TRIGGER-WARNING:
There is dialogue regarding child abuse in the latter half of this chapter. It is not detailed or explicit in any way, however, please proceed with caution.

-----

At breakfast the next morning, Rayne Foster found it difficult to eat. The food in front of her was as unappetizing as the tangled thoughts in her mind. Next to her, Lucas sat looking uncharacteristically posh in his pressed uniform, the crispness of his attire contrasting the deeper bronze his skin had developed. He'd been soaking up the sun on the soccer field, as if trying to stave off winter's inevitable grip—a coping mechanism, she supposed, a habit of obsession to feel in control of something again.

On Luke's other side, Pierce was engaged in a low conversation with Jackie and Hillary, who sat across from them. Cole, however, was absent—like a ghost in the wind.

No one had heard from him since the day before.

No one, except for Rayne, that is.

When she had kissed him, just to delve into his mind for more information . . .

The memory of their kiss lingered, the way their lips met not out of passion, but a desperate need for answers. Their initial touch that night had conjured numerous images, Cole's memories spilling carelessly into her mind, chaotic and disjointed. His memories were always messy like that, flung together like paint splatters against a brick wall. His surprise at the kiss had manifested itself as the image of a purple moonflower, blossoming at twilight. It was a strange, almost poetic vision, that triggered a pang of guilt she had to ignore.

Then, Rayne saw his parents, sitting him down on the sofa, his father's hand on his shoulder—the bearer of bad news. Divorce.

So many memories.

When Rayne pulled him close, Cole had tried to deepen the kiss, and flashes of her laughter, her hand in his, her rain-drenched white tee, all swept her mind. It also brought forth a false vision of Cole, hungrily peeling that wet shirt over her head and wrapping his arms around her—a dream perhaps? A desire of his that had never really happened.

Rayne bit his tongue and felt him smile against her lips. He had tried to pull her body to him, to feel her chest pressed against him, but Rayne finally found what she'd been looking for: Whispered conversations. Seven-year-old Cole, peeking through a cracked door.

"He killed her?" his mother asked, gasping.

"Quiet," his father hissed. "The Livingstons don't know. But at this point, rehabilitation is useless. My father is withdrawing his enrollment immediately and letting the system take him in."

Rayne saw another flash of herself in Cole's mind. This time, she saw herself pushed against the wooden planks of the shack, pulling him towards her as though she couldn't get enough. It was the same vision Rayne had witnessed the first day they met, only back then, she had seen Bianca Hawthorne in his arms—not herself.

These were only desires.

They weren't real. They were not memories.

Next, Rayne saw the crew huddled around candlelight in the middle of the shack, telling ghost stories. David, saying, "Ten years ago, a student was murdered, right here on campus."

Cole, taking a sip of beer. "We don't need to talk about that."

Pierce, tapping his nose. "No, David's right. It was a big deal, and they never caught the guy. All these security cameras, and it was like she was running from a ghost."

Rayne detached. Her thoughts ran wild.

Suddenly, she remembered every single, painful glare . . .

Nikki.

The look of twisted rage on her face in the gymnasium, sitting on the desk in detention, glaring daggers into Rayne's side whenever she was anywhere near Cole; and lastly, Rayne recalled the moment those dead bloody lips painfully screamed, "They're the same!"

Rayne ripped away from him and fled to her dorm.

She had not seen or heard from Cole since.

Sitting at the round booth now, Rayne sipped her tea when Jackie kicked her under the table. "Well?" Jackie pressed.

"He was off-campus," answered Rayne vaguely. The ladies at the table were eager to learn just how far she'd gotten with the whole Hillary-and-Mr. Davenport-scandal-control thing. She hadn't moved an inch.

"Who's off-campus?" asked Lucas.

Rayne huffed, "It's nothing," which prompted a puzzled look from Lucas. She added a soft, "It's a girls thing," nodding her head towards Hillary and Jackie.

This did not satisfy him.

If only he knew what she now knew about Cole, too . . .

