“You know,” Jess continues, and I decide she’s as big a gossip as my sister, “two of the girls attacked were meant to be starting the theatre course here.” Her eyes spark with interest. “What course are you doing?”
“Erm.” I look down at the newsprint. “Journalism.” I blurt.
“Oh.” She looks disappointed and I breathe a sigh of relief. “OK.” I pick up the papers, as she seems to lose immediate interest in me, and settle myself at a table. I glance behind me to see what Jess is doing; she’s perching on the end of a counter, a thick book wedged in her hand. I subtly turn my back so she can’t see what I’m doing.
Right. I spread the newspapers across the desk in front of me and scan the headlines, looking for anything which mentions an attack on a woman, discarding those that don’t seem to have anything useful in them. I’m left with a stack that mention, among other attacks, the two that I witnessed this week, though no others mention unusual blades as these ones do. I begin to flick through each of them, pausing every now and then to make notes. After about twenty minutes I have a full page and fingers covered in newsprint.
Oh, and the beginnings of a conspiracy theory.
“What you looking at?” Jess’s head pops over my shoulder and I jump in my seat, almost bashing her in the face. “Oops, I keep sneaking up on you, don’t I?” She scrapes out the chair next to me and drops into it, placing her open book face down on the table. Stephen King, a bit dark for me but Meghan loves them. “Eww, the attacker with metal nails. It’s so creepy.”
“I know,” I mutter, placing my forearms on the notebook to hide it.
“It’s happening all over the city, that’s crazy.” She is right; aside from Sara and the girl on the Tube last night, police had linked two other teenage girls, speculating that they were all attacked by the same person. One escaped relatively unharmed, just cuts around her neck where her necklace had been stolen, but one of those girls was Tasha. Jess narrows bushy brows beneath her glasses as she looks at my page of notes. “Why are you so interested in all of this?”
Her voice is curious, rather than disapproving. I make a snap decision.
“I know – well,knew– two of them.” I point to a grainy photograph of Sara that the tabloid has clearly lifted from her Facebook profile. She is beaming, perfect smile in a perfect face. “I traded rooms with her when I got here.”
“Wait,” says Jess, her eyes growing wide. “So that should have been your room?” I nod. “Wow, you are a lot more exciting than Mum made you out to be. She just said you were lonely.”
“I’m not,” I protest, thinking of the way Tommy kissed my hand. “I have friends.”
“I’m not saying. . .”
“It’s fine,” I interrupt, my voice curter than I intended. “Ugh, sorry,” I sigh. “It’s just been a horrible week already.”
“Yeah.” She studies me from behind her designer specs. “I’ll bet. Listen, I’m sorry, you seem really nice, and. . .” I wave a hand to stop her.
“Honestly, don’t worry.” An uncomfortable silence settles around us. Then Jess leans over and whispers in my ear.
“She tried to set me up with Will, once.”
“What?” I squeak, laughter bubbling out of me. “Are you serious?” She nods.
“Yeah. So, I’m always a little bit wary when she tries to introduce a new BFF.”
“I don’t blame you.” I giggle, which sets her off and within seconds we’re both clapping hands over our mouths so he doesn’t hear us. I eventually stop and wipe my blurry eyes. “Ah, I feel mean, now. But he is pretty creepy.”
Jess nods, wiping her glasses on her sleeve before replacing them.
“Oh, he’ll be fine. Anyway, despite the brush with death, you seem pretty normal.”
“Compared to Will?” I laugh, and we’re in danger of losing it again. I catch sight of the newspapers and stop laughing. Jess glances down too, and her face becomes serious.
“Jeez.” She draws one of the papers towards her and studies it. There’s a timeline of the victims with photos alongside on the open page. She looks down and then back at me. She does this three times before I decide I can’t take it any more.
“What?” I mutter.
“They, well. . .”
“What?”
She turns the page round so that I am looking down at it. “They all look like you.”
I look at the parade of teenage girls with long dark hair. All have a smattering of freckles from the sun and I gently stroke the ones on the bridge of my nose. A bitter taste floods the back of my throat and my next words barely reach a whisper.
“I know.”
