xxx. CONSEQUENCES
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EVERYTHING, IN THAT moment, had changed.
In eighteen short years, Carter had bore witness to more tragedy than anyone should—and been the cause of far too much of it. With her, she carried the memory of her death. The sound of her last breath in the murky waters of the quarry beneath Dead Man's Bridge haunted her. She sees her lifeless body floating in her car every time she shut her eyes. She could still smell the burnt rubber when her car skidded across the bridge. And she can taste the blood she took and the life she just stole out of sheer hunger and indifference after her transformation. Most clearly she sees the curious girl she once was, and if her heart could beat, it would break for the vile creature she'd become.
But now the strength she has is a burden, the constant thirst for blood a curse.
"What are we gonna do about the body?"
Despite the situation, Carter laughed and she felt tears welling in her eyes. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, forehead resting atop them as she tried to get her breathing under control. The first thing that came to mind was that they should just leave to body to the animals. It would only be a matter of time before different scavenging species came out to nibble on what's left. That was their easiest option—no muss, no fuss, just leaving all the hard work to the food-chain.
"If you're worried about Scott, he'll have to understand. You couldn't control yourself. He's a werewolf, out of everyone, he should be able to understand that." Theo tried to assure her, but she knew Scott a hell of a lot better than Theo. He would never forgive her.
Carter blinked back the tears that were threatening to spill over. Honestly, Scott hadn't even crossed her mind. "He won't. He'll hate me for this." She ran her hands over her face. "And that's why we're not going to tell him, or anyone else."
Theo heard the pleading tone in her voice and couldn't even bring himself to deny her wishes. "Okay. We won't tell him. Why don't you head back to Scott's and I'll deal with this, okay?"
Deal with this. What a horrible thing to say. How does someone just 'deal' with a body that'd been drained of their blood? Do they just casually dig a hole in the ground and bury them? Maybe they start a fire and burn the remains. No, that's stupid, she thought, no one could possibly create a fire outside hot enough to completely disintegrate a body.
"Carter."
Theo's voice caused Carter to jump, pulling her out of her thoughts.
"You should go back. I've got this, I promise."
She nodded.
Misery welled up in Carter, and she glanced around the clearing. She didn't want to go back to Scott's house; she couldn't face her friends' worried questions or Logan's innocent cheerfulness right now. Not with her eyelashes wet and a stranger's blood drying on her lips. She made a lightning decision and quickly slipped into the shadows.
Once out of the clearing, she hesitated. She didn't want to run into anyone she knew. But where could she go to be alone? The answer came almost instantly.
It was a fairly long walk; almost to the edge of town but over the last several years it had become familiar to Carter. She crossed Old Beacon Road and climbed up the hill, past a ruined church, then down into the valley below. This part of the cemetery was well-kept; it was the old section that was allowed to run slightly wild. Here, the grass was neatly trimmed, and bouquets of flowers made splashes of bright color. Carter sat down by the big marble headstone with "CATERINA HALE" carved into the front.
"I don't really know what to say," she whispered. She leaned over to place a purple impatiens blossom she'd picked along the way in front of the marker. Then she curled her legs under her and just sat.
She'd come here often after her death. It was pretty much the only place in town she could be alone. Carter couldn't help but think of what her friends thought of the "new" Carter. They acted as if they didn't really remember of who she was before she died. But Carter did. She felt trapped as she let her mind leaf back through memories, and the lump in her throat swelled, and the tears came easier. She never realized how much she missed the girl who was supposed to die on Dead Man's Bridge—the girl who had a semi-normal life.
Sometimes, right after the funeral, she had come out here for some sort of solitude. That was when she hadn't felt completely comfortable hiding in the shadows, trapped in her own body, and had felt there was nowhere on earth she belonged anymore. Where did she belong now? she wondered. The easy answer was, here, in Beacon Hills, where she'd been born and raised. But lately the easy answer seemed wrong. Lately she felt there must be something else out there for her, some place she would recognize at once and call home.
A shadow fell over her, and she looked up, startled. For an instant, the two figures standing over her were alien, unfamiliar, vaguely menacing. She stared, frozen.
"Carter," said the smaller figure fussily, hands on hips, "sometimes I worry about you, I really do. Why weren't you answering any of our texts, or our calls?"
