Shadowlands (Shadowlands (Hyperion)) (2 page)

The flashing red-and-blue police lights left pulsating blurs across my vision. Christopher kept his gaze straight ahead, his breaths remarkably even as he followed the patrol car down my winding street, his windshield wipers whacking back and forth, too fast for the increasingly light drizzle. He pulled up to a curb near my house, where two dozen police cars were parked and a black van was stationed half on my front lawn, half on the street.

“Whoa,” he said quietly.

Slowly, numbly, I climbed out of the car. All I wanted to do was get in the shower, curl up in a ball on the tiled floor, and stay there until I felt clean again. But I had a feeling these officers had other ideas.

“Rory?” My father strode away from a crowd of uniformed police officers and severe-looking men in trench coats and stormed toward the car. His white button-down shirt was half untucked from his pants, and his threadbare tweed suit jacket flapped open. His eyes looked bloodshot, his nose red, and glistening raindrops dotted his dark hair. When he reached me, he threw his arms around me, his fingers digging into my shoulder blades.

As we stood there, dozens of strangers and neighbors eyeing us, I felt awkward and stiff. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d hugged me. My dad still picked me up from school when I was sick and made our favorite meals whenever he had the time. But ever since my mom died, he’d stopped checking in to see how we were doing or kissing us good night. He’d retreated into himself, developing this angry, simmering outer layer that was constantly set to blow.

A siren blared as another police car pulled up. The hug ended abruptly. Darcy hovered nearby, her slim arms crossed over her Princeton Hills High School Cheerleading sweatshirt, the black hood up over her dark brown hair to shield her from the drizzle. Christopher started to get out of the car, but the second their eyes met, he got back in and stayed there. My dad cleared his throat.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “When the police showed up at my lecture hall, I thought…” His voice trailed off, and he reached out to awkwardly clutch my wrist, as though making sure I was really still there. “If anything ever happened to you…”

“I’m fine,” I assured my dad. “I’m just—”

“What were you thinking?” he asked suddenly, pulling away. I flinched, my heart vaulting into my throat, and I took an instinctive step back. “Cutting through those woods
alone
? You could have been killed!”

Now this was the dad I knew. Quick to temper, quicker to blame. It was oddly reassuring—a normal thing in a surreal day.

“Dad, lay off!” Darcy snapped.

His face turned red and he looked at the ground, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

“Get inside,” he said quietly but sternly.

I ducked my chin, tears stinging my eyes, and walked shakily toward our house. Darcy fell into step with me, so close our shoulders kept grazing while we walked. One glance back at Christopher was all I could manage. He lifted his hand from the steering wheel in a semblance of a wave, his lips flattened into a tight, encouraging smile. Suddenly, I just wanted to be back in that car, back with him, back where I felt safe. But then he revved the engine, and just like that, he was gone.

Once we were inside, my father slammed the front door behind us. Then he stopped short. Standing near the wall in the living room, next to framed photos of me and Darcy when we were younger, was a slight woman in a dripping black baseball cap and a black overcoat. Several men in blue jumpsuits were sweeping through the downstairs, running mechanical wands along the walls and counters, while another climbed the steps to the second floor.

“Who are you?” my father demanded.

“My name is Sharon Messenger.” She took out a wallet and flashed a badge at us. Three bold, capital letters leaped out at me:
FBI
.

My heart started to pound painfully.

“Why is the FBI here?” my father asked, his forehead wrinkling.

The agent ignored him and turned to me. “Is this the man who attacked you?” she asked, taking out a smartphone and tapping one of the on-screen keys. Instantly, Mr. Nell’s face appeared on the screen, but he was much younger, with a mustache and square black glasses instead of his gold wire-rimmed frames.

“Yes,” I said, turning away. “That’s him. That’s Mr. Nell.”

Agent Messenger pressed her pale lips together. She slid out of her rain-soaked coat, hung it on the rack, then gestured toward the sitting area. “Why don’t you all have a seat?”

“Why don’t you tell us what’s going on first?” my dad challenged, squaring his shoulders. In his day, my dad was an athlete, a lean cross-country runner like me. But after my mother died, he’d stopped working out, stopped running, and now he just looked tired and weak.

“Dad,” Darcy groused, “can we please not make a fight out of this?”