Why hadn't she told him yet?

Lucas ate slowly, the burden of the mysterious DVD still heavy on his shoulders. Rayne surveyed his features until he raised his eyes to exhale and stare at the ceiling. When his eyes fell to meet hers, that breath turned into a small smile, and quickly, he averted his gaze back to his plate. Lucas never liked to look at her when they were in public, but nevertheless, the smile lingered.

Rayne's stomach twisted. He had no idea.

Rayne no longer needed to see the DVD. She knew everything. Or at least, she thought that she did.

Cole's uncle killed Nicole Livingston.

It couldn't have been that simple though, could it? There had to have been at least a decade between Cole's enrollment and his uncle's, and yet, the deaths have never stopped. Students were still dying almost every year. Were the Bradfords to blame? Or was it deeper than that? More complicated?

Rayne remembered the fire. "Shut up, or I'll kill you too," Cole had said to the woman bound with rope.

Clearly, he was capable . . .

Ugh, but there was something she was missing here.

Rayne dropped her fork, and the clatter caused everyone at the table to stop eating and stare silently as she said, "Where is Cole? Has anybody seen him today?"

"Oh." Pierce looked around the table. "We, uh, thought you knew. He's taking a mental health day."

"A what?"

Jackie explained, "It's an excused absence signed off by one of the school psychiatrists. You're allotted, like, two per semester. Sometimes more, depending on the case."

"It's not a big deal though," Lucas interjected. "Cole usually takes them when he doesn't need them." For a moment, his eyes were studious. "He really didn't tell you?"

Rayne shook her head, then fixed her eyes on her plate.

She felt Luke's leg brush hers under the table. When she looked up, he mouthed, "Are you okay?"

She nodded, but again, he seemed dissatisfied with the answer.

"He's . . . probably at the shack," Lucas suddenly offered, focusing on his food once more. "I'm sure he'd appreciate his girl checking up on him."

Rayne couldn't understand why she felt like she'd been hit with a truck. "Lucas, you know I'm not—"

Hillary laughed. "Oh, Rayne. If you're going to the dance with Cole, then you are definitely his girl. Quit fighting this and just embrace it already."

Sitting silently across the table, Rayne waited for Lucas to say something. Anything. He had to have known that she only said yes to the dance in order to appease David, right? It had only been two nights since David and Spencer discovered their little secret after all, and Rayne didn't really want to find out what Cole might do if he found out that she and Lucas had been spending every night together. After the visions and revelations she'd had the night before, Rayne knew now that she'd made the right call by doing so, too.

But now, facing Lucas, she felt a new wave of guilt crash over her. And she wondered what it meant.

◢✥◣

Dorian Matthews traversed the halls of Maria J. Westwood with a sort of languid etherealness. He kept his hand in his left pocket, fingers gripping the edge of his cell phone. At any moment, he should be receiving a text message from the policewoman. They had arranged to meet again, hopefully, sometime soon.

The rational side of his brain pulled at the reins, insisting none of this should be possible. Emma could not have spoken to his brother, because his brother was dead. Dorian knew this, and yet, there was still a hope, small and fragile like a dainty flame, fluttering somewhere in the dark, lonely depths of his heart.

God, he missed his brother . . .

The morning passed by with an easy slowness, each breath raising his chest, feeling both heavy and unnatural. He began to count them as the seconds melted into minutes and the minutes into hours. In his classroom, Rayne Foster's presence also felt unnatural and almost hypnagogic—as though just seeing her, here and now, without glowing green eyes, was somehow less natural than the woman in his dreams.

He thought of his brother, who held such an immense fascination for dreams in life. Could it be that perhaps, in death, his brother was trying to tell him something now, through dreams?

No.

That was ludicrous.

Dead men don't talk.

" 'Oh, blush not so,' " Rayne began, reciting poetry from an ancient anthology, " 'oh, blush not so, or I shall think you knowing . . .' "

Instead of teaching interactively, Dorian sat in his office chair, grading papers whilst each of the students read their favorite poems aloud.

