Chapter 20

The chirping of the birds blares louder than a jackhammer on a Saturday morning as realization sets in. Then there's no sound at all as everyone stares silently at that metal link resting in Jacey's palm.

I try to step forward, but the gravel slides beneath my sneaker. The others' movements are slow and distorted. Noah standing and leaning in to get a better look. Alexandra staring. Tyler backing away.

Then sound bursts back into existence. Jacey gasping. The snap of a twig beneath Tyler's boot.

My feet find solid ground again. I hurry forward, plucking the chain link from Jacey's hand and turning on Tyler, holding the metal piece out in front of him. "Why are you out here, you sick freak? Are you stalking us?"

Tyler's face is stoic. "I wasn't the only person stalking, by your definition. You followed them up here, same as me."

"Yeah, well, you're the only one whose little ornament was found on the mountain where my sister fell." My stomach hardens. I knew there was something off about him.

"Is it a crime to drop something?"

"It is here! You don't live in Grayling's Pass or go to Grayling High, so why were you even at this viewpoint?"

Tyler shrugs, and Noah moves closer to him, spine rigid and shoulders back.

"Tell us!" I march toward him with my fists balled, even though he's a foot taller than me, and Alexandra grabs at the back of my jacket.

"Just calm down, Savannah." Tyler steps back, prodding a spiderweb strung from the railing to a nearby branch with the toe of his boot. His calmness only makes my fury rise. "The chain link isn't mine."

"I don't have the patience for this." I hold the link up beside the chains draped from Tyler's belt loop. "Nobody but you dresses like they might have to prepare a vehicle for snowy conditions at any moment."

"Cross my heart, hope to die." He puts a hand on his chest.

I press closer, fists still clenched, sneakers squishing over a spongy bed of moss.

"It was Piper's."

My insides go cold. Tyler's grin is subtle, but it's enough to make Noah take that swing on my behalf.

Noah's fist strikes him in the jaw. Behind me, Alexandra yelps, and I straighten as Tyler tips backward. He regains his balance, brushing the red spot with his fingers as Noah rubs his knuckle. Jacey's mouth is parted in awe.

"Nice one," I mutter before turning to Tyler's hunched figure. "You don't know anything about my sister."

"That's where you're wrong." Tyler moves his jaw around, pressing his fingers to it delicately. He cuts an irritated glance at Noah, who backs up a few paces. "I know Piper—more than know her. She's been my closest friend since last year. She kept one of the chain links in her pocket." He reddens. "She likes to joke that it's our version of a friendship bracelet."

"Wait a minute." I pace, feet crushing a cluster of wild mushrooms. "First of all, that's absurd. What are you, twelve? Second of all, how do you know Piper? You said you were new to the club."

"She takes AP classes at Foothill. My school."

"She never mentioned you to me." I inch toward the railing, glancing at Jacey, who looks just as lost.

He's lying. There's no way Piper has a new best friend she neglected to mention to anyone in her life.

"Well, she told me all about you," Tyler says, turning to Jacey. "About what a great friend you've been." Jacey goes crimson.

"And about you," he says, flicking his chin in my direction. "About your close relationship. About what you did to Jacey last year. And other things you did."

The others look at me, and my stomach falls. I shuffle backward, the gravel grinding beneath my feet until the railing jabs my spine.

Noah's gaze bounces around our huddle. "I'm lost."

"I called her, you know," Tyler says. "That day. She told me all about what you did to her."

My heart performs a sputtering beat. " You're Alex." I barely hear my own voice above the wind.

Tyler's hands fly up. "Guilty. Tyler's my middle name. In real life, I go by my first name: Alex."

"How— why did she keep you a secret?" I ask.

Tyler brushes a hand over his dark clothing. "Maybe because as far as Piper's concerned, everything the three of you touch turns to ash." His gaze drifts to the dense, dark woods.

"This guy is not Piper's friend," says Noah, who's still massaging his sore knuckles.

"Then how do I know all about you?" Tyler asks him. "How you loved to toy with her? How she kept holding out hope that all of your mixed messages would eventually lead to something? How you betrayed her."

I force my hand to my hip, force the tears back. Force the knot in my throat down. "That doesn't prove anything. You were the last person to speak to my sister before she fell off this cliff. You were obviously here." I uncurl my fingers, letting the metal flash. "And now, here you are again, trying to cover your tracks. That's why you wrote that threat on our tent, isn't it? You knew we'd figure it out and tell the cops."