My dad’s eyes flashed, but he sat down on the old recliner. I sank down on the far end of the couch, pulling my knees up under my chin and hugging myself tightly. Darcy took the opposite end, while Agent Messenger paced over the worn Oriental carpet my parents had bought on their honeymoon.

“The man you know as Steven Nell is actually Roger Krauss,” she said without preamble. “The FBI has been trying to find him for over a decade.” She stopped pacing and looked me directly in the eye. Her drenched black curls stuck to her neck, looking like tattoos against her milky skin. “He’s killed fourteen girls in ten states. First he stalks them. Then he hunts them down and… You’re lucky you got away.”

My blood turned to ice. Fourteen girls. He’d murdered fourteen girls. And I was supposed to be next. I was number fifteen.

“No way,” Darcy blurted, shoving her hood away from her face. “Mr. Nell is an actual serial killer?”

“It looks that way, yes,” Messenger replied.

Suddenly, the shaking started again. For the first time, I noticed the dried leaves clinging to the undersides of my sleeves. I ripped them frantically to the floor, my fingernails tearing at the wool.

Messenger took off her baseball cap, wiping drops of water off her forehead. She had purple bags under her eyes, her cheeks were gaunt, and a few strands of gray spotted her dark hair even though she didn’t look much older than thirty-five. I wondered how much of Messenger’s past decade had been dedicated to finding Mr. Nell—and failing.

“Krauss is smart. Brilliant, actually,” Messenger said in an even tone, like she was talking about the weather or a movie she saw last week, not a brutal killer. “He always covers his tracks and he’s a master at disappearing. Every time we get close, he slips away.” Messenger’s phone beeped at her hip. She quickly checked the screen before tucking it back away. “We had intel that he might be here in New Jersey, and now we have our proof. Every officer and agent in town is searching for him right now.”

“Good,” Darcy said, looking at me. “I hope they shoot him in the face.”

“Darcy,” my father warned.

“Can’t say I disagree with her, sir,” Messenger said, raising her palms.

“Agent Messenger?” a voice called.

The man who’d gone upstairs bounded into view, a plastic bag in his hand. Nestled inside was a small black square attached to a wire. A spy camera. “We found it in the girl’s bedroom, hidden in the slats of the closet door.”

“Oh my god.” Darcy’s jaw dropped in horror as she turned to look at me.

I couldn’t breathe. He’d been in our home. He’d been
watching
me. The shaking turned violent.

“Take it to the lab,” Messenger said with a brisk nod. “Figure out the transmitting radius. It might feed to a location nearby.”

My stomach clenched. “How long has it been there?” I whispered.

Messenger’s dark eyes softened. “It’s impossible to say,” she said gently.

I thought of my room, with its butter-yellow walls, my microscope, and my biology books. It was where I did my homework and ran my labs, where I called my friends, where my mom used to tell me stories about a frog named Neville to help me fall asleep. It was where I woke up each morning and got dressed and…

I ran for the hall bathroom, slamming my knees against the tile floor in front of the toilet. I heaved and heaved until my stomach was empty. Then I sat back against the wall and closed my eyes, blindly reaching for the flusher. Instantly, Mr. Nell’s face swooped toward me, and I pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, trying to obliterate the image.

If only I could erase the knowledge that Mr. Nell—the man who always wrote
GOOD WORK
in all capitals on my tests and underlined it three times, the guy who’d talked me into entering the statewide math competition last fall, the person I’d trusted and considered a mentor—had watched me in my bedroom and spied on the most private moments of my life. I had never felt so violated. I needed to escape. I needed a shower. I needed to get clean. I needed to be alone.

“I’m going upstairs!” I shouted on my way out of the bathroom.

“Wait.”

My dad stood at the end of the hall, a concerned look on his face. He hesitated for an awkward moment before asking, “Are you okay?”

Tears instantly sprang to my eyes. My dad crossed the living room in two steps, took the agent’s coat off the rack, and handed it to her. I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My father and I had just communicated. We’d actually understood each other.

“Well, thanks for coming by, but if you and the other officers don’t mind, I think my daughter needs some peace and quiet,” my father said, trying to usher her toward the door. She didn’t budge.

“I’m sorry, sir, but that’s not going to happen,” Messenger said, folding her damp coat over her arm. “It’s not safe for you to be here alone. There’s a good chance Krauss isn’t done with your daughter.”

My heart and stomach switched places. I clutched my hands together to keep them from trembling. Not done with me? What the hell did that mean?

