The Unbound: An Archived Novel Part 14

First Mr. Phillip, and now Bethany.

They both have something in common. Me.

A sinking feeling follows me through the halls and into cla.s.s.

Da said you had to see patterns but not go searching for them. Am I drawing lines where they shouldn't be, or am I missing something right in front of me?

No text from Jason.

I check my phone before Precalc and then again before Lit Theory. Finally, on my way to Wellness, I shoot him a message.

Did you get home safe?

I try to calm my nerves as I shove my phone and my bag into my locker, aware that the noise in the room is different. It's still loud, still full of slamming metal and the shuffle of bodies and voices, but those voices aren't full of laughter. They're full of gossip, and gossip is the kind of thing told in fake whispers rather than shouts, lending the locker room a kind of false quiet.

I only catch snippets of the gossip itself, but I know who it's about.

Bethany.

Popular girl. Small school. The students are latching on to the story. A clump of juniors thinks she was kidnapped for ransom. Another thinks she ran away with a boy. A handful of seniors echo Wes and Cash, saying they're not surprised, after what happened-but they never say exactly what happened. Instead they trail off into silence. One junior thinks she got pregnant. Another thinks she's dead. A few talk under their breaths and shoot dirty looks at the girls who don't have the grace to gossip quietly.

Whatever the story, one thing's for sure: Bethany is missing.

"I don't think it's that simple," says Amber, turning the corner.

"You can't turn everything into a crime," says Safia, following on her heels. "It's morbid."

They slump down onto the bench beside me while I tug on my workout s.h.i.+rt, wis.h.i.+ng it were long-sleeved so I could hide my cut-up knuckles. Instead I shove my hands into the pockets of my workout shorts.

"I'm just saying-there's evidence, and it contradicts."

"Admit it, you just want it to be more dramatic than it is."

"I'd say it's already dramatic enough. Bethany's life was like a bad soap opera."

"Ugh," says Safia, shuddering. "You just said was. Like she's dead. Don't do that."

"You're talking about that girl who ran away?" I ask as casually as possible.

Amber nods. "If she ran away."

I frown. "What makes you think she didn't?"

"Because that wouldn't be as exciting," says Safia, rolling her eyes.

Amber waves her away. "There's evidence that she was going to run away, I'll give you that. But there's also evidence that something happened. That she changed her mind."

"What do you mean?" I ask, closing my locker.

"Well, my dad told me that-"

"They got your dad involved? Already?"

"Not officially," says Amber. "But he knows Bethany's mom, so he agreed to look into it."

My chest tightens. Make that two things the cases have in common. Me. And the detective. It's nothing, I tell myself as I follow Amber and Safia into the gym. It's nothing, because I didn't do anything. I was nice. I was helpful. I made two people's days better. And those two people just happened to disappear.

"Anyway," says Amber, "Bethany's backpack and purse were missing, too. But the car was still there, and there was a suitcase tucked in the back, and the car door was open. Either she was grabbed, or she got halfway through leaving and then decided to just walk away instead."

She and Safia head for the mats, and even though I want to run-want to do something to clear my head and calm my nerves-I follow.

"Which would be smart," Amber is saying, "if she really wanted to disappear, since cars are so easy to track."

"Why is everyone convinced she wanted to disappear?" I ask, sinking down onto the mat. "People keep saying they're not surprised, that it was only a matter of time. What do they mean?"

Amber sighs. "Over the summer, my dad was called out to Bethany's house on a noise complaint. There'd been a screaming match, and when he got there, he found Bethany in the driveway with all her things."

"Back up," says Safia. "You're skipping all the good bits." She turns to me. "Okay, so Bethany's mom is a leech. That's what we call it when you only marry someone for their money. Then Beth's dad's company hits a b.u.mp or something, and her mom drops him like that." She snaps her fingers. "Takes as much as she can, including the house, and then turns around and finds this new beau to leech off of. He moves in after, like, three weeks."

"Girls," shouts one of the gym teachers. "More work, less chat."

"Stretching is an essential part of wellness!" Safia shouts back. She proceeds to exaggerate every one of her motions, which almost makes me smile.

"So," she continues, "sleazy dude has been there all of a week when he's home alone with Bethany and takes a go at her."

My stomach turns. "What happened?"

"She did what any self-respecting Hyde School girl would do. She punched him in the face. But when she tried to tell her mom what happened, she said it was Bethany's fault."

Behind my eyes the woman pitches the gla.s.s at Bethany's head.

"And the sleaze totally twisted it to fit," says Safia. "He claimed Bethany tried to seduce him. I'm surprised Bethany didn't leave that night. I know she thought about it."

