You're Next! Chapters 8-10
Follow the continuing adventures of Emily as she tries to track down her missing friends while not being the next victim herself!
All right, it’s Friday, and you know what that means, right? Yup. It’s time for the next chapters of You’re Next!
So, where we left off, Emily had gone to investigate the club where she last saw her friend before she went missing, only to find one of the girls acting mysteriously and talking to someone in the bathroom! What happens next? Read on and find out!
Haven’t read the beginning parts yet? Well, follow these links and get yourself caught up!
Otherwise… Enjoy chapters 8 through 10!
CHAPTER 8
Abi was already dancing when Emily went back into the club and slid onto the plush velvet bench beside Derek and Chloe. She couldn’t look at Derek, so she slumped back in her seat, and sipped a Diet Coke through a straw. Her heart was still thumping erratically. This felt wrong. It all felt wrong: Abi planning a secret rendezvous with someone at a time like this; Jordan speaking to a stranger when she came back into the club for her jacket; Derek loitering in the restroom and following Abi back in here.
Okay, so she had no proof that Derek had been loitering—for all she knew, he genuinely needed to use the restroom—but that was the image her brain had formed, and now she couldn’t erase it.
“What’s wrong?” Chloe asked. “Where did she go?”
“Huh?” It took her a moment to realize that Chloe was referring to Emily following Abi. “She was in the men’s room. I heard her on the phone arranging to meet someone.”
“Who was it? When is she meeting them?”
“I only caught the end of the conversation.” Emily studied Derek’s profile. He was watching the dancefloor as if stoking himself up to join the other kids, but his eyes were narrowed, and his jaw was clenched. He didn’t look like a kid who was enjoying himself. “Did you hear anything?” she asked him. “Did she say a name?”
Derek shook his head. “No, but I know where she’s meeting him.”
Emily and Chloe both stared at him wide-eyed. When he didn’t elaborate, Emily said, “Tell us then.”
“It doesn’t feel right.” Derek kept his gaze fixated on Abi’s shimmering dress. “I mean, what if this is just a date? We can’t go following her around like a … like a stalker. She could have us arrested.”
“Five girls, including my sister, have gone missing,” Chloe said, her voice controlled as though she were trying hard not to yell at him. “You want to sit back and watch her be next?” She jabbed a finger in Abi’s direction.
“Well, no …” Derek hesitated. He glanced at Emily, and she shook her head—she didn’t want Chloe hearing about the message in the locker and worrying about her too. She had enough on her plate already.
“The diner,” he finally said. “She arranged to meet this guy in the diner, next Thursday after school.”
“So, it was definitely a guy?” Emily asked.
Derek shrugged. “I’m no expert but it sounded like she was talking to a guy.”
They all watched the girls on the dancefloor. Emily wasn’t sure if it was just her imagination, but Abi seemed different now, set apart from her friends, as though the secret she was harboring had somehow given her an edge over them. Was it the thrill of knowing something they didn’t know? If so, it was a stupid time to be seeking excitement when there was a psycho on the loose abducting teenage girls.
Chloe was on her feet. “I’m going to ask her.”
“Wait!” Emily reached for her hand and pulled her back down. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not? Someone’s got to talk some sense into her, and it sure doesn’t look like her friends are going to.”
“Because she hasn’t told them,” Emily said. “Think about it. Why would she not tell her best friends that she has arranged a date with a hot new guy?”
“Maybe he isn’t hot,” Derek suggested.
The girls both glared at him.
“He’s hot,” Emily said. “These girls do everything loudly and with as much exposure as possible, so why doesn’t she want them to know?”
“Because it’s someone she shouldn’t be seeing.” Chloe kept her eyes on Abi. “If I find out that it’s Kyle, I will go ballistic. I’ll make sure everyone in school knows about it, and then when Jordan comes back, I’ll make sure she dumps him publicly.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked them away furiously.
“We can’t jump to conclusions,” Emily said. “It could just as easily be her bestie’s boyfriend.”
“You think she would do that?” Chloe asked.
