Dark and Twisted by Heidi Acosta Page A

man. He was so still and silent, I almost didn’t think he was real, but he was.”
    I swallow hard.
    “I should have been petrified, should have run screaming, but I wasn’t scared. He told me he wanted to take me to a secret place, and we would be back before anyone would notice I was gone.”
    I know how the story ends, with her missing, but I have never heard her version.
    “Where did he take you?” my voice comes out just above a whisper.
    Essie stares down at her soup with a glazed-over look in her eyes. “I don’t know, it was like a dream, both beautiful and terrifying. There were things that I could not describe, things I don’t want to remember.”
    I shiver.
    “Then I woke up in the woods alone, and they said I had been gone for two weeks. That’s what they do to you. They make you forget and make it feel like a dream.” She looks up at me, her blue-green eyes burning. “I think I’d better take my medicine now and go to bed.”

Chapter Ten
    The crappy thing about living in a small town like Copake Falls is that news travels fast. By Monday, the nickname freak is at an all-time high. Even kids that pretend I don’t exist are suddenly interested in me, laughing every time I pass them in the hall.
    “Just ignore them,” Liv tells me for what must be the hundredth time today.
    “I have been,” I sigh. It still doesn’t mean their words don’t hold an extra sting today. Normally, I can block it out, but I feel raw and exposed—like the attack has changed me. I feel vulnerable, scared, and it has me questioning my own sanity. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, seeing my attacker’s the glowing red eyes. Could the creature be hiding amongst us? Pretending to be human.
    “So what are you going to do?” Liv asks.
    I shrug. “Try to find him myself,” I admit.
    “Eden, I don’t think that is a good idea. Where would you even begin? You don’t have much to go on.”
    “I hurt his hand. That will narrow down some of the potential attackers.” I hesitate to tell her about his eyes, but this is Liv, and she is my best friend. If I can’t tell my bestie about the guy with glowing eyes, then who can I tell?
    “Liv, have you ever seen someone that looked like their eyes were glowing?” I want to pull my words back the moment I say it.
    Liv instantly stops walking and turns to me. People push past us, giving us scrutinizing looks as they hurry to their next class.
    “Why?” she asks.
    I shrug my shoulders, not knowing how to explain what I saw. “Is this for a character you are writing?” she inquires further, trying to give me an excuse for asking. “Zombies don’t have glowing eyes, Eden, they’re dead.”
    For a moment, I think about going with it and saying the question was related to my novel, but this is Liv, my best friend, the one that sat with me at my parents’ funeral. The one person who didn’t stop being my friend when the names started in school. This is the girl who used her mom’s sewing needle to make a blood promise with me that we would be always and friends forever, to tell each other the truth, and be each other’s maid of honor.
    “I have to get to class,” I say.
    “Eden, don’t.”
    Liv looks hurt as I walk away from her, but I don’t stop. I keep going until I push open the nearest door and collapse against the wall. The back of my throat itches and my eyes sting. I drop my bag on the floor.
    “Eden?”
    I yelp, pushing off the wall, ready to run, but it is only Ralph. I take a deep breath, needing to get it together.
    Ralph stands next to a white board. “Are you okay? You look like shit. You’re not going to get sick are you?”
    I slump back against the wall. “Fine, I’m fine. I just need…”
    Could Ralph have been the one who attacked me? Maybe he is tired of me undermining him as editor. He’s creepy and slimy, and if anyone is pretending to be human but is really an alien in disguise, he would be that guy.
    “Where were you this weekend?”