Is it here? Am I under attack?

Fuck, I’m hot.

Oh, Jesus. Jolly. Help me. Mom and Dad are screaming into phones downstairs. The whole city must be screaming into their phones. I think I can hear them!

It’s teasing me: panic.

It’s not here. It’s not. HOW IS IT NOT? Is it because there’s actually something to be scared of? Something to be sad for?

My phone keeps buzzing. They’re all writing me. They all don’t know if I know. Are they writing me because they think I could have an attack? Am I that to them? The friend who could lose her mind? Is that why they lifted me on their shoulders after I made the shot? Because they were relieved their damaged friend might’ve lost her mind if she missed it?

Oh, fuck I’m hot.

Is it here? Or is it not?

I want a rim to talk to. Oh, Jolly, HELP.

I’m sitting on the floor. I’m up again. I’m sorry, Tammy. I’m so, so sorry.

What HAPPENED?

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN

I don’t wanna think about my desk drawer. I don’t wanna turn to that. Not yet.

Is it here? Is it in the room with me? Am I going to die of fright? Can anxiety kill a person?

Tammy Jones is dead.

She wasn’t and now she is.

What am I doing? Why aren’t I talking to my friends? Who is Dad yelling at? Is someone outside? I’m too afraid to look.

I’m going to look.

Nobody outside. Why did I think there was?

Oh my God, it’s happening isn’t it I’m freaking out, aren’t I?

This is so terrible, Jolly.

This is terrible.

THIS IS

“This is terrible,” Dana says.

Five of the girls and two of the boys are zooming, each as pale as the next. Usually, when they do this, it’s all jokes, rips, barbs, stunts, and dares.

Not tonight.

“I can’t believe it. I almost…don’t,” Melanie says. “Tammy Jones…” Her eyes are as vacant as when she first appeared in the meeting. Her dark hair hides most of the rest of her face.

“I cannot wrap my head around this,” Stewart says. “How can this happen in Samhattan?”

“Randy Scotts,” Natasha says. Because she’s the one who said it, it sounds like a joke.

“Come on, Natasha,” Dana says. “That’s fucked-up. He’s been dead a long time.”

Natasha shrugs. She wasn’t joking. She also wasn’t serious about the ghost of Samhattan’s only known serial killer rising from his grave to do this. Yet isn’t the idea of Daphne just as insane?

Kit is fully aware that nobody has mentioned Daphne’s name. Not yet. She grips her journal in her lap and tries not to think of the pill bottle in the desk drawer.

“I’m scared,” Emily says. Her blond hair is white in the illumination of the ring light she uses for Zoom.

“Of what?” Dana asks.

Kit sees it. All the way across town, through the screen; Emily is thinking of Daphne.