As soon as we rounded the corner out of sight and earshot of pretty much everyone, the three cheerleaders spun to face Collin and me.
“How much do you know about gossamer webs?” Tory asked, stepping toward me.
What kind of crazy question was that?
I stared at her. “You mean like the line from Poe’s ‘Pit and the Pendulum’?”
I’d always found that term fascinating—gossamer webs. Even in his short stories, Poe had a unique way of phrasing things. But right now… why was she asking that?
“Yeah, exactly like that,” Tory said, glancing back at her friends. “I guess.”
Behind her, Jillian and Meredith exchanged a look, then Jillian fixed her stare on me. “You heard about our detective agency. Did you hear anything else?”
It was clear they were hinting at something, but if they thought I knew what, they were wrong. I had no clue what they were talking about.
I shook my head. “Just that you’ve all been friends a long time and were in cheer together at your old school. That’s it.”
Tory drew a long breath. “Oh.”
“Okay, listen,” Meredith said, stepping up next to Tory. “We know you have dreams, Aubrey. Like, sometimes weird ones, right?”
“How did you—” I started, but something in her expression made me want to answer. “Yes. I do.”
Collin shot me a surprised look, but I ignored him. I was focused on Meredith.
“And sometimes—like maybe even the time your sister disappeared—your dreams seem to hint at things that happen in reality. Right?” Meredith continued.
By the time Meredith finished her statement, my heart was racing. I’d dreamed of Emery at the beach, at the water, trying to tell me something. But that was easily explainable. Just my brain coping with what had happened, like the therapist had said.
Except…
Deep down, part of me still believed it wasn’t. I’d had that dream before we knew where Emery had last been seen or that she’d even been at the gulf. I’d had it the very night she went missing.
Two years of therapy and many, many hours of self-coaching had told me that my timeline was mistaken, that it must have been after, that I was crushed and weary and I’d remembered the order of things wrong. But in those early days right after Emery disappeared, I’d insisted I had the dream first, and that she’d been trying to speak to me in it. That she was still out there somewhere, waiting for us to find her. For me to find her. Even though I knew it didn’t make sense, even though I knew the explanation had to be that I was either mistaken on the timeline or the dream was just a bizarre coincidence, I’d been sure.
That, plus my discovery of that strange page from Emery’s notebook, the one marked Tell Aubrey, where every quote seemed to hint at something deeper…
I’d felt like I was going crazy, back then.
I probably had been.
I couldn’t go down that rabbit-hole again.
I shook my head. “No. I have weird dreams sometimes, sure, but that’s it.”
Meredith leveled her gaze on me. “So you never feel like the dreams are trying to tell you something? Trying to warn you?”
Jillian locked her stare on me as well. “You never feel like, for example, your sister may have left you clues as to what happened to her and wrote them down somewhere in hidden messages that only you would be able to interpret?”
Emery’s notebook. I felt the blood drain from my face. “How did you know about that?” I whispered. I’d always felt there were more to those quotes and sketches, but—that was crazy, right?
Collin looked at me. “Aubrey? What are they talking about?”
Meredith watched me for a long moment. “Did your sister ever talk to you about us?”
I narrowed my eyes. “No. You weren’t even at this school, yet. How would she have?”
Collin stepped close to my side, then turned to the girls with frustration. “This is cruel, whatever this is, and you need to stop. If you can help us find Chloe, great, but I’m an inch from changing my mind about that, too, and we’re all about to be late for school. If you actually have something helpful to say, can you get to the point?”
They stared at him for a long moment while my heart raced.
Then Meredith crossed her arms. “We’re not going to school today.”
“Then why are you even here?” I spat back.
She laughed. “For you, of course.”
I gaped at her. “What? Why?”
Tory looked back at the other two, then shrugged. “She’s not ready. We should go.”
They turned to walk away.
I tensed. “No, wait! Ready for what? Can you really help us find Chloe?”
I was freaked out, but these girls could be my only chance at finding my best friend.
They glanced back and stopped, looking at one another.
Tory turned to face me again. “Have you had any recent dreams about her?”
I thought about the weird dreams I’d had recently—Chloe, hawks, ProScoop, a lizard stealing her wallet… and my stomach plunged to my feet.
Tory saw the recognition on my face. She looked deep into my eyes. “We came to this school because we heard someone was being targeted here. We didn’t figure out Chloe was the target until it was too late—but it’s possible they took Chloe by mistake, thinking she was Emery. They do resemble each other. Or maybe they took her as a way of getting to you. You and Emery may have both been targets.”
