What was that?

After a couple of minutes I convinced myself that I’d overreacted. The cold air could have been caused by an open window, which would also explain the breeze that slammed the door in my face. The smell was just musty old dolls.

I set the yearbook down on the floor and flipped through it. All in all, I saw probably eight girls whose pictures had red marks, just a little check mark in the corner of the photo….Some of them I didn’t know, but a few I knew all too well…Pepper Laird…Megan Wiley—

But Megan’s was different.

There was a big, red X drawn through her picture.

In all fairness, it would make sense if you thought I drew the X myself, but I didn’t. My obsessive neatness pervades every aspect of my life; I was the kid who hung Barbie’s clothes on their little hangers at the end of every play session, and parked her pink Corvette in its space under the dresser. No happy-face stickers ever stuck to any of my bedroom furniture. And my yearbooks, though they represent some of the most miserable hours of my life, are pristine.

It was Kasey, obviously. But why would she do that to Megan’s picture?

I mean, how would she even know who Megan was?

And then I remembered the tacked-on ending to my story from the basement.

It wasn’t late, but I felt completely drained. The previous two nights’ meager sleep hadn’t been enough to keep me going, especially not when faced with a little sister dabbling in vandalism and parents being targeted for assassination.

After I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and put on my pajamas, I went downstairs to check the dead bolt on the front door. It was locked.

I checked the back door too, and then went through the kitchen to check the door that led from the side yard into the garage. This is where someone would have had to come in, to mess with one of the cars.

Dad’s car was parked in its usual spot.

As I neared the door, I stopped short.

There was a chain lock.

No way could someone have come in through this door.

That meant that whoever had come inside had been through the house. Or…

A strong chill went through me, making my hands shake, as I recalled Kasey’s dirty socks.

Had my sister, in a last-ditch effort for popularity, actually joined in on some twisted scheme to sabotage our mother’s car?

Had she come out here and opened the chain lock, to let someone in?

It didn’t make sense. She insisted that she hadn’t been in the garage—

But then, she insisted that she hadn’t been in the hallway that morning, either.

I trudged upstairs and closed my bedroom door behind me, hesitating for a split second.

“Shhhh…”

I opened my eyes to see Kasey sitting on the edge of my bed, luminous in the blue moonlight. “Shhh…” she repeated.

“Kasey,” I said, “what…?” Behind her, the door gaped open into the dim hallway.

“Hello, Alexis,” Kasey whispered. “I saw you in the dark.”

“What are you talking about?”

In the low light, everything seemed drained of color, like it was happening in black-and-white. Even Kasey’s eyes shone bright black with flecks of white.

But she didn’t answer.

Now I was wide awake. “What do you want, Kasey?”

But her attention had wandered away from me. I followed her gaze to my desk, where the yearbook lay open.

“Why did you draw in my yearbook?” I asked.

She ignored the question. “Come play with me, Alexis,” she said, and her eyes burned even brighter. “Come outside and play with me.”

“Are you crazy?” I kept my eyes on her monochromatic face and reached my hand out toward the lamp on the nightstand. “I don’t want to go outside.”

I switched the light on.

She ducked her head away, but I swear, for the split second I saw them—her eyes were green.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!” I ordered.

She stayed hunched over, facing the door for a few seconds, and then she turned around and looked at me through blank eyes— blue eyes.

“What is that?” I asked. “Some stupid contact lens thing?”

She seemed puzzled. “No, Lexi…I have twenty-twenty vision.”

“Go to bed, Kase.”

“Why did you want me to come in here?” she asked, looking around.

Was she kidding?

“What are you talking about? I didn’t want you in here…It’s the middle of the night!”

She slumped and leaned away. Her hand brushed the hair back away from her face. It was a gesture of elegance, practiced and casual.

Then she reached out to my arm. Her fingers brushed my skin. “We can be friends,” she whispered.

I felt a sharp burn and looked down to find four red marks across my skin, where she’d touched me.

“You know what?” I said. “I’m sick of this. Get out of here.”

Kasey stood up suddenly, and grabbing the yearbook from my nightstand, threw it at the wall as hard as she could. “What—?”

Then, with hard eyes, she backed away and hit herself in the face.

It took me a moment to process what I was seeing— my sister with an angry red mark on her jaw—and by the time I realized what she’d done, she was huddled on the floor screaming at the top of her lungs.

A second later Mom came running in, bleary-eyed. She looked at my sister crying on the floor, and then up at me, and the look in her eyes sent a chill through my body. I sat in a ball on the far corner of the bed. I couldn’t find any words to explain.

Mom reached down and touched Kasey on the shoulder.

Kasey looked up at her, the red mark on her jaw getting brighter by the second.

Mom and I both gasped at the sight.

“Kasey…” Mom whispered, kneeling down to get a closer look.

My sister huddled down tighter and shied away from Mom’s hand.

“Mommy,” Kasey sobbed.

“What, baby? What happened?” Mom cooed, putting her hand on Kasey’s back. “Mom—” I said urgently.

Mom held up her hand, and I knew there was no use. There would be no “baby” for Alexis tonight.

“Lexi hit me,” my sister said between choking sobs.

Mom took a moment to study the mark on Kasey’s face, then looked up at me.

“She’s lying,” I said. “She did that to herself.”

“To herself?” Mom repeated. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

“And she threw that book at me,” Kasey added.

Mom glanced over at the yearbook, which of course had fallen open to Megan Wiley’s page, displaying the scribbled red X over her picture-perfect smile.

“Mom, can we talk about this?” I asked. “Alone?”

Mom looked up at me incredulously.

“You don’t understand…“I said, even though I knew it was useless. She didn’t believe me. Not in the slightest.

“You’re right, Alexis,” she said. “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t be mad, Mommy,” Kasey said. “Lexi knows she oughtn’t hit people. She’s just sad.”

“Do you know what kind of day I’ve had?” Mom exclaimed. “Alexis, I know you’re angry, but you don’t have to take it out on your little sister!”

I didn’t say a word. Kasey and Mom stood, and Kasey linked her arm through Mom’s.

“Can I sleep in your room tonight, Mommy?” she asked in a pitiful voice.

Mom’s shoulders slumped. She sniffled and nodded. I felt a pang in my chest.

“She’s lying,” I said as they walked out.

Mom didn’t turn around, but Kasey did, and her green eyes flashed at me as she closed the door behind herself.

I sat down on my bed and pulled my left sleeve up to look at the marks on my arm. They looked like a really bad sunburn, and they were tender to the touch.

Could a person really snap as suddenly as it seemed Kasey had? One day, be a nice, normal girl, and the next be a total maniac?

Unless Pepper Laird had been telling the truth.

And Kasey had actually broken Mimi’s arm on purpose.

Maybe she hadn’t snapped all at once; maybe she’d been getting worse all the time. And then somehow it had come to a peak in the past day—breaking down after dinner, stealing the reports from school, exposing all my photo paper….