I shook my head. “Told my mom I’d meet her at her friends’ place. But you should stay. Catch up on all the gossip and stuff. I only came to say hi.”

  “Okay,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Hi, then.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “Senior year. Best year ever.” She twirled her finger in the air and went back into the house.

  I started walking. I didn’t live too far from Justin’s—hell, I didn’t live too far from anything here—and it’s not like I’d never walked it before. Two miles. Maybe two and a half. Better than going back in and asking Kevin for a ride home. Having him list all the reasons I shouldn’t leave. Hearing Tara tell everyone I wasn’t speaking to Delaney.

  Knowing Janna was smiling about it.

  The clouds were blocking half the sky now, and by the time I made it to Main Street, the vendors were packing up and clearing out. A few kids with painted faces weaved across the deserted street, and a stack of napkins blew down the center of it, scattering in every direction. Six blocks from here to the lake, one block from the lake to home. The thunder rumbled in the distance. I wasn’t sure I’d make it before the storm.

  By the time I reached the lake, the wind gave it current. The surface moved and broke and swirled. I jogged the last block home.

  The key wouldn’t turn in the front door. Already unlocked. I stuck my head inside and called, “Mom?” My voice echoed through the wood-floored rooms and off the bare walls and back again. I was pretty sure I had locked the door. I looked at the tree on the side of the yard where we kept the spare key, the wind bending the branches under the dark sky. Delaney knew where we kept it, and her car was back in her driveway. But she wouldn’t. I cleared my throat. “Delaney?” I said, listening to the syllables of her name bounce back too loudly.

  I walked inside and locked the front door behind me. I heard the steady drip of rain on the roof. It sounded off, somehow. Closer. The house was in shadows, gray, like the dark clouds outside. I flipped the light switch on the wall, heard a faint buzz, a pop, then nothing. No light.

  “Hello?” I called again. I took another step and heard a splash of water, like stepping into Falcon Lake. I took another step, heard another splash. Looked down. Something was moving across the floor. Like the lake was in my house, taunting me. Seeping across the hardwood, looking to claim me.

  A curse. A trade. I bent over and put my hand against the floor. Cold water. What the hell? I took out my phone and shone the screen on the floor, saw the water moving across, inching farther and farther throughout the downstairs. I moved the light around, saw dark trails of water down the walls, saw it dripping from the light fixture in the center of the room.

  Closing in around me.

  It was coming for me.

  Maybe it was coming for her, too.

  I backed out of my house, raced across the yard in the rain. A bolt of lightning lit up the sky, and I pressed and pressed and repressed Delaney’s doorbell. She opened the door, freezing at the sight of me. I looked past her, at the carpet through her house. Dry. At the lights turned on. At the walls, untouched.

  “Hi,” she said, like a question. One syllable, but I could hear everything inside of it.

  “Something’s happening,” I said. I looked over my shoulder. I’d left the front door wide open. The rain was getting in. “My house,” I said, shaking my head. “Something’s happening to my house.”

  I must’ve looked as confused as I sounded, because she didn’t ask me to explain. She put a hand on my arm as she passed, ducking her head as she raced through the rain. I almost crashed into her back as she stood, frozen, in my front entrance.

  There was still water everywhere. I hadn’t imagined it. Seeping up, dripping down—it was real. It was happening. “Do you hear that?” she asked.

  I heard rain. I heard water.

  She ran to the kitchen, where the faucet was turned on high. Water ran over the basin, onto the counters, down the cabinets, onto the floor. She pulled out two dish towels that had been stuffed into the drain, and we heard the water gurgle down. She looked at the walls. The light fixture. The rain coming in.

  “The bathtub,” she said, her voice wavering, just like my breathing.

  I followed her as she raced up the steps; they creaked—they gave—unnaturally. There was water everywhere, a thin coating over the wood floor. And there was more coming. She raced to my bathroom, and I went to my parents’ room. My mom’s room. The bathtub was plugged, and the drain near the top was stopped up with a towel, and water was pouring out. I turned the handles. Delaney must’ve turned the ones in my bathroom. All I heard was the rain on the roof. The thunder, coming closer. Then I heard her steps coming closer, splashing through the water.