I gaped at her. “What?”
“Our trail for Emery went dead a while ago, but we’re not giving up, Aubrey,” Tory said. “On her, or on Chloe.”
I was pretty sure my heart actually stopped for a second. “Are you saying… Are you saying you’re looking for my sister?”
They glanced at each other, then Tory nodded. “Yes.”
“But she’s—” My throat tightened so much my next words came out as a whisper. “Are you saying you think Emery is alive?”
“We’re not saying that for sure,” Jillian answered, shaking her head. “We can’t say anything for sure, yet.”
My brain was spinning so fast it was about to burn out. “But she could be?”
The girls exchanged another glance, but didn’t answer.
My heart was about to jump out of my chest. I stepped toward them. “Please. I don’t understand. Who are you? Why are you looking for Emery? You said you think someone was targeting her. Why? And Chloe—” As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t help the tears from starting. “Why does this stuff keep happening to me?”
Collin moved close and put one arm around my shoulders.
I didn’t fight it when he did—I was coming apart, and at the moment, his touch was all that was holding me together.
Tory’s eyes locked on mine. “Because you’re special, Aubrey. Emery is, too. The same way we’re special… and others like us. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
I gaped at her, too confused to even respond.
Tory gave me a comforting smile. “We’ll let you know more when we can. Until then, go to school like normal. Stick to your routine, but don’t go anywhere alone. And don’t mention this conversation to anyone.” She turned her gaze to Collin. “No need to pay us anything. We’re already on the case.”
And then, right in front of us, all three cheerleaders turned into hawks and flew away.
They turned into freaking hawks! Human girls standing there with clothes and all, then poof, hawks flying off with talons and feathers and no clothes.
Hawks!
I was definitely questioning my sanity, now.
I stared at their winged shapes disappearing into the distant clouds.
Then I slowly turned to Collin. “Uh, Collin?”
He was still staring blankly at the spot in the grass where the cheerleaders had stood. “Yeahhh?” His voice cracked, but he kept staring at the grass.
In the distance, the starting bell for school rang.
“Collin, did you just see—”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “Yeah.”
“You didn’t—that wasn’t—I mean, they turned into hawks!” I accentuated my panic with frantic hand gestures. “Their clothes, them, everything, just—bam! Hawks. Hawks!”
He turned to look at me. “It wasn’t a bam, it was more seamless, but I do have eyes, Aubrey. I was standing right here. It might not make any kind of sense, but I know what I saw.”
I, on the other hand, was doubting what I’d seen. And my sanity. And basically the entire fabric of reality.
Wait—I’d dreamed about hawks. Was I dreaming again?
I stared at him. “Pinch me, Collin.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Fine.” I pinched myself.
Nope. Awake. Unless that thing about pinches not hurting in dreams wasn’t true. But if you couldn’t even rely on that, then how would anybody know what was real and what wasn’t? How could I know anything, ever?
Collin stepped in front of me. “You’re freaking out.”
I gaped at him. “Of course I’m freaking out, Collin! They turned into hawks!”
I could feel the whirlpool of what-this-all-means swirling in the back of my mind, threatening to suck me in.
I needed to move.
I spun and took off toward the parking lot.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Collin called after me.
When I didn’t stop, he jogged to catch up.
He ran a bit in front of me, then walked backwards to look at me as I caught up to him. “Aubrey, wait. Where are you going?” He looked directly into my eyes, searching my face for… signs of a panic attack, maybe?
But this was way worse than a panic attack. This was the cataclysmic coalescence of dreams and reality all into one big, confusing mess and I did not like it.
My body just wanted to run.
“Somewhere, Collin. Anywhere. I don’t know.”
“They said to go inside, to stick to routine,” he said, still speed-walking backwards to continue our conversation.
“I’m not going to school after that.”
His eyes locked on mine. “They said not to go anywhere alone.”
“I’m not taking orders from cheerleader hawks, Collin!” I yelled, finally stopping my frantic getaway.
Though maybe I was obeying some of their orders, since I surely wasn’t planning to tell anyone what just happened.
I sighed. “Okay, fine, I know what they said, but I can’t do this right now. Not here. I need to think. I need to be—” I looked at him. “How are you so calm, right now?”
He narrowed his eyes on me. “I’m not. I’m freaking out. I just do it all inside, like a man.”
I huffed a frustrated breath and dodged around him.
