RINA'S POV
TEN YEARS PRIOR
It was the week before Christmas break, and I was camped out at a table in the school library, my school-issued laptop sitting in front of me and my homework surrounding it like a fan. With midterms starting, I had a lot to do, and I'd lost the ability to focus at home with Monica and Chet staring at me like I was a common criminal. The drug test came back clean in October and I was allowed back at school. But in spite of it, I didn't think they believed me when I insisted that I had no idea how that baggie of weed ended up in my borrowed book. They, like most people, probably assumed I was destined to end up a junkie just like my mom. I should have been used to it by now, but because Monica had been so kind to me before, their looks of open distrust hurt more than anyone else's had before.
It was approaching four p.m., and I had just cracked open my anatomy textbook when Easton appeared just like he always did—out of nowhere with a smug look on his face. He took the seat across from me so quietly I hardly even heard him. I glanced up at him briefly as he pulled his chair out but quickly returned my attention to my book. With the amount of work I had to get done before heading home, I didn't need any distractions, especially the sort Easton usually caused. I planned to ignore him completely until he loudly cleared his throat and slid a piece of paper across the table.
With raised eyebrows, I picked up the paper and promptly choked on my own saliva. It was a print off of my mother's mugshot from nearly seven years ago, taken the last night I saw her in person. She was smiling—a brave face, though it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to see that it was all a facade. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes circled in bruise-like shadows, and her lips—though curved up—were thin and cracked, wound tight against her unnaturally pale skin. She was young here—twenty-eight, just over a decade older than I was now—but you could hardly tell. In this picture, it looked like the drugs were draining away her youth like a parasite.
"Why are you showing me this?" I asked without looking at him. I was focused on the way my mother's mess of brown curls resembled mine, even here, when they were dirty and unbrushed. There was no denying that we were related because her face was the same one I saw in the mirror every day. It wasn't something I was proud of. She gave me her hair, her eyes, her fair skin, and the shape of her nose but I never wanted any of it. Her good looks came at a price, one many men thought they could pay, even when I was a kid. They thought she was an object to be bought, and because I was her daughter—her near carbon copy—so was I. A much younger model, but up for sale just the same.
Easton cleared his throat and like flipping off a light switch, I was lulled out of the trance that memories of my mother always brought on. "That's her, right?" He asked, his voice inquisitive but shockingly not demeaning. "Your real mom?"
"Yes, detective, that's her," I snapped. I suppose I could have been nicer about it, but being around Easton put me on edge. I never knew what to expect because his mood seemed to change by the hour. "Why'd you print this out? Did you run out of things to antagonize me about?"
"No, I'm not trying to antagonize you. Just curious."
"Tell me something, Easton. Would you like it if I printed off your mom's obituary and asked you about it?" I glared at him from over top of my laptop. "Just out of curiosity, of course."
His eyes widened at the question. "You know about my mom?" He sounded surprised but not angry. That only annoyed me more.
"I figured it was only fair that I knew your sob story since you clawed mine out of me."
"Hmm," he said, chewing on his upper lip. He still seemed so casual about it, like we were discussing the weather rather than the different ways our mothers traumatized us. I found myself, once again, questioning whether Easton was a sociopath. "Why? Were you curious about me too?"
"Not in the slightest. Monica told me. I just had the decency not to bring it up in casual conversation."
"Don't you want to know how she died?"
"If I wanted to know so badly, I would have googled it."
"Pill overdose," he said, like he hadn't even heard me. "The authorities said it was suicide, but I was never sure." He got quiet, staring me directly in the eye like he was gauging my reaction. When my expression remained neutral, he added more details, like he was trying to scare me off. "I was the one who found her body. Did Monica tell you that?" I shook my head. "Yeah, I was in second grade. My dad hadn't been home for days. He was probably off fucking one of his secretaries halfway across the country. My mom wasn't up when I left for school. But that was typical. She normally spent more time in bed than she did out of it. So I wasn't concerned until I got home from school and the house was quiet. Usually, by the afternoon, if my mom wasn't out of her room, there was at least evidence that she'd been up. Empty wine bottle in the trash, dishes in the sink, what have you. But the house was just the way I'd left it that morning.
"I walked up to her room. The lights were off but the door was cracked. When I walked in, the air had this smell to it. It was like meat that smelled a little sweet. She was in her bed, fully naked, curled up in a ball with an empty bottle of antidepressants on the bedside table. She was stiff and cold, her eyes wide open, and as I got closer, I realized that smell was coming from her. I was only seven, but it was obvious to me she was dead. Hera got home a few minutes later and found me crying. She called the cops, and then dad. He didn't answer, of course. An ambulance showed up and they took her away with a sheet covering her. It was too late, though. I saw what she looked like dead and it wasn't pretty. Autopsy said she'd been dead for over twenty-four hours. You believe that? I went to sleep that night with my mom's body in the next room over and I didn't even know."
