Jennifer Armentrout: Cursed

I grabbed for his arm, but he started jerking like he was having a seizure. His normally tan skin turned sallow, and his hands spasmed.

When his eyes rolled back into their sockets, he fell backward like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

I stood over him, breathing heavily. “Dustin?”

He didn’t move.

I wrapped my arms around my waist, but that did nothing to stop the violent trembling. I knelt down, staring at his chest. One second passed. Five seconds, and then twenty, and his chest still hadn’t moved.

My stomach rolled, almost forcing me to my knees. I backed up quickly, shaking my head.

He was dead—Dustin was dead.

And I had killed him.

I don’t even remember getting back in my car, but I was sitting behind the wheel, staring out through the windshield. The keys bit through my gloves into the fleshy part of my palm.

“Emmie?” Olivia’s voice trembled.

I’d killed Dustin. Something shifted in my stomach again, which I found strange, because I hadn’t eaten dinner. Every muscle in my body seemed to lock up. Then I heard the door being unlocked in the back. I twisted around in the seat. “Don’t! Don’t open that door, Olivia!”

She froze, her lower lip trembling. “What’s happening?”

My hands shook as I turned back around. “Nothing… nothing is happening.”

Olivia let out a sob. It was little and soft, but so heartbreaking. “Emmie, I’m scared.”

I was terrified, too. I’d just killed someone—a classmate, a guy I used to date. Dustin had a mother and a father, a little brother, and friends. People who loved him and would miss him.

Part of me knew I needed to do something about this—call someone, go to the police. Tell them what had happened. Then what? I’d be sentenced, but I doubted jail would be in my future. A research facility sounded more likely. What would happen to Olivia? She’d go into foster care, and that was enough to give me nightmares. I couldn’t let that happen, but I couldn’t just walk away. My gaze dropped to my gloved hand. Desperation welled up, choking me from the inside out.

What had I done?

Something knocked against the window. Olivia let out a muffled shriek. Startled, I jumped in my seat.

A man peered in through the driver’s window, possibly in his late twenties or early thirties.

“Open the door,” he commanded in a voice that said he was used to people obeying him.

I stared at him wordlessly. Was he a cop? He didn’t look like a cop, unless cops had started wearing long dusters and cowboy hats in Pennsylvania. I might’ve laughed.

His mouth was a hard line, jaw locked. “Open the door, Ember.”

My heart did another crazy leap. I slammed my hand down on the lock before the guy could yank the door open. There was no reason this stranger should’ve known my name. Just like Hayden in the library.

Two strangers in one day who knew my name didn’t seem likely.

The man hit the window, shaking but not shattering it.

Olivia was getting worked up in the back seat, snapping me into action. I shoved the key into the ignition, hands shaking.

“Don’t!” The man pulled on the door handle like he intended on ripping the door open. “Ember!”

The instinct to flee overpowered me. I turned the ignition and slammed on the gas. I caught a glimpse of the man jumping back before the tires ate a speed bump and curb.

We hit the main road, and I drew a shaky breath.

Olivia sniffled. “Emmie, what’s going on?”

I gripped the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, Olivia. I’m so sorry.”

She started crying again, and I think she knew what’d happened in the parking lot. Perhaps that was what she’d sensed earlier. Something bad had happened. Olivia had warned me, but I hadn’t listened.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

Olivia only cried harder.

Numbness had taken over by the time we got home. I put away the groceries blindly and ordered Olivia to go to bed without looking at her. I sat down in the living room, ignoring Adam’s text messages.

With the sound of every car that passed the house, I expected flashing red and blue lights. Any strange noise from outside had me peering out the window, expecting to find the cowboy or the police bearing down on our house.

Hot tears burned my eyes but didn’t fall as I stared at my cell. Several times I’d reached for the phone, fully intending to call the police and turn myself in. They had to have found Dustin’s body by now, and even though my touch hadn’t left any visible mark on him, his death could not be ruled natural. But then I thought of Olivia… and Mom. It wasn’t so much the question of who would take care of them, but the fact that I couldn’t leave them.

At some point during the night, Olivia came downstairs and crawled up on the couch. Carefully, she placed her head in my lap. The tears came then, coursing down my cheeks as I kept my hands shoved under my arms.

I tortured myself the rest of the night with images of me accidentally touching Adam, or worse yet, Olivia. I replayed my encounter with Dustin over and over again. Had there been time for me to move before he’d touched my skin? Was there something different I could’ve done?

Sleep didn’t come for me that night. Not that I deserved any sort of rest. When it was time for Olivia to get ready for school, I gently roused her. She lifted her head, her corkscrew curls all over the place.

I made myself smile. I had to act normal while I decided what I needed to do… or until the police hauled me off to jail. “Time to get up, sleepy head.”

Olivia scrubbed her eyes. “You’re still here.”

My breath caught. “Where else would I be?”

Her gaze dropped from my face to my hands. “Can we stay home today with Mommy?”

God, I wanted nothing better than to stay home, but I needed things to be normal for Olivia, at least until the world fell out from underneath us. “Not today, Olivia. You need to go to school.”

She didn’t argue like I’d expected her to. We went upstairs to get ready. There was no bouncing or humming today. I went through my morning routine like a zombie, barely paying attention to anything I was doing. There wasn’t even anger when I poked my head into Mom’s bedroom—just profound sadness.

I crept to the side of her bed. “Mom?” Holding my breath for a response—anything—I sat on the edge of the bed. My eyes started to leak. “Mom, please. I don’t know what to do. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I promise. It just happened.”

My mom gave a little sigh.

And my heart broke. “Olivia isn’t the only one who needs you. I do, too. I need you. Please come back.”

Today was no different to her. She didn’t respond, and I didn’t have any more time to wait. Dragging myself from the bed, I wiped the back of my hand under my eyes.

Olivia was silent on the way to school and squeezed my arm before she climbed out of the backseat.

My stomach twisted in raw knots by the time I arrived at school. I expected to see police cruisers there, or at the very least, clusters of somber students mourning the loss of a friend.

Everyone was acting like they normally did, talking and laughing, pushing one another, or making out by their lockers. The halls were a study of controlled chaos, but there wasn’t a single teary-eyed face.

And there were no deputies waiting to speak to students.

I kept my head down as I shuffled down the hall, stopping at my locker long enough to switch out my books. Slamming the door shut, I turned around and saw Adam’s concerned face.

“God, I’ve been so worried.” An old pair of glasses—with thicker frames than the wire ones he usually sported—made me think of owls.