Chapter 26

“All I’m saying is that I could hit him with a car, and be done with it,” Cathy said as we walked through the school parking lot. “I wouldn’t mind taking a crack at your parents either.”

“Why?”

Poe made a sad face. “Are you seriously asking why someone would want to hit your parents with a car? We can start with how little they cared that you were punched.”

I wrinkled my nose, wishing I could have avoided the subject. “They cared. I think that they assume I invited it on myself.”

Cathy stopped, and put a hand in front of me so that I would as well. “Okay, let me tell you some things. It doesn’t matter if you went up to the guy and literally begged him. Your mom and dad should have marched down to that school and blew shit up until you got justice.”

I looked to Poe for help he didn’t give. “Your parents decided you’re a basket case, so they don’t take anything you do or say seriously. It’s terrible, and they’re too distracted with your brother and sister to see that you should have been better cared for. I don’t like them.”

“I can tell,” I said with a smile.

He did not smile back. “You deserve better than that.”

My parents had been like this for as long as I remembered, and I didn’t take it personally. They had other things to worry about than their grown-up daughter. How could I have held that against them?

“Come on,” Cathy said, tugging my sleeve. “We have leftover cake at my place and I wanna eat it before Jamie steals the rest.”

Thankfully, the conversation ended there. We took Cathy’s car, since she picked us both up that morning. We didn’t have official plans, but our days never really did. I assumed what would happen was, when Cathy looked away, I would steal kisses from my shiny new boyfriend. Cathy mostly whistled at us when she caught the two of us kissing.

Poe got forced into the backseat on our way to the Dairy Queen drive thru, so that meant he leaned forward to play with my hair. I scolded him for the danger he put himself in, but he didn’t care for my warning.

“You can pull the glass from my flesh should we crash,” Poe said. “So we’re all good.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t die before we get to sleep together. I would be really mad if I died a virgin.”

“Don’t be insane,” Cathy said. “I’ll screw you if he dies.”

“Aww, thanks.”

We went through the ice cream place quickly, because Cathy wanted to be back home with Cujo. I got an Oreo overload mess that had caramel added in, because who needed teeth? Poe went for a cone, and Cathy dared to eat a carton of fries as she drove, refusing to let me feed them to her.

“We’re not there yet,” she said. “Poe would get jealous.”

“So true,” he agreed. “I love fries.”

Cathy couldn’t get to the door fast enough when we got home, and it appeared that her brother hadn’t shown up yet. He probably had something planned with Ana and her friends, or they wanted to make us think we were safe, only to try and scare us. Cathy told me Jamie had a thing for making people flail.

We headed up to her room when we heard Cujo barking her head off. Cathy hurried ahead of us, bolting up the stairs as she said, “Why the hell isn’t she coming for me?”

Poe and I fell two steps behind her, until we reached the hallway. Cujo sat there, barking in front of Cathy’s room. She ran forward when she saw her mama but didn’t stop barking.

Cathy crouched down to get her. “What’s wrong? Why are you so mad?”

When the dog didn’t answer, Cathy turned to Poe. “Can you hold her while I open the door she won’t stop staring at?”

“No,” Poe said, taking a step forward. “But you guys can stay back while I check it out myself.”

I grabbed his arm, keeping him still. “If some murderer is in there, then you’ll be in danger. You’re not going alone.”

He smiled and patted my hand. “I work muscle. I can take care of myself.”

My eyes narrowed. “And I work glass, so I can break a window and shred them to pieces.”

Cathy sighed. “Fucking cloth…”

Poe took a deep breath before nodding at me. “Fine, you can go with me, but if I shove you back for your own protection, you better listen.”

“As if.”

We walked together, pausing when we got to the door. Poe hesitated for only a moment before he turned the knob and pushed it open. It took me more than a moment to realize what I saw.

Red. Red everywhere, like I had never seen before. It pooled on the carpet, making puddles of a dark, deep red in chunky messes. It had been poured onto Cathy’s bed, standing out violently against her once white comforter. Her pillows had handprints, and I saw the wall behind it. A massive smiley face, with the liquid running down the lines drawn. It bled down the wallpaper, ruining the picture. No matter, because I spotted another wall with art.

I stared, counting the smiles painted on the wall to my left. I lost my place after a few dozen mismatched in size smiles. They didn’t line up of course, but that wasn’t where my focus went. It had to have taken an hour to do this, or more. The rusty smell in the air, warned me as to what this liquid might have been. I did not want to believe it, but I knew what blood smelled like. I couldn’t deny the facts.