I was shocked. Both at how horrific his story was, but also his tone of voice while he told it. I expected him to at least sound somber, but he just sounded bored. "I would say I feel sorry for you, but you don't even sound sorry for yourself."
"It was a long time ago. Life moves on. I mean, don't you agree? I read that news article about your mom, and it sounds like she did some awful things to you. You seem fine, though."
"Yeah, all those years I spent waking up with night terrors really mellowed me out." He smiled at me, his expression elated like he'd caught me in a trap. I groaned. "What? Are you going to find a way to use that against me now, too?"
"No," he said, still grinning. "You have this tendency to use your past as a weapon whenever you get really mad. I've learned more about your personal life pissing you off than I ever would have otherwise."
"What does my personal life matter to you if you're not planning on using it against me?"
"I told you," he said slowly, rolling a pencil back and forth across the table in front of him. "I'm curious about you."
"Why?" I asked, eyebrows raised, but he wasn't looking at me. Instead, he was focused on my mother's picture, lying on the table between us.
"Because," he said, and then he paused, like he was carefully considering what he was about to say next. He opened his mouth once, and then closed it. I was staring at him the entire time, but he wouldn't look at me until he finally broke his silence several seconds later. "You're unlike anyone I've ever met." His tone was abnormally serious.
"Obviously. The people who live here can afford much higher-end hookers than my mom," I joked, mostly because I didn't know how else to react to his out of character behavior. "I can't imagine there were many other lot lizard rugrats running around Wellspring before I showed up."
He smirked but didn't laugh. I waited, expecting him to say something rude back, but he seemed to have zero interest in starting a fight today. Something else that was completely unlike him. "You know, for the child of a prostitute, you seem pretty well adjusted. I mean, you get decent grades, you don't seem like you're on drugs, and I haven't seen you standing out on any street corners yet. She must not have been that bad."
"None of that is because of my mother. That was all my grandfather's doing."
"Your mom's dad?" He prompted.
I realized he was prying, but because this was the first real conversation I'd had with anyone in more than a week—Jen had mono, my friendship with Harrison was effectively ended when I ditched him at Homecoming with no explanation, and my foster parents were tiptoeing around me like I was a bomb ready to explode—I indulged him. "Yeah. He raised me after my mom got locked up, but he died when I was twelve. And since all my other family members are dead or incarcerated, here I am. A ward of the state."
"You must not hate me as much as you say, because you gave that away pretty freely. I didn't even have to say anything mean first."
"Maybe I'm just lonely. You won't let me make friends, remember?"
He smirked at me, triumphant. "That's how I like it."
"I'm perfectly aware of that, Easton."
"Not as aware as I would like," he said cryptically, his voice lowering and his smile fading. I raised my eyebrows at him, waiting for him to elaborate, but as was customary with Easton Clarke, he didn't. "What are you doing this weekend?"
"I have a job interview," I muttered reflexively, and then kicked myself for it. Nothing was ever just small talk with Easton, and knowing him, he'd use this information to ruin my chances of actually getting the position.
"You want a job?".
"I want to have money, yes. Not all of us have a rich daddy to pay for our every need."
"But don't you? I mean, you have Monica and Chet and they're not exactly poor. Don't they pay for your stuff?"
"They're not my parents. And they're under no obligation to provide anything other than my room and board. Everything else I'm on my own for."
"Monica looks at you like she'd give you the world if you asked," he said, his voice almost accusatory. Or maybe that was just my own paranoia.
"You clearly haven't been around her lately," I muttered, my chest tight. She was starting to look at me the same way all my other foster parents did: like I was a guest who'd overstayed her welcome. But as much as it felt like she wanted to, I don't think she had the heart to send me packing. I could never be certain, but it seemed like she was going to keep me around, at least until I turned eighteen. Which meant I had nearly seven more months with Easton Clarke. A part of me hoped he might get bored of me long before my time in Wellsprings was up. But another much smaller portion didn't like that idea. I wasn't sure where it came from, but it was growing larger the more we interacted. I was becoming more attached to a person I should hate and that scared me.
"How about I come over this weekend?" He asked, his tone conversational but his expression serious. "We've got that paper due in English, right? We could brainstorm ideas together."
"Easton—and I say this with the up most offense intended—I would rather invite over Hitler himself."
"I don't think Hitler would be a big fan of your dark eyes and brown hair."
"Yeah, well, neither are you."
