Page 47 of Little Stolen Memories

“And Jackson broke his promise by showing it to all of you. How many of you saw the test?”

Cora looked to the side, thinking. “Jackson, Aidan, Brynn, Aubree, me.”

“What about Owen?”

“He refused to look at it. He said he was uncomfortable about it and would rather take his chances. But he was always a whiz in school, a straight-A student. He didn’t need to look at it.”

“And you?”

“I only saw the first page of the test before the actual exam. As I was looking at it, I realized the questions were in line with what we’d learned that year. It made me feel weird. I knew it was wrong, so after I looked over the first several questions, I handed the test back to Jackson.”

I leaned forward, crossing my arms over the kitchen counter. “Did anyone ever find out they cheated?”

“Yep, the day after the test, Jackson, Aidan, Brynn, and Aubree were called into the principal’s office. Ty’s dad was there, and he told the principal he thought the four of them had cheated. They all scored one hundred percent on the test, which was stupid of them to do. It made the fact they’d cheated obvious.”

“Did Ty’s dad know how they’d cheated?”

“Not at first, and they didn’t admit it either, not until their parents were called.”

“What happened then?” I asked.

“When Jackson’s stepdad showed up, he outed all of them. He said he remembered seeing a copy of the test in Jackson’s bedroom. His stepdad thought it was a practice test at the time, something to help the students get ready for the real test.”

“After Jackson’s stepdad admitted to seeing the test, did they admit they’d cheated?”

“Not while they were in the principal’s office. The next day, when the principal got to his office, there was an anonymous note stuck in the doorjamb. The note revealed Ty had been the one to share the answers to his father’s test with Jackson.”

It was a sad story.

All Ty wanted was to be accepted, just like Xander.

It was possible he thought helping Jackson would somehow create a friendship between them. I doubted it would have, whether the truth of what he’d done came out or not.

“What happened after the truth got out about the test?” I asked.

“Ty was suspended. His father was humiliated, and … well, he resigned. That’s not the worst of it, though. His father committed suicide. When Ty returned to school, he wasn’t the same kid he’d been before. He was angry, full of rage over what happened.”

“Did Ty confront Jackson about it?”

“He sure did. I was at my locker before first period started, and I heard two guys yelling. I looked over and saw Ty shove Jackson into the lockers. He wrapped a hand around Jackson’s neck and started choking him. Took a couple of minutes for teachers to break it up.”

“What happened afterward?”

Cora glanced at me and said, “After they pulled Ty off Jackson, Ty spit in Jackson’s face, and he said he’d make him pay. He’d make us all pay.”

CHAPTER 21

I woke in the middle of the night, realizing I was no longer in the comfort of my own bed. I was outside, lying on an uncomfortable wooden bench. It was night, but a streetlamp overhead shone so bright it was almost blinding. I held a hand in front of my face, trying to shield myself from its glare, and I pushed myself to a sitting position.

A wool blanket slipped off my body, puddling on the ground in front of me. As the warmth of the blanket left my body, I started shivering. I ran my hands up and down my goose-fleshed arms, but it did little to ward off the crisp chill of the night air. I was dressed in the same nightie I’d worn to bed, a light pink, chiffon floor-length gown. No wonder I was freezing.

I sat a minute in silence, trying to figure out where I was and how I got there. As I looked around, trying to familiarize myself with my surroundings, I noticed the bench I was sitting on was inside a park.

Which park … I wasn’t sure.

It was unfamiliar to me, and I didn’t recall ever having been there before.

Several feet away from me was a large circular play area filled with sand. It contained a swing set, a seesaw, and a handful of other things for kids to play on. As I took in the scenery around me, I noticed a flicker of movement behind a tree about twenty feet away from where I was sitting.

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