&n
bsp; “I know you’re hurt and angry. Let me know if I can do anything to help you.”
Dana shakes her head. “The only thing that’s going to cure this is time.”
I look over her body; part of it in a cast, lots of it wrapped in bandages. “I think you need a lot of curing just now, actually. How badly did you really get hurt?” I still don’t know, because, like Dana, no one would give me straight answers.
Dana frowns and looks down her form to her feet. “Well, I have broken bones and internal injuries. The brain problems, which includes a little bit of spotty amnesia, they say should all heal fine. I’m not in great shape, but I’m getting better, so that’s something good. I guess it’s just going to take some time.”
“Just like everything,” I agree with her. “I’m here though. You’re not alone. You have your parents and me. If you need anything, you just let me know.”
She gives me a small smile. “I will. Thank you. That means so much to me. More than I can even really tell you.”
“You bet. I’m glad to be here for you. You’re my best friend.” I stand up and lean over to give her a careful hug. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
Dana gets emotional again, and sad. She looks up at me with sleepy eyes as her medicine begins to take effect. “Please tell them I’m sorry and I wish that I could be there for them.”
“Of course.” I hug her once more, and then we wave as I walk out of the hospital and wait for another car to pick me up. I’ll do something to right these wrongs, I swear it. But for now, I have a funeral to attend.
Chapter 2
It’s a somber scene at the school. The large field between the school and the forest is filled with rows of chairs and there’s a big tent up over it all bringing up the twisted image of a winter wedding. The main difference lies at the other end of the tent; a row of coffins surrounded by so many flowers that it looks like they’re all in Eden.
Only one of them belongs to someone I really got to know, even if it was just for a little while.
Alisha Kane.
Her coffin is white, and it’s covered in small pink roses. She and I didn’t really get along most of the time, but it breaks my heart to see it there. She might’ve been one of Victoria’s lackeys … but she couldn’t help that her best friend is a cold-hearted, manipulative witch.
I don’t know how I know it, but she was supposed to go to UCLA in the fall. It was all for show since he wanted to get into modeling and film. I think she’d have made it too, if she hadn’t been killed.
The irony of it all hits me hard. Alisha spent her entire time at high school following Victoria around like a groupie, doing her bidding and maintaining a place at Victoria’s elbow as part of her small entourage. All that only to lose her life because that same self-dubbed Queen of the school was so hell-bent on bringing me down.
Alisha’s father is standing at the foot of her coffin when I walk in, his hands pushed deep into his pants pockets and his head hung down to his chest. Her mother is half-draped over the blanket of pink roses, sobbing uncontrollably.
To the side of Alisha’s coffin, about ten feet away, is Chris Hardy’s coffin.
Even in death, Chris is as shallow as ever—with nothing to remember him by except for the name of his favorite rugby team. His coffin is black and covered in all sorts of things bearing the logo and name of the team, like some off-putting shrine.
His parents are sitting in the front row directly before his coffin, staring at it, still as statues. On the other side of Chris’ coffin is Drake Gordon’s coffin. It’s a beautiful, polished cherry wood, and there’s only a small arrangement of white roses in the middle. His father is sitting alone nearby, looking down at his hands in his lap. Chris Hardy and Drake Gordon are two of Astor’s follower-friends.
Were.
The chairs between me and the dead are packed with students, parents, and teachers. We exist somewhere between shell-shocked and devastated.
I hear my name called, and I turn to see Blair and Wills. Wills is holding a seat for me, and Blair is headed straight in my direction.
It’s such a relief to see them. They are my rocks through everything difficult, and my greatest joy when things are good. We’ve had a rough time of it, and for a while I thought I’d lost them forever. Victoria meant to break us apart, literally, but all she did was make us stronger.
Blair’s arm is in a sling. He was injured in the blast and the fire, but he’ll recover soon enough. He was right beside me and he blocked me from some debris, getting hit with it himself and taking the injury in my place, though I didn’t know it at the time.
I hug him tightly when he reaches me, and he wraps a protective arm around my shoulders as he walks me to our seats with Wills. As I walk down the aisle to my seat, I see Astor and Victoria at the end of the row. Astor is staring at me, and as usual, I can’t read the look on his face. I can’t tell what he’s thinking at all, but Victoria’s glare is undeniable. There’s that same hatred; that same loathing that she always has for me.
The last time I saw that look on her face was when she was leaving the party after she’d set off the explosion, hoping to pin it on me. She was doing all that she could to get me kicked out of Hawthorne Academy for good. Now she’s a murderer, but no one else knows.
I hate that. I hate that she’s going to get away with it.
I know she didn’t intend for anyone to die, but she could at least pretend to be sorry. She looks like she has absolutely no remorse. No guilt. No shame at all. If I’m reading her right, she’s just seriously pissed off that her plan failed and I’m still here. Top that with the fact that Astor’s staring at me again, and it’s the perfect recipe for her special brand of jealous rage.