“What was that?” Cooper panted.
The shriek sounded again—high pitched, anguished.
“It’s a girl.”
“It’s Chloe.” Sawyer was on her feet, the delicious beat of her heart speeding up to a painful, nervous patter. “Where is she?”
Sawyer was pawing through people in the backyard now, Cooper close behind her. “Chloe!” But her voice was lost in the din, swallowed by the beat of the pulsing bass.
“I think she’s in here,” Cooper said, grabbing Sawyer’s hand and leading her toward the house.
“Oh my God.” Sawyer stopped cold in the doorway, dropping Cooper’s hand and bracing herself against the doorframe. “Chloe.”
The party dropped off into a shocked silence as everyone turned to gape at Chloe.
Ryan was standing at her side again, but this time he appeared to be holding her up. Chloe’s head was bent, her hands pressed to her face. Sawyer could see the blood as it oozed through her best friend’s fingers. She felt herself vaulting across the room.
“What happened?”
Chloe was crying, her small shoulders quaking with the effort. “Someone, someone—”
“Someone attacked her,” Ryan finished.
“Oh my God, Chloe! Are you okay? Who was it?”
“I’m okay.” Chloe nodded, pulling her hands away from her face. There was a severe gash over her left eye. The blood had already started to congeal over the jagged, puckering skin. Sawyer rushed forward, throwing her arms around her in a quick embrace.
“Who did this to you?”
Chloe wagged her head. “I don’t know. I went out to my car to get a sweatshirt, and someone was out there with the hood open.”
“The hood of the car?” Cooper asked.
Ryan nodded. “It was still popped when I got out there. I heard her screaming and came running.”
“I told the guy to knock it off, you know, leave my car alone, and when he heard me, he turned around and swung.” Chloe’s trembling fingers gingerly touched the blood over her eye. “I don’t even know what he hit me with.”
“And you didn’t see who it was?”
Chloe shook her head. “No. He hit me and took off running, I guess. I barely even remember that. I felt it, then I know I was falling, and then Ryan was standing over me.”
Cooper looked over Ryan’s shoulder out the open door. “You think he’s still out there?”
“Let’s go, man.”
Sawyer reached for Cooper but caught only the tail of his shirt as it sailed past her.
“If he’s still out there, they could get hurt,” Chloe said, enormous tears rollicking over her cheeks.
Sawyer nodded and took the washcloth someone handed her. She pressed it against Chloe’s forehead and guided Chloe to the couch. “I’m going to go see.” She tucked her hand in her pocket, protectively cupping her cell phone. If I don’t see the guys this millisecond, she reasoned, I’m calling 911.
But Cooper and Ryan were standing on the sidewalk, their angry faces illuminated by a slice of yellow streetlight.
“Did you see anyone?”
Cooper shook his head. “There’s no one around here.”
“We found this, though.” Ryan held a tire iron and Sawyer’s stomach lurched when she saw the black-red blood staining the metal.
Chloe’s blood.
“What was he doing out here? Breaking into Chloe’s car?” Sawyer scanned the makeshift parking lot in front of the Rutgers’ house. Cars were scattered everywhere, each one a better make or newer model than Chloe’s mother’s old, primer-colored Dodge.
“He didn’t want to steal anything,” Cooper said, pointing to the car. “You don’t get into the cab by going under the hood.”
“Well, what would someone be doing under the hood? Messing up the engine? Trying to pull some kind of prank?”
Ryan put his hands on his hips. “A prank is locking someone’s keys in their car or putting shaving creaming the windshield.”
“Sugar in the gas tank,” Cooper suggested before bending over the exposed engine, scanning. “Hey, Ryan, do you know anything about cars?”
Ryan shrugged but looked anyway. “I know that you shouldn’t keep tools under the hood.”
Sawyer rushed in and looked where Ryan was pointing, squinting. She reached for the tool and held it up to the light. “What is it?”
Cooper took it out of her hand, eyeing both Sawyer and Ryan. “It’s a tube cutter.”
“What do you use a tube cutter for?” Sawyer wanted to know. “And why would you stash it in someone’s car?”
Ryan shook his head slowly, his eyes wide and focused on the tube cutter in Cooper’s hand. “You wouldn’t stash it in someone’s car,” he said. “But you might drop it there if you were surprised in the middle.”
Sawyer swallowed. “In the middle of what?”
“Of cutting Chloe’s brakes.”
Sawyer’s stomach folded in on itself. “How could…? Someone…Chloe could have died! If she didn’t have brakes, she could have died!” The realization crashed like a cold wave over her and Sawyer was stunned, her breath tightening in her chest.
Ryan swiped a finger across his cell phone and pushed it under the open hood. The blue light from the screen washed over the engine, and he pointed. “Right there.”
Cooper let out a low whistle as he fingered the even cut along a thin metallic tube. “He cut clean through.”
The tears were rolling down Sawyer’s face now, hot tracks burning down her cheeks. “Why would someone do that?”
But she didn’t need to hear an answer because she already knew it: Sawyer’s secret admirer was after her best friend too.
Sawyer’s head felt all at once light and impossibly heavy, and suddenly she felt the cold concrete slap against her back, her head lolling. Her nostrils stung with the smell of dirt and grass, the damp coldness pricking at her head and neck. She blinked when a bright light pierced her eyelid.
“Cooper?” Her lips felt puffy and her head throbbed. “What happened?”
“You passed out.” He helped Sawyer up, and Ryan shoved the penlight he was holding into his back pocket.
“We need to call the police,” Sawyer said.
Cooper shook his head as he led Sawyer into the Rutgers’ living room. It had cleared out considerably. Only a few scattered students remained, wide-eyed and quietly clutching their red party cups. Chloe sat alone on the loveseat, her eyes red rimmed, her cheeks a deep pink. She pulled her knees up against her chest and hugged them.
“Chloe doesn’t want us to.”
Chloe looked up at Sawyer, fresh tear tracks glossy on her cheeks. “My parents don’t know I’m here. They’ll kill me.”
Sawyer sucked in a sigh. “Chloe, this is really dangerous. Someone attacked you, and”—she choked on a sob—“they cut your brake lines. They could have killed you. They—they wanted to hurt you—bad. You have to tell the police.”
Chloe shook her head. “No. I can’t.”
“I’m going to take her home,” Ryan said softly.
“I’ll go with you,” Sawyer said.
“Yeah, I drove Sawyer over here.”
“No problem,” Cooper said, “I can take Sawyer home.”
Sawyer looked from Cooper to Chloe. “I think I should go home with her. Chloe, your parents probably aren’t even home. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“Then how are you going to get home from her house?” Ryan wanted to know. “Here, I’ll take Chloe and hang out with her until her parents come back.”
Sawyer opened her mouth to protest, but Ryan held up his hands. “No argument. You had a hard night too.”
Cooper nodded. “You passed out. You probably should lay down or get an ice pack or something.”
Chloe held out her ice pack. “Room for one more.”
“Chloe.” Sawyer sat down next to her, gingerly touching the dried blood over Chloe’s eye. “Let me at least go with you.”