Chapter 70 Present

Chapter 70 Present
POV: Zara

The hand yanked me backward so hard I nearly lost my footing.

"It's me," Naomi hissed, her grip tight on my arm, pulling me deeper into the shadow of the trees before I could even get my balance. "It's me, it's just me, stop pulling away."

"Someone was standing right behind you," I gasped, my heart still slamming against my ribs. "I saw them, Naomi, I saw"

"I know." Her voice was low, urgent, her eyes darting past my shoulder toward the field. "They're gone now. They saw Eli running this way, and they left before he got close enough to get a good look. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pulled you like that. I just didn't want them to hear what I have to tell you."

Eli broke through the tree line a second later, breathing hard, his eyes wild as they swept over both of us, checking, counting, making sure we were both still standing there in one piece. "Zara. Are you okay? I saw someone grab you, I saw"

"I'm okay," I said, even though my pulse hadn't slowed down at all. "It was Naomi. Someone else was here too, but they're gone now."

His jaw tightened, his eyes scanning the dark trees behind us like he could will the person back into view through sheer anger alone. "Who was it? Naomi, you have to tell us now, no more waiting."

Naomi's eyes filled, her whole face crumpling for just a second before she pulled it back together. "Not here. Not like this, with half the field five feet away and that fire throwing light everywhere. I promise I'll tell you both tonight. Just give me a few more minutes to figure out how to say it."

I wanted to push. Every instinct in me wanted to grab her by the shoulders and demand the name right then, standing in the dark with my heart still racing from a stranger's hand I'd half expected to be dangerous. But I'd learned something this summer about doors and how easily they slammed shut when you pushed too hard against them.

"Okay," I said instead. "A few minutes."

She nodded, swallowed hard, and slipped back out toward the field before either of us could say anything else, disappearing into the crowd and the noise as if she'd never been there at all.

Eli turned to me the second she was gone, his hand finding mine in the dark, warm and steady. "You scared the life out of me."

"Welcome to my whole summer," I said, and the joke came out shakier than I meant it to, but it made the corner of his mouth lift anyway, just slightly, just enough.

We walked back out toward the fire together, his hand still wrapped around mine, and I made myself do the thing I'd come here to do in the first place. I didn't hide. I didn't shrink toward the trees or find a quiet corner to disappear into. I walked straight back into the noise and the light and let myself just exist there, in plain sight, the way I used to be too scared to.

The bonfire did what bonfires do. Someone had a speaker blasting music too loud for actual conversation, so people leaned in close to talk over it instead, voices and laughter tangled up together into one big, warm wall of sound. A cooler made its rounds, red cups passed hand to hand. A group of juniors I barely knew were attempting some kind of dance challenge near the edge of the fire light, falling over each other and laughing too hard to finish it. Somewhere behind me, two girls from my chemistry class were deep in a debate about which college essay topic sounded less boring.

Nobody was thinking about me every second. That was the strange, almost dizzying thing I hadn't expected. A few eyes still flicked my way here and there, a few whispers I caught fragments of, but mostly the world just kept turning, the way it always had, the way it would keep doing whether I hid in a hoodie or stood here in a dress that still felt foreign on my skin.

I caught Jade watching us from near the cooler table again, her face unreadable in the firelight, her phone still loose in her hand like she couldn't decide whether to use it or not. She didn't approach. She didn't say anything cruel into a camera this time either. She just watched, something tight and uncertain pulling at the corners of her mouth, and for the first time all summer I almost felt something close to pity for her, whatever was happening behind that careful, polished face.

Eli stayed close beside me the whole time, not crowding, not performing for anyone watching, just present, his shoulder brushing mine every time the crowd shifted us closer together. It felt steady. It felt like the first normal thing in days.

We were standing near the edge of the fire when my phone buzzed against my hip.

I pulled it out, expecting my mom checking in like she'd asked me to text every twenty minutes.

It wasn't her.

Naomi's name lit up the screen, and underneath it, a message that made every bit of warmth from the last ten minutes drain straight out of my body.

I found him. I'm telling him everything right now, alone, by the parking lot. Come quick. I don't think I can do this part by myself.

I looked up, scanning the field fast, searching for any sign of her, my stomach twisting tighter with every second that passed.

That's when the music cut out completely, the whole field plunging into a strange, sudden silence, and somewhere near the parking lot, past the tree line, a girl screamed.