The Dark Reunion Read Online Free PDF

again.”
    Bonnie just shook her head.
    “And so it’s easier to believe that a bunch of teenage girls got riled up playing with a Ouija board, and that when the lights went out they just freaked and ran. And one of them got so scared and confused she ran right out a window.”
    There was a silence and then Meredith added, “I wish Alaric were here.”
    Normally, Bonnie would have given her a dig in the ribs and answered, “So do
I
,” in a lecherous voice. Alaric was one of the handsomest guys she’d ever seen, even if he was a doddering twenty-two years old. Now, she just gave Meredith’s arm a disconsolate squeeze. “Can’t you call him somehow?”
    “In Russia? I don’t even know
where
in Russia he is now.”
    Bonnie bit her lip.
    Then she sat up. Meredith was driving down Lee Street, and in the high school parking lot they could see a crowd.
    She and Meredith exchanged glances, and Meredith nodded. “We might as well,” she said. “Let’s see if they’re any smarter than their parents.”
    Bonnie could see startled faces turning as the car cruised slowly into the lot. When she and Meredith got out, people moved back, making a path for them to the center of the crowd.
    Caroline was there, clutching her elbows with her hands and shaking back her auburnhair distractedly.
    “We’re not going to sleep in that house again until it’s repaired,” she was saying, shivering in her white sweater. “Daddy says we’ll take an apartment in Heron until it’s over.”
    “What difference does that make? He can follow you to Heron, I’m sure,” said Meredith.
    Caroline turned, but her green cat’s eyes wouldn’t quite meet Meredith’s. “Who?” she said vaguely.
    “Oh, Caroline, not you too!” Bonnie exploded.
    “I just want to get out of here,” Caroline said. Her eyes came up and for an instant Bonnie saw how frightened she was. “I can’t take anymore.” As if she had to prove her words that minute, she pushed her way through the crowd.
    “Let her go, Bonnie,” Meredith said. “It’s no use.”
    “
She’s
no use,” said Bonnie furiously. If Caroline, who
knew
, was acting this way, what about the other kids?
    She saw, the answer in the faces around her. Everybody looked scared, as scared as if she and Meredith had brought some loathsomedisease with them. As if she and Meredith were the problem.
    “I don’t believe this,” Bonnie muttered.
    “I don’t believe it either,” said Deanna Kennedy, a friend of Sue’s. She was in the front of the crowd, and she didn’t look as uneasy as the others. “I talked with Sue yesterday afternoon and she was so up, so happy. She
can’t
be dead.” Deanna began to sob. Her boyfriend put an arm around her, and several other girls began to cry. The guys in the crowd shifted, their faces rigid.
    Bonnie felt a little surge of hope. “And she’s not going to be the only one dead,” she added. “Elena told us that the whole town is in danger. Elena said …” Despite herself Bonnie heard her voice failing. She could see it in the way their eyes glazed up when she mentioned Elena’s name. Meredith was right; they’d put everything that had happened last winter behind them. They didn’t believe anymore.
    “What’s
wrong
with you all?” she said helplessly, wanting to hit something. “You don’t really think Sue threw herself off that balcony!”
    “People are saying—” Deanna’s boyfriendstarted and then shrugged defensively. “Well—you told the police Vickie Bennett was in the room, right? And now she’s off her head again. And just a little bit earlier you’d heard Sue shouting, ‘No, Vickie, no!’?”
    Bonnie felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. “You think that
Vickie
—oh, God, you’re out of your mind! Listen to me. Something grabbed my hand in that house, and it
wasn’t
Vickie. And Vickie had nothing to do with throwing Sue off that balcony.”
    “She’s hardly strong enough, for one thing,” Meredith said