Feral by Holly Schindler

Author:Holly Schindler
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-11-10T22:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

Claire wondered, as she sat beside Rich at their lunch table, if she should tell him about what she’d seen in the basement. If anyone would entertain the possibility of a spirit being real, wouldn’t it be the son of the preacher? He would be, she felt, the last to look at her like she was crazy if she were to come right out with it: Casey was no urban legend—he was real. And Casey obviously knew things—he knew about the alley Claire had been in during the Chicago ice storm. He had shown that alley to her, down in the basement. But what had he shown Serena? Had something happened to her—something other than an accident? Was Casey somehow responsible?

“What’s your dress like? The one you brought with you from Chicago?” Becca asked from the opposite side of their table.

When Claire stared back blankly, Becca went on, “The one you told me about this morning. For the dance.”

“Oh,” Claire said, trying to remember what it was, exactly, that she had packed. Certainly not a formal. “Just—it’s black and—kind of—basic.”

“Classic,” Becca corrected. “Sounds pretty,” she chirped. “You know, I was thinking—we all could go together. Me, you, Rich—”

Rich snorted. “You and me?” he blurted. The question wasn’t antagonistic—instead, showed a genuine surprise.

“Sure,” Becca said. “And Owen, and Chas.”

“I’m not going,” Chas announced, plopping his phone down on the table as he picked up his sandwich.

Becca frowned. “But you’d planned all along—”

“I don’t want to go, all right?” Chas snapped. “I never did.”

“The next thing you know,” Becca told Owen, “you’ll say we aren’t going anymore, either.”

“Becca,” Owen sighed, wiping his face in exasperation. “I’m so sick of this. You’ve got it in your head that something’s going on with me, that I’ve got some girl on the side. What girl, Becca? Huh? You really think in a town this small that nobody would have said anything by now?”

“Chas kept his secret,” Becca challenged.

“Yeah, for two seconds,” Owen reminded her.

“You’re different than you used to be,” Becca said, twisting her paper napkin with the force of a woman wringing the neck of a man who’d wronged her.

“She’s right about that one, pretty boy,” Chas agreed.

“So what? You’re not supposed to change in your life? Ever?” Owen thundered.

“Change is good,” Chas told him. “Becoming an asshole generally is not.”

“I’m an asshole now because—why? I changed my hair?”

“Because you built yourself a pedestal and sat on it,” Becca said.

Owen frowned, holding his hands palms up, as if to show his innocence. “Jesus. You know what—forget this,” he said. “If you want to go to the dance, Becca, that’s fine. I’m happy to take you. But I don’t want to go just to be told all night how much I suck.” He grabbed his tray and stomped off, leaving the table quiet and the air around it tense.

Claire felt bad for Owen as he hurried away—she didn’t care how he’d been acting lately, it didn’t seem right for Chas and Becca to gang up on him that way.

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