CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

PROJECTION

( — the unconscious transfer of one's desires or emotions to another person. )

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          ROWAN HAS A SOLIDARY STOMACH. Jasper used to joke that it was one the very few parts of his body capable of feeling the slightest bit of empathy, as he has a horrible tendency to throw up whenever someone else does it first. The other part is only a few inches below, and she certainly knows a lot about that.

          Staring at Rhiannon for brief moments is more than enough to tell him she's moments away from throwing up—not only because she's sick, but also because Isla told him she has the strange habit of involuntarily doing it whenever her stress levels get to a certain point. Seeing her name on a diagram, along with those of the other participants from that Social Psychology experiment, and, worst of all, with Taylor's, must be doing wonders for her nervous system.

          He slowly takes her phone from her hand, hoping he won't startle her, but she jumps in her place. Her eyes are wide open in panic when she glances up at him, but they quickly find Isla's on the other side of the living room and her shoulders drop ever so slightly.

          "You should sit down," he suggests, setting an unsteady hand above her elbow, but she still stumbles forward and has to support her weight on the table in front of them. She can't possibly be heavy, looking so generally bony it could almost be unhealthy if he didn't know better, seeing as her most unhealthy habits include smoking as much as she does and how much she has lied just to cover for ten other people. "Come on."

          "I'm sober," she mutters. It's a lie. He can smell the alcohol on her breath. "Tell Isla to sit down and stay where she is."

          "Uh . . ." Rowan risks a glance at Isla, finding her standing up by the couch where she was sitting, but she hasn't moved yet, shoulders so stiff it's like she's made of iron. "I'm sure you know Isla a lot better than I do, but I think we both know Isla does what Isla wants to do."

          "I think I'm going to throw up."

          His heart jumps. "Not on my floor. Please."

          She blinks, examining his facial expression, and, after a while, her lips expel a quick ha. Perhaps she thought it was a joke, but it has never been about his floor per se. While it certainly wouldn't be pleasant to have to clean up vomit from the floor tiles, it's mostly because he doesn't want to follow that same path.

          Even though she looks a lot calmer now, she's still unable to stand straight on her own. All he knows about her is the little she has shown, having an impressive self-control to prevent herself from revealing too much, and what Isla has said about her—therefore, he knows how much she hates depending on other people. After her parents disowned her, she had to depend on herself and whatever money she had to stay in college, but Jude's parents are paying for it now.

           That experiment was the only thing she had that let her regain some control of her own life, to prove to her family and to herself that she could do it. Now, even that was taken away from her, regardless of how traumatic those events were.

          It's bittersweet that Rowan feels like he can relate to her in that aspect. Once he found himself free of all those restraints, the ones that had held him back for years, he felt like a fish out of water, a bird that had never really learned how to properly use his wings.

          So he fell before he flew.

          "Come on," Rowan insists, and she follows him as he walks towards the hallway leading to his bedroom and bathroom. He knows just how awkward this might look like to her and really wishes he had thought things through, but only realizes just how out of context Rhiannon interpreted it after he opens the door and she looks back at the living room. "Oh, no, please don't get the wrong idea. Stay here and I'll show you"—Rowan disappears into the room and pulls his trustworthy whiteboard along with him, its wheels swiftly sliding across the floor—"the investigation board."

          "What is that?"

          "An investigation board."

          "I'm not stupid." Rowan flinches and she straightens her shoulders, allowing her scowl to vanish. "Okay, I'm sorry. What do I have to do with that . . . board, or whatever?"

          Sighing, Rowan places a hand on his hip and points his other index finger at her because no one is allowed to badmouth his board. "Listen here. I didn't bring you to the board to hear you insult it. It's my child." She simply quirks an eyebrow, making him drop his hand. "See? We're bonding."

          "You make me want to pull out my hair."

          Rowan grins. "We're one and the same. I don't particularly like you, either."

          "But I'm pretty."

          "Ah, yes, the infamous sphere of prettiness. How many times has that worked out for you?"

          She smiles back at him and Rowan allows himself to breathe of relief, as this conversation has been a lot easier than he ever thought it would be. "You'd be surprised, even though it hasn't always been for my benefit." Then, Rhiannon steps forward, examining the board and the colored wool strings connecting the pins and the post-it notes scattered all around the surface. He avoids writing directly on it, just to keep it as tidy as possible. "Shouldn't you be working on the book?"

          "I'm waiting for Gabriel to send me his notes on the first draft, so, as of right now, I can't do anything else about it. This board is a fun distraction."

          "The board is about a dead girl," Chase intervenes, as he walks out of the bathroom, and Rowan jumps, having forgotten he was in the apartment. Rhiannon throws him a deadly glare, one that would put Natalia to shame, and Rowan massages the bridge of his nose, as this was almost certain to happen. They're both people with strong personalities and short fuses. "I wouldn't call that a fun distraction."