Emily thought about it. Most of her friends would never dream of breaking the girl code and dating a guy that one of her friends liked was on the top of that list. But she wasn’t close to Abi, and had no idea if that would be important to her. She was the kind of girl who could afford to dispose of friends the way she disposed of last season’s belly tops or playsuits. She was popular. Girls would be lining up to be invited to a sleepover at her house.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But Abi took that call in the men’s room, which means that she didn’t want anyone to listen, and my guess is, whoever she was talking to wanted it kept quiet too.”
“Which is exactly what a kidnapper would do,” Chloe said. “Make her feel special. Keep it a secret between the two of them so that there’s no comeback on him. Or her,” she quickly added.
Emily thought about what she’d said about the popular girls keeping their movements public. Derek had shown the server a picture of Jordan because everyone has selfies on social media. “We should check out her social media pictures.” She was already reaching for her phone. “Maybe it’ll give us a clue.”
The three of them huddled over her phone, heads together, scrolling through Abi’s social media feed. Emily was aware of Derek’s thigh pressing against hers. It made her cheeks grow hot, and each time she tried to move her leg away, he seemed to shuffle closer.
She forced herself to concentrate on the images in front of her. There were pictures of Abi posing in a full-length mirror in her bedroom, dressed up to go out for the evening, the most recent one showed her wearing the turquoise dress. She had posted pictures taken by her parents’ pool; pictures in the cinema with a bucket of popcorn; pictures of a cute white dog with a pink ribbon in her hair. All the posts of Abi with her friends, revealed the same group of kids. No one stood out that Emily didn’t recognize from school or from the club.
“Wait, go back to that one,” Chloe said, as Emily was scrolling through the feed.
Emily went back to the previous image and enlarged it so that they could examine it more closely. “There’s Kyle,” Chloe said. The photo had been taken at the park last summer; lots of kids were there although Jordan wasn’t in the picture. Kyle was posing behind Abi, one arm draped across her shoulder while she held his hand. Emily knew what Chloe was thinking, but it could’ve been perfectly innocent.
“What are you three losers doing?”
Emily glanced up to see Abi standing in front of them, her cheeks flushed from dancing. “Playing Candy Smash,” she said, locking her phone screen.
Abi rolled her eyes. “You came here to play games?” She didn’t hang around but walked over to the bar and ordered a drink.
“Playing Candy Smash?” Derek was grinning at her. “Was that the best you could come up with?”
“I can’t think under pressure,” Emily mumbled.
She wanted to go back to the pictures, because she was certain they were missing something, but she couldn’t risk Abi coming back and catching them at it. “Thank God social media doesn’t show you who’s been stalking your posts.”
“It might be safer if it did,” Chloe said.
Emily glanced sideways at Abi who had moved along the bar and was now talking to Roger.
She shuddered. She’d always kinda liked Roger. He was friendly enough, gave them free drinks whenever they were here, and even got up and danced with them occasionally, but watching him now with Abi, the way his eyes roamed over her dress while he licked his lips, it felt creepy.
Then, Abi removed something from her purse and handed it to Roger. He slipped it into his pocket and handed her something back, something small and folded, like money.
“Did you see that?” she whispered.
“Uh-huh,” Chloe said. “Do you think it was drugs?”
“I don’t know.” Emily nudged Derek. “Did you see what it was?”
Abi was walking back to her table now, a soda in her hand, and she didn’t even glance their way.
“She was probably paying for the drink,” Derek said.
“So why did he give her the money back?”
Derek shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Will you go and ask him?” Emily said.
“No.” Derek moved away from her as if he couldn’t believe she was serious. “I can’t do that.”
“You know him.”
“I said he knows my grandma, that’s a different thing entirely.” When Emily held his gaze, he added, “I’m not doing it. Invasion of privacy and all that.”
“Do I have to remind you why we’re here?” Emily widened her eyes deliberately, hoping he would remember that she was supposed to be the next victim.
Derek sighed, relenting under her stare. “Fine. I’ll speak to him, but I’m not promising anything.”
He walked over to Roger who smiled at him like they’d always been friends. Emily tried to study their body language—not that she knew much about it—but there was nothing awkward about their interaction despite that Derek never came to the club.
Roger’s expression turned serious, and he shrugged, spreading his hands wide. They spoke a little longer and then Derek returned to their table.
