‘Yes. People who cross paths with them die, Zoe. Like June. Like Paulina, if Blake and I hadn’t been there.’
‘Blake?’ She shook her head, visibly torn between perplexity, mirth and annoyance. ‘Ashton’s best friend, who according to you must be part of all this too? What reason would he have to save Paulina’s life if they’re trying to kill her?’
She had a point. One that left me stumped. I kneaded my temples, frustrated. ‘I… have no idea. He’s different, somehow.’
Zoe laughed hollowly. ‘Oh, right, so the guy you like isdifferent, but the one I happen to be in love with–a guy I feel really good about, for basically the first time ever–is a serial killer?’
‘I know how it sounds.’
She smiled bitterly and pushed away from the table, tying her scarf around her neck. ‘It sounds like you think I’m a terrible judge of character without a single ounce of common sense.’
‘That’s not true,’ I replied firmly. ‘But Davie’s been gathering evidence about them, he?—’
‘Davie’s been roped in too? Hang on, is this what you’ve been doing for the last few weeks when you were supposedly revising?’
I could see her vexation giving way to another emotion: hurt. There was nothing Zoe hated more than being left out.
‘We weren’t trying to hide anything from you, we’re just worried about you.’
She threw back her head with a groan. ‘I can’t listen to any more of this. How many times do I have to say it?’ She looked at me. ‘Ashton is just a nice, normal guy. He’s not in any sort of creepy cult, he and his friends aren’t criminals, and what happened to June and Paulina is tragic but itisn’ttheir fault. Okay?’
I could only stare at her. Her face was set. I could see she had made up her mind that Ashton deserved her loyalty, which was very obviouslynotokay. But how was I supposed to explain it to her when Davie and I were still trying to figure things out ourselves? ‘Zoe, please. I’m just asking you?—’
She reached for her bag and slung it over her shoulder. ‘No, Mabel. I’m askingyou. Don’t ruin our friendship because you’re paranoid.’ She stepped towards me and took my hands. Her fingers were warm and soft, and I could smell the peach-scented cream I’d bought her for her birthday. ‘I love you, but this needs to stop now. I just want to be happy. Why can’t you let me?’
‘Of course I want you to be happy,’ I replied incredulously. ‘But?—’
‘No buts. Trust me. I know what I’m doing, okay?’
She beamed at me, her smile so endearing and so confident that my objections melted away. Not that they’d disappeared–I just couldn’t risk saying them out loud. I didn’t wantZoegone as well. So I forced myself to nod. ‘Okay.’
Zoe squeezed my hands one final time before she let them go. ‘Thank you. Anyway, I’d better head off, I’ve been invited for dinner.’
Something about the way she said it put me even more on edge. ‘With Ashton?’
Zoe paused in the doorway and turned back to me, a mixture of resignation and warning in her eyes. ‘We haven’t seen each other for more than a week.’
I bit my lip, but the words forced their way out regardless. ‘And you haven’t noticed how much… better you’ve been feeling?’
The sigh she let out didn’t sound especially annoyed, probably because she was already thinking about their date tonight. Her face was aglow with the tenderness that only Ashton could bring.
‘Maybe you should let me decide that for myself.’ And she slipped out through the doorway with a wave, not giving me the chance to reply.
Not that it mattered. It was obvious by now that it would take a lot more to keep Zoe and Ashton apart. So that was what I needed. More.
Chapter14
Cliff
Out of all the universities I knew, Cambridge was the one with the most human soul. Not so much because of what it was, but because of the act it put on. It did everything it could to hide its flaws. All the grand dinners, the parties, the events, always filled with the same gowns, the same recitations. The gilded halls that made even the cafeterias look like ballrooms, the glorious libraries, the brand names paraded across campus on clothes and watches…the glitz, the beauty, the tradition: it was all a front. A carefully tended face that hid a crumbling soul.
If you were word-associating ‘elite university’, ‘inequality’ would spring to mind pretty quickly. At Cambridge, it began with which students were selected–most of them from private schools–and from there it crept into every cell of the university organism. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t my problem: after all, I was a shining example of how well the system could treat a person with the right name and the right face. It’s easy to shrug off injustices when they benefit you. Yet, as perfectly as I fit in, I felt like an error. Maybe it wasn’t so much the university’s issue as mine. The cause was obvious: Cambridge and I were just too alike.
I barged past a few people standing outside the building where my last lecture had been held. A few of them I knew, but I made no effort to stop. Ashton liked to say I had to work on my approachability, but I could rarely bring myself to make small talk. Especially now, when there was only one topic on everybody’s lips. And on my mind.
It had only been two days since Paulina had jumped off the bridge, but already the whole town was enmeshed in a web of half-truths and rumours. You were caught in it wherever you went. People were naturally drawing parallels between June’s death and Paulina’s accident, and some were even calling it a suicide club, which was not merely tasteless but dangerous. Especially for us.
Two days, but they felt like an eternity all of their own. Days spent talking to the others about what to do next. Days of fighting bitterly with Victor and Jack, until Ashton threw me out of my apartment. Days of visiting the hospital to check on Paulina–knowing it was out of my hands whether she would ever come home. Days when I wished I could simply disappear, although I knew that wasn’t possible. They wouldn’t let me. And even if they had, I would never be able to do it. Because what I’d mostly been doing for the last two days was scrolling down to Mabel’s number on my phone, ready to delete it, only to end up almost calling it every single time.