"Dad reported it, but it was word against word. Nothing happened. But he told Bethany to call him if the jerk ever tried anything again. If she didn't feel safe."

"So your dad believed her."

Amber's forehead crinkles. "Of course. He's not an idiot. We all thought Bethany would bail, but she didn't. I guess I get it. She just had to get through this year, and then she'd be free." She shakes her head. "I don't know what happened. But it feels off. And why was that suitcase still in the back?"

Safia chews her lip. "Bethany told Wesley once that she kept a bag ready. In case she couldn't take it anymore. That when it got bad she'd sit out in the car, all ready to go. I heard him tell Cash. That still doesn't explain why she left it."

"Did Wes and Bethany have a thing?" I ask.

Safia arches a perfect eyebrow. "Why? Jealous?"

"I'm just trying to get on the same page."

"They had as much of a thing as Wesley has with anyone," says Amber. "Which is not much."

"He's a jerk and a tease," says Safia, even as her gaze wanders over to the track where he and a handful of other guys are running. She gets to her feet. "Look, not that this hasn't been morbid, girl-bonding fun, but I've got to scout a date for Fall Fest so I don't die alone. Cheers, kids."

Safia bounces off across the gym. Amber watches her go. She looks as unsettled as I feel.

"You don't think she ran away."

Amber shakes her head. "I know it's really early to jump to conclusions, I just have a bad feeling."

"Is the sleazy guy a suspect?" I ask.

"He alibied out, but it's not like he hasn't bought his way out of trouble before. I just...I don't trust anything about this. Do you ever get that gut feeling that something's off?"

"All the time."

"Yeah, well, I have it now. And it's not the car abandoned in the driveway, or the fact her mom and Mr. Sleaze pretended to care she was gone," says Amber, pus.h.i.+ng to her feet. "It's something else, and it's going to sound small, or stupid, but she had this necklace, and she always wore it."

My blood runs cold. "What about the necklace?"

"They found it on the driver's seat."

Lunch, and still no text from Jason.

I send him another message and lean back against the Alchemist statue in the Court. The rest of the group talks about Fall Fest next week and college applications and the n.a.z.i gym teacher, but I can't stop thinking about Mr. Phillip and Bethany. Two people who went missing right after I saw them.

I grip my phone.

What if it's about to be three? What if it already is?

I try to clear the thought. It's ridiculous. This doesn't have anything to do with me. I didn't know these people. We crossed paths. People cross paths all the time. Bethany could have run away. Maybe something spooked her-a call from her mom, a pa.s.sing car-and she gave up on the suitcase and the car and bolted on foot before she lost her nerve. It's easy enough to disappear if you have the money and the need.

But she wouldn't leave the necklace. She'd leave the house and the car and the life, but not the piece of silver. I know that just from holding it.

So if she didn't leave it, what happened? Another abduction?

"Waiting for a call?"

Wesley sits down beside me. I put the phone away.

"I'm sorry about Bethany."

"Me too," says Wes. "Did you two meet?"

"Once. Do you really think she ran away?"

"Do you think she didn't?"

I take a deep breath. "It's just...it's the second time this week someone's gone missing."

"It's a city, Mac. Bad things happen."

"Yeah, I know," I say softly. "But these two bad things have something in common."

"What's that?"

"Me." I look down at my hands. "I think I was the last person to see them. Both of them."

He frowns, and I explain about Mr. Phillip and the cookies, and about Bethany and the necklace. And then I dig out my phone and tell him about the runner this morning.

"So you meet these people, and then they just, what? Vanish? Why? How?"

"I don't know. But this is a bad case of coincidence, Wes."

"This is really bugging you, isn't it?"

I tug my sleeves over my hands.

"Look," he says. "It's weird, the way it lines up, but the simple fact is none of this is your fault. You haven't done anything wrong. Pretty sure you'd remember if you had."

A dark pit forms in the center of my stomach.

Would I?

I spend the rest of the day racking my brain for lost time, trying to remember if I've forgotten anything, which is as hard as it sounds. While Mr. Lowell goes on about social unrest, I scour my memory for patches of mental black ice, chunks of missing time, but I can't find any.

I went straight home from Mr. Phillip's.

I went straight home after meeting Bethany.

I came straight to school from the bike accident with Jason.

So why are they disappearing?

"These are the building blocks of revolution," says Mr. Lowell, tapping the board. "It's not enough to engender discontent, to weaken the people's faith. A revolution isn't a game of might so much as a game of skill. There has to be a strategy..."

It just doesn't make any sense.

"...a method..."

I don't know these people. We just crossed paths.

"...a plan of attack."

And then a dark thought occurs to me.

What if I'm being set up? What if these people are being targeted because I crossed paths with them?

But why?

Roland's words echo through my head.