  “It’s not safe,” she said. “The electricity. The water …”

  I followed her down the stairs. Slipped on the third step from the bottom, collided into her, knocked her to the floor. “Shit,” I said. “Sorry.” I held my hand out to her, and in the dark, she took it. “I didn’t mean …”

  “I know,” she said. Her clothes were wet, like they had been that day in the lake. I could tell her eyes were wide, even in the dark. She looked around my house, at all of it, one last time, and backed out the front door. “Call your mom. I’m going to call the police.” I followed her out of the house, stood on the porch, watching her walk away.

  “I—” A bolt of lightning lit the dark sky. We looked up, both of us, as the thunder rattled the air.

  I waited for lightning to strike. It felt like something that would logically happen right now. My house was flooded. Nothing made sense.

  I reached into my pocket for my phone, scrolled to my mom’s number. Couldn’t press the button to make a call. Couldn’t tell her what else was lost.

  Delaney shivered and ran across our yards. She disappeared inside for just a moment but came back to the open doorway with her phone pressed to her ear while I was still staring at mine. I watched her profile as she stood in her doorway, like she was waiting for me. She fell through the ice and almost died. I took her back from the lake and here she was, perfect. Like in order to keep her here, breathing, perfect and living, the world around us had to die.

  Seizing on the side of the road.

  Drowning in the middle of Falcon Lake.

  That a heart had to stop, and the water was here to remind me. Carson was soaking when they brought him to the hospital. Like he had drowned in her place. The lake had taken Troy.

  We took something from the lake, and it took something from us. It was coming for us all.

  Janna’s brother.

  My father.

  I stared at Delaney, standing under the light on her front porch, untouched, under the darkening sky.

  And I believed.

  Chapter 4

  “No,” I said.

  We were sitting in Delaney’s kitchen, and I’m sure they could all hear us through the thin swinging door to the living room, but I didn’t care.

  “Shh,” my mom said, because she did care. “Decker …”

  “I can stay with Kevin. Or Justin.” Or a complete stranger for all I cared. Hell, I’d sleep in the back of my minivan.

  “They are offering to take us in. I don’t want to stay in some hotel. Please. I don’t want us to be apart.” It was so unlike my mother to say something like that. “They’re converting the upstairs library into a spare room. And you can use the office.”

  Delaney’s house had the same layout as mine. But the spare bedroom upstairs was basically just a room of books. And, true, her dad didn’t use the office downstairs much, but it didn’t have a bed. When I used to stay over, when I was younger—and then after—I’d sleep on the pull-out couch in the living room. “I don’t want to stay with her,” I said. Which was more than I’d said to my mother about the situation since it happened. She knew enough not to ask. And we had bigger things to think about.

  “I know … I know you guys are fighting about something. But they’re practically family.”

  I looked at the kitchen ceiling and laughed. “We’re not fighting, Mom.”

  She paused. “Please, Decker. It won’t be long. You’ll have your own space. I just want to know where you are. I’ve already spoken with the insurance company. They need to assess the damage before we can start repairs. But until they tell us otherwise, it’s …” She put her fingers in the air, in makeshift quotes, and rolled her eyes. “Uninhabitable.”

  Delaney’s mom knocked on the door, which caused it to open, and she gave us a pained grin and whispered, “Sorry to interrupt. The police want to speak with Decker.”

  Excellent.

  My mom was waiting, still leaning toward me. Asking me. I shrugged at her with one shoulder, and she mouthed, Thank you.

  The cop was sitting on Delaney’s couch, chewing gum, hair buzzed short, watching me. Everyone was standing but him. “Your mom says your front door was unlocked when you returned home. Are you sure it was locked when you left?”

