I quickly checked for a pulse, and once satisfied he was still alive, I opened Brett’s jaw and stuck my fingers inside, too focused on the job to be disgusted by the scent of alcohol and the wetness coating my hand. I checked the airway to clear it, but from what I could tell, nothing was blocking his throat.
I put my left hand on top of my right in the center of his chest and squared my shoulders over his body. As I began to press down to the disco beat of “Stayin’ Alive,” Brett’s chest popped, and even though I knew to possibly expect this, the sensation of breaking bones and cartilage in his rib cage wasn’t a pleasant one.
After thirty compressions, I tilted back his head, pinched his nose, and breathed deeply into his mouth. From this angle I could see tiny capillaries that had burst along his neck. He had red indentations from clawing at his own throat, and I swear that it looked like he’d been strangling himself.
I didn’t have time to consider the reasons because, for now, I could only focus on trying to save him.
I continued this way for four rounds, but my arms were already tiring.
“Can anyone help?” I called out.
Within seconds, a woman I recognized as having been one of the two camera operators was on the floor ready to switch off with me, dropping a fuzzy boom mic as she knelt down.
“I can do it,” she said, her hands shaking as she extended them.
“Get in place, and you can take over after this set. Got it?”
The camerawoman nodded and I counted off the compressions.
Time warped as we worked, glacially slow yet dizzyingly fast. My arms burned as she and I traded places, Brett’s ribs resisting beneath our hands while Lacy’s voice trembled into the phone. The sounds and sights blurred together, near and far all at once.
When the medics arrived, they moved us aside and worked with practiced efficiency—oxygen, defibrillator, preparation to intubate.
After several minutes the head medic checked his watch and bit his lip, finally shaking his head. Fifteen minutes had passed since Brett’s last breath. We’d failed.
Brett Brinkley—former high school golden boy, one-hit wonder, reality TV star—lay dead on the dance floor at our ten-year reunion. The party was over in more ways than one.
TWO
I stared at my phone, willing Charlie to respond to my texts and calls.
Emergency at the Rose Palace.
Need you immediately.
But the screen remained dark. Maybe he was already on his way, hurrying here to perform his duty as sheriff, but that didn’t stop me from begging him to appear.
The reunion’s festive atmosphere had faded with Brett’s last breath. Gone were the pulsing lights and pounding music. They’d been replaced by the harsh glare of chandeliers and hushed whispers. My shocked classmates huddled in clusters, their faces blurring together as they speculated about what had just happened, about how someone who’d been dancing only minutes before now lay dead on the ballroom floor.
Living, Brett’s entire aura had exuded the relaxed confidence of the wealthy, which was far from his actual lower-middle-class upbringing. His mom had been a teller at the local bank and his dad had worked for the coal mines. It was an inside-outside job,meaning that he’d rarely had to descend into the earth, and he’d earned only nominal pay.
Brett Brinkley had escaped Aubergine and made it big, slipping easily into his new persona. Even when I’d given him CPR, I’d noticed that he must’ve spent money on personal trainers, what with his chiseled pecs and his firm biceps bursting from the sleeves of his designer shirt. His neck and jaw were thick, and while to me he was still completely unattractive, I could see why he’d drawn the eyes of television viewers two years earlier.
I was thinking that it’s an awful, harrowing experience, watching someone die, particularly when you were the one trying to save them, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Jemma standing there, her stage makeup garish in the overhead light.
“This place is, for real, cursed. Has to be,” Jemma said with arms crossed in front of her. Even though we hadn’t spoken in months—not since I’d beat her out for the title of Rose Palace Queen—aside from sending a few texts and memes, she acted as if we were old friends picking up on a recent chat.
The camerawoman who’d helped me with CPR was nearby and overheard Jemma’s musings. Her expression seemed just as lost as I felt, which meant she was likely grateful for the distraction of conversation, even if it was with strangers.
“Is this place cursed?” The woman’s eyes were wide and her throat scratchy. “Because Presley totally believes in those things.” She glanced in the direction of Brett’s girlfriend, who sat at a table on the other side of the ballroom, tears streaming from her eyes, her cheeks splotchy from crying. Joe Larson sat across from Presley Lombardi, watching her intensely. “For the last episode of their new series, she and Brett visited a psychic.” The woman let out a shuddering breath. “The lady told Presley that ‘hard times lay ahead.’” She put the last few words in air quotes.“I had no idea that meant…” She couldn’t finish the words as she started crying.
To me, the prediction sounded more like it had come from a fortune cookie than a fortune teller, but I wasn’t about to correct her.
“I’m Dakota Green,” I said, not putting out my hand. It seemed pointless to introduce myself in the traditional way after we’d both knelt side by side, trying and failing to save a man’s life.
“Mina Davis,” the camerawoman responded.
“Mina, thanks for helping… earlier… out there.” There wasn’t a good way to communicate the magnitude of what we’d attempted and failed to do. I motioned to the dance floor, and her eyes once again filled with tears that she wiped with the back of her arm. The second person in the camera crew came to her side.
