of this was happening. Christopher liked me back. He’d broken up with Darcy for me. I’d wanted this for so long, and, unbelievably, it turned out that he’d wanted it, too.

Christopher kissed me hard, like he was hungry for it, and I matched his every move. He tasted like Oreos and smelled like a fresh shower. When we tumbled onto his bed, I was so excited and baffled and flattered and happy. And then I saw Darcy’s face and I pulled away.

“We can’t do this,” I said, panting for breath.

“Because of Darcy?” he said, reaching for my wrist. He clamped his fingers around it, and I realized how big his hand was and how small my wrist seemed. He shook his head. “She’ll be okay. We’ll just—”

I turned around and sat with my back to him, my legs hanging down the side of the bed.

“She’s my sister, and she’s in love with you,” I said. “I can’t—”

“But, Rory.” He sat up behind me. “I’m not in love with her.”

“Chris—”

“Rory,” he said playfully. He slid over so I could see his face. “I have been trying not to kiss you for, like, two months. Every time you come over here, I get excited like it’s a date or something. It’s pathetic, but I actually look forward to calculus tutoring. I can’t take it anymore. And yeah, it sucks that you’re the sister of the girl I’ve been with for the last two years, but that’s just the way it is.” He pushed a lock of hair behind my ear. “I want to be with you, not her.”

They were the sweetest words anyone had ever said to me. Someone had picked me. Mousy, too-smart, awkward me over popular, gorgeous, witty Darcy. But Darcy was all about Christopher. She jumped whenever he texted. She wore his varsity jacket around the house even when the heat was jacked up.

So I told him no, and I got up and I left. But he still came over the next day when Darcy was at cheerleading practice and asked me to the holiday dance. And though I wanted nothing more than to go with him, I still said no. Because Darcy had spent the whole night crying in her room. And I couldn’t do that to her.

The rhythmic ticking of the chemistry-themed clock my mom had bought me for my tenth birthday brought me back to the present. My breathing slowed and I felt a little calmer. Maybe I couldn’t have gone out with Christopher then, but I could at least tell him how I felt now, especially considering how mean Darcy was being. If nothing else, the experience with Steven Nell was an awful reminder that life was short.

I opened my eyes, and my room came slowly into focus. Outside the window, rain had started to fall. A screen saver picture of me and my mom at the finish line of my first track meet flashed across my laptop. My blue yoga mat was unfurled on the floor from when I’d done my abs exercises, my fallen phone sitting in the center of it. A running shoe poked out from underneath my white bed skirt. Then I blinked. I could have sworn I’d left my bed unmade that morning—I’d been having nightmares ever since the attack, and it felt pointless to smooth out the sheets when I’d just wildly tangle them up each night. But now it was made with perfect hospital corners, the pillows neatly fluffed. And there, on my patchwork bedspread, was a single red rose.

For one moment, I wondered if Christopher had left it for me. A small note card was tucked beneath the rose’s thorny stem. A ragged breath caught in my throat. On the card, printed in all-too-familiar capital letters and underlined three times, were five ominous words:

WE WILL BE TOGETHER. SOON.

I screamed. Loudly. My knees gave out and my butt hit the floor. I scrabbled back against the closet door and curled into a ball, sobs racking my chest.

“Rory!” My father burst into the room with Messenger and Darcy on his heels. “Rory, what happened?”

Shaking, I pointed at the bed. Instantly, Messenger was on her walkie-talkie, barking orders.

“Oh my god,” Darcy breathed.

“Get her out of here,” my father told her.

Gently, Darcy tugged me off the floor and into the hallway, where we both sat on the floor. Outside, sirens wailed.

“He was here, Darcy,” I whimpered. “He was in my room. He got past the officers…the alarm…”

“It’s okay. You’re okay,” Darcy said, putting her arm around me.

“It’s not okay,” I said. “He’s going to kill me, Darcy. He’s going to kill me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and cried. Outside, the roar of a helicopter engine filled the night, and searchlights illuminated the hall.

“How could this happen?” my father demanded from inside my room. “How did he get in here?”