Made for You (33 page)

Reid is staring at me. “What?”

His calm vanishes, and he grabs Grace and throws her to the ground. There’s a sickening
thunk
as her head hits something, a rock or tree root, I can’t tell. It doesn’t matter though. What matters is that she’s not moving.

“Grace!”

At my scream, Nate sees that Grace is motionless. He’s distracted and in that moment Reid takes advantage of his inattention to slam his elbow into Nate’s throat.

Nate lets out a gurgling noise, as Reid follows the throat-blow with a kick to the groin.

Nate goes down. He and Grace are on the ground. I’m not sure how badly she’s hurt, but Nate, at least, is conscious. He’s trying to get to his feet, but he’s clearly in too much pain.

Reid pushes to his feet. “Get in the car, Eva.”

He raises his foot to stomp on Nate’s throat.

“No!” I take aim and squeeze the trigger.

The sound Reid makes is more of a scream than a yell.

He falls to the ground.

He clutches his wound. The blood is thick and instant.

It’s not exactly the same as my vision. In the
real
moment, I made a different choice: I had aimed for his upper leg, and that’s what I hit.

I hear a car coming, but I move closer to them instead of turning to see who’s arrived.

Grace isn’t moving, but her eyes flutter open. She starts to pull herself toward me, farther away from Reid, who is sprawled on the ground, hands clutching his bleeding leg.

I lift the gun again, aim it at Reid, and ask, “Did he . . . what did he do to you, Grace?”

“Nothing. I’m okay, Eva,” Grace says in a raspy voice. “I swear it.”

Nate crawls toward Grace and pulls her into his arms. “Her head is bleeding,” he says. His hand is wet with her blood, and his face is filled with scrapes and the yellow beginnings of bruises.

I hear car doors closing now. I turn to see who’s arrived.

My gun arm is partway up again when I hear Detective Grant order, “Lower it, Eva.”

I swallow a sob and realize that I started crying at some point.

Then the detective is beside me. She takes the gun from my hand carefully and hands it to another officer.

Several more officers arrive. One of them is restraining Reid; another is checking on Grace. In a matter of minutes, an ambulance arrives, as do my parents and the Yeungs and Nate’s mother.

EMTs take over care for Grace, Nate, and Reid. They’ve taken Grace and Reid away from where we all were, but Nate is still on the ground near me. I hear him say, “I can stand.”

Officers go into the cabin. I watch it all in a stunned silence. It’s all so fast. I feel like they’re on fast-forward, and I’m moving on slow.

“Is he going to die?” I finally ask. I look at Detective Grant and say, “I’m the one who shot him. It was only me. No one else knew about the gun.”

My parents are hugging me, and I see that my mother is crying. I don’t look away from the detective though. “I can make a full statement. I texted him on Grace’s phone, set a trap, and then I brought my mother’s gun. I held him at gunpoint while he drove me to—”

“Nate called us, Eva,” she interrupts gently. “We know.”

I nod. I’m not sure how Nate called after he gave me his phone. I glance at him.

“Backup cell because of . . . the things you told me before,” he says in a still-hoarse voice.

My visions of Nate and my decision to
trust
Nate enough to tell him about the vision, those are what changed everything. He had a second phone; he called for help.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

I want to be in his arms right now, but my mother is clutching me to her. My father gives Nate a wide smile, and then he reaches down and squeezes Nate’s shoulder. Then his arms are around my mother—who is still hugging me.

When they release me, I turn so I can see Grace. The EMTs are still with her, and her parents are hovering at Grace’s side. When Mrs. Yeung sees me looking at them, she murmurs something to Grace and comes toward me.

“You’re utterly irresponsible, and I can’t believe you put yourself in this kind of danger, and”—she wraps both arms around me—“you saved my Gracie. Thank you. I’m furious at the risks you took, but right now,
thank
you.”

I nod again. I swallow, and try to say something, but I’m not sure what it would be so I close my mouth again.