"I never said that."
"You might as well have with the amount you've commented on how bad I look."
"I called you white trash a few times, sure, but never bad looking."
"It's unbelievable the way you think there's much of a difference between the two."
"Look," Easton said, his voice more serious now. "I wouldn't have said that stuff if I knew where you came from, alright? I was just trying to get a rise out of you."
"Very good, Easton," I taunted. "You almost sounded sincere. Next week we'll work on actual apologies."
He chuckled under his breath, his mouth curving up into a barely-there smile. "You're pretty funny sometimes when you're not cussing me out."
"I'm not trying to be funny. I'm insulting you."
"I know, but the way you do it is funny. You're quick-witted. We have similar senses of humor."
"Really? But you've never said anything remotely funny to me."
"I have, but you dismiss everything I say anyways so I'm not surprised you didn't catch my jokes."
"The only joke you've ever made was asking me to homecoming, and I don't think either of us found it very funny."
"Oh, come on, Rina. When are you going to let that go? We would have had a great time together. The dance committee put on one hell of an event."
"I wouldn't know. I didn't go. You know how I actually spent that weekend? Getting piss-tested by a social worker because my foster parents thought I was on drugs. Somehow, even that sounds more appealing than going to a dance with you."
I expected him to look angry when I said that—as angry as he'd looked when I'd turned him down—but he just looked alarmed. His Adam's apple bobbed, and his eyes went wide. "Why'd they think you were on drugs?"
"I don't know," I lied. The last thing I wanted to do was explain how a little baggie of weed inexplicably ended up in my locker. My foster parents didn't buy my explanation for how it ended up there, and I doubted anyone else would either.
"Probably their own paranoia about Ashley. She was on cocaine when she disappeared. You know about that?"
"No," I said, my voice sounding as shocked as I felt. Monica had failed to mention that in our little heart to heart last month.
He grinned conspiratorially. "Yeah, she and my older sister were best friends. I remember when it got bad because sometimes she'd come to my house after a bender. I was a kid, but I could still tell she was on something, you know? Her pupils were dilated, her eyes all bloodshot, and she could never sit still. I mean, your mom was a druggie so I'm sure you know what they're like," he continued, his eyes looking in my direction but out of focus, like he was mentally somewhere else. "My mom was dead, my nanny had long since quit, and my dad was never home, so sometimes, Ashley would come over to sober up before she faced her parents. It started happening more and more frequently right before she disappeared. That's what everyone around here thinks did her in. She snuck out that night to bum coke off the wrong person and ended up buried in the woods somewhere. But they never released mentioned that part in the media."
"That seems like a pretty crucial detail to leave out of a news story."
"The news was more focused on what Ashley represented. A pretty white girl from a rich family vanished without a trace. If it can happen to her, it can happen to anyone," he said, his tone casual still, like he had no emotional attachment to the case at all despite having a friendly relationship to the victim. "Besides, I think Chet pulled some strings to keep her drug use under wraps."
"You don't sound very bothered by what happened. I mean, you spent a lot of time at her house growing up. I would think you'd be sad that she's gone."
"Well, if I'm being honest, I never particularly liked Ashley," he admitted. "Monica and Chet? Sure, they treated me like family. But their daughter was a nightmare."
"What do you mean?"
"She was spoiled and entitled," he said, and I looked at him with raised eyebrows. Pot calling the kettle black, I wanted to say, but he beat me to it. "I know, I know, you think it's hypocritical for me to say that, but I'm only spoiled materialistically. My dad would rather throw money at me than be a parent. Trust me when I tell you I'd rather live in a trailer park with parents who actually love me than in a big, empty house all alone. That wasn't Ashley's situation, though. From the way Hera tells it, Monica always wanted a big family but after Ashley, the doctor said she couldn't have another baby. So Ashley was her miracle baby and both she and Chet thought that Ashley could do no wrong, that the sun shined out of her ass. And the way Monica looks at you—or the way she did the last time I saw her—was the same way she looked at Ashley. Like she'd have done anything for her, legal or not. Chet was just as bad. Doting on her hand and foot, giving her everything and anything she wanted, and bailing her out of trouble whenever she messed up. The girl was a wild child who never had to face any consequences. I'm not surprised she ended up on cocaine."
"If she was so bad, why was your sister friends with her?" I asked.
"Honestly? I think she put up with Ashley because she wanted to be a part of the Snyder household. Everything was so easy there. There was always food in the fridge and Monica treated us like we were her kids. She took care of me right after my mom died for like a week. It was honestly the best week of my life. That sounds horrible, because I should have been sad about my mom, but my mom was a hollow shell of a person as long as I can remember. She hardly even looked at me. But Monica was like one of those moms on TV who kiss your booboos and tell you that everything will be alright. I'd never had that before, and neither did Hera. It's hard to turn down a loving family when you've never had one, even if it came with Ashley."