“Aubrey, wait. I was joking… kind of. I mean, I am freaking out, but I like to go through the stages first, you know? Shock… disbelief… I’ll get to the utter unraveling of my sanity in a few minutes, probably, if that makes you feel better.” He caught up to me and grabbed my hand. “Aubrey?”
I yanked it out of his grasp. “This isn’t funny, Collin.”
He moved around in front of me again, forcing me to stop. “Hey. Hey, I know. I’m sorry. I just—humor is a coping mechanism, probably a terrible one—but I’m here, okay? I saw what you saw, and I’m freaking out, too, and what they said about Emery, if that’s true, I mean—I don’t even know what to think. But I’m here, Aubrey. I’m here with you, all of it. Okay?”
I searched his face.
He looked entirely genuine.
I sighed. “Thank you. And I appreciate that, I do, but…” I was one thread away from losing it. “I can’t be here right now. I need to go home. No one would expect me to be at school today, anyway.” I stared at the parking lot.
Oh, yeah. Collin was my ride.
I sighed again. “I don’t want to go inside. I’ll just sneak out through the gate and then call my parents to come get me.”
Collin stared at me. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m right here. I’ll drive you.”
“What about school?” He was so uptight; I doubted he was the type to skip.
Not that I was, usually, either.
“You said nobody would expect you at school today? Well, nobody expects much at all from me.” His tone was deadpan, but there was pain behind it.
Before I could reply, he headed for his car.
For a moment, I just stood there.
He looked back at me. “You want to get caught before we make our getaway?” he asked, then started walking again.
I jogged to catch up to him.
He glanced over at me as we hurried through the parking lot. “Here’s the deal. We are possibly experiencing some weird airborne hallucinogen, but let’s set our mutual insanity aside for now. If there really are shapeshifting hawks—or worse—mucking about around here, I don’t want your mauling on my conscience. And even if there aren’t, it would be very ungentlemanly of me to let you sneak outside the fence and wait for a ride when I have a car right here. If you want to skip school today rather than simply calling your parents from the front office like a reasonable human and waiting for them to pick you up legally, then I will be the accomplice to your burgeoning delinquency, but only if you let me drive you so I can make sure you’re safe. That’s my limit on misbehavior for the day. Otherwise, I’m heading straight to the office to report your truancy.”
I rolled my eyes. “Technically, this would only be an unexcused absence. It’s not considered truancy until—”
He cocked his head. “You gonna pull out Webster’s Dictionary every time I make a comment?”
I crossed my arms. “No.”
He stared at me. “You want a ride or not? The longer we stand out here, the more likely we are to get caught leaving.”
I could’ve waited for my parents, but that would’ve meant standing there on campus—or outside the gate—until they got there…or going inside to call them the proper way, which would require giving the office some reason for doing so, then waiting to be signed out, which I did not have the mental fortitude for at the moment. I sighed. “Yes. Fine. Thank you.”
Collin nodded, then crossed the remaining distance toward his car, unlocked it, and opened the passenger door for me before hurrying around and getting into the driver’s seat.
I slid in and shut my door.
He started the car. “Where to?”
“Home.”
He laughed. “After all that, you want to go home? I thought the whole ‘I’ll just call my parents’ thing was a ruse.”
“Yes.” Home would be safe—a good place to melt down in peace and hopefully find a way to make this make sense.
He eyed me. “Okay. Home it is, then. You planning to tell your parents what happened? Or what the cheerleaders said about Chloe and Emery?”
I drew a tight breath. “No. Not yet.” My parents had been through enough when we all questioned my sanity the first time, especially right on the heels of what happened to Emery.
This time, with everything going on with Chloe and the possibility that Emery might still be alive… I had to cover my bases, first. I couldn’t put them through that on so little information. Before I told them anything, I needed to know whether it was true. I needed proof.
I’d always thought there was something more there on the page she’d written for me, some message I wasn’t seeing, and after what Jillian had said…
I needed to get home and look back at that page from Emery’s notebook.
My chest clenched. “I need to go home. Now, please,” I said with an increased sense of urgency.
“You got it,” Collin said, backing out of his spot and heading for the exit gate.
“Thank you,” I said, reassuring my frayed nerves with the knowledge that it was a short drive. I glanced at Collin, and a random question occurred to me. “Wait. The limit on misbehavior for the day… was that for my misbehavior, or yours?”
Collin smirked, but then quickly squashed it and focused on the road. “Let’s get you home, Truant.”
***
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