Wrath

Chapter 14

Harper stepped up to the podium, and it was so warm and light under the spotlight, all the people beaming up at her with love in their eyes. It was such an amazing view with all the lights and colors and sounds so strange as if she could see them shimmering through the air, glittering filaments streaming toward her ears.

My turn, she thought and she took out her speech, but then it seemed so dull and colorless. She was so tired of keeping everything inside tight bottled up pressing against her insides. There was so much pain and now here today she could let it out.

Harper crumpled up her speech and tossed it away. Thank god for Xanax, she thought, thinking fondly of the two pills she’d popped before stepping onstage. If she’d been nervous before she now knew that was silly, ridiculous, there was no reason to worry, she was warm, she was loved, this was her moment, and she began to speak.

“I don’t know you,” she said, sweeping her arms out at the sea of people. “I know you, and I know you”-she pointed-“but not all of you, and you don’t know me. You think you know me, but not the me inside, you know? Not Harper Grace. Who am I? It’s like…” Train of thought vanished, because there was his face, glowing golden in the middle of the room. “He knows me. He loves me, but he won’t admit it. He thinks he hates me. But you can’t hate me, Adam, because you need me, we’re like one person, you and me, together. Remember when we were together for the first time?” She sighed and ran her hands up and down her body and moaned because for a second it was like his hands were her hands, no, like her hands were his hands-whatever it was, it was better than being alone, which is all she ever was anymore, and someone was trying to make her shut up to go away but she pushed him away and kept talking because she’d been silent for so long. “You couldn’t and then you could, and we screwed and-and then you left me all alone. Why would you do that, Adam? Why would you leave me when you said you’d never leave me? I’m so sorry, I’m sorry for everything and everyone and I was just so scared to say it, but I’m weak, I’m weak and bad terrible evil I know, but you said forever, Adam. Why would you do that to me? Why would you lie?”

And the principal was pulling at her dragging her away and she gripped the podium because it was too important, she needed an answer, but she’d lost sight of his golden face and now there were only strangers, and their laughter looked black and felt like knives, and then Harper, who had been feeling no pain suddenly felt it all and she broke from the principal’s arms.

Get away, that was all she could think, all she could do. Must get away.

Adam slumped down in his seat, jaw wide open, eyes squeezed shut. Whatever she was on-and it must have been something-she’d humiliated herself. Not to mention him. He couldn’t stand to watch. And it just kept going, forever. When will they drag her away? he kept thinking as the horror stretched on, and on. When will they make her stop?

Now she was gone, and they were all staring at him instead. He was a part of this freak show, like it or not, and he hated her for dragging him down with her.

And yet-inside, his stomach twisted into a tight, painful knot at the thought of her up there, broken, for all to see.

Did I do that to her? he wondered.

And he couldn’t help but care.

Maybe she really did love him, in her twisted, fucked-up way. They had dragged her off the podium as she flailed about like an animal-and wouldn’t stop screaming his name.

He should go to her. But then everyone would see him get up, walk out, and everyone would know he was a part of this. After all she’d done to him, he was supposed to forgive and forget, just because she had a public meltdown?

For all he knew, this was just another strategy to win him over, and playing into it would just make him look like an idiot, again.

Yes. No. Stay. Go. He froze up.

And by the time he finally made his choice, it was too late. She was gone.

If only life were TiVo’d, and she could rewatch the moment again and again.

I did that, she thought, watching Harper flee the stage, not sure whether she felt triumph or nausea. I won.

Of course, Harper could never know what Beth had slipped into her drink, or that she’d finally been bested by the one on whom she’d looked down the most. But it hardly mattered-after that performance, Beth suspected it would be a long time before Harper was able to look down at anyone.

Beth had expected it to feel better, sweeter. But all she felt was a sense of finality, as if this had ended things, with a fittingly sordid coup de grâce.

As she’d watched Harper self-destruct, her anger toward Kane and Adam had fallen away. As Harper ranted, and the laughter of the crowd grew louder and crueler, Beth decided that this was it.

She’d taken her revenge-and it had been necessarily brutal, but now it was over.

This is what they called “closure,” she supposed. It was a good word, because the past few months now felt like a tedious story she’d plowed through, pitting herself against the pages that mounted up with no end in sight. She’d made it through, and now she would shut the book forever. She would throw it away.

Beth was different now-thanks, she supposed, to Harper, to all of them. She was stronger. Harder.

There were four months to graduation, and she would spend them alone and miserable. But she would deal. She had let Harper turn her into the kind of person she’d always despised, and maybe there was no going back from that. But she could go forward.

