My ice cream erupts over the side of my milkshake tumbler and I try to absorb the dribbled mess with a handful of paper thin napkins while I look at Hayley. "I hope they catch him. Everyone is going mad."

She gives a non-committal shrug sprinkling the top of her sundae with gummy bears at Fletcher's Diner. "I hope they do too. I mean, what happened to Mary..." she pauses awarding Mary the moment of silence some would say she'd sadly earned. "Mary was a vile bitch, especially after what she did to you this summer, but still." Hayley leans closer to me, her voice dropping. "I heard he tried to slice her belly."

I try to picture Mary Warner, the cause of half of my social status problems and sole ringleader of orchestrating my teenage demise, lying on the ground with a knife to her throat. Did she beg for her life? Did she fight back? Did she have regrets when she took her last breath? I wait to feel sympathy...empathy...anything.

Hayley snaps her fingers in front of my face. "Earth to Gemma. Did you hear me?"

"Her belly, yeah," I say. "I heard you. Horrific."

Hayley stirs the gummy bear-ice cream combo with her spoon, and her faces twists in disgust when the bell to the diner chimes. "If I were the cops, I'd look no farther than him," she nods toward the door, now swinging shut behind one Jack Price. Jack came to our school two years ago—not what one would call a recent transplant but those who don't know better treat him as if he's from some faraway world where people drank the blood of children and worship false gods. All because he's a little weird.

I stir my straw in circles. "I understand you're not a huge fan of Jack Price," I say to Hayley, "but I think you're being a little harsh."

"Can't help it," she argues. "He sends my creep radar through the roof!"

Coming from Hayley, Jack hasn't accomplished much of anything. Because everything that is remotely unusual "sends her creep radar through the roof." This could be something as simple as a boy brave enough to ask for her number or seeing old man Morrison smoking a tobacco pipe and rocking on his chair on his front porch every Sunday. "Morrison looks dead," she once told me. "Gives me the creeps."

If someone doesn't fit into an identifiable box: jock, goth, preppie kid, something she can slap a label on, they don't fit in at all. She doesn't have room for misfits and outcasts which makes me wonder how she has room for me. If I'm honest, it's nothing short of a miracle we've been friends for this long because I am one. A misfit. An outcast. Something she would love to slap a label on. Over the summer, when Mary was leading the charge of lets-destroy-Gemma's-life, in Jack I have found a kinship that I can't expect my best friend to understand. I won't tell her that I've spent half of summer studying him. Prompting little sparks of conversation that I wanted to see burn like wildfire.

I watch him acknowledge me with a nod and slide into a booth near the front of the diner. "You're wrong," I tell Hayley, "He's interesting."

"To anyone missing their pulse maybe," she allows.

I roll my eyes at her. "He's not that bad. Just because he's not some stupid jockstrap doesn't mean he isn't a person, Hails."

"Remember in fifth grade when Daniel Anderson came to the school?"

"How could I forget?"

"Remember how you thought he was so nice and he ended up sticking gum in Ali's hair and kicking her brother in the stomach?"

"I'm not too sure what that has to do with anything, but yeah, I remember."

"You're a terrible judge of character, Gemma. A bleeding heart. That's what it has to do with. Trust me. He's weird."

"You're wrong. You're only making assumptions about him based on appearances."

"Seriously, Gem, can you blame me? I mean look at him."

I do. He's long, lean and lanky, dressed as usual in midnight colors. His hair is cropped short at the sides and longer at the top. Short or long, not a single strand seems to understand its true place in the world because it sticks out in wild waves. His eyes are gold, and reminds me of tree sap in the winter. He doesn't speak much, and when he does, I always try to listen because he sure has a lot of thoughts about a lot of things.

I leave Hayley devouring her ice cream and rise from our booth wordlessly before heading to his. Sandy hair falls over his left eye and as I approach, a dark smirk tugs at the corners of his mouth. I slip into the seat myself across from him. "Hello, Jack All Dressed in Black."