" 'There's a sigh for yes, and a sigh for no, and a sigh for I can't bear it. Oh, what can be done, shall we stay or run?' " Rayne exhaled and closed the book. " 'Oh, cut the sweet apple and share it.' "

"Keats," Dorian noted sluggishly, trying so very hard to pretend as though the dream was not echoing in his mind at that very moment.

"Don't be shy," dream-Rayne had whispered, extending the offering of an apple towards him. It visibly shook him. Does she know?

Dorian rattled his head as if to shake the thoughts away from him. "It's a, uh, beautiful piece, Miss Foster. Why did you choose this poem?"

Rayne shrugged. "It was the first one I found that didn't suck."

Despite himself, he chuckled. Just a little. "Uh, okay then, yes, well, very nice." He waved his hand. "Lucas. You're next."

Sitting up in his chair, Lucas Abbott straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath, and looked down at the crumpled piece of paper in his hands. " 'Their smiles,' " he began, pausing to clear his throat, " 'are . . . etched in memory. Their laughter—forgetting everything. Until the fun, so unassuming, was nothing but a dream. And now, my eardrums . . . are forever booming, and ringing . . . with their screams . . .' "

Dorian met the teenager's sorrowful gaze. "Another original?"

Lucas nodded.

"It's excellent. Thank you for sharing." For a moment, Dorian paused. His cell phone buzzed in the pocket of his slacks. "Hillary," he announced, looking down as he withdrew the phone and held it under his desk. "What poem will you be reading today?" he asked, and for the first time in his career, Dorian did not listen for the student's reply.

Her youthful voice rambled off a title before diving into a poem that was uncharacteristically conservative for someone like herself, probably as a reaction to him having caught her with the History instructor, Vincent Davenport, just a few nights prior.

However, Dorian paid her no mind.

Instead, he read the messages that lit his phone:

Found someone we can trust.

Meet me this weekend. Saturday, falcon tavern. 6 o'clock.

Emma.

As soon as class ended, he was the first to exit the room. He briefly noticed Rayne Foster, who had met his eyes with steadfast intention. Those eyes swiftly fell, however, when he shook his head, rejecting her attempt to approach him, and instead, headed down the marbled hallway by himself. He didn't have time for her today.

He didn't have time to think about anything other than his brother. 

◢✥◣

"There's something I'm missing," Rayne Foster murmured to herself as she slipped through the hidden door of the custodial closet. After her American Literature lecture with Mr. Matthews, Rayne just knew there was no way she was going to gym class that day. Not with everything weighing on her mind.

First, there was the unsettling way that Mr. Matthews had curved her. And then, there was Jackie—impatient and anxious—demanding to know if Hillary's secret was safe. But what could Rayne do? They were the ones who had misjudged her relationship with Dorian.

Clearly . . .

But none of that mattered right now.

She couldn't stop thinking about Cole.

After last night, Rayne knew that she was on the verge of something—that much, she knew—and she was just oh, so sick and tired of being so close to answers. No more. This time, she would get to the bottom of things.

As Rayne descended the rotting staircase, she noticed something strange. The passageway, usually pitch-black, was oddly illuminated. For a moment, she paused, hovering over the trapdoor in the floor. The very first time she had walked through here, she couldn't see a thing. Rayne surveyed the small room now, eyes narrowing with confusion. She could see everything.

Thinking she'd heard a noise, Rayne turned around.

Silence.

Why could she see?

Rayne took a deep frustrated breath and hurried through the trap door. Time was running out, and she needed to ensure that she was back in time to meet with Red for therapy. When she finally emerged from the tunnel, climbed the ladder, crossed the forest, and reached the shack, she was relieved to find Cole resting on the green plaid sofa.

But that relief quickly turned into dread.

