26. Kira

26KIRA

I wake up to gray morning light spilling into the pool house, casting a stormy glow on the empty space next to me. For half of an embarrassing second that I’ll never speak of again, I bring my hand to my lips, my stupid smile. I kissed a boy. I kissed Max.

Max, who isn’t here.

And just like that, the spell breaks. I scan the room, alert now. Max’s camera bag is gone. The knife, too. Panic jumps through me, and I stand, telling myself that everything’s fine. Max probably just brought it back to the house. For all I know, a boat will be here to take us home any minute, and the knife won’t even matter.

But I can’t shake the fear gnawing inside of me. My jog out of the pool house turns into a run, my shoes pounding the terrace in a quickening rhythm as light rain mists my face. Calm down. Calm down. Calm down. Breathe.

I throw open the front door.

“Morning, sunshine.” Elody stands at the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee. “God, that storm was literally insane. I couldn’t sleep.” She smiles slowly, baring teeth. “Seems like you didn’t, either.”

Heat floods my cheeks, but I push down the embarrassment and walk toward the kitchen, scanning the second floor as I go.

“Is anyone else up yet?” I ask.

Elody shrugs. “Don’t know. Not a morning person. I don’t go looking for friends before I get caffeine.”

I glance at the knife block on the counter, and my breath catches. A knife is still missing. But no—it’s in a different spot. Last night, I took the knife out of the top left corner, but now, there’s an empty slot in the bottom right. At least, I thought I took it out of the top left corner. My tired brain strains to make sense of it, like those logic problems we used to do in math class. If Kira took the knife out of slot A, but Max put it back into slot B …

Elody sets her coffee down with a thud. “No offense, but your whole energy is freaking me out right now. What’s your deal?”

“Sorry, I just…” I chew my lip, wondering if I should tell Elody about the knife. “I don’t know. I guess I’m a little on edge.”

Upstairs, a door opens. Fear shoots through me, but it’s Corinne, walking to the bathroom with her toothbrush in hand. She gives a small wave, glancing between us with a dash of suspicion.

“Oh, wait, I forgot,” Elody says. “Max is in the shower.” Her eyes flash with something I can’t read as she nods to the downstairs bathroom door. “If that’s who you’re looking for.”

“Wait, why?”

“I don’t know, babe, because he wanted to shower?”

“No, I mean—” I swallow, reminding myself that I am totally fine and not at all losing my mind. “Why the downstairs shower? Doesn’t he have one in his room?”

“I think he said Graham was in theirs, or something?” She laughs. “Huh. I guess I did know who else was up. I swear, my brain is, like, totally useless when I don’t sleep.”

The bathroom door opens, and Max walks out, a towel wrapped around his waist.

“Morning, babe,” Elody calls.

“Hey.” He runs a hand through his hair, damp and curling at his forehead, and looks at me with a hint of his crooked smile.

There’s a fluttering feeling in my chest, which I’m sure I can reasonably attribute to fear about the missing knife or relief that he’s not dead—definitely not anything more embarrassing than that.

He flushes, nodding at the stairs. “I’m going to go … clothe myself.”

“Aw.” Elody brings her mug to her lips. “Who told you to do that?”

Max laughs awkwardly and heads upstairs, shooting another look my way before he goes.

Elody leans forward onto the kitchen counter. “He’s in a weird-ass mood today, right?”

I try my best to look calm and casual. “I guess.”

“He probably didn’t sleep last night either.” She glances at me like she’s waiting for me to confirm, and wait, does she know?

Oh my god, of course she does. Corinne, too. Because, as I finally break through my fog of Max weirdness and knife panic, I realize: they’re my roommates. It’s pretty hard to ignore the fact that my bed was empty all night.

Still, I play dumb. “I don’t think anyone slept last night. The storm kind of freaked me out. I had to take a walk around the house to calm down.”

“Oh my god, by yourself?”

“Yeah.” I chew the inside of my cheek, not sure if she believes me or not.

“Wow. I was too scared to even leave the room to pee,” she says. “I literally convinced myself that I heard someone scream in the middle of the night. Like a movie, or something. My dreams are totally messed up right now.” Elody sizes me up. “You know, you had me worried, babe. You weren’t in our room when I woke up.”

“Oh.” I look away, heart jumping. “Must’ve been when I was up walking.”

“Yeah, sure. But don’t worry. I went back to sleep. I wasn’t, like, that worried about you.” Elody laughs. “I think I’m just paranoid. It’s such a gross look for me.”

I stare at the knife block again. Maybe I’m just imagining things. Maybe it didn’t move at all. Max must have put it back, so unless someone else happened to take a knife last night … wait, a scream. Elody heard a scream. But she said it was nothing, just a bad dream. That’s all it was.

“Okay, if you’re gonna vom, can you like, let me know? Because I can’t do puking.”

“No, I’m just…” I stop, mentally ticking off the people I’ve seen today. Me, Elody, Max, Corinne, Graham’s in the shower … “Have you seen Logan and Aaron?”

“I think they’re in their rooms, why?” Elody white-knuckles her mug. “Seriously, you’re freaking me out.”

“When you thought you heard a scream last night, where was it coming from?”

“I don’t really remember. I’m pretty sure it was just a dream, though. What are you—”

Max scrambles down from the third floor, looking like he threw his clothes on in a panic, shirt backward.

“Something’s wrong,” he says. “I think the bathroom’s flooding, but Graham won’t open the door. He—he’s not…”

I run to the stairs, fear building with each step. Calm down. Calm down. Calm down. The door to the third-floor bedroom is already open, and right away, it feels wrong. Inside, the air is too warm and thick.

Calm down. Breathe.

A puddle of water leaks out from under the bathroom door. The shower’s still running inside.

“Graham?” I pound on the door. “Graham, are you in there?”

No answer. I step back, my shoes squishing in the puddle, and that’s when I notice. The water looks off. Pink.

I grab Max’s arm, my nails digging into his skin.

He looks down. “Oh my god.”

“Guys, what’s…” Corinne stops in the doorway, fear washing over her face. “Is Graham in there?”

Elody runs up after her, breathing hard. Corinne speeds toward us as we pull on the door. It won’t budge.

“It’s locked,” Max says.

I pull harder on the knob, my hands slipping on the metal, until it moves toward us an inch.

“No,” I say. “It’s stuck.”

Max’s hands close around mine, and we pull until the door swings open, sending us both stumbling back.

Water seeps out from the shower, pooling between the floor tiles. The mirrors are all steamed up, and so are the glass shower walls, so I can’t see through.

Except for a dark shape slumped inside. A vein of red spreading through the water like the branches of a river.

“No.” The word slips out, and I cover my mouth, like I can take it back, make it go away.

Corinne flies past me, her bare feet splashing in the water, and opens the shower door. A strangled gasp chokes out of her. I don’t want to look, but I can’t stop myself. I follow her deeper into the room and see it.

Graham’s body on the shower floor.

A kitchen knife next to him, red with his blood.