His voice is gruff but quiet. "If it isn't Gemma The Great Dilemma. To what do I owe the undeniable pleasure?"

I laugh. "A dilemma, huh? What about me is so perplexing?"

His head tilts to the side and his eyes rake over me and for a moment, I think I'm going to lose my breath. Jack isn't like other boys. The way he looks at me is primal and makes me squirm in my seat. "Precisely everything." With those words, he stands. "Goodnight, Gemma."

"Goodnight, Jack."

Gemma. Gemma. Gemma.

A dilemma if ever there were one to be had. She's different than the rest of them, the worthless little sheep. The putrid bringers of sin and filth, the stench of their rot so deep, it burns my nostrils and seeps into my skin until it spreads like spilled ink.

But not her. My Gemma is not a desperate girl who dances with eager devils and makes bargains she doesn't intend to keep. She isn't a lost soul or a fallen angel that wanders the pits of this hell without the hope to be hopeful or the will to live. She is Gemma. Beautiful, perfect, Gemma. Everyone who hurt her will pay.

Polly Jenson lived four doors down from me since I could remember. We were friends in middle school but when we hit ninth grade she decided I wasn't worth acknowledging. Then she became Mary's friend and decided I wasn't worth taking up space on the same planet.

Rumour has it, Polly was the true mastermind behind the plan to bring me down at the start of the summer. She'd planted the drugs. It's for this reason that when her mother's screams pierce the air with such ferocity it's as if she's standing beside me, my reaction isn't sadness or shock. It's indifference. First Mary, now Polly. Had her murderer hunted her? Had he been on this street? Had he seen my house?

A loud rapping on the door interrupts my thoughts and when I peek through the small window at the top, a police officer is standing on the front porch with a notepad clutched in his grasp. The hinges creak as I open it.

"Gemma Wilcox?"

I don't know why he's asking. If I recognize him, he recognizes me, no doubt. I nod.

"I'm Detective Rutherford."

"I know." I look at him blankly.

"Would you mind a few questions?"

I jam my thumb over my shoulder. "I was just making toast. How long will this take?"

"A minute."

"What kind of questions take a minute?"

"Questions like where were you last night at approximately 9:38 PM?"

"In bed."

"Anyone who can confirm that?"

"My mother. Did I do something?"

He looks at me with an impassive expression on his face, "it's my job to find out."

"Whoa," I say, stepping back. "You don't really think I'd do something, do you?"

"I remember what happened this summer, Gemma," Detective Rutherford says, "Both Polly and Mary were involved, among others."

I narrow my eyes, "I know who was involved," I say. "What I don't understand is how you could be suggesting that I have something to do with what happened to them. Who do you think I am?"

"A young lady with a lot of motive to be mad. There's been added policeman patrolling your neighbourhood."

I can't help but laugh. "So you're protecting the people by watching me?"

"Something like that," he allows. "Are we on the right track?"

"If you're headed on a path to insanity, then sure. We're all mad here."

"Mad is carving young women with a butcher's blade," he says flatly.

"Right you are, Detective Rutherford, so maybe you should focus your time on catching the person behind it rather than sitting here questioning me."

He retrieves a card with his cell phone number on it and hands it to me."Here, if anything jogs your memory at all, please, call me."

I stuff the card in my back pocket and close the door.

***

They'd found Polly's body down by the river, near a truck stop fifteen feet away from where they'd found Mary's. Hayley's dad is a detective and she has inside information and because of this, the grass outside our school's common area is littered with kids staring up at her in fascination, waiting to see what she'll say next.

"They found her intestines outside of her body," she states, "He sliced open—"

I clear my throat. "Class is starting soon. She probably has friends here," I remind Hayley. She can't argue with what I've just said. The crowd has at least tripled in size in just a few minutes, and it's a small school, chances that we're among people who called Polly their friend are huge so talking about the location of her intestines seems like a terrible idea. I had a reason to dislike Polly and talking about her intestines unsettles me, I cannot imagine what those who loved her must think.