"Go ahead and tell the cops whatever you want," Tyler says, his always-friendly eyes narrowing and sending a chill up my spine. "They already know about me."

"What do mean?" asks Alexandra, still hugging the pink notebook to her chest.

"I went to the cops." Tyler rubs at his stubble-strewn face. "I knew exactly where Piper was before she fell because we spoke on the phone. And then, the next morning, I find out she supposedly tried to kill herself? It didn't make any sense. So I told the cops they needed to investigate." He runs a hand through his hair. "And they didn't."

"Where was Piper before she fell?" Alexandra asks timidly.

"She went to talk to Mr. Davis."

My head feels tight. My lips, tongue, everything goes numb.

"Why?" Alexandra asks.

Tyler's gaze snaps to mine. "You want to tell them, or should I?"

"She went there to tell Mr. Davis the truth, didn't she?" I can't feel my mouth as the words come out. "About what I did."

A small, bitter laugh escapes Tyler's lips. "If that's what you really think, then you don't know your sister at all."

His words are sharp, and my breath catches. I fall back against the cold rail, letting myself slide down to the ground. My injured finger brushes the earth, and pain vibrates up my arm. Piper went there to do exactly what I asked her to do.

She went there to confess.

My lungs feel like they're about to burst. Everyone's hovering, staring at me.

"What's going on, Savannah?" Noah asks, reaching down to help me up. I try to push him off. I don't deserve his help. Not this time. Not ever. But my arm won't obey my brain.

I shut my eyes and draw in the slightest amount of air until the drowning sensation lets up. "I got Piper in trouble. Big trouble."

My breath is shallow, my vision foggy as I tell them about the tournament, the grades, the money—everything. "I heard the car, and I thought she was headed to the lab to tell my parents. But then she never came home. Late that night, we got the call from the hospital."

Even Jacey gapes at me like I'm a monster. And I am. Saying it all aloud, listening to what I was willing to do to get what I wanted, I know I deserve whatever's coming. That day, when I was too selfish to do the right thing, I let the darkness in me climb up my core, coat my throat, and wrap itself around my brain.

I wasn't a sister. I wasn't even a friend. I was the darkness.

"But she didn't go to the lab," Tyler says. "She didn't go to the Point right away either. I don't know why. Maybe she figured out the meeting wasn't happening, or maybe it was the last thing on her mind after being suspended for the chemistry tests. She went back to the school to talk to Mr. Davis. She was planning to take the fall for everything."

"Why would she do that?" Noah asks.

Because she's the sister I'll never be.

Tyler shakes his head. "I tried to talk her out of it. That's why I called her. But she said she needed to do it and that I had to trust her. And I did, for a while. But the way she was letting Savannah use her was too much, so I called her again. When she didn't answer, I drove to the school to see if I could get her to listen to reason. By that point, her car was already gone, and I didn't want to upset her more if it was already done. So I went home." He tugs on the strings of his hoodie, stretching them until they look like they might snap. "I should've tried harder to find her."

"So, then," Noah says, "she went to the school first and then to the Point? Because she was so upset?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out" Tyler paces, boots crushing some feathery fronds. "I went to the police station and spoke to a cop. Detective Breslow. I told him something was off. Piper was upset about what Savannah did, but she wasn't suicidal. It didn't make sense. She'd called me from outside Mr. Davis's office. So how did she get from there to being unconscious on the side of a mountain?"

"What did Breslow say?" I ask.

"He basically laughed in my face. But the weird thing was why he laughed. It wasn't because Piper had fallen from Suicide Point. It was because I'd mentioned Mr. Davis. Breslow seemed very familiar with our favorite club advisor. He didn't find the situation the slightest bit worrisome."

"Did you try talking to Mr. Davis?" Jacey asks, grabbing on to the railing to pull herself up. Her eyes shut momentarily as she sways, pant leg brushing a fern bejeweled by dewdrops. Then she steadies herself. "Did you ask if Piper went to see him that day?"

"I didn't want to show my hand," Tyler says. "Figured I'd learn a lot more about him if he thought I was just some kid from Foothill who's really into wilderness survival."

"You're saying you infiltrated our club to spy on Mr. Davis?" Jacey flashes an incredulous look. "Mr. Davis is a great teacher. He cares about his students. Look, I really want to find out what happened to Piper, too, but Mr. Davis didn't write the threat in Piper's bag or"—she waves a hand toward the cliff—" do something to her. If that's what you're thinking, you're wrong."