“Are you charging her?” my dad asks, and I realize that Detective Grant has joined us.

“Charging her? With what?” Mrs. Yeung asks with a frown.

“Eva shot Reid.” My mother sniffles as she says it, and then she turns to the detective. “It was self-defense.”

Detective Grant shakes her head at us. “We’ll sort it all out. Right now, Miss Tilling should see the EMTs. She’s in shock. Then we’ll deal with the rest.”

“Shock,” I echo. That makes sense. I just shot a boy I’ve known my whole life. I’m in shock. I nod again, and then my parents and I sit down while a very nice man examines me.

Afterward, my parents take me in their car to the hospital. Nate is with his mother, following us. The police need to take possession of his truck temporarily to collect evidence. He couldn’t have driven it anyhow. He wasn’t injured enough to go in the ambulance, but he wasn’t in any shape to drive either.

I know that there are things that have to happen, but I need to be there for Grace, as she was for me, and I need Nate with me. I try to explain this to my parents several times, but they aren’t able to help me. Grace, Nate, and I all need to be checked out by the doctors and talk to the police. We’re all in separate vehicles—Grace in the ambulance, Nate with his mother, and me with my parents. After the past few hours, that seems wrong. We should be together.

Thoughts of the things Reid
did
, the awful events I heard about and the ones I saw, threaten to overwhelm me. I don’t want to think about any of it. Mixed in with all of those horrible details is one more truth that repeats like a refrain: I shot a boy tonight.

I shot him.

In that last moment, I wanted to kill him.

I shot him.

For a moment, I came near to shooting him again.

“Eva?” My mother’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts and closer to the world around me.

“I shot him,” I whisper to her.

“I know,” she says.

I reach up and take her hand in mine. I try not to think about sitting in another car earlier tonight. My mother’s hand in mine is an anchor, one I am afraid to release. “He would’ve killed Grace. She wasn’t moving. I wasn’t sure . . . I thought she might have died for a minute, and then Reid was going to kill Nate. He told me to get in his car, and he wanted to kill them, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Shhh,” my mother says. She holds my hand tighter. “It’s okay. They’re safe. You’re safe.”

“Everything is going to be all right,” my father adds. He has both hands on the steering wheel, and I can see how tightly he holds it. “Everyone is safe now, and your grandfather’s attorney is already at the police station. You’ll be
fine
, Eva.”

DAY 136: “THE AFTERMATH”

Eva

4 months later

L
ATE THE NIGHT WE
were released to my parents’ custody, I copied the recording of Reid’s confession onto my laptop. I also gave the police a copy the next day, along with my statement. They took my phone into evidence, but I’d have given them pretty much anything they asked without hesitation anyhow.

I’m glad I kept my own copy of Reid’s confession though. It’s not right to let the true story be controlled by lawyers and journalists. Micki wasn’t
their
friend. Amy wasn’t in
their
school. Madison didn’t spend her last day in
their
homes. It’s my story. These were things that happened to me, in my life, to my friends.

Over the last month, I’ve transcribed it. I’ve typed out every sick thing Reid said to me when he drove me to see Grace. Once I started doing it, Grace and I both started writing down our own memories of what happened. Last week, we told our therapist.

He says it’ll help. I don’t know if he’s right or not. All I have figured out is that having our part of the story typed up on my laptop seems like a good idea. It makes me feel better knowing that Reid’s version of reality isn’t the only one on record.