“Oh my god,” Cathy said as she walked up behind us. “What the hell is this…”

I swallowed, looking down at my feet. I stood in a puddle, and my shoes didn’t escape the blood. It soaked into the edges of the fabric as my stomach roiled. “Three guesses.”

Poe exhaled, rubbing his hand against his jaw. “This is a big jump from what she’s done.”

My wide eyes stared at him. “She stabbed a bunny to death. How is this a big jump?”

“Where did she get it?” Cathy whispered. “All that blood? She got into my house…where my dogs are. Where my brother lives. My parents. She got into my home, and did this.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, strangled. “This is my fault. Tammy did this because of me. And you could have gotten hurt, or—”

Cathy put her hand on my face. “Shut up. I’m kind of busy internally freaking out right now, and I don’t have the capacity to set your crazy ass straight. Let’s make this short. I don’t blame you. Not mad at you. You equals crazy. Hush mouth. Fuckin’ ginger.”

Poe rubbed my shoulder. “English for: you better not be blaming yourself for this.”

I made a quick grunting sound of outrage. “Okay, well there’s a list of one person who would have done this, and that person is trying to mess up my life. Why not give a shot at making my friends hate me?”

Poe took my arm, and Cathy’s before he started dragging our stiff bodies out of the room. He closed the door and took Cujo from Cathy. He spoke softly. “I think you need to stay out of there until your brain snaps back to normal.”

Cathy mumbled something either sad about her things, or angry. I couldn’t tell. She paced, staring at the ground as her fists clenched. I believed completely that she wanted to send those fists into the face of a specific girl.

“Okay!” she shouted and stopped. “Is this enough for those damn cops to care about what we have to say? Is blood all over my bedroom enough? Because people I love live here, and if Tammy can break in, then no one is safe. She can come at night and do god knows what.”

Poe handed me the dog next, and went in to comfort Cathy. “Yes, we’ll call the police. But calm down, because you’re going to hyperventilate, and you’re scaring the hell out of your dog.”

Cathy looked to Cujo, who had her ears perked all the way up as she stared at Mama having her panic attack. Cathy sighed, and rushed to get her pet from me. She gave her kisses and apologized a few times.

“They have to take us seriously now,” Cathy said. “If that psycho keeps kicking it up, I don’t want to know what she’d do next.”

Poe called the police, while Cathy called her parents. They weren’t close enough to get back to town for a few hours, but they were on their way. Cathy didn’t call Jamie, having been instructed to let her father do it for her. I stood in the hall with Cujo, useless as my friends worked to get this mess taken care of. The mess I’d caused.

The police arrived about twenty damn minutes later, and we let them inside. Again, Poe took over, telling two officers what happened. It was a simple story, but I still couldn’t say it. It made me afraid to speak, lest I sound as responsible as I felt.

“You think you know who did it?” one of the men asked Poe.

“Tamara Wartz,” Poe said. “She goes to our school and has been threatening my girlfriend for weeks. She’s done other things to her, and Cathy, and we’ve come to the police before. We got no help.”

The other officer—a short man with gray hair—said, “Let us take a look at the room. Wait here.”

We did wait, and it took forever. Pictures had to be taken, and a statement had to be given by all of us. I hoped it at least meant that no one would have taken this lightly. They didn’t know if it was human blood, but I heard the men say that this looked like enough to, if it had all been taken from one person, kill them.

“We’ll have it tested,” the first man told me.

“What about Tammy?” I asked. “What happens with her? We know she did it.”

He held a hand up to silence me. “An investigation will take place, but you need to tell us in full detail about everything that this girl allegedly did to you all.”

Allegedly… I heard it like a mockery, though I knew he didn’t mean it like that. He couldn’t assume like we did, even though we knew for certain.

“She told me she wanted to destroy me,” I said. “Found me after school, sat on my lap, kissed me, and said she would destroy me. She slipped a letter into my ex’s locker, trying to make him think I wanted to ruin his new relationship. She put a dead animal in my friend’s car. Oh, and she had a guy twice my size punch me in the face.”

The man stopped me. “Your ex? What happened there? What did the letter say?”

“Why does that matter? Stuff about how I wanted to get back together with him. He got pissed off, and I couldn’t get him to believe me.”

The officer had been taking notes, and he barely looked up at me for the next question. “You know for sure that this letter exists? You saw it?”

I squinted. “No.”

“So it could be made up.”

“Why would my ex lie to me about that?”

He paused. “What’s your current relationship with him like?”

I turned to Poe, giving him a look of exasperation for this insane situation. He gave me a supportive rub on my lower back while I spoke. “Not great. We fight all the time, and he hates me. To be fair, I’m not a big fan of him either.”

“Because?”