"I understand the feeling," I whispered, more to myself than him. "So Hera has no idea where Ashley went that night?"
"She says she didn't," he said. "Hera wasn't home that night, and she told the police she was at a friend's house and Ashley wasn't there. Turns out that friend was Ashley's ex-boyfriend, Matthew. Hera spent the night with him. She had been under Ashley's nose for a while apparently. Hera got a call from Ashley just after midnight but she let it go to voicemail. I can only assume because Hera was otherwise occupied. She played the voicemail for the cops but it sounded like a butt-dial. Just a lot of rustling around, and there was a dog barking in the background, but nobody spoke. I'm not sure if the police investigated that call further, like traced it or whatever. I never heard anything about it again."
"And what does Hera think happened?" I asked, eyebrows raised. "She was her best friend. She must have a theory."
"Hera doesn't like to talk about it, so I don't really know. I think she's feels guilty about the whole Matthew thing and for not picking up the phone when Ashley called. But I'm not sure what her theory is on where Ashley went. Probably the same one as everybody else—drug deal gone wrong. I don't see any other reason a teenage girl would disappear into thin air after sneaking out. Besides, there's miles and miles of national forest within a two hour drive. That's probably where Ashley is. That's where I'd go if I had to get rid of a body anyways."
"So you've thought about dumping a body a lot, huh?" I asked, eyebrows raised. I was half joking, but knowing Easton, he probably wasn't.
"Not extensively. But sometimes you get dark thoughts, you know? Like what ifs that you're never actually going to act on. I mean, don't you?"
"No. But that sounds like a disorder. Maybe tell a therapist," I said, turning back to my laptop. I tried not to think about the fact that this was the most civil conversation Easton and I'd ever had, or that I almost enjoyed his company when he wasn't being a narcissistic prick.
"Probably," he muttered. Though I wasn't looking at him, I could sense him staring intently at my face. It made my cheeks turn red and I hoped he wouldn't notice. "So, this weekend, do you have any plans?"
"The usual. Locked in my dungeon so I don't accidentally end up at the same party as you," I quipped back, finally working up the nerve to look back up at him. It was like I could only face him if I was being antagonistic. Any other interaction between us felt unnatural. "Plus I have to study for midterms. And finish that AP Lit paper."
He smirked at me. "You know, I wouldn't mind it if you and I went to a party together. So long as you stayed in my sight, lest you get any ideas," he joked, wagging his finger at me. It was unnerving. I'd ever seen him so relaxed. We hadn't even spoken since that afternoon before Homecoming, and every time before then, Easton was always on the attack. But today, it was like he was a whole new person. Still, I didn't trust that the sudden change was sincere. For all I knew, he had an angle he was playing, and I wasn't going to fall into his trap.
"In your sights? Sounds horrible. I'd rather stay locked in my bedroom," I said back, my tone equally as relaxed as his but my body tense.
"I could lock you in my bedroom," he said lowly, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Something fluttered low in my stomach and I wanted to kick myself for the involuntary physical reaction. Easton Clarke of all people should not be able to make me feel like that, but he just had and I felt a little sick because of it.
"You're unbelievable," I said back, unable to meet his gaze or come up with anything better in response. Was he flirting with me? I couldn't tell, and I almost wished he would go back to insulting me. At least then my body wouldn't respond in a way that felt both foreign and warm at the same time.
"Why don't we do something this weekend? No parties. It can just be the two of us." He smiled when he said it, but it didn't reach his eyes, and alarm bells went off in my head. Just the two of us? No witnesses? Sounded like a recipe for disaster.
"Uh," I started, my head spinning, trying to come up with a response that wouldn't turn this into a screaming match. I already learned how angry Easton could get when he didn't get his way, and the last thing I wanted was to deal with that on top of everything else. "I don't think so. I don't think it's a good idea."
"Why not?" He pressed, no longer smiling. In fact, he looked grim.
"Because Monica's on my case about studying, and I have a lot to get done this weekend," I lied. Monica had hardly spoken to me anymore than was absolutely necessary in the past two months. But what else was I supposed to say? That I didn't want to hang out with him because I was scared? I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
I could tell he didn't believe me. Or at least, he didn't think that was the only reason I was saying no. He stared at me for a long minute, our eyes locked until I saw his hands, which were resting on the table, slowly balling into fists. I swallowed hard, thinking he was going to start hurling insults next, but instead he just nodded at me grimly, stood up, and walked out of the