Locker 114

Cara had not opened locker 114 since the seventh grade, which was three years ago, and she only knew the combination still because some things just stay in your head whether you want them or not. 24-6-31. Her old locker. The school had reassigned it ages ago, but the lock had never been changed, because nothing at Briar Vale High ever got changed unless it actually broke. She would not have gone near it at all if it hadn't been for the note. It happened on the Monday after the winter dance, which was the worst Monday of Cara's whole life so far, because the winter dance was where everyone had last seen Ashlyn. Ashlyn Reyes. Cara's best friend since the fourth grade, the prettiest and the loudest and the most alive person Cara knew, the girl who could make a boring Tuesday feel like something. Ashlyn had gone to the dance and Ashlyn had not come home, and now it was Monday and there were police in the front office and a man with a clipboard talking to teachers in low voices, and the whole school felt wrong, like a song played a half-step flat. The grown-ups were already telling a story. Cara could hear it forming in the hallways the way weather forms. Ashlyn ran away. Ashlyn was always dramatic, always wanted attention, and she'd had that big fight with her mom about college, and she'd probably just taken off, and she'd turn up in a few days embarrassed and fine. Cara heard a teacher say it. She heard two girls from the volleyball team say it. The story made everyone feel better because a runaway is a problem that fixes itself. But Cara knew Ashlyn. And here is the thing Cara knew that nobody with a clipboard knew: Ashlyn would never, ever have left without telling Cara. Not because they were perfect — they fought sometimes, real fights — but because telling Cara things was just what Ashlyn did. Ashlyn could not keep a secret to save her life. If Ashlyn had been planning to run away, Cara would have had eleven texts about it. So Cara did not believe the runaway story. And on Monday afternoon, when she went to her own locker, number 309, there was a folded square of paper wedged into the vent slot of the door. She unfolded it in the empty hallway with her heart going fast. It was Ashlyn's handwriting. Cara would know that handwriting anywhere — the way Ashlyn made her g's, the little circle she used to dot her i's. It was short. It said: *Cara — if anything happens. 114. You still know the number. Don't tell ANYONE, not even your mom, not the police, NO ONE. I mean it. Just you. — A* Cara read it about fifteen times. Her hands were shaking and the hallway was so quiet she could hear the heating system hum. *If anything happens.* Ashlyn had written that before the dance. Ashlyn had known, somehow, that something might. And she had not told a teacher and she had not told the police, she had hidden a note in Cara's locker, which meant that whatever Ashlyn was afraid of, Ashlyn did not trust the grown-ups to handle it. Or — and this was the thought that made Cara feel cold all the way down — Ashlyn did not trust that one of the grown-ups wasn't part of it. Don't tell anyone. Not even your mom. Cara stood there and she knew, she absolutely knew, what the smart thing was. The smart thing was to take this note straight to the man with the clipboard. That was what you were supposed to do. That was what every assembly and every poster told you to do. But Ashlyn had used capital letters. NO ONE. I mean it. And Ashlyn had been her best friend since the fourth grade and Ashlyn was missing and this note, this scared little folded square of paper, was the last thing in the world Ashlyn had asked her for. Cara put the note in her jacket pocket. She walked down the hallway, past the front office where she could see a police officer leaning over the counter, and she did not stop, and she did not tell, and she felt sick doing it and she did it anyway. Locker 114 was in the old wing, the part of the school they barely used anymore, down past the music rooms where the lights flickered. Cara stood in front of it with the after-school silence pressing on her ears. 24-6-31. Her fingers remembered the numbers before her brain did. The lock clicked. The little metal door swung open on its squeaky hinge. And Cara looked inside, and what was in locker 114 made her understand, all at once, that Ashlyn had not run away — and that whatever had happened to her best friend had started a long time before the winter dance, and that Cara was now the only person alive who had been handed a thread that led into the middle of it.