Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
“Uh, okay.” Nikki releases a nervous laugh, noticing she’s gained the audience she thought she wanted but less certain of her motives now. “Are you threatening me?”
I slam my locker shut and smile at her. “No, sweetie. A good Catholic girl doesn’t need to make threats. God will strike her enemies down for her.”
At that I walk off, leaving her to consider the repercussions of messing with my sister. I don’t give a damn what anyone says about me. Come for Casey, though, and I’ll ruin your life and everything you care about. I am not the one to fuck with.
“That was maniacal.” A short girl with a nose ring swoops in beside me as I walk toward the cafeteria.
“Was it?” There are a thousand ways to get shivved in a school like this, and I don’t trust a friendly smile any more than I can spend it.
“Nikki’s going to have PTSD from that.”
“She should learn to pick her targets more carefully.”
“I’m Eliza,” she says. “You’re new.”
“So much for keeping a low profile.”
“It’s a small school. You were always going to get noticed.”
Something about her energy makes me like her, despite my cautious suspicions. She’s got a calm confidence and easy chill that saps the sting from my blood.
“You want to bail on lunch and take the nickel tour?” she asks.
It’s a better offer than what’s waiting for me in the cafeteria: a hundred whispering girls concocting more outrageous stories about my sister and placing bets on my next blowup. Casey has second lunch, so I can’t even check in on her. It’s giving me anxiety, if I’m being honest. Since the accident, we’ve barely spent a day apart. I thought I was growing exhausted with the nanny routine, but now I find myself preoccupied with wondering if she’s faring better than I am so far.
“My sister’s not crazy,” I inform Eliza, flicking up one eyebrow. “Just to get that out of the way.”
“Didn’t think she was,” Eliza answers lightly. “I know better than to believe a word any of those gossiping witches say.”
“Good.”
Following Eliza, we end up out beyond what I thought was the southern boundary of campus. Out here the vegetation has been left to its own wild devices to move in on the old gray stone building, climbing its pocked walls. There’s a steeple overhead with an opening where a bell would be. With a coaxing nod, Eliza pries open the heavy wooden door that’s swollen and warped after years of rain and humidity inflicting damage on its frame.
“I didn’t know this was here,” I remark.
The old chapel is dark and musty inside. It still holds its wooden pews and hymnals, although scorched and fragile. Pages strewn on the ground crumple with the vibrations of our footsteps that mingle with the prints written in the dust on the floor.
“There was a fire. Decades ago,” Eliza says.
“And they just left it here?”
“Yup. Story goes they were having choir practice, and a nun and some students were trapped inside. Died right here,” she adds, standing behind what’s left of the crumbling altar. “The families sued and the fight lasted for years. They never bothered to tear it down. I come here to smoke.”
Vines creep in through cracks in the walls, weeds growing up through the floors. It’s as if the earth is slowly taking it back. Only dim light manages to break through the stained-glass windows.
“This way,” she says, leading me to a suspect wooden ladder. Someone’s propped it up against a wall to get up to the empty belfry.
Eliza gestures for me to climb first. From the bottom, she holds the ladder to keep it steady.
I reach the top where the sunlight is nearly blinding after coming up out of the dark chapel. I feel around through hot white light for the ledge and grab on, feeling the ladder creak under my feet.
I sit on the ledge as my eyes adjust. First to colors, then shapes that emerge where the flares of sunlight fade. Clouds bring fleeting shade that allows me to realize just how high this is and the vast breadth of the campus below.
Eliza easily finds her way to sit beside me. There’s a slight breeze up here, but it offers no relief from the humid blanket of heat that clings to us. I don’t know if it’s the weather or the height, but my stomach churns. The ground below seems suddenly unsteady.
“You good?” she asks with a grin.
“I am now. I figured there was like a thirty percent chance you were bringing me up here to push me off.”
“And now?”
“Like six percent.”
Eliza barks out a sharp laugh. “Nice.”
We eventually get around to that cigarette. She smokes cloves, which I love for the taste but can only tolerate in small doses before my throat catches fire. By the time lunch ends and it’s time to head back, I’ve decided I like her.