“We’re going to place a protective detail on your house,” Messenger said, turning to look me in the eye, as if she knew how badly I needed reassuring. “I don’t want any of you leaving this house until he is caught and locked behind bars. That means no school, no work, no nothing.”

“What about my classes?” my dad asked. His job meant everything to him, at least since mom had died. “Summer term just started.”

“I’m sure the university can find a substitute,” Messenger said tightly.

“I guess that means I don’t have to take my bio final,” my sister said with a smile.

My dad glared at her. “We’ll have your school drop off all your homework.”

Darcy visibly sagged, but I barely registered any of it. Suddenly, I was back in those woods, running for my life, feeling Nell breathing down my neck while Messenger’s words echoed in my head, over and over.

Not safe. Not safe. Not safe.

“You’ll catch him, though, right?” I said urgently, finally finding my voice. “I mean, with all those cops and everything looking for him…there’s no way he’s going to get away.”

“I wish it had happened some other way, Rory, but this was exactly the break we needed.” Messenger placed a reassuring hand on my arm, her dark eyes locking on mine. “With any luck, we’ll have him by the end of the night.”

“What do you mean, you still haven’t found him?” my dad demanded.

“I’m sorry. We suspect he’s still in town, but he’s gone underground,” Messenger said wearily. Her black pants sagged around her narrow hips. “I promise we’re doing our best. It’s just a little bit of a waiting game.”

Waiting.
That was all we ever did anymore. Seven full days had passed and here we were again, gathered in the living room, listening to Messenger tell us exactly nothing. I leaned my head on the back of the couch and looked up at the ceiling, staring at the crack I’d been studying all week long. It had actually gotten longer since last Friday, snaking its way from the corner near the front door all the way to the center of the room. Next to me, Darcy’s silver-polished nails stopped clacking on her laptop’s keyboard.

“So, wait,” she said, slapping the computer closed and standing up. “You’re telling me we
still
can’t leave?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you,” Messenger replied, rubbing her forehead.

“No. No way,” Darcy snapped. “Tonight is Becky Mazrow’s graduation party. I’ve only been looking forward to it all year. There’s no way I’m going to sit here watching the Kardashians on my computer while everyone in my class is there.”

“Darcy,” my father said impatiently.

“What?” She raised her shoulders. “They can send me with a security detail or something,” she said, looking at Agent Messenger. “Their inepticy is the reason we’re holed up here like some family of fugitives.”

“
Inepticy
isn’t a word,” I said quietly.

Darcy ignored me.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s top on Uncle Sam’s priority list,” Messenger replied.

“I don’t believe this! You said you were going to catch him ‘tonight,’” Darcy cried, throwing in some air quotes. “That was a week ago!”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Sorry for what? Sucking at your job?” Darcy shot back.

“Darcy!” my dad thundered.

She fell silent and plopped back onto the couch, her chin jutted out in defiance. But the thing was, she was right. It wasn’t fair that we were stuck here. It made no sense that the entire FBI couldn’t catch one guy. I just never would have had the guts to say it.

“So…what?” I asked, crossing my arms over my
E
=
mc
²
sweatshirt. “You’re just waiting for him to show himself? To make a mistake? I thought you said he was brilliant. What’re the chances he actually screws up and lets himself get caught?”

Messenger didn’t have to answer. The resigned look on her face said everything. I pulled my knees up under my chin and hugged myself as tightly as I could. What if the mistake he made was breaking into my room and stabbing me to death before anyone could do anything? Had anyone considered that?

“Unbelievable,” my dad said, throwing up his hands. He paced over to the front window and looked out at the two police cruisers idling near the end of our driveway, a constant ever since the day I was attacked. A red light at the base of the window blinked at a regular interval, part of a complicated alarm system the FBI had rigged for the house. “I don’t think I can take much more of this. My sub better give that quiz tonight,” he muttered. “If she doesn’t give them the quiz, my whole grading system will be entirely thrown off.”

Darcy’s phone buzzed, and she groaned. “It’s Becky again. She’s going to kill me if I miss this party.”

“Enough!” I blurted, standing up. Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t sit next to her for one more second. “There’s a killer on the loose and he’s after
us
! I can’t believe you’re worried about a party!” I wanted to yell at my dad for caring so much about a stupid quiz, too, but of course I didn’t. All my angry thoughts toward my father always stayed just that—thoughts.