Carter blinked and then laughed shortly. It was Logan and Malakai. "I must've dropped my phone when I stormed out of Scott's house and God, what does a girl have to do to get a little privacy around here?" she said as they sat down.
"Then, tell us to go away, Car," suggested Malakai, but Carter just shrugged. Malakai had often come out here to find her in the months after her death. Suddenly, she felt glad about that, and grateful to them both. If nowhere else, she belonged with the friends who cared about her. She didn't mind if they knew she'd been crying, and didn't push away when Malakai wiped the tears off her cheeks with his thumb—while discretely wiping the blood from the corner of her lips with his jacket sleeve. The three of them sat together in silence for a little while, watching the wind ruffle the stand of oak trees at the edge of the cemetery.
Malakai placed a hand on her knee. "Why are you bringing flowers to your own grave, Caterina?"
Carter sniffled. "I just, I don't know, thought that I'd feel some sort of relief coming here. For the past six months I've been trying to find the old me inside this..." she gestured to herself "...new me. That girl was ready to die and was supposed to die when her car went off Dead Man's Bridge."
"You're never going to be that girl again, Carter. The only way she'll be at rest is if you let her go and allow yourself to move on."
She sighed, thinking about what Logan had said. Maybe she wouldn't feel so stuck if she let that girl—that Caterina Hale go. "Mal, I know you know what happened." Carter said at last, in a soft voice, wanting to change the subject. "It was really terrible."
"Wait," Logan cut in, holding a hand up. "What happened?"
"Just know that it was really bad."
"And your middle name is 'Tact,'" Logan replied. "It couldn't have been that bad, Carter."
"You weren't there." Carter felt herself go hot all over again at the memory. "It was terrible. But talking about it isn't going to change anything."
Logan snorted a laugh. Carter wiped her nose and shook her head. "So," Logan said to her, determinedly changing the subject, "I found out something interesting about Malakai today."
Carter's eyes widened. "Oh yeah? What'd you find out?"
"That he's descended from the druids. You know, the weird old guys who built Stonehenge and did magic and stuff in ancient England. He's descended from them, and that's why he's psychic."
Carter frowned at the blade of grass she was twirling between her fingers.
"He knew you were here," said Logan unexpectedly. "I thought I'd be able to track you down by scent, but your scent was overpowered by the blood I smelt when we passed through the clearing, but Mal said, 'She's at the cemetery.'"
"Did I?" Malakai asked, and Carter knew that he was feigning being surprised. Of course he knew where she was and of course he knew what she'd done. He could figure that out without Carter ever opening her mouth. "Well, there you see. My mother used to tell me that my grandmother in Ireland had something she called 'the second sight' and she claimed that I had it as well."
"Raeven said that a few people that lived in her village, back in the 1400s, kept up with the old traditions. You wouldn't believe some of the things they did. She told me that a girl she knew had an ability to find out when you're going to die. She told Raeven that she was going to die early."
"Not early enough."
Logan looked out across the cemetery, deep in thought. "I wonder what it's like to be young and beautiful in your coffin. Don't you think that's romantic?"
"No, Logan. I don't. I think it's disgusting. I've already died once," said Carter. The shadows were getting longer, and the wind had a chill to it now. A gust of cold wind blew through the cemetery, fanning Carter's hair out and sending dry leaves fluttering on the ground. Logan gasped and pulled back, and they all looked around, then chuckled nervously.
"It's getting late," Carter said, surprised.
"We better start heading back to Scott's house," Malakai said, wiping the grass of his pants as he stood up. Logan stood, too, biting on the inside of his bottom lip.
Carter wanted to say something to the headstone that marked an empty grave, but couldn't think of anything to say and just patted the pile of dying bouquets. The flowers shifted and a stack of envelopes were revealed. Carter frowned and picked them up, when she realized that the four letters were from people extremely close to her. The one on top was from Liam; the next was from Derek; the letter after that was from Scott, and the last one was from Stiles.
"What are those?" Logan asked, peering over her shoulder.
She quickly stuffed the envelopes in the waistband of her pants. "Uh, nothing. Just some hate mail from those preppy bitches at school, probably saying how happy they were when they found out I died. No big deal."
