“Another teenage girl has gone missing. Does it worry you that there may be a serial killer in the county?”

What? I look at Bella. Her face is set and still, fists clenched at her side. She hasn’t mentioned Nicole’s murder in weeks, but right now she looks like she’s going to be sick.

“Do you feel safe walking home alone knowing a killer is on the loose?” the reporter asks, stepping closer with his stupid microphone.

“Leave her alone,” Bella calls in a low, fierce voice.

“I don’t want to be interviewed,” I mutter, marching past Bella and Caitlin.

There’s another news van parked by the post office and I can see a camera crew inside, interviewing Mrs. Wilson. Christ knows what she’ll tell them—probably all about Bella and her gang marauding around the village. We’ll have more journalists banging on our door next.

I’m trying to think if there’s been anyone else missing from school recently. But we would have heard if anyone local had gone missing, wouldn’t we? After Nicole’s death, there were assemblies and memorials and endless counseling sessions offered to all the girls. And when no one was arrested, the same message was drummed in over and over again. Stay safe. Make sure someone is with you if you’re out at night. Make sure someone always knows where you are. It made the village, this tiny, sleepy village where no one locks their doors, dangerous. It made every stranger a figure of suspicion. And it made me so mad at Bella that she carried on like nothing had happened, still going out and walking back through the bloody woods in the middle of the night. God, Nicole was her friend. Why wasn’t she worried that the person who murdered her was still out there?

I hear footsteps behind me as I leave the village and walk up the lane that skirts the woods. I feel a squeeze of panic and my heart pounds. I huddle deeper into my coat and speed up, my walk now a half run.

“Tess—wait up.”

I stop to catch my breath, shaky with relief to hear Bella’s voice. She jogs to catch up to me.

“Finished your interview? Did you enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame?”

She shakes her head. She isn’t wearing a coat and her hair clings to her face in wet tendrils. Despite the drowned-rat look, she’s still stupidly beautiful. “I didn’t do an interview. I couldn’t, not after Nic. It was Caitlin who was talking to them.”

“Who is it? Is it someone else from our school?”

“No. It’s some girl from the next county. No one we know.”

I shudder. “You don’t think it’s the same person, do you? A serial killer like that journalist said?”