  “Pretty sure,” I said. Everything that happened in the first half of the day was kind of a blur. When Kevin came for me, I grabbed my cell and pulled the door shut behind me. …

  “Yes, I’m sure.” I turned the lock and Kevin looked over his shoulder to make sure I was coming.

  “And the spare key,” he said, pointing to where it sat on the coffee table, sealed in a sandwich bag. “Does anyone else know where you keep it?”

  “No,” my mom said.

  Delaney used that key all the time. “No,” I said. “No one,” I added. Just anyone who ever dropped me off at home. Probably all my friends by now.

  “I did,” Delaney said. She kept her eyes on the cop, but she must’ve felt everyone else’s on her. “I’ve used it,” she added. Then she looked at me, like she could feel me staring at the side of her face. “What?” she asked. “It’s true. My fingerprints would be all over that.”

  Before Delaney could say any more, before Delaney’s parents could ask anything at all, my mom said, “She and Decker grew up together.” And then there was this perfectly awkward gap of silence where none of us knew what to say after that.

  The cop shifted on the sofa, positioning himself toward Delaney. He turned the key over in his hand. “Okay. But just to cross you off the list, is there any reason … that anyone else …,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “might think you had a motive to target the Phillips’s house?”

  “No,” I said. And I said it fast.

  I was lying. Other than the cop, the whole room knew I was lying. And the entire room stayed silent for my lie.

  “All right,” he said as he moved the gum from one side of his mouth to the other. He held the bag with the spare key in his hand, narrowing his eyes at it, like he could almost see the answer. “Such an odd thing to do, is all. What’s the point?”

  I caught Delaney’s eye from across the room. Looked away. Hard to put that into words without sounding ridiculous. But apparently he didn’t expect us to answer, because he was talking to my mom again. “Mrs. Phillips,” he said, even though they were probably the same age.

  “Allison,” she corrected. I didn’t like the way she relaxed against the wall as she said it, or the way he nodded at her when she did.

  “Allison,” he repeated. He put the key on the coffee table, rested his elbows on his knees. “We’ll be looking into your late husband’s cases,” he said. Late husband. “Like you suggested. But I’m not sure we’ll find a connection.”

  My dad was a lifelong public defender. He had wanted to be a prosecutor, but my mom convinced him otherwise. Said it wasn’t safe for our family, which was kind of funny. He still got hate mail, occasionally a threatening visit. Ironically, not from the criminals. From the victims. From the victims’ families.

  My mom cleared her throat. “Any timeline you can give us?” she asked. “It’s just that the insurance company won’t pay until they hear from you.”

  “Why not?” I asked, wondering how long I’d be stuck sleeping on the floor of Ron’s office.

  My mom didn’t respond, so the cop spoke instead. “Just that, given the recent changes in your life …” Meaning death. “Your insurance company is going to take a hard look at you.”

  “I was out,” my mom said, pushing off the wall, her eyes wide. “Since this morning. Everything was fine when I left. You can check.”

  “I know,” he said, holding out his hands like he was showing us he didn’t think she had anything to do with it. “I meant the both of you.” It took a second for his words to sink in. Me. They’d be looking at me.

  “I was out with friends. I was walking home.”

  “Could’ve done it before,” he said. I could’ve. It’s true. Then, to my mother, “Not that that’s what I think happened here. But …”

  “But my dad’s work …,” I said, much louder than I meant to.

  “We know,” he said.

  “Maybe someone didn’t know he died.” The cop nodded. Gave me a tight smile. But all I was doing was deflecting accusations with new accusations.

  The rain was still falling when the cop put on his hat, shook my mom’s hand, and left. I went into the downstairs office so I wouldn’t have to sit across the room from Delaney while my mom made phone calls and Delaney’s parents shot each other looks across the room, like they were communicating telepathically.

