Unbullied

Chapter 3

Chapter 3Hunched behind the steering wheel, Nolan ran every stop sign and red light. He barely missed getting t-boned twice in the process. Once, when he came up on a black Fifth Avenue waiting to make a left turn, he ran up over the curb and blew past it on the right without slowing down.

Meanwhile, Charlie spent the ride silent and motionless, staring frozen out the window...but inside, she was spinning like a twig in a cyclone. Even as she raced the clock, hoping and praying she could make it home in time, she feared it wasn't possible. The implications of that shook her to the core.

What she was about to experience would be so terrible that aftershocks of the moments ahead seemed to slam back into her from the future. Images of her mother and little brother, Tim, the way she feared she would find them, kept pushing their way to the front of her mind, no matter how hard she tried to force them away.

As the Mustang fishtailed around one last right turn, the phone vibrated in her hand. The message on the screen blurred through the tears in her eyes:

TIMES UP!!! GAME OVER!!!

She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw herself out of the moving car.

But she didn't. Because home was dead ahead, three houses away on the right. Her heart was already broken; she already knew what she would find, and what it would do to her forever.

But she had no choice. She had to live through it.

She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Closed her eyes and opened them again. The white split-level where she lived looked no different than any other day...but for some reason, that made the thought of what waited inside even more horrifying.

As soon as the Mustang jolted to a stop in front of her house, she leaped out and ran, sprinting up the driveway toward the front stoop. But as she charged up the steps, she didn't bother grabbing the front door key from her pocket.

She didn't need the key because the front door was ajar. It was standing open, pushed a few inches in from the jamb.

Not a good sign.

Without thinking or hesitation, Charlie barreled through the open door and up the few stairs to the living room. The phone fell from her hand en route and bumped down the carpeted steps to clatter on the linoleum landing below.

Spinning in a circle, she saw no one in the living room. Heart thundering, she ran through the doorway into the kitchen and saw more of the same there.

Adrenaline blazed through her bloodstream as she hurtled out of the kitchen and down the short hallway toward the bedrooms. Whatever she was going to find, she was getting closer to it.

"Mom?" The door to her mother's room was wide open, and Charlie darted inside. Not only was no one in there, but the place looked completely undisturbed.

Except for a yellow sticky note on one of the pillows on the bed.

Charlie snatched it up and read what was written on the note with a sinking heart:

R.I.P. MOM!

Choking back a sob, Charlie dropped the note and ran to the next door down the hall--Tim's room. Again, the door was wide open; again, no one was inside. The only thing out of place in the ten-year-old's cluttered room was a yellow sticky note on the bed-pillow.

R.I.P. TIM!

That left one room upstairs...Charlie's room, at the end of the hall.

The room with the door shut tight.

She ran for it, then hesitated with her hand on the knob. She never closed her door when she left for school in the morning; Conscience must have closed it for her, meaning...

Whatever she was going to find, it had to be in there.

She hesitated a moment more, wanting more than anything not to go in. Wanting only to run back down the hall and out of the house and leave it all behind for the rest of her life.

But that, she knew she couldn't do.

Shivering, Charlie closed her eyes. Slowly, she turned the knob and eased the door open. Her heart pounded so hard, it felt like a caged animal trying to smash its way out of her chest.

Then, she opened her eyes and looked inside.

And the look of terror on her face became a scowl of confusion. Because what she saw was not at all what she'd expected to see.

There was no one in the room, dead or alive. Wherever Mom and Tim were, they weren't in Charlie's room.

And just like the other two bedrooms, the only thing visibly out of place was a yellow sticky note on the bed.

Shuffling over, Charlie looked down and read the note without touching it.

GOTCHA! it said. NEXT TIME ITS FOR REALS!

"Charlie?"

Even as Charlie jumped, she realized the voice behind her belonged to Nolan. Whirling, she saw him standing in the doorway, frowning.

"You must've dropped this on the stairs." He held out Charlie's phone, which vibrated in his hand. "Somebody's texting you."

Charlie stepped toward him and snapped the phone from his grip without a word. Sure enough, Conscience had sent her another message:

This was only a drill. If it had been an actual emergency, your family would be dead.

As she read the text, another one popped in below it:

But if you play your cards right, YOUR the only one who has to die at the end of all this.

"What's going on, Charlie?" Nolan's frown deepened. "What the hell's happening here?"

Charlie wondered if he'd read the text before giving her the phone. "A misunderstanding."

"You said it was a matter of life and death!"

Charlie rubbed her eyes. "I guess it wasn't after all."

"Seriously?" Nolan was starting to sound annoyed. "That's your explanation?"

Charlie nodded. There'd been a time when she would have told him everything without hesitation. They'd been best friends years ago...back before he grew into a good-looking blond football player, and she became an offbeat outsider. But those days were long gone now.

"So, what?" said Nolan. "Was this all an excuse to get me to give you a ride home?" The annoyance in his voice was shifting to anger. "Is that what this is all about?"

Charlie stared at the floor, then met his gaze. She wished she could unload, wished she could believe their friendship still existed. But he'd left her behind when he'd gotten popular at school. Little by little, he'd pulled away, until one day, he'd even stopped saying hi to her.

And the distance between them hadn't changed, even after everything that had happened to him. Even after he'd suddenly quit football and dropped out of the popular crowd. Even after he'd gone from golden boy to withdrawn loner.

All of which had started after the deaths of his mother and sister, Fay, six months ago.

"Answer my question," said Nolan. "Was this whole thing a scam to get me to drive you home?"

Charlie almost told him the truth. It floated on the tip of her tongue for an instant...but then Conscience's words came back to her. She remembered the threat he'd made six weeks ago, when he'd first started texting her.

IF YOU TELL ANYONE OR TRY TO GET HELP, YOU WILL MOVE TO THE TOP OF MY LIST...RIGHT AFTER YOUR FAMILY.

"Yes." Charlie folded her arms and shrugged. "I figured it was the only way to get you to give me a lift."

"Unbelievable." Nolan shook his head. "Well, that'll be the last lift I give you."

"Whatever." Charlie tried to sound like she didn't care.

"Bitch." Nolan spun...then paused in the doorway and looked back over his shoulder at her. "Though I have to hand it to you, you're a hell of an actress. You had me fooled."

"That was the idea," said Charlie.

"I could've sworn you were really losing it in the car." Nolan shook his head again. "I thought you were so freaked out, you were ready to jump out of your skin."

"Yay me," said Charlie. "I guess I get the Oscar for Best Actress, don't I?"

"Best something," said Nolan, and then he walked away.

He slammed the front door on his way out. And that was Charlie's signal to collapse on her bed in a sobbing, shivering heap.