Soul Screamers Collection. Rachel Vincent

between the two girls: they were both dead with no apparent cause. The local news knew that. Emma knew it. I knew it. Only Nash seemed oblivious. Or at least uninterested.

      Emma pointed at him with the business end of a plastic fork, her porcelain face twisted into an equally beautiful mask of disbelief. “So you don’t think it’s weird that two girls have dropped dead in the past two days?”

      He sighed and pulled the tab from his empty soda can, watching it, rather than either of us. “I never said it wasn’t weird. But I don’t get this morbid obsession you two have with those poor girls. They’re gone. You didn’t know either of them. Let them rest in peace.”

      I rolled my eyes and peeled the vendor’s sticker from my apple. “We’re not disturbing their rest.”

      “And it’s not obsession—it’s caution,” Emma countered, aiming her water bottle at him like a conductor’s baton. “No one knows how they died, and I’m not buying the coincidence angle. That could be either one of us tomorrow.”

      Her gaze turned my way, clearly including me among the potential victims of … um …dropping dead for no reason. “Or any one of them.” She nodded toward the cafeteria, and I turned to see Sophie and several of her friends bounce down the steps in the company of half a dozen jocks in matching green-and-white jackets.

      “You’re totally overreacting.” Nash pushed his tray away and twisted on the bench to face us both. “It’s just a weird coincidence that has nothing to do with us.”

      “What if it’s not?” I demanded, and even I recognized the pain in my voice. I couldn’t let go of the possibility that I could have helped. Could maybe have saved Heidi, if I’d only said something. “No one knows what happened to those girls, so you can’t possibly know it won’t happen again.”

      Nash closed his eyes, as if gathering his thoughts. Or maybe his patience. Then he opened them and looked at first Emma, then me. “No, I don’t know what happened to either of them, but the cops will figure it out sooner or later. They probably died of totally different, completely unrelated illnesses. An aneurism, or a freak teenage heart attack. And I’ll bet you my Xbox that they have nothing to do with each other.”

      His eyes narrowed on mine then, and he took my hand in both of his. “And they have nothing to do with you.”

      “Then how did she know it was going to happen?” Emma stared at us both, brown eyes wide. “Kaylee knew that first girl was going to die. I’d say that makes her pretty deeply involved.”

      “Okay, yes.” Nash turned from me to glare at her. “Kaylee knew about Heidi. That’s weird, and creepy, and sounds like the plot from some cheesy horror movie—”

      “Hey!” I elbowed Nash, and he shot me a dimpled grin.

      “Sorry. But she asked. My point is that your premonition is the only weird part of this. The rest is just coincidence. A total fluke. It’s not going to happen again.”

      I pulled my hand from his grasp. “What if you’re wrong?”

      Nash frowned and ran his fingers through his artfully mussed hair, but before he could answer, a hand dropped onto my shoulder and I jumped.

      “Trouble in paradise?” Sophie asked, and I looked up to find her beaming at Nash over my head.

      “Nope. We’re all shiny and happy here, thanks,” Emma said when I couldn’t unclench my teeth long enough to reply.

      “Hey, Hudson.” A green-sleeved arm slid around Sophie’s shoulders, and I found myself staring at Scott Carter, the first-string quarterback and my cousin’s current plaything. “Makin’ new friends?”

      Nash nodded. “You know Emma, right?”

      Carter’s jaw tightened as his eyes settled on my best friend. He knew her, all right. Emma had turned him down cold over the summer, then dumped a Slushie on his shirt at the Cine mark when he refused to take the hint. If anyone other than Jimmy had been working with her, she’d probably have been reported and fired.

      Nash’s hand curled around mine. “And this is Kaylee.”

      Carter’s eyes turned my way, for probably the first time ever, and his smile returned as his gaze traveled from my face to the front of my shirt. Which he could probably see straight down, since he was standing. “Sophie’s sister, right?”

      “Cousin,” Sophie and I said in unison. It was the only thing we agreed on.

      “Hey, we’re taking my dad’s boat out on White Rock Lake Friday night. You two should come.”

      “She can’t.” Sophie sneered at me, curling her arm through Carter’s. “She has to work.”

      As if it were a dirty word. Though personally, after what Emma had to say about him, I’d rather spend all night scraping gum from the underside of theater chairs than spend one minute on Carter’s father’s boat.

      “We’ll catch you next time,” Nash said, and Carter nodded as Sophie tugged him toward a table at the front of the quad, already swarming with green-and-white jackets.

      “Wow.” Emma whistled softly. “He is such a dick. He just looked down your shirt with Sophie and Nash both standing there. That’s a jock for you.”

      “We’re not all bad,” Nash said, but he looked distinctly unamused by both Carter’s optical invasion and Emma’s commentary on it.

      Without his teammates around, it was easy to forget that Nash played football. Baseball too. What could he possibly want with me, while girls like Sophie were standing in line to drool all over him?

      “Don’t you usually sit over there?” I asked, nodding toward the green-and-white bee swarm. We’d sat with the jocks earlier in the year, when Emma was going out with one of the linebackers, but honestly, the noise and constant posturing got on my nerves.

      “You two are much better company.” Nash grinned, pulling me closer, but for once, I barely noticed. Something in that crowd of matching jackets had snagged my attention. Something felt … wrong.

      Nooo …! It couldn’t happen again! Nash had said it wouldn’t!

      But already the first tendrils of panic were prickling the inside of my flesh.

      The edges of my vision went dark, as if death hovered just out of sight. My heart hammered. My skin tingled, and my hands curled into fists. Nash flinched and pulled his hand from mine. I’d forgotten I was holding it and had drawn blood from his palm.

      “Kaylee?” His voice was thick with concern, but I couldn’t look away from the green-and-white crowd. Couldn’t concentrate on him while panic thundered through my head and guilt clawed at my heart. Someone was going to die. I could feel it, but I couldn’t tell who yet. The jackets blended into one another, like a herd of Technicolor zebras, individuals hiding among the mingling multitude.

      But social camouflage wouldn’t work. Death would find the one it wanted, and I couldn’t warn the victim if I couldn’t find him. Or her.

      And it was a her. I could feel that much.

      “She’s doing it again.”

      I heard Emma as if she were speaking from far away, though I knew dimly that she’d moved to sit next to me. I couldn’t look at her. I had eyes only for the crowd hiding the soon-to-be-dead girl. I needed to see who she was. I had to see….

      Then the crowd parted and the applause began. Music played; someone had brought out a small stereo. Girls were tossing their jackets onto a pile on the ground. They lined up in the grass, forming a zigzag formation I recognized from the competitions my aunt and uncle had dragged me to. The dance team was doing a demonstration. Showing off the routine that had captured the regional trophy.

      And then I saw her. Second from the left, three down from Sophie. A tall, slender girl with honey-brown hair and heavily lashed eyes.

      Meredith