Hayley pauses and gives my words enough consideration to change her own. "Anyway, it's bad. Really bad. Dad says they've contacted the FBI. They think it might be a trucker that frequents the area, but they don't have a lot to go on."

The crowd collectively gasps.

I understand their fear, their fascination. Nothing happens around here. Until now.

The bell rings and the crowd disperses, revealing Jack Price standing with his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against an oak tree I'm convinced has been here since the beginning of time.

I smile at him, but his gaze is transfixed on something in the distance. As I approach, it's as if he's checked out for a moment. "Jack," I say. "I was looking for you. You have a mechanics class this afternoon, I can show you the way to the garages."

My voice rattles him from his stupor. He hitches his backpack up his shoulder and nods toward Hayley and a large group of kids who are too interested in the intel she possesses to go back inside.

"What's happening over there?"

"Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"Polly Jenson was murdered last night." He's quiet, so I offer the juiciest piece of information I have to my name. "A detective came to question me. He thinks I did it."

"Did you?"

"No."

"Then why would he think that?"

I shrug, not wanting to assume Jack even knew of my existence this summer, let alone the shitstorm of drug charges that weren't legitimate. "Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is I didn't kill her."

"Would it matter if you did?" A strange silence stretches between us before Jack breaks the quiet. "We all have to die sometime."

Maybe I'll give Hayley a point for her creep radar nonsense. "Not when we're sixteen."

"Who decides what age our time is up?"

"God."

"Sure," he says. "If you believe in God."

"Do you?"

"Nah," he says. "Not today."

Gemma.

My sweet and perfect Gemma. My single rose in a field of weeds. A raindrop in an ocean. My believer in God, and seer of demons. I must wipe the sin from around her and erase the dirt from the air she breathes. Whatever it takes, I must keep her clean and pure so she can continue dancing with the devil she doesn't know is right within her reach.

Every Wednesday night, I come to Fletcher's Diner to study and drink hot chocolate. Sometimes, I order waffles smothered in whipped cream and fruit, and sometimes I just drink hot chocolate. Tonight, I've ordered the food and while I wait, I hear the door chime and Jack takes a seat in the booth next to the window.

I pick up my hot chocolate and my backpack and slide myself across from him once again.

"We keep meeting here," he says dryly, "if I didn't know better, I'd say you were stalking me."

I cross my arms and lean back into the booth. "Who says you know better?" I ask. "What if I am stalking you?"

His eyebrow inches up his face. "That would be a first."

"I'm not sure I believe that."

"Believe it," he says.

"You're misunderstood," I tell him.

"Funny coming from the girl suspected of murder," he says.

"Suspected, Jack. Means nothing. I'm not that kind of person."

"The angry kind?"

"They psychopath kind."

"Aren't you hoping to be a shrink one day?" he asks, "cause no offence but I wouldn't start with you're misunderstood."

"Am I wrong?"

"Did I say you were?"

"No."

"Then maybe you're not wrong."

"But I could be?"

He shrugs. "We could all be wrong, right?"

"You just get more and more interesting."

"Your bar must be set very low."

"I don't have expectations of people," I tell him. "It only leads to disappointment."

"So will I," he says. "I can promise you that."

"You'll disappoint me?"

He nods. "Undoubtedly."

"Doubtful."

"Whatever you say." With that, he rises to his feet, ready to leave me alone in Fletcher's Diner. "Don't say I didn't warn you, Gemma. I'm not your type and lucky for you, you're not mine."

I find my mother sitting in the kitchen. Her hands twist nervously in her lap. "Gemma. I want you to stay in the house. No extra circulars, no hanging out at Fletcher's with your friends. I want you in the house until this monster is caught." Mom nods to the television.

The news is on, a blonde newscaster is revealing the terrifying details of yet another murder. "Police are asking anyone with any information or reports of suspicious activity to contact them immediately."