  There was a mattress next to the desk in the office, and someone had tucked the sheets up around it like it was a real bed. My mom had packed a suitcase of my clothes—I wasn’t sure how it was safe for her to go upstairs in our house and not me, but I figured this wasn’t the best time to argue. They were the clothes I never wore, too. The ones hanging in my closet that I mostly ignored. But I guess it was better than her searching through my drawers.

  I didn’t sleep that night, staying in someone else’s house, in someone else’s bed. I was thinking of Delaney sleeping peacefully upstairs, with her intact family and her intact house.

  I was thinking of the sound of the water dripping down the steps, sliding down the walls, spilling over the tub. Coming for me.

  I felt fingers circling my wrist. Kept picturing the way 2B turned to face me, gripping so tightly, like I could keep her here. The way she looked at me, looked into me, as she said, “Listen.”

  My car was still in my driveway the next morning, and I paused for a second as I backed out. I’d always driven Delaney to school. Who would take her? My mom was in their driveway, and she had her phone pressed between her ear and her shoulder as she got into her car. She raised her hand at me in a wave, or like she wanted me to wait.

  Delaney wasn’t my problem.

  I sped down the street without another glance at their house.

  The thing about living in a small town is that there are very few—if any—secrets. Everyone knew that Janna was back. And everyone knew that my house was flooded, that it was now, as declared, uninhabitable. And they knew where I was staying.

  “Dude,” Kevin said. “You can stay with me.”

  “I know. Thanks. My mom wants me to stay with her. So, I’m stuck.”

  Kevin looked somewhere beyond my shoulder. I turned to see Delaney walking by, walking down the hall next to Maya, like she wasn’t annoyed about her attempt to reunite us. She had to be annoyed at her. I knew Delaney. Of course she was annoyed.

  “Maya’s mad at me,” Kevin said. Because obviously that was more interesting than someone flooding my house. “I think. I’m not sure.”

  “So go find out.”

  “Not my style.” He shook his head. “I mean, I’m not a goddamn bus. So I pick her up after getting Justin, who first of all was eating in my car, so I’m already not in a great mood. And I’m not a morning person, which everyone else knows. And she says, ‘Aren’t you getting Delaney?’ No, I don’t get Delaney. Decker gets Delaney. And if Decker doesn’t want to get Delaney, that’s his business. She really doesn’t get how things work here. At all.”

  I took it that this was his apology for yesterday, for setting us up in the same house together. But all I could picture was Delaney alone. I left her alone. Again. “I don’t care if you get Delaney,” I said.

  “Dude. Not a bus. Like I said.” He shook his head at me, like I was being ridiculous. “Anyway, I called her, just to check, you know? I mean, could you imagine if she got an unexcused tardy?” He smiled, then saw that I wasn’t, and stopped. “She was already on the bus. So the whole argument was a freaking waste. Maya doesn’t get to be pissed.” Then he looked down at the creased paper in his hand. “Who do you have for English?” he asked. And just like that, school had begun. The summer, and everything that had happened in it, was gone.

  “Home sweet home,” Janna said, stepping between me and Kevin.

  “Little Levine!” some guy called as he walked down the hall. Janna frowned. “Dead there, too,” she had said. But at least there, people didn’t see her first as an extension of someone else. Someone gone.

  I closed my eyes and felt the hands of ice reaching for my neck.

  And then the weight of solid hands on my shoulders. “Please,” Janna whispered, her minty breath in my face, her fingers pressing down to my bones. “For the love of God. Get me the hell out of this place.”

  “Dead everywhere.”

  We skipped first period of the first day of our last year. We were in the woods behind the school—past the sports fields but still in view of the field house. “Okay,” Kevin said, crouched down beside me, “Ready?”

  “Please explain to me once again why I’m the one who has to do this?”

  “You won’t get in trouble,” Janna said. “Dead dad.” She said it so matter-of-factly, it actually didn’t sting. “Dead brother got me fifteen unexcused absences before they started calling my parents.” She looked at me from the corner of her eye. “I wouldn’t push it that far if I were you, though.”

  “Brother trumps dad?”

  “Every time,” she said.