Logan nodded, having no reason to doubt her, but Malakai knew for a fact that she was lying and he couldn't quite figure out why. They were just emotional letters written by her friends that were shellshocked by her death, he didn't understand why she was trying to keep that a secret.
"Let's go."
Silently, they headed up the hill toward the ruined church. Their conversation about death had given them all a solemn feeling, and as they passed the ruined church Logan shivered. The temperature dropped abruptly, and the wind was rising. Each gust sent whispers through the grass and made the ancient oak trees rattle their dangling leaves.
"God, I'm freezing," Carter said, pausing for a moment by the black hole that had once been the church door and looking down at the landscape below.
The moonlight offered up enough light that she could just make out the old graveyard and Dead Man's Bridge beyond it. Before it had been a graveyard, it marked the sight where Raeven slaughtered her entire village—everyone except her father. If she looked hard enough, she could practically imagine what the village looked like, but now, it had a wild look to it; brambles and tall weeds on the graves, and ivy vines swarmed over crumbling granite. Carter had never liked it.
"It looks different, doesn't it? In the dark, I mean," she said unsteadily. She didn't know how to say what she really meant, how to say that she could feel Raeven's hatred for her family seeping out of the ground, that it was not a place for the living.
"We could go the long way," Malakai offered. "But that would mean another twenty minutes of walking."
"I don't mind going this way," Logan said, swallowing hard. "I always thought that one day I'd be buried down there in the old one."
"Will you stop talking about dying?" Carter snapped, and she started down the hill. But the farther down the narrow path she got, the more uncomfortable she felt. She slowed until Logan and Malakai caught up with her. As they neared the first headstone, her heart began beating fast. She tried to ignore it, but her whole skin was tingling with predator awareness and the fine hairs on her arms were standing up. Between the gusts of wind, every sound seemed horribly magnified; the crunching of their feet on the leaf-strewn path was deafening.
Carter never quite knew what happened in the next few minutes. Something seemed to move out among the dark humped shapes of the headstones, shifting and rising between them. Carter screamed and Logan cried out, and then they were both running, and Malakai was running with them, too.
Carter pounded down the narrow path, stumbling on rocks and clumps of grass roots. Logan was choking on his breath, and Malakai, calm and cynical Malakai, was panting wildly. There was a sudden thrashing and shriek in an oak tree above them, and Carter found that she could run faster.
"There's something behind us," cried Logan. "Oh, God, it's them isn't it? We're all gonna die."
"Get to the bridge," gasped Carter through the fire in her chest. She didn't know why, but she had this compelling feeling that they had to make it there. "Don't stop! Don't look behind you!"
"We're not gonna make it."
"Yes, we are," Carter snarled, grabbing Logan's sleeve and forcing him to keep running. "Come on. Come on!"
She saw the silver gleam of water before them. And there was the clearing between the oak trees, and the bridge just beyond. She could see the bright orange and white barriers blocking off the bridge—it had been closed off since her accident. Carter's legs were wobbling with fear and her breath was whistling in her throat, but she wouldn't let herself lag behind because she was scared. Now she could see the wooden planks of the foot-bridge. The bridge was twenty feet away from them, ten feet away, five.
"We made it," panted Logan, feet thundering on the wood.
"Let's just get to the other side!"
The bridge creaked as they ran staggering across it, their steps echoing across the water. When she jumped onto the packed dirt on the far shore, Carter let go of Logan's sleeve at last, and allowed her legs to stumble to a halt.
"Was it them? Was is the Dread Doctors?" Logan said. "Are they still coming?"
"For God's sake, Carter, let's get out of here and back to Scott's house."
There were tears in her own eyes and she was shaking all over—she knew that Logan's suspicions were correct. The Dread Doctors were following them—and that'd been the closest Carter had been to them since her accident and that revelation caused her entire body to be consumed by fear. She never wanted to be that close to them again, she'd rather die than be back in their clutches.
Logan's eyes were locked on the bridge, the damage that was caused by Carter's accident. "This is the first time I've been one this bridge since the accident."
Carter swallowed thickly. "Yeah, me too."
Malakai stared at her, then at the other shore with its clustered oak trees, then at Logan. He wet his lips. "Seriously, guys. Let's go. Unless you feel like spending the night out here."