“He’s very manipulative, mean, controlling. A lot of reasons.”

I didn’t like how long the next pause lasted, or the look in this man’s eyes as he scanned the notes. “It seems to me that your ex might be as likely to have done this as the girl you’re accusing.”

It took me aback. “Peter wouldn’t do this. He’s an ass, but that doesn’t make him the kind of person who would paint with blood.”

“Can I get his full name please?” the man asked, ignoring me completely.

It didn’t feel like I had the option of lying to an officer, so I did as he asked me to. Several more times, I make it clear that I didn’t believe Peter could have done this. His version of revenge came in subtler things that he wasn’t always aware of.

“We need to make sure we find who did this,” the officer said. “Because as far as I’m concerned, this is a threat on your friend’s life.”

Bit much, but if it gets the job done. “Peter didn’t do it,” I repeated.

“We’ll look into Tamara as well. Don’t worry.”

Oh, but I would worry anyway, because worrying was a specialty of mine.

After the police finished, Cathy’s parents and brother arrived at the house. They didn’t seem pleased with the news, obviously, but we didn’t stay long enough to see the extent of the freak out. After Cathy told them what happened, she dropped me and Poe off at my house.

“I need to get back,” Cathy said as we left her car. “Mom has to call the police and talk their ear off all night, and my father will need me there to pour him drinks. If you need me, call.”

Poe nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on her for the both of us.”

Poe and I went inside and snuck right into my room before my parents could notice us. I closed the door and leaned against it.

“Speak,” Poe said. “Because if you don’t, I’ll assume everything in your head is you constantly blaming yourself for this thing that totally isn’t your fault. Which would be insane, and depressing.”

I stared at the floor.

“Clover…”

Huffing, I said, “Well obviously I blame myself for it. Tammy wants to hurt me, and she’s using my friends to do it. She wants you guys away from me, and that means this is only going to get worse. What happens if she goes after you next?”

“Then we’ll deal with it. She’s one person, and we’re three.”

“She wants everyone to hate me…”

“Too bad, because that isn’t going to happen. Nothing is going to make me leave you alone, and I know for a fact that Cathy has told you that before. We’re not taking off because someone is using us against you. The three of us are a team and will keep being so. So, we need to figure out what to do next. Your parents are in the other room. Do you think we should talk to them?”

What would they have done? Probably blame me, and then lock me in my room until this ended.

“Maybe not,” I said.

“The police might want to talk to you again and show up here. What happens if your parents find out you didn’t tell them this? It would get ugly.”

He wasn’t wrong on that one.

We walked out of my room together when I decided it would have been easier to get it over with. At least I had Poe with me now, so I’d get a little backup. I found my parents in the kitchen, making a store list while the kids played upstairs. They turned when they saw us, and I began.

“I…don’t know what to say,” Mom started when I’d gone over the afternoon with her. “I really don’t.”

Dad had his hand over his mouth while he stared at the table. You’d think that this wouldn’t have seemed all that bad, considering we dealt with a person willing to hire someone to beat up a tiny girl. Assuming she didn’t murder someone for the blood, that was. It seemed a bit too farfetched for me, and I knew that animal blood could be bought at some butcher shops. Until the police told us if it was human, I wouldn’t jump to conclusions.

“What exactly did the police say to you?” Dad asked.

“That they’re looking into it,” Poe answered. “They seem to be under the impression that Peter might have done this.”

Mom blinked twice. “Peter? Peter…”

“No,” I affirmed. “No way.”

“Honey, he wasn’t very nice to you. He made you cry all the time.”

I cleared my throat, trying not to look at Poe, who I assumed would look upset. “I cry easy.”

“Clover,” Dad said. “That chump was always a selfish kid. It wouldn’t surprise me if he wanted to hurt you, so he scared your friend. What makes you think he wouldn’t do this?”

I opened my mouth before I realized my point couldn’t stand. I would have said that I knew Peter, and I knew what he would and wouldn’t have done. I didn’t know that boy, and I never did. He wasn’t that person I dated, and maybe that person never really existed.

“Because it’s too crazy for him,” I decided.

Mom stood up from the table, reaching for the phone in her pocket. “I’m calling that station to find out exactly what happened. I’m going to make damn sure that they get this taken care of.” She left before anyone said a word about it.

Poe took my hand on the table. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

“I promise too,” Dad said. “Peter or that Tammy girl, it doesn’t matter. The police are going to fix this.”

I didn’t have as much hope as they seemed to, but then again, I didn’t let myself hope that often. Not when it crushed me all the damn time. Still, I didn’t want to upset anyone by looking afraid.

I squeezed Poe’s hand and said, “I believe you.”