“Well?” Emily asked.
“I didn’t want to pry,” he said without looking at her.
Emily watched him for several moments. “I don’t believe you. What did he say?”
Derek rubbed his forehead and she noticed that his hands were soft and pale, like he regularly moisturized them. “It’s personal,” he said eventually.
“Between him and Abi?” Chloe asked, leaning closer so that they wouldn’t be overheard.
“Not exactly.”
“Derek!” Emily said. “If you know something, you have to tell us. This is a police investigation.”
“Well, not exactly,” Derek said. “We’ve literally set ourselves up as private investigators, and I’m not—”
“Okay, okay,” Emily interrupted him. She used the same tone she would use on her mom if she wanted to stay out past her curfew. “Please tell us what he said. I promise it will go no further.”
“It can’t go any further.” Derek stared at Chloe until she nodded her agreement. “Abi knows Roger’s eldest daughter. She acts as a go-between, delivering letters from one to the other.”
“Letters?” Emily frowned. “Why does he write secret letters to his own daughter?”
“Because his wife won’t allow him to see them.” Derek’s expression was serious, but Emily had a feeling he wasn’t giving them the whole story.
CHAPTER 9
Later that night, back at Jordan’s house, Emily couldn’t sleep. Chloe was curled up into a ball, the covers pulled over her head so that she was only visible in the dark as a shape beneath the bedding. She hadn’t moved for a while so Emily assumed she was sleeping soundly.
Jordan’s disappearance, the questioning, and all the worry and fears for her safety, must have been draining. She didn’t know how they were getting through life with all that going on in the background; she wasn’t certain that she would be as brave as Chloe if she were in this position.
Emily replayed the evening in her head and what they knew so far. Abi had arranged to meet an unknown person the following Thursday at the diner, someone she didn’t even want her friends to know about. Derek knew Roger, and he’d followed Abi into the men’s restroom. Roger wasn’t allowed to see his own daughters if Derek was to be believed. And between leaving Emily outside the club while she retrieved her jacket, and her disappearance, Jordan had spoken to another unknown man in the club.
But who was he?
Reaching for her phone, Emily opened the Instagram app and searched Abi’s profile. Skipping the selfies taken while she was posing in her mirror at home, she concentrated on the group pictures, hoping that something would resonate with her this time. There had to be a connection. Teenage girls didn’t go around making clandestine arrangements to meet unknown men, not without telling their friends, and especially not when five of their peers were missing.
No one could really be that stupid—could they?
Emily shook her head. It had to be someone Abi knew, someone she trusted enough to meet in the diner. At least she’d had the sense to choose a public place.
She examined image after image, zooming in on the faces of all the people she knew so well from school, until she couldn’t stop yawning. Her eyes watering, she was about to close the app and try to sleep, when something triggered in her brain. She went back through the group pictures again, enlarging them and sliding them across her phone screen, ignoring the smiling faces that were the focal point of the images, and instead, studying the people in the background. She shivered as the same blurry face peered out at her from behind the groups of kids in each image.
It was Derek.
**********
Monday morning, when her mom dropped her off outside the school, Emily pulled the hood of her coat up over her head and made her way round to the rear entrance which brought her into the building near the gym. She’d seen Derek waiting on the steps by the front entrance, staring at everyone as they went in. He might not have been waiting for her, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
She’d thought about nothing else since Friday night, the image of his face in the photos on Abi’s media feed, imprinted on her brain. Abi had said that Derek was always staring at Jordan, and she’d ignored her. He was a bit odd, but that didn’t automatically make him dangerous, so she’d been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
But now, she was convinced that he was only pretending to help her as a way of getting close to her. He’d been there when she found the warning in her locker. He could so easily have painted it while no one was around, and then waited in the hallway until she discovered it, quickly clearing it away before the police arrived to check.
Why had she trusted him?
Avoiding speaking to anyone, Emily followed Kyle and his friends to the locker area. There was always a group of them, fooling around, being noisy, jostling each other in the ribs and tossing books around. It was easy to hide behind them unnoticed and pretend to be studying her planner. They were so busy being jocks they didn’t even realize she was using them as camouflage.