"Another?"

My mom brings a tissue clutched in her hand to her eyes and dabs at the corners. "It was Lucy," she says. "Lucy Bills."

I heard my mom. As in Lucy's name leaves her lips enters my brain, but it pierces it with such a quick jab of unpleasantness that a wave of nausea rolls through my belly. I can feel the muscles in my face cringe in protest at the unsavoury seed my mother is currently trying to plant and harvest.

"Lucy Bills?"

My mom nods. "I'll make you tea."

This was her solution to everything. Bad day at school. Tea. Fight with a girlfriend? Tea. Broken heart? Tea. Childhood playmate's gruesome death? Tea. Looks like you're being framed for murder because everyone involved in a cruel prank on you is turning up dead. Tea.

I tell her I don't want any, thank her anyway and head upstairs to my room before retrieving my cell phone from my backpack. There's at least ten text messages sitting there from Hayley no doubt spilling over with the news of Lucy. I debate texting her back, but she's not stupid. Every single person responsible for my misery is turning up dead. What am I going to say? How do I explain that.

My fingers shake when I text Jack.

You awake?

Almost always.

Another death.

Or rebirth. Suppose it depends how you look at it.

Death.

Fine. Death. What was her name?

Lucy.

Pretty name.

I'm scared, Jack.

Of dying? We all die sometime.

Someone is trying to frame me. These girls, they did some horrible things.

What kind of horrible things?

I don't want to talk about it, but let's just say I'm looking more and more suspect by the minute.

I doubt you're being framed.

I don't.

So run.

And go where?

With me.

Ha. With you?

Why not?

Why?

Because I like you. You're not like the rest.

The smooth planes of her porcelain begin to fracture. First just a single line, a crack, an undoing of beauty too perfect for this world. Each splinter births another until Gemma will be shattered pieces of her former self. Before that happens, I must make her mine.

I have no idea what possessed me to text Jack the other night but I'm glad I did. He's quickly becoming the only person, aside from my mother who will speak to me. Hayley has stopped texting. She's avoiding me like I'm hosting the plague and I'm not sure what kind of bug has gotten into her ear. My mother would probably let me stay home sick because everyone is looking at me differently. Even the ones with false smiles can only hide their suspicion for so long. They look at me like they look at Jack.

I'm the prime suspect in everyone's minds. The only one with cause. This morning, another body has been found. I hear it on the drive to school and I almost turn around in the parking lot until I see Jack. He's reading a book leaning against a tree so I take the space beside him.

"How's the life of a felon?" he asks.

"You'd have to ask a felon."

"They think you are one," he says. "Look at them, Gemma. Mindless sheep. Wastes of skin of time and space. Judging from their thrones, casting stones to glass houses."

I turn my attention to the subject of his gaze. Crowds of kids are mulling about, whispering to each other. Most are dressed in black, in mourning for the dead. "I bet half of them didn't even know those girls."

"Nothing like death to bring people together."

"Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"What you said the other night, were you for real?"

"I said lots of things."

"I mean about leaving this place."

He doesn't answer right away, leaving a long pause to steal the air from around me. "Sure."

"We might end up driving till there's nothing."

"Or driving till there's something."

"What will we do?"

"Whatever we want."

"Things could go wrong."

"They usually do."

"This is crazy."

"So is sticking around to be blamed for murder. So is everyone. Come with me."

"You're crazy."

"Come with me."

The bell rings and I head to class. "See you around, Jack."

You'll be seeing me dear Gemma, of that I am sure. You'll see me every time you close your eyes, and smell me each time you take a breath. I can sense you with every cell in my body. You are not afraid. But you should be.

---

LD Crichton (ldcrichton) is the author of ALL THE BROKEN PIECES Disney/Hyperion Summer 2019. She's a mermaid enthusiast and learning to accept that she cannot write horror. (Sorry I tried). You're most welcome to stalk (or even talk to her) on any form of social media below.