Death and the Girl Next Door Read Free

me. For one thing, I wanted a better look. For another, I wanted a better look. The first was for obvious girl reasons. Those arms. That jaw. Who could blame me? The second was because of what I’d just seen. Surely my vision was metaphorical in some way. Scorched clouds in violet skies didn’t exist. And thankfully, neither did that beast.
    I must’ve been in the restroom longer than I’d thought. Brooke and Glitch were waiting for me outside. But I couldn’t get those images out of my head. I’d never seen anything like them in my life.
    As I grabbed my backpack with a shaking hand, I sensed someone watching. I turned to see Cameron Lusk sitting in a booth, his shoulder-length blond hair visible even in the shadowy corner. Though we lived in a small town and Cameron and I were in the same sophomore class, we hadn’t spoken in forever. He was more the loner type, scowling at anyone who tried to communicate with him. But still, he was right there. It would be rude of me not to acknowledge his surly existence.
    “Hey, Cameron,” I said as I fished a tip out of my bag and turned back to our table.
    “Your friends already left a tip,” the barista said from behind the counter. “See you tomorrow.” She grinned at me, knowing I’d be back. If I remembered correctly, she’d graduated a couple of years earlier and had gone off to college in Albuquerque. Must not have worked out, since she was now a barista in a small-town coffee shop. Or it worked out perfectly, and she’d gone to college to become a barista in a small-town coffee shop. Hard to imagine, but okay.
    “See ya,” I said before glancing at Cameron again. He took the whole brooding thing way too seriously. The glare he’d graced me with could have frozen heck itself. “See you tomorrow, Cameron.”
    He lifted a finger in acknowledgment. I felt oddly honored.
    “What took you so long?” Brooklyn asked as I stepped into the late-afternoon sun. New Mexico was nothing if not sunny, even where we lived in the Manzano Mountains.
    “Did you see that boy?” I asked, scanning the street.
    “Cameron?” Brooklyn asked. If the distaste wasn’t clear in her tone, the wrinkling of her nose would have said it all.
    “No, a dark-haired boy, tall and really, really muscular.”
    Brooklyn jumped to attention and joined me in the search, turning every which way. “What boy? I didn’t see a boy. Especially not a tall, dark, and muscular one.”
    Glitch peered in through the coffee shop window. “I didn’t see anyone either. Maybe you imagined him.”
    “I had a vision,” I said breathlessly, and two sets of eyes widened on me. I knew we’d spend the rest of the evening talking about what I’d seen. If my vision was even remotely authentic, something very dreadful was about to happen to that boy.

 
    SUPERNOVA
    Three days later, I found myself struggling against both melancholy and euphoria. But if I’d known my day was going to suck like a turbo-powered Hoover, I totally would’ve faked the flu and stayed home. Or chicken pox. Or malaria. Instead, I’d walked to school like it was any other day. Like my heart wasn’t breaking. Like my head wasn’t reeling and my feet weren’t weighted down by the sudden and tragic onset of clinical depression, making each breath a trial, each step a struggle. I totally needed a car.
    I walked along Main Street, past trees and small businesses geared more toward tourists than locals, until my high school came into sight. Riley High was the latest and greatest achievement of the Riley’s Switch Board of Education. It was sparkling and new with stone arches that would’ve looked more at home in an architectural magazine than in a small New Mexico town. Heavy plate-glass windows lined the front with arched pillars at the entrance. The whole thing was topped off with a scarlet dome, like a castle tucked into the mountainside. Several outbuildings encircled the school, including the gym, the agricultural and