She heard Kyle say, “Who are you gawping at, loser?” and peered out from behind her planner as Derek opened his locker, found the books he needed, and locked it again. He walked off in the opposite direction without a backward glance.
Emily went to her locker and opened it, expecting the words YOU’RE NEXT to still be painted inside the door. She swallowed. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to open her locker again without seeing the dripping red paint in her head. Pulling out a heavy textbook, she deliberately dropped it and yelped as it landed on her foot.
“Everything okay, Emily?” Mr. Dubium was walking towards her, a look of concern on his face.
Emily smiled. She’d dropped the book deliberately, so that she could hang about by the lockers until everyone else had gone to homeroom. She hadn’t planned on Mr. Dubium passing by, but now that he had, it could work in her favor. “I think I’ve broken a bone in my foot,” she joked, reaching down, and rubbing her foot through her boot. “Ow!”
“Do you need to go to the medical room?” Mr. Dubium picked the book up off the floor and handed it back to her.
“Maybe. I don’t know.” She grimaced as she set her foot tentatively back down and placed her weight on it. “Do you think I should?”
“It’s worth getting it checked. I don’t want you sitting in class all day with a broken bone.” He smiled at her, and she understood why so many girls had been crushing on him since he came to the school. “Here, give me your hand and I’ll walk you there.”
“No!” she blurted out. “No, it’s fine. I’ll manage.”
She hoped he’d blame her flushed cheeks on the two of them partnering up in the self-defense class, which was partly the cause. Also, she was still wearing her coat and the heating was cranked up high in the school, and she was panicking that he’d wait until she’d walked away, which would totally ruin her plan. The other students had all made their way to homeroom. She was wasting precious time talking to the teacher, even if he was only being helpful.
“Okay, if you’re sure. I’ll mark you down as being in homeroom as I’ve seen you,” he said.
“Thanks, sir.”
Emily turned back to her locker and rummaged through her books until she was certain that he wasn’t coming back. Then, glancing left and right along the hallway to double-check that she was alone, she walked over to Derek’s locker and removed a pair of nail scissors from her coat pocket. She had no idea if this was going to work. Sliding the tip of one blade into the lock, she manipulated the mechanism inside the way she’d learned on the web. Still, she was shocked when she heard a click, and the locker swung open.
Peering at the contents, she was even more shocked to discover the neat stack of books, in size order, spines facing outwards. In the far corner of the locker, Derek had a clear plastic tub of pencils and ballpoint pens, and taped to the inside of the door, was a copy of his weekly schedule. It was immaculate. If someone had opened this locker up and asked her to guess which student it belonged to, Derek Graham would’ve been the last person to spring to mind. He was the least immaculate person she knew.
What had she been hoping to find? A tin of red paint maybe? Something belonging to one of the missing girls? But then if Derek was behind the disappearances, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave clues in his locker, would he? She was being incredibly naïve if she thought the case would be so simple a sixteen-year-old could solve it, when it had kept the police puzzled for months.
Emily was about to close the door and head to homeroom, when something caught her eye, a slip of paper barely visible between two textbooks at the bottom of the pile. She tugged at it, and realized as it poked out a little further, that it wasn’t a slip of paper but a photograph. Her heart skipping, she held the books steady with her left hand, and pulled the photograph out with her right.
She recognized it instantly. It was the photograph of her and Jordan that had gone missing from Emily’s locker.
CHAPTER 10
Emily waited outside Derek’s homeroom. The instant the bell sounded, the kids started filing out of class, chattering in that subdued tone reserved for Monday mornings. When she saw his faded sweater, she stepped forward and grabbed it by the neckline, pulling him aside and pushing him against the wall.
Two girls raised their eyebrows at her and carried on walking. A boy muttered, “Whoa! Hormonal, much.”
“What’s wrong?” Derek asked.
Emily waved the photograph in front of his face. Her fingers were trembling. She hadn’t thought this through—if he was the one who abducted Jordan and the other girls, there was no telling how he would react to her accusations, but she couldn’t leave it without confronting him.
“How did you get this?” she asked.
Derek blinked. “Stop waving it about, Emily. I can’t even see it.” She held it in front of him so that there was no mistaking what it was. “Where did you find that?” He narrowed his eyes at her.