I’m not sure if anyone will read it, but I’m keeping it all the same. I reread what I just wrote:

He’s made the national news because of their deaths. We all have. For the first time since I can recall, I don’t want to watch the news. My father has started sending me texts of news articles unrelated to this so I can keep up on the news but don’t have to wade through discussions of the “Code Killer,” as the media has dubbed him. Papers and magazines are filled with speculation on the girl the media says was “made for” a killer, the girls he murdered, and, of course, the Code Killer himself. I’m grateful the media didn’t explode with stories about all of us while Reid was on the loose and unidentified, but they’re plenty attentive during his trial and incarceration. The media has latched on to Reid, and his lawyers are letting it happen—maybe they’re trying for sympathy or maybe he’s overruling their decisions. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’ve researched far more about killers than I want to. It’s not that knowing more helps, but I keep thinking it will. There aren’t a lot of serial killers as young as Reid. I know now that there were some: American killer Jesse Pomeroy was only fourteen, and so was the British murderer Graham Young. There are others, and whether or not Reid is a serial killer is not something I can debate now.

Maybe it’s because of Reid or maybe it’s my death visions—which aren’t going away—but I finally know what I want to do next. I might not have the specifics all figured out, but I’m looking at a future in law or criminology. If I’m going to be seeing deaths anyhow, I want to find a way to stop some of them. I want

A voice interrupts my typing: “Eva?”

I look up to find Nate standing in my doorway. He’s been at my side through every awkward day in the aftermath of Reid’s arrest. The first week back at school was hard, but it’s getting easier. People stare. They whisper. The rumors are worse because of the news coverage, but I walk through the halls of Jessup High with either Grace, Nate, Piper, Robert, or CeCe at my side. I’m never alone even though I no longer need help navigating crutches and books. After a little over four months on crutches, I’m finally walking well.

“Your parents are watching a movie with Aaron,” Nate says. “We can join them or go out.”

“I swear they think he’s their nephew these days.” I shake my head at how things have changed. My parents and Grace’s parents have all grown closer to Nate, and by extension, closer to Aaron and to a lesser degree Nate’s mom
and
Aaron’s mom. The downside, of course, is that getting any alone time with Nate is harder than I could’ve expected. When everyone watches your every move, stealing away is a challenge.

I click save and turn my attention to Nate. “So they’re downstairs with the television on?”

He grins and steps farther into the room. “They are.”

“And we’re up here alone for a few minutes?” I pull him closer.

“True.”

“Why aren’t you kissing me already?” I wrap my arms around him as he lowers his mouth to mine.

We’re safe, and we’re together. That thought has carried me through a lot the past few months. It carries me through early morning nightmares. Things get better every day, and I know I’ll be okay.
We’ll
be okay.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
HE MEDICAL ADVISORS
:
KATHY
Lamb and Lauren Remley for prescription help and TBI info; the entire amazing team at EMMC Pediatrics for being the inspiration for my pediatrics ward in a fictional hospital; Kimberly and Kaitlyn Vargas for talking to me about living with cystic fibrosis; Dr. Jennifer Lynn Barnes for articles on prosopagnosia.

The criminal advisors
: Diana Williams for insight on forensics and crime scene investigation; Laura Bickle for patients’ rights and legal procedure; Bryan Jeter (chief of police in Puyallap, Washington), Michael Prince (Apex, North Carolina, police department), and Detective Suzie Ivy for information on police procedure and criminal investigation. All the things that are right are theirs; the ones that are
wrong
are mine.

The support system
: Kimberly Derting, John Kwiatkowski, Jeanette Battista, Jeaniene Frost, Sera Lewis, Nikki Marckel, and John Dixon for critical reading and moral support; Laura Kalnajs for copious copyediting and general life organization; Alison Donalty for cover magic, gluten-free snacks, and ongoing fabulousness; and Anne Hoppe, Molly O’Neill, Kristen Pettit, Kate Jackson, Sally Wilcox, and Merrilee Heifetz for shepherding a book on obsession, murder, and romance over this long, long window of time.

The essential
: Asia for reading a dozen drafts of this and offering me wise notes every single time; Dylan for
not
reading this one; both of you for helping with your baby brother and a gajillion little things that you do that enable me to write; and Loch for giving me the idea that became a book (and being an amazing father to all three of our babies during such a difficult year).

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