Chapter 1 - The Woman Behind The Emergency Door
Mason Reed punched me before both my feet were off the bus.
One second I had my backpack hanging from one shoulder and Halston University spread out beyond the yellow transport lane.
The next, his fist caught the side of my face.
My head snapped around.
My shoulder hit metal.
Then pavement.
Students near the chain-link fence stopped talking.
Mason stepped over me.
He smiled.
“Your sister begged harder.”
The pain disappeared.
Not really.
It just stopped mattering.
I looked up at him.
“What did you say?”
His smile tightened.
I planted both hands on the asphalt and got up.
Twenty months.
Twenty months since my older sister Emma disappeared from this campus.
Twenty months of campus police saying she had left voluntarily.
My mother insisting somebody here knew more.
Emails ignored.
Calls unanswered.
Mason Reed's name appearing over and over in old social posts beside Emma’s.
And now he was standing three feet away telling me she had begged.
“What did you do to her?”
He grabbed the front of my jacket.
Not like a stranger losing his temper.
Like somebody who had been waiting to do it.
He dragged me one step toward the open bus door.
“You came all this way for the same story?”
I ripped free and shoved him.
His back struck the side of the bus.
The sound echoed across the transport lane.
Mason came off the metal furious.
He swung again.
I moved.
Hit him back.
He stumbled sideways.
Students backed away.
Nobody laughed.
Mason rushed me once more.
I caught enough of his momentum to put him onto the pavement.
He landed hard.
I stood over him.
“Where is she?”
His face had changed.
No smile now.
No clever line.
I grabbed his jacket and pulled him halfway upright.
“Where is Emma?”
Mason looked at me.
Then past me.
Toward the rear of the bus.
BANG.
I let him go.
The sound came from inside.
Near the emergency door.
The latch jerked.
Everyone around us went quiet.
The rear door opened several inches.
Stopped.
Then moved wider.
The bus interior beyond it was dark.
A woman's hand appeared.
Just a hand gripping the inside edge.
Mason went white.
Not surprised.
Afraid.
I took one step toward the bus.
“Emma?”
The hand didn't move.
Then a woman's voice came from inside.
“Rachel…”
My entire body locked.
I didn't recognize the voice.
But she knew mine.
“He only knows half of it.”
Mason whispered something.
I turned.
“What?”
He shook his head.
Campus security was already moving toward us from the far end of the transport lane.
I looked back at the bus.
“Who are you?”
No answer.
“Where is my sister?”
The woman remained hidden.
Then she said:
“Ask Diane what Emma said at 2:14 in the morning.”
My mother's name.
My stomach dropped.
“What night?”
But the woman had already pulled her hand back.
The rear door slammed.
One of the security officers ran toward it.
The other moved between Mason and me.
“Both of you stay where you are.”
I ignored him long enough to look toward the front of the bus.
The front doors opened.
Students were crowding around.
Someone in a gray coat stepped down on the far side.
I saw only the back of a woman's head before she disappeared behind the arriving students.
“Hey!”
I moved.
The officer blocked me.
“Rachel Carter?”
I froze.
He knew my name too.
“Who told you?”
“Your transfer file.”
Right.
Normal explanation.
I hated that I had already started hearing secrets everywhere.
Mason was sitting on the pavement now, one hand against his jaw.
He stared at the front of the bus.
I looked at him.
“You know her.”
“No.”
“You went pale.”
His eyes came back to mine.
“I know what she meant.”
“What?”
Security ordered us apart.
Mason stood slowly.
Then said something quietly enough that only I heard it.
“Your mother told everyone Emma never called.”
I stared.
“She didn't.”
Mason gave me a look I would remember for a long time.
Not satisfaction.
May you like
Pity.
“That’s the half I didn't know.”
