She’s dead. She’s actually dead. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening.
Atticus holds me. “Shhhh,” he says. “Shhhh.”
The fireman lays Pippa’s body down on the stairs, where paramedics draw a sheet over her. The police officers try to make the crowd disperse, but none of us move. “There’s nothing we can do.”
Without thinking, I yell, “You can’t just leave her there! You have to help her!”
My words make no sense. I know that, and Atticus keeps trying to soothe me. Taking me by the arm, he leads me away from the body, patting me on the back, doing his best to console me.
People run, both to and from the scene. There’s shouting. And crying.
“What was she doing at the tower?” a student asks.
The police won’t say, but rumor has it that it was part of a traditional hazing ritual to join St. Adolphus Hall.
“You knew her?” Atticus asks quietly.
I nod. I didn’t like Pippa. She wasn’t a friend, but she was someone I knew, a face I saw each day, and now she’s dead.
“You saw, right?” he asks.
I nod again.
I saw.
There were claw marks on her chest. She was mauled. Ripped apart, as if by an animal. It doesn’t make sense. Everyone thought she was crushed by the building. But that’s not what happened.
She was dead before it fell.
19
Dorian
Death takes the good, the beautiful, and the young—and spares me. The Pestilence that wastes, the Arrow that strikes, the Sea that drowns, the Grave that closes over Love and Hope, are steps of my journey, and take me nearer and nearer to the End.
—Wilkie Collins,The Woman in White
When I rushinto the Acroteria, I spot Raven and Atticus, and an immense wave of relief washes over me, soothing the ache in my chest. They’re both alive. Raven’s head hangs low, her hair a curtain around her face. Atticus draws soothing circles on her back, saying soft words of encouragement.
There’s a nervous energy in the air. Everyone in the coffee shop is whispering to one another, their faces pale and ghostly, their lips tight with worry. Fire trucks and police cars roll down the street. I throw myself down in the booth across from Atticus and Raven. “You guys okay?”
“Yeah, we’re okay,” Atticus says. “I got out just before it crashed.” His eyes are haunted, and like Raven, he’s covered in a fine layer of dust—it’s all over his hair and his jacket. His hand trembles beside his coffee cup.
“About Arches—” I hesitate before I ask. “Is it true? It’s gone?”
“Someone died,” Raven says, cutting me off. “It was Pippa. They found Pippa—” Her voice hitches. “Supposedly she was up there at the tower trying to perform the ritual to join that secret society. They found her underneath the rubble—”
“I—I met her once, briefly. She’s dead?” I ask.
Atticus nods.
Raven tightens her grip around the mug. Like him, she’s shaking, so I reach for her hand but stop myself. I don’t know if touching her will hurt or help, so instead, I grab my great-grandfather’s old pocket watch and clench it.
Atticus meets my eye, but I don’t know how to help him either. I don’t know how to make any of this right. The rational part of my brain knows that I can’t fix any of this, but the rest of me wants to do anything I can. “Raven, how can I…”
Slowly, she wipes her wrist under her nose. Her eyes are puffy, and her cheeks still shine with tears. “I’m okay,” she says. “I’m just—in shock, you know?”
Both Atticus and I nod.