Some unnamable feeling shuddered through Carter. "Not tonight, thanks," she said. She put an arm around Logan. "We're going to get through this, Logan. Come on."
Malakai was looking across the quarry again. "You know, I don't think they were trying to attack us. I think they were trying to scare us, to let us know how easy it is to isolate us from the others."
They don't want to scare us, she thought grimly, they want to scare me. She said nothing as they started walking, keeping very close together on the dirt path. But she wondered. She wondered very much.
It was well past midnight when they got back to Scott's house. They were greeted at the front door by the sound of snoring, and when Logan opened the door, the snores grew louder. The others were sprawled out in different spots in the living room and she immediately noticed that Theo wasn't amongst them. Stiles' head lolled backward with his mouth hanging wide open, and Scott mirrored him across the room.
Melissa McCall was there, unpinning her wavy brown hair. "Oh, there you guys are," she said. "I was beginning to worry."
Logan and Malakai said "hello." "What's the matter? You look tired," said Carter.
Melissa dropped her bag on the coffee table. Instead of answering, she asked a question in return. "The three of you look upset. Where did you three go?"
"We were down in the—Just down by Dead Man's Bridge."
"That's what I thought." Melissa took a deep breath. "Now, you listen to me, Carter Hale. Don't you ever go out there again, and especially not alone and at night. You've been through enough at the fault of that bridge. Do you understand?"
"But why not?" Logan asked, bewildered.
Melissa gave him a quizzical look, silently asking him if she seriously needed to answer that. Logan furrowed his brows in confusion, patiently waiting for the woman to reply. Melissa sighed, running a hand over her face. "Because just mere hours ago, somebody was attacked out there, that's why not. And do you know where they found her? Right on the bank under Dead Man's Bridge."
Carter and Malakai stared at her in disbelief, and Logan clutched at Carter's arm. "Somebody was attacked under the bridge? But who was it? What happened?"
"I don't know. A late-night jogger spotted her lying there. She was some homeless person, I guess, and she'd probably been sleeping under the bridge when she was attacked. She was already dead when they brought her in."
Carter swallowed, feeling her stomach rising into her throat. "What do you mean, attacked?"
"I mean," said Melissa distinctly, "that her throat was nearly ripped out. She lost an incredible amount of blood. They thought it might have been an animal at first, but now they're saying it was a person. And the police think whoever did it may be hiding in the cemetery. My bets are on Raeven." Melissa looked at each of them in turn, her mouth a straight line. "So if you were there by the bridge—or in the cemetery, Carter Hale—then this person, or Raeven, may have been there with you. Get it?
"You don't have to scare us anymore," said Carter faintly. "We get the point."
"All right. Good." Melissa's shoulders slumped, and she rubbed at the back of her neck wearily. "I've got to lie down for a while. I didn't mean to be crabby." She walked out of the living room.
"Well," Logan stretched. "I don't know about you two, but I'm going upstairs to go to bed."
When Logan disappeared up the stairs, alone, Carter and Malakai looked at one another.
"Was this you?" Malakai asked quietly. "Did you do that?"
Carter's skin was prickling, that same painfully alert feeling she'd had in the old graveyard. She could feel the chill of the wind, see the rows of tall tombstones all around her, and feel the burn of fresh blood on her tongue. Sunshine had never seemed so far away.
"No," Carter said shakily. "No, the girl that I—she wasn't homeless. She was nicely dressed and I definitely didn't do that to her throat."
Malakai nodded slowly, pondering. "Did you see somebody at the cemetery before Logan and I got there? And if you did, there's a strong possibility that it was Raeven. She's probably watching you, trying to figure out how much you know."
Carter shook her head. "No, I didn't see anyone."
Malakai and Carter looked at one another helplessly. Outside, the moon went behind a cloud.
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not edited
god, how long has it been since i updated this book? the answer is waaayyyy too long and i apologize for it being such a short chapter, but i felt there was enough action. i also apologize for being 'bluh' lately and going completely awol. i've been super busy and kinda distracted by the fact that I AM GOING TO SAN DIEGO NEXT MONTH TO SEE AARON TVEIT (MY BROADWAY BOYFRIEND)
well, as usual, let me know what you thought of the chapter and what you think is going to happen in the next few chapters!