Cole was wearing his street clothes—a black T-shirt, black jeans, and light gray Louis Vuitton sneakers. It was strange, watching him lean back onto the loveseat where Lucas had held her the night before. Rayne couldn't tell if the pit in her stomach had been carved with guilt or fear. Hesitantly, she stepped forward. "What're you doing out here, Cole?"

"This is my sanctuary," he answered meekly. "I'm . . . thinking."

Sanctuary. Maybe she had her reasons to fear him, but right now, it was definitely guilt that fueled her nausea. She sat down on the cushion beside him, already knowing it was a mistake. "What're you thinking about?"

He tilted his head toward her, eyes glossed with frustration. "I don't know, Rayne. What am I thinking?"

She sighed. "Cole—"

"No, I mean it." He grabbed her hand, and again, Rayne saw that same moonflower—purple curls unfolding under glimmers of evening effulgence. His fingers gripped hers, drawing her to him. "Touch me. What am I thinking right now?"

"Stop it," she said, already reliving their kiss in her mind's eye. She felt the flames of his anger lap at her conscience now, and he squeezed her hand tighter.

"How about now?" A second, stronger squeeze emphasized his query. Cole's eyes were fierce, but he placed a hand on her cheek, eyeing her lips. "That's how this works, right? Your gut-feelings?"

"Cole, listen—"

"No. You listen." He jolted to his feet. "Believe it or not, I get it. I understand that desire, the need to know everything about someone—what they're thinking, what they've done, what they're doing, where they are! I . . . get it. And dammit, I love that you're not afraid to take matters into your own hands, but . . ." He spun around. "Rayne, that was personal. You had no right."

Her brow furrowed.

Betrayal? He felt . . . betrayed?

Without hesitation, she stood to meet his eyes. "How dare you."

"How dare I? How dare I, what? Feel something?"

"You have never asked my permission for anything. You push, and you push, and you push," she said, jabbing a finger into his chest with every word. "And you didn't ask permission the first time you kissed me either, so I don't know what to tell you Cole." She stepped backward. "Consider us even."

He shook his head, shrugging, eyebrows raised in disbelief. "So that's it then? It's just about settling the score?"

"Can you really blame me? For not wanting to trust a murderer?" she snapped. The irony lingered in the air around her, just as a few shadows began to slither and slip under the wooden door in curly black wisps.

"I don't know what it is you think you know about me, but I am not my uncle. I am not . . . a murderer," Cole whispered stiffly. "I've never killed anyone."

"Bullshit."

"Don't get me wrong, I tried to kill someone. But my stepdad is still very much alive," Cole confessed, closing the distance between them. His expression darkened as lithe shadows crawled towards them and pooled in circles at their feet. The moment Rayne's eyes fell to the black tendrils on the floor, Cole snapped her attention upward. "Is this news to you, Rayne? Because it's getting hard to tell what it is you do and don't already know."

"I . . ."

All this time . . . All this time, she had just assumed . . .

Surely, he was just as horrible and vile as she was, wasn't he?

His eyes expanded with a sudden realization. "That's why you asked me if I ever hurt anyone? That day, in detention. That's why?" He closed the distance between them, nearly nose to nose, his voice low and intense. "What is it, Rayne? What is it you think you know, huh?"

She shook her head. Around them, the shadow people stretched upward, and Rayne closed her eyes just as they transformed into abnormally tall silhouettes, obscure faceless figures enclosing them in a tight circle. "I . . . I don't know anything," she admitted.

Cole took a breath and bit his lip as though he wished his teeth would rip right through. "My stepdad put his hands on my baby sister, Rayne. My mom didn't believe me. No one did. And he beat me when he saw me . . ." He clenched his fists. "When he saw me seeing him for what he was, what he truly was—a monster. And it went on for years."

Rayne recoiled, trying to turn away from him, but Cole ducked his head toward her, demanding eye contact.

"What, is the truth too much, Rayne? I thought you wanted to know everything. You kissed me for answers, didn't you?"

"Cole—"

"You want to know what I did, Rayne? You really want to know?" he whispered. "One day, I finally had enough. I tied him to the bed—the same bed that he hurt Lainey in—and I set the son of a bitch on fire."

