The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky (ebook reader for manga TXT) 📕

I was taking bigger and bigger gulps of air, but I still felt like I was suffocating. Bram was so close I could feel the heat from beneath his fresh shirt, could smell the infuriatingly intoxicating scent of pine and lime in his hair. I realized suddenly that his arms were around me, and my arms were around him, too. I didn’t know why we were hugging—if we were hugging. It felt more like he was holding me up.

Without my realizing it, his finger was under my chin, gentle as it tilted my face up. “You know the truth, Rachel. You’ve known all along.”

He was so close that the line between hate and heat blurred. His touch on my skin felt electric. The air felt combustible.

I blinked. Stepped back. Immediately, whatever spell we’d unwittingly found ourselves under broke. I walked out of the room and didn’t stop until I’d left the party. I didn’t look back.

 47

I COULDN’T STOP thinking about what Bram had said.

Deep down you know it.

Ever since Sim had said he’d seen a masked man, I’d wondered, What if? And when he’d appeared at the Halloween party, I convinced myself it was just my imagination, but the logical part of my brain still wondered: What if? And since Lux had said she’d seen him, the words pounded in my head like a mantra.

What if? What if? What if?

And now with Saundra, it seemed so obvious.

It was him.

The second person from my home invasion. Because Matthew Marshall hadn’t worked alone. There had been two people wearing masks that night, and while one of them stayed, one of them got away.

What if the person who’d fled from my house that night was back?

What if he was infiltrating the Mary Shelley Club’s Fear Tests, trying to send a message?

What if he was after me?

So what does a person do when they’re fairly convinced there is a masked killer out to get them? They go back to high school Monday morning.

It wasn’t like I could stay home—it was the day of Saundra’s memorial, and I’d promised AssHead I’d say a few words. I sat in the auditorium doing a fairly good impression of a normal girl whose life wasn’t being threatened by a masked madman. I held a sheet of loose-leaf paper, my speech for Saundra. The scribbled handwriting was nearly illegible, even for me. The glee club was onstage finishing some song about grace. Behind them hung a sheet obscuring some big surprise AssHead was going to tell us about. I could only assume it was a giant plaque honoring Saundra’s memory. I wondered whether Saundra would’ve loved having her name permanently engraved on a shiny gold surface or if she would’ve hated being associated with this school forever. I hated myself for not knowing for sure.

When the glee club was done, AssHead walked on the stage to usher them off. He led us all in a round of applause. I joined in too late and stopped too late too, only lowering my hands when AssHead looked at me pointedly.

“And now, a word from one of Saundra’s friends,” AssHead said. “Rachel Chavez.”

I stood and climbed the three short steps to the stage, taking my place behind the podium. I let the seconds pass as I smoothed my page. My hands were shaking and my skin was starting to itch under my collar. The lights seemed extra bright, like they could probably wash me away.

I suddenly hated AssHead and everyone in this auditorium for making me do this. But then I found my mom in the crowd. She was standing in the back with the rest of the teachers. She was already crying and I hadn’t even started yet. And then I found Freddie. He nodded encouragingly when our eyes locked.

My skin felt less itchy. The lights no longer seemed that bright. I looked down at my paper and began to read.

“When I knew that I’d be up here to talk about Saundra, I tried to think about what to say to honor her. Because she’d want something great. She deserves that. I tried to think of all the best things about her. Like that she was generous. She was happy to help anyone, in any way she could. And she was bold. She could introduce herself to people like it wasn’t the hardest thing in the world to do. And she hated scary movies.” My voice caught on a sad, wet laugh, and for a moment I looked up from my paper. There was a somber smile on Freddie’s lips.

“But in the end, the reason I loved her most is selfish. I loved Saundra because she was my friend.” I took a deep breath, heard it crackle over the microphone. I read the next line silently to myself before saying it out loud, the ink going blurry behind my tears. “She was my friend when no one else wanted to be. And she didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

I tried to find the club members in the crowd. Felicity was looking up at the ceiling lights, bored. Thayer didn’t seem to be listening either, slumped in his chair, listless as a corpse. Bram watched me, though, his eyes locked with mine. There was a little bit more left to my speech but I couldn’t really see it through my tears. I decided that Saundra wouldn’t want me to be a big, sloppy mess up there. “So yeah. To Saundra.”

The Manchester student body clapped and AssHead came to join me at the podium. I was about to head back to my seat but he stopped me.

“Would you help me unveil this?” he said, gesturing to the big white sheet behind us.

I went to stand on one side of it while he stood at the other.

“What happened to Saundra Clairmont was a tragedy,” AssHead boomed into the microphone at the podium. “She was beloved by all, a friend to all,