I remembered the newspaper article. “Three friends. They all died together. But why?”
“I don’t know. All I do know is none had any documented history of depression or anxiety. Teen suicide is too prevalent already, but this recent rash makes me wonder if something’s happening to push them to take this horrible step. Perhaps it’s an online bully or some other trouble we’re not hearing about. I hope not. I hope no one else is headed for the same fate.”
“Me, too,” I whispered.
When Jordan and I were finally dismissed, with Ms. Forester’s cell phone number in hand in case we felt we had no one else to talk to, I worked through it in my mind. Four suicides in less than a week—and many more before that in the city. The four I knew about were students, but none were known to be depressed.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Jordan said in the hallway, voicing my thoughts. “Julie was fine. I spent hours with her yesterday and she was fine.”
I remembered the moment when Carly was swept away from me, taken by the Hollow. I’d completely lost my mind with grief and panic, scrambling to get her back—and if it hadn’t been for Bishop I would’ve been lost, as well. At that moment I would have done anything to save her.
“I’m so sorry,” I said shakily.
She looked at me strangely. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
“Of course I mean it.”
“Something bad is happening in this city.” She got a faraway look in her green eyes. Then she pulled something out of her small Burberry bag and showed it to me. It was a business card for DMM: Divine Model Management. “Remember the modeling scout who stopped and talked to us? She touched Julie just before she went all crazy.”
“And?”
“And...” She frowned hard. “I don’t know. I just get this gut feeling that she had something to do with this. Julie was fine, she was happy, and we were planning a trip together over winter break. You don’t make plans for the future if you’re thinking about killing yourself minutes later. Do you?”
What a bleak thought. But I had to admit it was a valid point. “I don’t know.”
She shoved the card back into her bag. Her brows were drawn tightly together. “It has to be something else. The modeling scout—when she touched Julie...it was like she drained her happiness away and left only misery behind. So much that she couldn’t deal. Maybe...maybe the same thing happened to the other girls who killed themselves, too. Maybe it’s all connected.”
I stared at Jordan, who seemed to have morphed into a tall, redheaded Nancy Drew. “That’s crazy.”
She hitched her purse strap higher on her shoulder. There was a wild look in her eyes. “Is it? It’s like that kissing mob I’ve been hearing about. I’m sure I saw one of them—I saw him kiss a girl and when he was done and ran away, she looked wrong. Like he’d hurt her by kissing her. I thought it was only my eyes, but she was all glazed and weak, before she snapped out of it. And I swear for a second she had these weird black lines around her mouth—like the ones that some dead people have been found with.”
“Where was this?” I asked evenly, heart pounding.
“At Crave.” She eyed me. “You’re not giving me a look like I’m crazy. Do you think it might be true?”
“I don’t know.” The fact that Jordan had seen anything like that had completely thrown me off. Up until now, I’d basically assumed everyone was somehow fooled in this city and didn’t realize there were dark things lurking around the corner.
But that was irrational. Of course some people would notice something amiss. Especially those who were hypercritical. That would definitely be Jordan.
“And then there’s Stephen,” she continued, as if she didn’t particularly care it was me to whom she was spilling this info. “I mean, I don’t know exactly, but there’s something bizarre going on with him. He tells me that it’s over, but—he got this look in his eyes yesterday...” She shivered. “I know he doesn’t mean to hurt me. I know it. I need to see him again.”
As much as I desperately needed to find Stephen again, he and Jordan coming face-to-face was a bad idea. I didn’t think she’d survive another confrontation without triggering his hunger past the point of no return. “Not a good idea.”
She glared at me. “I forgot for a second that you were drooling all over Stephen.”
Just when I started to let my guard down around her she had to unsheathe her claws and draw blood. “That’s not true. Look, Jordan, I know you don’t like me, but you have to trust me on this. Stephen is bad news and you need to stay far away from him.”
“I forget. Why am I even talking to you right now?”
She walked away before I could say anything else.
No, the two of us would definitely not become friends. Ever.
The rest of the day was a blur. I couldn’t concentrate at all. I kept going through what Stephen had told me about stasis, what happened with Bishop and the thought that the modeling agent could have somehow stripped away the happiness from Julie so much that she had to kill herself.
But, no. That couldn’t be it. What happened to Julie was a tragedy, a senseless tragedy. That was all it was.
If nothing else, school was a distraction. Because when I got home, there was nothing to keep my mind off my problems.
After a couple hours of feeling shut out and hopeless, the walls began to close in on me. I couldn’t stay here and do nothing while everyone else was doing something.