          "And no one called you," Rowan points out. "Go back to the living room."

          "I'm telling Isla."

          "Chase. Five foot two."

          "Rowan," Chase insists, mimicking his tone, and Rowan clenches his hands into fists. "I don't care." He turns to Rhiannon, as if he hadn't noticed her presence before. "Hey, ice queen."

          "That would be me," she coldly replies, as stiff as a board, and Rowan chews on his bottom lip. Everything was going alright until Chase decided to interrupt their conversation and, the longer Rhiannon is distracted, the less helpful she'll be. After all, she's the one with all the details about the experiment—she's the one who might know anything that can help with the investigation. "How have you been? Hit anyone with your baseball bat recently? Or do you only do that when your grades drop to marks below mine?"

          Chase returns the glare. "That was one time. What about you? Terrified many children lately?"

          "I eat them for breakfast, thank you, Chase."

          "Goodbye, Chase," Rowan interrupts, before these two decide to place bets about how far they can push one another, and Chase leaves them. "Moving on to more important matters than your diet and Chase's baseball bat . . . can you mail that photo to me so I can print it and hang it on the board? It might be useful."

          "Rowan." She sets a hand on his shoulder and it might as well be the most affectionate she has ever been towards him. Rowan wonders if he should be scared or not, but then remembers just how much she probably has had to drink. "My dude."

          "Are you drunk?"

          "No. Maybe." Rowan almost feels bad for her. He didn't even know her body could handle alcohol, but here she is, standing right in front of him and smelling like Montoya Cabernet. She's a lot more composed than he'd be, and, for that, he applauds her. She eventually drops her hand. "I'm sorry. I'll . . . I'll mail it to you. I think I'm going to—"

          "Isla?" he calls, speaking louder than before, when Rhiannon stumbles to the side. She doesn't try to regain her balance, meaning she probably didn't even notice it, and he reaches out a hesitant hand towards her, ready to catch her if anything happens. However, Isla gets to them faster than he can count to ten, just in time to see Rhiannon blink as slowly as she would if she was about to fall asleep. "A little help here would be nice."

          "Please," Isla retorts, brushing her hair away from her face. Her silver earrings sparkle. "Rhiannon weighs, like, one hundred and ten pounds."

          "One hundred and sixteen," Rhiannon blurts out, in a slurred voice, and Rowan raises an eyebrow, as that's slightly less than he thought. "I modeled."

          "We know, Rhea. You keep all your magazines in our bedroom." Rhiannon scowls, pained to have Isla reveal that information, and Rowan wonders how in the world he didn't place two and two together. If no one ever raised an objection to her weight, if no one ever showed concern about her frame, perhaps it was all done as healthily as possible, for career-related reasons. "You look great, babe. Maybe go easier on smoking."

          "Great conversation," Rowan remarks, as Isla wraps an arm around Rhiannon's waist. The latter giggles. "Bed. Rhiannon, bed."

          "Nice to meet you, bed," Rhiannon proudly declares, and Isla shoots him a concerned look. "Do you know why alcohol makes you so . . . sleepy and slow? Alcohol connects to a certain part of the chloride receptors and raises the chloride conductance; therefore, there are more inhibitory effects."

          "Isn't she adorable?" Isla asks, carefully walking Rhiannon to the bed and helping her sit. Then, she falls to the side, with an arm loosely wrapped around her stomach, and Rowan takes advantage of her silence to print the diagram she forwarded to him. Once he tapes it to the board, her eyes flutter closed and he gulps, hoping she'll wake up later.

          He can take the couch if she spends the night. That's not his issue.

          "These are all the participants of the experiment," he informs, as Isla steps forward to stand next to him, eyes scanning the diagram. "And, uh, Taylor in the middle. According to the text messages from . . . Sutton, I think . . . it was McCall who wrote this diagram. Rhiannon once told me they thought the professors had chosen the participants with Taylor in mind, for whatever reason, and this just proves it. Was she ever part of it?"

          "Taylor? No." She rubs her arms, even though the temperature in the room is relatively warm. It certainly beats the air outside of his apartment, as the heating system still hasn't been fixed. "What the hell did McCall have to do with her, though? Besides covering up for . . ."

          "If that's even true."

          "Yeah. Whatever." She shakes her head, furrowing her brows after noticing something. "Wait a second."

          "Yeah, wait. Weren't these girls all friends with Taylor at some point? Laura, Sutton, Hailey, and Gabriella?" Isla slowly nods. "Laura P., as in Palmer, Sutton C., Gabriella B., and Hailey . . . H.; what is her last name?"

          "Hobbes. Rowan, you can't—"

          "I saw it. I saw it, I saw it in Taylor's journal. Where the hell is the list . . ."

          "Right in front of you, you idiot."

          He picks up the copy of his notes, flipping through it. "Are you always this supportive?"

