Don't Look Behind You (Don't Look Series Book 1) by Emily Kazmierski (summer reads .txt) 📗

The new janitor comes to mind. It could be him, despite what Aunt Karen says.

Noah smiles uneasily as I walk into art class and slip into my usual desk next to his. He tries to catch my eye, but I busy myself with the time-honored tradition of digging around in my backpack, pretending to look for something.

“Megan?” he asks, putting a gentle hand on my arm. “Can we talk?”

I sigh. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” I say. “I just want to—”

“Good afternoon, everyone!” Mr. Baugh grins at us from the front of the classroom. “I hope everyone is ready to spend this period working on their projects?”

A flurry of answers—some eager, some half-hearted—come from my classmates.

I’m equally unenthusiastic. I hoped Mr. Baugh would give us something we could work on individually today so I could keep avoiding having that conversation with Noah. It’s only been two days since the discovery of his murder board and the second note and I Do. Not. Want. To. Talk. About. It. But instead of working on my own interpretation of Starry Night, or making a cast of my own face with papier mâché and breathing straws, I’ve just been sentenced to an hour of stilted conversation and nerves strung tight.

The pairs around us are already getting down to work, and I’m still staring down into my backpack at nothing.

“Megan, please,” Noah breathes. “Let me explain.”

“I don’t want to hear an explanation about how you’re a serial killer groupie or something. Not today.” Okay, so maybe my tone is a tad harsher than I intended, but seriously? The guy has a map of everywhere the Mayday Killer has been spotted on the back of his bedroom door. What else am I supposed to assume than that he has an unhealthy interest in what happened?

For all I know, Noah could be helping the devil.

Noah scratches his ear under his glasses. “You think I—wow.” He mouths the last word, his own face turns down toward his desk, and he doesn’t say anything else.

A twinge of guilt curls behind my breastbone at the crestfallen look on his face, but I let it stand. At least now I won’t have to hear anything else about the killer who’s already taken twelve lives and has managed to elude the police for nearly six months now. Hell, despite all of their technology and man-power, they don’t even know who he is.

For the rest of class, Noah works on the outline for our collage while I sort the photos on my phone by color to see how many more will be needed. He doesn’t say anything else, which is fine. It’s not uncomfortable at all.

“Looks like someone doesn’t hate you, after all,” Fiona says when I walk into drama club.

“What are you talking about?” After the painfully awkward period I spent with Noah, I had been hoping that drama club would be a positive change of pace. Having a friend group again feels fantastic. We have so much fun that it’s almost easy to overlook what a bossy ass Esau is to me ninety percent of the time.

“You told him that he should be using natural light and portrait mode for his social account, right? Take a look.” She holds her phone out to me and I take it, scrolling through Esau’s feed and noting that he’s done both. Instead of dark, grainy photos, the newer ones are well lit and crisp. He’s also cleaned up his profile. Another suggestion I made.

“That doesn’t mean anything. He still hates me.”

“Right,” Fiona says, arching a brow. “He hates you. I gotta say, I do not look at guys I hate the way that boy looks at you.”

I roll my eyes. “Then you clearly aren’t looking carefully enough.”

“What are we looking at?” Viv asks, popping her round face over Fiona’s shoulder. She’s got a bunch of sewing pins in a watermelon-shaped cushion at her wrist. She’s been hard at work in the hallway, sewing and altering the costumes for the play, and she’s pretty talented. The color palettes she’s putting together for the characters make my mind come alive with so many ideas.

Too bad our director has his head stuck up his—

“We’re talking about how Esau looks at Megan.”

“Oh, I like this conversation. How does he look at her?”

“Like he hates me,” I say at the same time that Fiona says, “Like he wants to eat her face.”

All three of us bust up laughing at the absurdity of the idea. Viv mimics chomping with one hand, making us laugh even louder.

“Plus,” Fiona says, once we’ve all calmed down. “Dariel had something very interesting to say about that day we all went to the boardwalk.”

“What about it?” I hate how curious I sound.

Viv’s cheeks go round as she grins. “I heard about this!”

Fiona puts an arm around each of us and pulls us in mischievously. “He told me that when we lined up for the mine carts, Esau asked Noah to switch places with him so he could ride with you.”

“No way!” I say much louder than necessary.

Viv cups her face. “Isn’t that the cutest thing you’ve ever heard?”

“That is absolutely not true. There is no possibility on earth that Esau wants to do anything other than order me around until I’m so sick of it I quit drama club.” Too bad for him. I’m not a quitter. On a dare, I once climbed to the top of a human pyramid with a sprained ankle. The look on my mother’s face when I limped off the field afterward? Let’s just say she wasn’t thrilled.

My eyes start to burn, and I blink rapidly to clear them.

“Are you okay?”

The deep timber of Esau’s voice makes me freeze. Is he talking to me? I swivel my head slowly toward where he’s standing a handful of feet away, his arms crossed over his stupidly attractive chest. There’s a thick, blue rubber band around one of his