Choker by Elizabeth Woods Page A

really what I had in mind.” She glanced up at the gray sky.
    Cara grabbed her hand and tugged. “Come on!” she said. “It’s only across that next field.” She pointed to a dark smudge of trees in the distance. “See that? It’s in those woods.”
    “Where are we anyway?” Zoe pushed aside a tall clump of grass.
    “Just an old farm,” Cara said. “All these fields are overgrown. No one comes around here anymore. I think the guy who owns it checks in maybe once a year. But otherwise, it’s just sitting here.” The woods loomed in front of them. Cara pulled Zoe in among the rough trunks of the pine trees. “There.” She stopped.
    “Oh, wow.” Zoe breathed. They were standing in front of a decaying barn. The boards that made up the walls were rotten at the bottom and broken off like jagged teeth. In a few places, peeling red paint was still visible, but the rest of the barn was a weathered silver gray. The roof sagged dangerously, almost swaybacked. A row of glassless windows gaped from the side like pits. “What is this place?”
    Cara tugged at one of the big doors at the front. It slid open reluctantly, screeching on its rusted rails. She stepped into the dank, musty interior. “It’s my hideout. I just like to come down here sometimes to chill, read, you know, just get away from things.” She gestured around her. The dust motes floated cheerfully in the air when it was sunny out, but today, the leaden sky pressed at the cracks in the walls. A steady drip-drip came from somewhere in the back.
    On either side of them, old stalls had once held horses and perhaps a cow, but now the partitions were rotted, and some had crashed over entirely. Ancient straw reeking of mold was still spread on the floor. Here and there, rusted pieces of farm machinery sat like remnants of the Inquisition. A crude set of steps in the corner led to an open hayloft, which spread across the top half of the barn. Zoe looked up to the dizzying rafters, soaring fifty feet above them. A window was at each end, but no barn swallows soared in and out today.
    Cara led Zoe to the farthest stall, where a rough gray blanket had been patted into a sort of nest. “Here’s where I hang out,” she said. “I’ve got a flashlight, a water bottle, a cushion. And . . .” She reached into a corner and pulled a cellophane bag out with a flourish. “Tortilla chips! I left them last time I was here.”
    Zoe smiled. “It would’ve been so fun to have a place like this when we were growing up.” She sank down on the blanket and pulled open the bag of chips. Her dress was riding up on her legs, showing her grayish underwear, but Zoe didn’t seem to care.
    “I know! Remember all that time we spent behind your house?” Cara sat down.
    “Making fairy nests?” Zoe grinned.
    “Frog nests,” Cara corrected her.
    “Right, frog nests!” They both laughed. Cara remembered the loamy, sour smell of the dirt and the way the stiff honeysuckle branches would poke her in the legs and back. She remembered the big brown bottles scattered in the dirt, “Colt 45” on the faded labels. She hadn’t known what they were back then. “Colt” was like a horse, but why would someone name a drink after a horse?
    “Remember when we found that old beer?” Cara asked Zoe. “And you drank some. I thought you were so bad!”
    Zoe nodded. “I was such a messed-up little kid.” She shook her head, smiling a little.
    “Not like anything’s changed!” Cara poked her friend playfully in the stomach. Zoe’s face darkened and instantly, Cara knew that had been a mistake. Zoe’s mouth tightened. She scraped intently at the dirt floor with a stick while Cara waited tensely. For her punishment. No—that just jumped into her head. Zoe was her friend. They could tease each other, just like they always had.
    Zoe threw the stick down and, as if she’d come to a decision, rearranged herself on the blanket so she was facing Cara.
    “So, what happened with Ethan