Page 3

Barrett stared at the book on the ground.

He picked it up.

Beginner, huh?

Out the window, the girl grabbed a bike, but instead of getting on it and riding away as fast as she could, like a normal person would, she just walked by its side and rushed out into the rain.

Barrett raised a brow.

He might have let it slide in any other situation if he thought it were any other person, but . . . he just wanted to check. He just wanted to make sure his mind wasn’t playing weird tricks on him because he could have sworn . . .

He ran out of the shop and ignored the annoying doorbell as he swung out into the humid rainstorm.

She wasn’t very far, just across the street, with her head down as she pushed the bike as fast as she could, absolutely drenched through.

Barrett pushed forward. The rain beat down on him, and he wondered where on earth she planned on going in a freak downpour like this. He was soaked within seconds, his hair sticking to his face as he caught up to her and stopped her lame attempt at an escape by grabbing the handlebar of her bike.

She jumped and stared up at him with wide blue eyes. She must not have thought he was crazy enough to chase her out into the rain, but anyone who knew Barrett knew he was crazier.

He took her in, better than he was able to inside before she’d made a break for it, but it answered his question.

She was Janelle Duncan.

He almost didn’t recognize her because of the black-dyed hair. Her face was sharper than before, sunken in at the cheeks, but those deep, striking blue eyes were unmistakable. They’d entranced many a boy in high school before Barrett left that damn place in ’86.

The dress she wore was the only other thing reminiscent of the popular Gemsburg high cheerleader, but even that was altered with the out-of-character jean jacket layered over it.

She looked like some evil twin version of the Janelle he’d avoided like the plague in high school. His type and her type did not mingle.

But he hadn’t seen her since he graduated two years ago, when she was a sophomore, and everyone knew what happened three months ago. It didn’t take a genius to know this drastic change had everything to do with what she’d done to her friends.

Or what people said she had done to her friends.

Whatever happened, three girls were dead and one alive. Though, Janelle looked like a corpse too with that dirty dark hair sticking to her pale skin.

She gaped at him, frozen like she was waiting for something horrible to happen.

Barrett chuckled at the expression. “You forgetting something?”

He held out the beginner’s manual, now as soaked as the two of them.

She looked down at it, then up at him. He shook it toward her. But all she did was stare at him, her eyes wide.

Had the rain frozen her?

He noticed her shaking hands gripping the handlebars. Watered-down streams of blood dripped from her knees. His brow furrowed.

“Whoa, are you—”

The bike between them fell to its side and clattered on the ground. He jumped back, shocked by the harsh crash. When he looked up, she was already twenty feet away, sprinting up the road without glancing back.

Barrett’s mouth hung open as she ran around a building and away from him.

He stared at the wall she disappeared behind, waiting for her to reappear, but after a minute with no sign, he realized she was serious.

“Okay then.” He knew what people thought of him, but was he really that scary? He laughed and pushed his stringy bangs away from his eyes.

Despite appearances, the pastor’s daughter must still have that God-fearing beat in her that scared her away from him. Maybe for a good reason, but he was just getting curious.

He glanced down at the bike she’d abandoned. The back tire spun slowly, and he contemplated leaving it there for her to come back for later. He nudged it with his foot.

Leaving it out in the rain would rust the spokes, and though it already looked old to begin with, it was still a perfectly good bike. No use letting it go to waste.

Barrett sighed and bent over to pick it up and, with guitar lessons in hand, pushed it back to the store.

Toni stood in the window, gesturing to the scene in front of him. Barrett shrugged.

Instead of leaving the bike against the brick wall outside, he maneuvered it through the shop door, ignoring the looks he got as he pushed it back behind the counter and into the storage area, and hid it behind some unopened boxes.

“Did you just chase a girl into the rain and steal her bike?” Toni appeared behind him.

“It’s not stealing if she abandoned it.” Barrett grinned, drying his wet hands on his pants.

“Who was that?”

“Janelle Duncan.”

Toni’s eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. “No fucking way.” He chuckled like he couldn’t tell if Barrett was joking or not. “The one—”

“The very one.” He cut him off.

“She looks . . .” Toni paused, trying to find the words that Barrett hadn’t yet been able to come up with. “Different.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“Still hot, though.”

Now that was something Barrett could agree on. Anyone with eyes knew she was hot. You didn’t become as popular as she used to be if you weren’t. Not even cheap dye and a ripped jacket could change that.

She’d always been clean, put together, angelic. Now she was ragged, untamed, devilish.

Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

Barrett might’ve been more amused about her situation if she hadn’t been a perfectly pleasant human.

She and her three main friends always had been.

Unlike most kids, they had never stepped out of their way to smack into Barrett or call him “freak” under their breath.

They’d all simply avoided him, politely.

In return, he had stayed out of their way, politely, and was perfectly content watching her from across the cafeteria until he graduated.

That pleasantness was why their deaths had been such a devastation to their small community.

Except for Janelle.

Her survival had put a neon target on her back and sicced the town on her like rabid dogs. Some of them clutched their hearts and stared from a distance while whispering “poor thing”. Others had a dozen theories of what actually happened that night, despite the story the papers told.

He’d only heard secondhand the things people had said about her for the past three months, and it was enough to make his stomach twist and be glad it wasn’t him. He knew firsthand what it was like to have the town against you.

Seeing her like that . . . he empathized.

Damn.

Never thought that would happen.

“What are you gonna do with that anyways?” Toni pointed at the dripping bike.

“Don’t know yet.” He looked it over and grinned. Barrett rang the bell on the handle, and the cardboard boxes around them muffled the satisfying ding. “Maybe ride it home.”

Toni huffed, amused, and put his hand on the bell to stop Barrett from ringing it again. “Yeah, let me know how that goes in this storm.”

Another bell rang, this time out on the sales floor that they’d both abandoned. Toni turned and left Barrett alone in the storage room with the bike.

His grin faltered slightly as he thought about the girl who was most likely still out there in the storm. Now, without a bike.

Oh well.

She wouldn’t want to see him, and getting involved with her was bad news. Chances were, he would never interact with Janelle Duncan again.