Rayne closed her eyes, seeing echoes of the flames in her mind all over again.

"Tied my mom up, too—couldn't let her save him, after all," Cole continued. "I tried to drive off, but what I didn't know is that she'd already called the cops. They pulled me over before I could even clear the driveway, and guess what? They saved him. They actually saved him," he repeated breathlessly. "But hey, at least now he looks like the monster that he is, right?"

He paused, giving her a moment to process the information.

The shadows inched closer.

"So, is this it?" Cole asked. "Is that the last piece of the puzzle you've been digging for? Every time you've ever touched me or held my hand, you were always looking for something, weren't you?"

Rayne shook her head, unable to speak.

Cole backed away, the shadow person behind him dissipating in a wisp of black smoke. "Well, now you have it. And look who's still the bad guy? Look who my father still hates? Who's the one who really traumatized my baby sister, huh?" His voice grew louder and louder with every question. "Who's the real monster!?" His chest heaved and his eyes watered, voice breaking as he whispered, "Me . . . It's me, Rayne. I'm the monster."

"I . . ." Rayne trailed off, short of breath. "This whole time, I thought that—"

"Well, I guess you thought wrong," he replied, seeming to wipe the stress from his forehead. "Say what you want about me, but I protect the people I love with my life, and I will continue to until the day I die. I am not ashamed of that."

"Well, maybe you should be," Rayne whispered.

He laughed disdainfully. "Yeah, go ahead. Judge me."

"You just admitted to setting a man on fire."

"I was thirteen! I just wanted him to stop! But you know what? At least I'm honest with myself about who and what I am. You say that I push and push, but what does that make you? How long have you been stealing memories from my mind? You hide on your high horse, knowing everything about me, but I still don't know anything about you. What you did, why you're here—"

"Because I don't know what I did!" Rayne blurted without thinking. "There's nothing to tell! That's why I have nothing to say! Why I never want to talk about it. I hurt someone, but I don't . . . remember it. One night with you, Cole, and I could know your whole life's story, but . . . I don't know what I did." Rayne settled onto the loveseat, running her fingers through her hair. "You tried to kill someone. Well . . . apparently, I did."

Cole seemed to process the information a little too quickly. "I see." He paused only briefly before sinking into the cushion beside her.

Together, they were silent, allowing the chaos and the tension to dissolve into a deranged and murky melancholy. The shadows retreated, lining the edge of the shack walls instead.

"Whoever it was . . ." Cole whispered suddenly, "they probably deserved it."

"Sometimes, I find myself hoping that's true," Rayne whispered, absent-mindedly. Realizing what she'd just said, she quickly added, "Is that horrible?"

"It's self-preservation," he said, shrugging. "I get it." He met her eyes. "Probably better than anyone, Rayne."

She shook her head. "I'm going to Hell . . ."

"Trust me. We're already there."

"Maybe . . . we are . . ."

"You know," he began, eyes narrowing under the weight of a distant memory, "my uncle couldn't remember what he did either."

Rayne stilled.

"My Uncle Elias," Cole said, elaborating. "The one you found out about yesterday. He doesn't remember doing what he did either. Killing that girl." He exhaled. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you just let me . . . I can understand you, Rayne."

Cole's voice went on, but Rayne couldn't hear him anymore, not over the sound of her heartbeat, pounding her skull and swelling the veins of her neck in pulsations so violent, they hurt.

The boy who had killed Nicole Livingston could not remember doing it. Dorian Matthew's twin brother could not remember killing his best friend. And even Rayne could not remember killing . . . whoever it was. Why were they all somehow connected to this school, where children were dying almost every year?

"What time was it?" she insisted. "Do you know what time it was—when he murdered that girl in the woods?"

He raised his shoulders. "I don't know. Sometime after curfew, I think."

"10:39?"

"I really don't know. Why do you ask?"

"I . . . I don't know either," she whispered.