“Sophie,” Zack is whispering, and his arms are reaching out for me.
I flinch at his touch. When I look at him, anger flashes through me, and I see the monster that stole my brother. But I do not have the energy to sustain my anger, and it dissipates as quickly as it comes. When I look at Zachary again, it feels like I am seeing him through thick, cloudy goggles. The air around me has grown heavy, as though we are underwater. Zack’s hands are warm, and they gently rub my shoulders and pull me back to reality. I am about to push him away when I am struck by a terrible realization.
Zack is now the only person on the planet who cares about me.
He is the only person who gives a damn that I exist.
And I could really use a person right now—any person. For this reason, I let him put his arms around me, and I sink against his chest with the vile newspaper crushed between our bodies. I am alone. All my deepest fears have been brought to the surface. I feel like a child again, stripped of everything that made this world good. Stripped of any reason to wake up in the morning.
And it’s my fault. I could have been there for Cole. I could have helped him.
A broken sob escapes my chest, and then I push Zachary away.
“I need to go,” I tell him as I struggle to straighten my body. Moving almost mechanically, I feel my shaky legs taking me to the elevator.
“Wait!” Zack asks, grabbing my arm. “Where are you going?”
“Airport,” I mumble.
“You can’t drive in this condition. Let me take you.”
“I don’t think I can look at you right now, Zack.”
“You don’t have to—I understand. I know you’ll never forgive me for this, but I want to be there if you need me. I’m coming to California with you, Sophie.” Zack’s face is suddenly filled with determination, and his eyes are set like steel. “Whoever wanted Cole dead might also want to hurt you. I’m not going to let that happen.”
I open my mouth to protest, but the truth is that I don’t want to be alone right now. “Fine,” I whisper, ripping my arm away from Zack’s grasp. I see his cell phone sticking out of his pocket and I reach for it with sudden conviction, clutching it tightly in the palm of my hand. I can almost feel the wireless signals piercing through my skin.
It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t have to try so hard to be good.
None of this would have happened if I hadn’t taken this job—if I had allowed myself to use the goddamned Internet. None of this would have happened if I had stayed close to Cole. Why was I so afraid? I could have prevented this. I know I could have prevented this.
“Get dressed,” I tell Zack bitterly. “I will need to see every single one of those letters you hid from me. And for god’s sake...” My voice is so cold that the words taste like shards of ice against my tongue. “Get me a fucking computer.”
Chapter Two
Jolting up to a seated position in bed, all my muscles are tensed to their limit. Was I dreaming, or do I really smell smoke? The air is hot. Sweat drips down my bare chest as I pant and survey my surroundings in panic. A guy my age should not be having nightmares like this. I can feel the fire entering my nostrils and making all the tiny hairs singe and curl.
But there is no fire.
My eyes are burning as I search for flames rising from the floorboards, expecting to hear them crack and splinter. I hold my breath as I listen for the sounds of the house collapsing beneath me, but the only noise is the thunderous pounding in my chest. I grasp my ribcage with both hands in an attempt to keep my heart from beating hard enough to tear my skeleton in half.
When I glance at the clock, I am annoyed to see that I have only been asleep for ten minutes.
“Ugh,” I grunt at myself in disgust. These damn nightmares just won’t let me be. Running both of my hands through my messy brown hair, I feel a thin film of sweat coating my scalp.
Since the night my parents died, I’ve had trouble sleeping.
Bottles of insomnia, anti-anxiety, depression, and ADHD medications lie on my bedside table, but I ignore the drugs. No one seems to understand that I want to be awake. I need to be aware of my surroundings at all times. Bad things happen, and I don’t want to be numb when they do. Alertness keeps you alive.
Maybe if I had been more cognizant six years ago, instead of sleeping blissfully under the stars in our backyard, my parents would still be here. I could have warned them, or woken them up at the first sign of danger. But I had my priorities all mixed up. Once I got permission to camp outside, building an awesome castle out of tree branches was all that mattered to me. I didn’t have a single care in the world.
When I was woken up by the sound of screaming sirens, I tried to rush into the house to help out, but it was too late. My whole world was burning, breaking, and literally crashing down around me; it was impossible to get upstairs where my parents were sleeping. A firefighter was able to pull me
