I need to kill again. The urge seems to come harder and faster every time now, the desire building in me like a scream. Tyler barely kept it at bay for a month.
In the window, Kinnear shuts his book and swallows the rest of his wine. For a second I imagine slipping inside, sneaking up on him. Smashing the wineglass and dragging the jagged remains of the stem across his throat. If only I could kill him in such a satisfying way.
I dig my gloved hands into my pockets, hunch my shoulders so my black scarf covers my chin. This is about the time he usually leaves the bar. So far, whether alone or accompanied, he’s always headed straight back to his modern monstrosity of a house a few streets away, but I have to make sure the pattern holds. Any minute now—
“Scarlett!”
My shoulders shrug even higher, because that voice belongs to the last person I want to run into right now.
Samina Pierce.
14 CARLY
“Maybe I got the time wrong,” I say.
I steal a glance over at Wes, leaning against the car door next to me. He’s drumming out a nervous rhythm on the dented metal, and the vibrations travel up my spine.
“No, she said six fifteen.” He takes his phone out again. “I ran into her after her last class, and she said, ‘See you at six fifteen.’ ”
This was Allison’s idea in the first place, spending Friday evening in Pittsburgh. She wanted to check out this thrift store in Shadyside, eat at some new Ethiopian restaurant, maybe try for student rush tickets at the Pittsburgh Public Theater. She’s been talking about it all week (“I have to get out of this town, I need some culture!”).
But now she’s nowhere to be found. “You could try calling her again,” I suggest.
Wes’s jaw muscles jump. I can’t tell if he’s furious with Allison or worried about her. Maybe both. She’s usually at least ten minutes late to everything, rushing in in a flurry of sorries, but not showing up at all isn’t like her. At least, as far as I know. I have to keep reminding myself we haven’t known each other all that long.
“Yeah. Okay.” Wes takes his phone out again, but before he can dial her number, the screen lights up with a text. His face falls.
“What?” I lean closer to look. When he holds the phone out to show me the message, our shoulders touch.
So sorry can’t make it tonight, maybe next week?
Wes sighs and slips the phone back into his jeans pocket. I feel a flare of annoyance so sudden and hot it’s like flames singeing my skin. But that’s not fair. Maybe she has a good reason for canceling.
Or maybe she got a better offer from that slimy asshole Bash. He’s pretty much all Allison talks about now—that and Cabaret. But that’s about him too, I guess.
I push off the car and start to walk away before Wes can see how upset I am.
“We could still go,” Wes calls after me.
I stop and turn back to look at him, my Doc Martens grinding into the parking lot gravel.
“I mean, if you want.” He sounds noncommittal, but I can’t tell if he really doesn’t care or he’s just trying hard to come off that way.
It’s already getting dark. It’ll take an hour to get to Pittsburgh, at least. And what will Wes and I even talk about without Allison? She usually does 90 percent of the talking.
But if we don’t go to Pittsburgh, then I have nothing to do besides go back to my room and sit there alone all night, studying and waiting for Allison to come back. And she might not come back—or worse, she might come back with Bash. The way he looked at her in the dining hall the other day, it’s obvious they’re going to start hooking up soon if they haven’t already.
“Okay,” I say.
“Yeah?” Wes says, squinting against the glare of the floodlights in the parking lot.
“If you don’t mind driving all that way.”
“It’s not that far. Besides, I’ve missed being behind the wheel. Allison and I used to drive all over Indiana when we were in high school.” He runs his hand over the top of the car like it’s a beloved pet instead of a rusty hulk that’s probably older than we are. “Once we even drove all the way to Chicago. Her parents were so mad. Do you drive?”
I shake my head. I got my license when I was sixteen like everyone else in my class, but my hometown is so small you can walk almost everywhere, and driving fills me with stomach-churning dread. It’s so much responsibility. So easy to take a life or cut your own short.
“Let’s go,” Wes says, unlocking the doors. “Copilot picks the tunes.”
I get situated in the passenger seat, brushing some Sheetz sandwich wrappers onto the floor, and choose an album at random. Punk-pop guitar fills the car, loud enough to rattle the windows. Wes taps his fingers against the steering wheel in time with the beat as he peels out of the parking lot. As we turn onto the county road that leads out of town, he starts singing along under his breath—something about being “so tired of having sex.” My face flushes.
“Great choice,” he says. “This is my favorite Weezer record.”
“I’ve never heard it before,” I admit.
Wes looks over at me. “Seriously?”
I bite my lip and nod. Now that we’re in the car, headed out of Gorman, it’s starting to sink in that I’m completely alone with him. I’ve never been alone with a guy before. All my father’s warnings flash through my head—boys only want one thing—but I can’t imagine Wes being any kind of threat. He’s barely over my height, way skinnier than I am. It’s guys like Bash my father meant to warn me about, not guys like Wes.
“So what kind of music do you like?” Wes asks.
“I don’t really…” I look down at my twisting fingers in my lap. “I mean, I mostly read.”
Reading was my most reliable escape in childhood, the one way I could get away from my father while still trapped in the same space with him. That’s why I’m majoring in English.
“Tell you what,” Wes says. “I’ll make you a mix.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
“Just some of my favorites, and you can let me know if you like any of them.”
No one’s ever made me anything like that before. No one’s ever made me anything at all.
“That would be awesome.” I smile over at him, but he’s looking at the road, his profile glowing red in the dashboard lights.
The rest of the drive to Pittsburgh, we’re silent—except when the music runs out and Wes recommends another album to play next. I like that one even more: a solo female singer with a throaty, moody voice. She’s still crooning when we reach the Allegheny River. I hunch down in my seat so I can watch the bright yellow bridge girders blur by as we cross into the city.
We arrived too late to go to the thrift store, and then we can’t find the Ethiopian restaurant Allison wanted to try, so we end up at an Italian place instead, with white tablecloths and taper candles and soft piano music playing.
The second we’re seated, I start to feel panicky. This is totally the kind of place you would go on a date. But we’re not on a date, obviously.
“You want to order some breadsticks?” Wes asks.