"Maybe he's not," Alexandra says. Sunlight casts a honey-colored glow over her dark curls as she glances up from the little pink notebook she's clutching.

Jacey turns to her, and Alexandra bites her lip. But she loosens her hold on the notebook. "I'm on the school paper with Piper. You guys all claim to know her, but every one of you is missing the most obvious thing ever. About Piper. About this club."

"So then say it already." I might snatch that notebook and fling it off the cliff.

"Why did Piper join this club?" she asks.

"Because Noah was in it," Jacey says, brushing some dirt off the front of her sweatshirt.

Alexandra shakes her head. "Maybe that was part of it. But it wasn't the only reason."

"She joined because she's Mr. Davis's pet," I offer. "She never stops talking about him."

Alexandra flicks her pen against her chin. "Not good enough. Why did she join a club involving all the things she hates? Exercise and the outdoors, for example?"

Noah rubs his temple. "She said she wanted to try something new. Piper develops new interests all the time."

"Piper wasn't pursuing a new interest," Alexandra says, looking exhausted. The wind picks up, hurling her curls into disarray and whipping the scent of wildflowers into the air. "She was pursuing a story."

Noah lifts a brow. "Like for the Grayling High Gazette ? She wouldn't have kept that a secret."

"She might've, if the story put her in danger. Whatever Piper was investigating, she didn't even tell the other editors about it. She probably knew no one would approve."

Exhaustion has melted my brain so much that I giggle. "Piper was investigating Survival Club? Like, the case of the missing canteen?"

"Not the club itself," Alexandra corrects. "Someone in the club. I suspected she was working on something secret a while ago. She was always distracted during journalism meetings, jotting down notes and whispering into that recorder of hers. But she refused to tell me what it was. At first, I thought she was worried I'd steal her idea or something, like…like what she'd done to me." Her eyes darken. "Things have always been competitive between us. Well, one day, Piper tore a page out of her notepad and crumpled it up." A small animal darts through the underbrush next to the path, and Alexandra flinches. She drops her voice, like the chipmunks are listening. "After everyone went home, I dug it out of the trash. Most of the writing was scratched out and scribbled over, but a couple of things were still legible, just barely, like SC . So I asked myself, why would Piper have to write encrypted notes for a school story?"

"Or go undercover for a school story, for that matter," Noah adds.

"Because it wasn't some school story ," Alexandra says, gaining momentum. "I think Piper was investigating something bigger. A story someone would've threatened her over to make sure she'd stop poking around. And when that didn't work…" Her gaze slides over to the cliff.

"This person resorted to other means," Tyler finishes.

"But what does this have to do with Mr. Davis?" Jacey asks.

Alexandra tugs a creased and crumpled scrap of paper from her back pocket. "When Savannah came to me in the gym, talking about Piper being threatened, the wheels in my head started spinning. I ran back to my locker to grab that note I'd dug out of the trash so I could try and figure out what Piper was working on. And I'm almost positive I've pieced together one thing." She thrusts the scrap at me, and the others gather around me to peek at it.

Letters strung together like an equation are circled in pencil among all the scribbles: BS = danger .

Noah slings Jacey a wry glance. "BS is definitely concerning."

Alexandra frowns. "Before this weekend, I thought these initials belonged to a person. And no one in the club fit. Sam's last name is Eldridge, so even reversed, it wasn't a match. But yesterday, I realized something about the advisor and one of the members. About their lives outside the club. Remember those rumors going around last winter? That one of our athletics teams had suddenly gone from last place in their division to champs, and it wasn't because they'd recruited a new star player or doubled up on training sessions?"

"Boys' soccer," I mutter, kicking a pine cone. Though the school treated Mr. Davis like a god after that achievement, the league gave him a hard time. The accusations ranged from bribing refs to paying other coaches to throw games, but nothing was ever proven.

"Exactly." Alexandra grins like a proud parent. "Last year, Piper asked the journalism advisor if she could write a story about it, but he said that kind of piece had no place in a student-run paper." She lets this thought simmer for a beat. "So what if Piper decided to go rogue and do it anyway? What better place to find answers about a possible scandal involving boys' soccer than Survival Club? You've got the senior team captain and the coach in one place."

The words tumble through my brain, getting stuck before I can fully process them, like a squirrel trying to make it through a cluster of tree branches. Piper loves Mr. Davis. She would never pursue a story that would hurt him.

But the last place she was headed was his office.