Darcy rolled her eyes. “I know you’ve never been to one, Rory,” she said sarcastically. “But they’re actually kind of fun.” Then she looked me up and down and slowly pocketed her phone. “Unless you like being under house arrest.”

“I
like
being
safe
,” I retorted.

“Why am I not surprised?” she shot back, rising to her feet to face off with me. “You’re here practically all the time anyway, holed up in your room with your little stethoscope and all your beakers—”

“It’s a microscope,” I spat.

“Whatever. All I know is, it’s no wonder you’ve never had a boyfriend.”

“Darcy!” my dad snapped. “That’s enough.”

Darcy shot me an acidic glare.

My mouth filled with a bitter taste. As desperate as I was to keep the secret about me and Christopher, there were times, like now, when all I wanted to do was throw it in her face. Prove that she wasn’t the only one with a life, the only one people found attractive, the only one who could take a chance.

As if on cue, my phone pinged with a text. I smiled slightly when I saw it was from Christopher.

Any updates?


Chris had texted a few times to check in on how I was doing. A couple of kids from the cross-country team had also reached out. They all had the same set of questions, questions they would never have asked if they actually stopped to think. Like
Were you scared?
or
Did you think you
were going to die?
And my personal favorite,
Did your whole
life flash before your eyes?

No. No, it did not. What had flashed before my eyes were the things that were actually there. The leaves budding in the trees, the cloudy sky, the dirt under my fingernails. All I could think was, These are the last things I’m ever going to see. I was going to die in the woods. The very same woods where Darcy and I used to play Peter Pan and Pirates of the Caribbean. The same woods where I broke my arm when I climbed a tree to spy on Darcy and her first boyfriend. The woods where I used to steal away and read my mom’s ancient encyclopedias when Darcy’s teasing got so merciless I couldn’t take it anymore.

I hit reply.

Nope. Still trapped.


Then I tucked my phone back in my front sweatshirt pocket.

Darcy glanced at me sharply. “Who was that?”

“No one,” I said quickly, hoping my cheeks didn’t look as hot as they felt.

Messenger rubbed her eyes. “You haven’t told anyone about the security measures here, right?”

“No, of course not,” I said quickly, a defensive tone in my voice. I always did what I was told. For a horrible moment, I wondered if that was why Mr. Nell had picked me. Because I was so predictable, so organized, so easy to follow.

Messenger rocked back on her heels, holding her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. I just don’t want you to get hurt again, Rory.”

My heart folded in on itself and clenched until it hurt. It was a new sensation, something that started after the attack, whenever I thought about Steven Nell.

“Look, guys, I understand that this is hard. I really do. I just need you to hang in here a little longer. Can you do that for me?”

Messenger’s tone was earnest. But she didn’t get it. None of them did. They didn’t understand what it was like to run through the woods with a killer on your heels. The only person I wanted to be with, the only person I’d felt safe with since the attack, was Christopher. My heart gave another painful squeeze, and suddenly I felt claustrophobic, like I couldn’t breathe.

Screw it. I was going to call him. Darcy would never know. If she asked, I’d just tell her I was catching up with my lab partner. Then she’d definitely leave me alone.

“I’m going to my room,” I said, already clutching my phone inside my pocket.

I turned and took the stairs two at a time, my heart pounding with anticipation at the very idea of hearing Christopher’s voice. The upstairs of our house opened onto a wide landing with a skylight overhead. All five doors, which led to three bedrooms, a study, and a bathroom, were shut tight. I opened the first one on the right, the one to my room, and closed it behind me, leaning against the familiar wood. I tugged the phone out, but my hands were shaking so hard I dropped it on the floor. I left it there for a second and took a deep breath. I didn’t want to call him sounding all out of breath and hysterical. I needed to give myself a second to calm down.

I closed my eyes, and instantly thoughts of our first—and only—kiss flooded me. It was back when I was still tutoring him, before I started working with his little sister. We had been sitting at the desk in his room. I was on his cushy desk chair, because he’d insisted, and he was on a hard kitchen chair he’d dragged up the stairs. It was two inches shorter than mine, which put our faces about even. I’d been crushing on him for weeks, but he’d been Darcy’s boyfriend forever, and I’d done a pretty good job of controlling myself by reciting the periodic table or listing the presidents whenever I wanted to stare at him. For whatever reason, though, that night I couldn’t keep my gaze from traveling back to his face every five seconds. He’d gotten his hair cut, and for the first time I noticed the flecks of green in his brown eyes. It was hard to believe anyone that handsome actually existed in my school, and I suddenly felt so jealous of Darcy for getting to kiss him. She got to feel what it was like to be in his arms. She got to have him look at her like she was the only girl on Earth.