“Don’t act like you’ve never seen it before,” she said. “It was in your locker.”
“So, how did you get it?” He didn’t try to move away from her or deny it. He just watched her, coolly, waiting for an explanation. “Did you break into my locker?”
“It doesn’t matter how I got it,” she said. “I asked you if you’d seen anyone near my locker.” She hesitated, her thoughts jumbling inside her head with anger.
“And I told you I didn’t,” Derek said.
“No, because it was you.” Her thoughts had finally caught up with her. “You painted the words on the door, and you stole the photo of me and Jordan.”
“I didn’t, I swear. Let me explain.” Derek raised his hands and Emily instinctively stepped backwards. “I wasn’t going to touch you,” he said, his cheeks coloring as he realized he’d said the wrong thing. “Kyle took the picture. That day. You slammed your locker shut and ran off to the principal’s office, and I saw Kyle pick something up off the floor. I didn’t realize what it was at first, but there was red paint smeared across one corner of it, so I guessed it came from your locker.”
“So, how did it end up in your locker?”
“Kyle is careless with stuff. It fell out of his bag, and I saw it in the hallway. I was going to give it back to you, but—”
“But somehow it just slipped in between the books in your locker.” She shook her head, unable to even look at him. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true, Emily. Why would I lie to you? I’ve been helping you … we’re in this together.”
Emily blinked, as she processed what he was saying. “We’re not in anything together, Derek.”
“But—”
“But nothing. I believed you at first because I had no reason not to, but now, I want you to stay the hell away from me. If I see you anywhere near me or my locker, I’ll tell the police that it was you who threatened me. They’ll have to question you then about Jordan. I know you were following her around. You were probably stalking all the girls who’ve gone missing.”
Derek’s face crumpled as he slumped back against the wall. Had it been anyone else, she might have felt guilty for yelling at him, but right now, she disliked him with such intensity that she needed to get away from him before she said stuff she would really regret. She knew that he was a loner. She hadn’t seen it for herself, but she could bet that guys like Kyle bullied him around a lot, but that didn’t mean she could pity him for threatening her. Maybe if he was nicer to people, he’d have some friends who looked out for him. But it wasn’t going to be Emily.
“Stay away from me,” she said as she made her way to first period.
**********
Everywhere she went around school, she saw Derek. She knew that coincidences were the norm: you decide to dye your hair red and everywhere you go, you see women with red hair; you start learning Spanish, and suddenly everyone around you is tossing Spanish words into the conversation. But it seemed as though Derek was going out of his way to follow her around.
In the cafeteria, he sat at a table directly in her line of vision. While she was working on her final project in the art studio, she must’ve seen him walk past the door at least three times. She had to go speak to Ms. Williams about her biology assignment, and he was there, waiting outside the room as she left.
“Stop following me,” she hissed, walking along the corridor.
Derek tried to keep up with her. “I’m not following you, honest. I wish you would believe me, Emily. I want to help you.”
“I don’t want your help.” She couldn’t hear his footsteps, so she knew he wasn’t following her, but she sensed his eyes on her anyway.
The following day, Derek was already in the gym when she walked in for the self-defense class after school. Keeping her head down, she wandered to the opposite side of the room.
Chloe spotted her straight away, her gaze flitting between Emily and Derek who was standing alone, watching them. “Emily! Everything okay?”
Emily smiled. “Everything’s fine.” She didn’t have the energy to recount what had happened between her and Derek.
Pete arrived again with Kyle and took his position at the front of the gym with Mr. Dubium. Abi was there with a couple of her friends, but Emily was disappointed to find that several people had dropped out since the previous lesson. Kyle didn’t react when he saw Chloe and Emily together, but his gaze faltered when it landed on Derek, passing him by and then doing a doubletake.
“Right, let’s get started,” Pete said. “This session, I want to start introducing some basic moves that would temporarily disable a potential attacker. I say temporarily, because they probably won’t put your attacker in hospital, but they’ll buy you enough time to get away and call for help. So, does anyone know which parts of the body are the most vulnerable?”
Abi was the first to answer. “Groin.”