Kaia made her decision. She would call the police, tell her story, take responsibility. She was in the right, after all. She was no criminal, and no victim, either. She had just done what had to be done, and that’s just what she would do now. Not because it was what her parents would have wanted, or what a million Lifetime movies would have advised, but because she just knew it was the right thing. She’d let Powell make her feel weak-but now that was over, and this was the way to be strong.

And then Harper ran out of the school, past a smirking Kane, past a zoned-out Secret Service guy, across the parking lot, and straight toward Kaia. It was like a sign.

Harper stopped a few feet away, her breath ragged, tears streaming down her face. “Kaia?”

“What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t-” She furiously rubbed at one of her eyes, her hand curled into a fist and tucked into the cuff of her sleeve. “Nothing. It’s fine. Nothing. Let’s just go, okay?” she said, her face lighting up like a child’s.

“Go where?”

“Away. Just away.” Obviously upset, the words were spilling out of her almost too quickly to follow, but they made sense. “Like you said before, let’s be gone. Jump into your car. Go. Out.”

Kaia didn’t stop to think. Get away, just drive-not forever, not for more than a few hours, but it would be enough. She could clear her head, gather her strength, and prepare for the coming storm. It was just what she needed; given Harper’s unexplained meltdown, just what they both needed. And when they came back, she would go to the cops, she promised herself. She would take care of everything.

Harper grabbed the keys from Kaia’s hand and jumped into the front seat. “Where to?” she asked. “We can go anywhere, I just want to feel the road beneath me-you know, drive and drive until it’s all behind us-”

Kaia opened the passenger door and hopped in, glad not to be stuck behind the wheel, so she could just relax, watch the world stream by through the window, lose her focus, and let all her worries escape. “Anywhere,” she agreed. “I don’t care. Let’s just go.”

She’d barely gotten the door closed when Harper shifted the car into gear and peeled out of the lot, pulling a sharp U-turn and speeding down the road, heading out of town.

“Harper, slow down!” Kaia gripped the dashboard as they flew over a speed bump.

“I can never go back there,” Harper was saying, pushing the car faster and faster. They whipped around a sharp curve and Kaia gasped-but at least now they’d passed through the town limits and were out in the open, where speed was exhilarating, not deadly.

Kaia’s apprehension mixed with her stress and exhaustion, and through a strange alchemy, she suddenly found herself smiling, pressing the button to lower the top on the car. Suddenly, the speed was exhilarating. Like a roller coaster. And just as she used to do before she got too old for such things, Kaia raised her arms and screamed into the wind.

“We’re getting out!” Harper cried, and Kaia closed her eyes, letting the wind thunder in her ears, the sun warm her face. Whatever had happened, whatever would happen, they had this one moment.

And in this moment, they were finally free.

He didn’t see them until it was too late.

They came barreling over the hill out of nowhere, swerving from lane to lane as if they owned the road. He’d been up all night, driving across the state. His reflexes maybe weren’t what they should have been, and the van was hard to maneuver.

He veered out of the way as soon as he spotted them-but it wasn’t soon enough.

The scream of the metal as his van sliced through the body of their car-it was a sound he’d remember for the rest of his life.

It was a long, slow, grinding whine, a high screech, a sickening crunch.

The van was big, tough. And when it was over, the van was pretty much intact.

The BMW wasn’t as lucky. The force of the impact had knocked it off the road, flipped it over, crushed it.

It barely looked like a car anymore. And whoever had been inside-

He looked away.

Not my fault, he assured himself. Not my problem.

The van was dented, but still running. And he had a long drive ahead of him. Better to start now.

Someone else would come along, eventually.

They always did.

It hurt to open her eyes. It hurt to move.

She did neither.

There may have been sirens, in the distance. Or maybe it was just the loud whine in her head. Or maybe she was screaming. Still screaming. She remembered-

What?

Horns.

Squeals.

And then she had been weightless, flying.

Darkness.

She could hear her breathing, ragged and slow. And she could feel pain. Everywhere.

Alive, she decided. I hurt, therefore I am.

There was something missing, though.

She could hear her breathing-but nothing else.

She remembered her screams-but nothing else.

She opened her eyes. All she saw, at first, was the bright white blazing sky. Then, slowly: tangled metal. Smoke. Licks of flame. Dirt. Rivers of red. And…

A body. Still.

She tried to open her mouth and call out. But no sound came. And in the wreckage, nothing-no one-moved.

She tried to reach out, to crawl over, but she was swept up in a wave of pain. It sucked her down, deep, back into the darkness, and she closed her eyes again, and let it drag her under.

Help was on the way.

And, eventually, it showed up.

Two ambulances tore off toward town, one speeding down the highway, lights blazing, sirens blaring. The other took its time, stopped at traffic lights, observed the speed limit. Its lights were dark, its sirens silent.

There was no hurry.

There was no one left to save.