Then Christopher suddenly had a calculus breakthrough and he jumped up, cheered like he’d just hit a home run, and spun my chair around. I laughed and closed my eyes to keep from getting dizzy, which only made me dizzier. When he stopped me, I opened my eyes again and all I saw was his face as he brought his lips down on mine.

The second he touched me, it was as if something inside of me was released. Something I hadn’t even known was there. But still, I pushed him away.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“I broke up with Darcy,” he blurted, breathless.

I felt like I’d just been tipped upside down. “What? When?”

“This morning. You didn’t hear?”

I rolled my eyes. It was so natural for him to think that everything about his life reached every ear in school in a nanosecond.

“No. She didn’t…I haven’t even seen her,” I said.

“Well, I broke up with her because I couldn’t take it anymore,” Christopher said, squatting down in front of my chair like he was taking his catcher’s stance. “For the last few weeks, whenever you’re here…” He paused and reached for my fingers. “Rory, whenever you’re here, all I can think about is this.”

Then he leaned forward and kissed me again. I put my arms around his neck and he hugged me to him, tugging me up so we were both standing. I couldn’t believe any of this was happening. Christopher liked me back. He’d broken up with Darcy for me. I’d wanted this for so long, and, unbelievably, it turned out that he’d wanted it, too.

Christopher kissed me hard, like he was hungry for it, and I matched his every move. He tasted like Oreos and smelled like a fresh shower. When we tumbled onto his bed, I was so excited and baffled and flattered and happy. And then I saw Darcy’s face and I pulled away.

“We can’t do this,” I said, panting for breath.

“Because of Darcy?” he said, reaching for my wrist. He clamped his fingers around it, and I realized how big his hand was and how small my wrist seemed. He shook his head. “She’ll be okay. We’ll just—”

I turned around and sat with my back to him, my legs hanging down the side of the bed.

“She’s my sister, and she’s in love with you,” I said. “I can’t—”

“But, Rory.” He sat up behind me. “I’m not in love with her.”

“Chris—”

“Rory,” he said playfully. He slid over so I could see his face. “I have been trying not to kiss you for, like, two months. Every time you come over here, I get excited like it’s a date or something. It’s pathetic, but I actually look forward to calculus tutoring. I can’t take it anymore. And yeah, it sucks that you’re the sister of the girl I’ve been with for the last two years, but that’s just the way it is.” He pushed a lock of hair behind my ear. “I want to be with you, not her.”

They were the sweetest words anyone had ever said to me. Someone had picked me. Mousy, too-smart, awkward me over popular, gorgeous, witty Darcy. But Darcy was all about Christopher. She jumped whenever he texted. She wore his varsity jacket around the house even when the heat was jacked up.

So I told him no, and I got up and I left. But he still came over the next day when Darcy was at cheerleading practice and asked me to the holiday dance. And though I wanted nothing more than to go with him, I still said no. Because Darcy had spent the whole night crying in her room. And I couldn’t do that to her.

The rhythmic ticking of the chemistry-themed clock my mom had bought me for my tenth birthday brought me back to the present. My breathing slowed and I felt a little calmer. Maybe I couldn’t have gone out with Christopher then, but I could at least tell him how I felt now, especially considering how mean Darcy was being. If nothing else, the experience with Steven Nell was an awful reminder that life was short.

I opened my eyes, and my room came slowly into focus. Outside the window, rain had started to fall. A screen saver picture of me and my mom at the finish line of my first track meet flashed across my laptop. My blue yoga mat was unfurled on the floor from when I’d done my abs exercises, my fallen phone sitting in the center of it. A running shoe poked out from underneath my white bed skirt. Then I blinked. I could have sworn I’d left my bed unmade that morning—I’d been having nightmares ever since the attack, and it felt pointless to smooth out the sheets when I’d just wildly tangle them up each night. But now it was made with perfect hospital corners, the pillows neatly fluffed. And there, on my patchwork bedspread, was a single red rose.