“Yes, good one.” Pete pointed at Abi. “We all know how sensitive the groin area is. If you want to take an attacker down, and you’re able to aim a kick to that area, it’ll work every time.”
“Throat,” someone else said.
Pete smiled. “Yes, the throat is another good one. If someone can’t breathe, they’re not going to be running after you. The eyes and the nose are also extremely sensitive areas. But today we’ll start with the groin.” He peered around the room, grinning. “Okay, I see the boys here already guarding their private parts.”
Emily sneaked a glance at Derek, who gave her a tentative smile. She ignored it.
“Okay,” Pete continued. “I’m going to sort you into pairs.” He wandered around the gym, moving people around to stand together. Emily held her breath when he partnered Chloe with another girl from Chloe’s year and led Emily over to Derek.
Without making eye contact, she stood beside him, arms crossed, and watched as Pete and Kyle demonstrated the move. It involved raising your dominant leg off the ground while leaning backwards and pushing your hips forward, trying to make contact with your partner’s groin using the lower part of the shin and the top of the foot.
“We’re not out to make physical contact here,” Pete said. “Knowing what’s required will be sufficient should you ever need to use this move in a real-life situation.”
Once again, Kyle made it look easy, planting his feet squarely on the ground in front of Pete and raising his knee while driving forward with his foot. He stopped before his foot connected with Pete’s body and the instructor pretended to be hurt, doubling over in fake pain.
After, they both wandered around the gym monitoring the couples, lowering Abi’s foot, and tilting Chloe backwards slightly as she raised her leg. Pete stood beside Emily as she got her balance. She raised her knee. But instead of stopping short of making contact, her foot caught Derek with full force before Pete could stop her, and he collapsed onto the floor groaning, his hands clutching his groin.
Emily froze, her heart stopping and then racing frantically away as her face crawled with embarrassment. Pete was on his knees beside Derek, one hand on the boy’s back. Even Kyle came rushing over to crouch at Derek’s side.
“Are you okay, lad?” Pete asked. “Take your time. Breathe. There’s a good lad.” Pete didn’t look at Emily.
Everyone else in the gym was silent.
Mr. Dubium came over, placed an arm around Emily’s shoulders and led her to the changing rooms where they sat on a low wooden bench, and Emily sobbed into her hands. It was as though the moment her foot collided with Derek, something had burst inside her, and all the fear of the past couple of months came flooding out.
She could still feel Derek’s groin. She felt queasy. Her body was shaking as though she’d stepped outside into the icy evening wearing only her pajamas.
Mr. Dubium produced a tissue from somewhere and she blew her nose into it, more tears squeezing from her eyes. “You want to talk about it?” the teacher asked.
Emily shook her head. She didn’t even know where to start.
“Emily, I want you to be honest with me now,” he said gently. “Was it an accident?”
She tipped her head back against the wall and took a deep breath, trying to control the tears. “No,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I … I think he’s been following me. Trying to get close to me. Last week, someone left a warning in my locker. They painted the words YOU’RE NEXT in red paint inside the door, and Derek was there, and he said he believed me, but …”
Saying the words aloud, she could hardly believe them herself. No one would look at Derek with his pale eyes and his skinny frame and think that he could possibly have abducted five teenage girls, but was that all a front? Was the quiet, unassuming persona simply a way of staying under the radar?
“Emily?” Mr. Dubium interrupted her thoughts. “Have you told the police about this?”
She nodded. “They checked my locker and there was nothing there. Derek was in the hallway. He could’ve got rid of the paint before the police arrived … and he stole a photo of me and Jordan.”
Mr. Dubium sat forward, his elbows resting on his knees and smiled at her. “I think you’ve given him a warning yourself tonight, don’t you?” he asked. “If—and it’s a big if—he is involved in whatever is going on, then you need to be on your guard. I want you to promise me, that you’ll stay as far away from him as possible. Wherever you go, make sure you always take someone with you, okay?”
Emily sniffed. “Okay.”
Mr. Dubium rose. “I think we should go back inside so that you can apologize to Derek. You’ve drawn attention to him; now you need to keep it there.” He offered her his hand, and Emily accepted it gratefully.
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