          "Only on Saturdays." Her voice trails off, and he almost drops the pages after finding the particular passage he had been looking for. His heart threatens to jump out of his mouth, sincerely doubting it was ever this easy. "Rowan? Rowan, what is it?"

          "No," Rowan gasps, lowering his voice even more so as to not disturb Rhiannon . . . or let her hear them. "No, we can't do this here. Aren't . . . aren't they friends?" Isla glances back at her, but picks up her own copy and flips to the same page he's at, gently slapping his wrist when she finds the passage. "There."

          "The Leviathan is frightening when it's furious," she reads, and Rowan is the one whose stomach is twisting and turning. Things definitely couldn't be going any worse. "I thought I had seen it all since freshman year, but I was certainly in for a surprise . . . although I wish I had simply witnessed it from the sidelines. I got used to being on the sidelines and was perfectly happy being there, where I could steal no one's thunder. No one's spotlight. The Leviathan knows its worth and will never let anyone take it away—not even me. It said I'd regret it, that I don't know what I'm getting myself into. Truthfully, I don't. I don't know why it bothers the Leviathan so much; after all . . . it can't be trusted. No one in this place can, apparently, but it has to be brought to light."

          "The Leviathan knows some people are stronger than others," Rowan continues. "Some are smarter. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, they're all equal . . . or they should be. Humans still need an authority figure to guide them, however, and the Leviathan made sure to let me know I, too, responded to it. Said there'd be devastating consequences, and it's written in my contract, whatever it may be. We are not free. I certainly am not."

          Rowan chokes out the last four words and no one in the room dares to breathe. It all connects, even if Isla and Rhiannon didn't want it to, even if it goes against everything they believed in, even if it might prove some people aren't as trustworthy as they thought.

          Hailey Hobbes. Thomas Hobbes and The Leviathan.

          Isla had always described her as somewhat . . . hotheaded and impulsive, but that she was also the one who tried to get Taylor to stay, that she genuinely cared about her. She said she was genuinely upset when they found Taylor's body at the beach, the same day he nearly drowned over her. It all makes him sick.

          Rhiannon rolls out of bed, but their movements are quicker. Isla holds her shoulders to keep her in place, telling her they're working on things and she definitely needs to go back to bed before she passes out, but Rhiannon's eyes are wide open in utter confusion. Her mouth drops open, with tears glistening in the corners of her eyes . . . as if she had heard everything they said. As if she had reached that same conclusion.

          "This is stupid," she murmurs. "Hailey didn't do anything."

          "No one is saying she did," Isla says, almost desperate, "but . . . her name is in red in that diagram, and we just read that passage. Rhiannon, I know you like her, but Hailey can be a difficult person to deal with. She can be too intense."

         "So what?" Rhiannon snaps. "What makes you think the reds mean the people who could have done it? What did Frances have to do with it? What was in it for him, huh? Because those people"—she gestures towards the diagram—"are the ones who can be connected to the case in a general way. Brooklyn was the only one to come back, Dimitri was Taylor's boyfriend, Hailey was her friend, but Laura? Laura was Frances' protégée, alright? She was his favorite. She's in the experiment because he wanted her there, not because . . . not because she had anything to do with this!"

          Rowan looks back at the board. Laura might be the reason for all the Twin Peaks references in Taylor's diary, but, if his interpretations are correct, Taylor almost looked up to her. If they're red herrings after all and she's talking about someone else entirely . . . well. He has just made a massive fool out of himself.

          "And what makes you think Laura didn't do it?" Isla inquires.

          "Because she has a goddamn alibi that has been verified countless times! She was with her parents the entire day Taylor died! November 29th!"

          "Okay," Rowan says, before it gets even more heated between the two of them. It's strange to be the person who's trying to keep a cool head instead of immediately jumping to the middle of the fight. "Okay. Laura is off the list. But, Rhiannon, Hailey . . . she's a possibility we'll have to consider." Rhiannon looks away, crossing her arms. "We don't know what happened between them that made them fall apart as hard as they did—"

          "Hailey cared about Taylor," Rhiannon argues, looking back at him, but her eyes aren't entirely focused. "She didn't do it. She also didn't push Frances."

          "How do you know?"

          "I just do. I just do."

          "Maybe this means nothing," Isla points out. "He was running out of ink with the red pen"—she points to Hailey's name—"and could have had to switch colors. The blue pen was kind of weak, too. We're grasping at straws, Rowan, and Taylor knew a lot of people—she knew a lot of people who would do terrible things just to ensure she stayed quiet. There are people in that diagram who might be in red, but their alibis have been verified. Laura, Brooklyn. Probably Dimitri."

          Rhiannon narrows her eyes. "And Hailey?"

          "Rhiannon, you were living with her. I have no idea."

          "You think she did it."

          "I didn't say that."

          "You didn't have to."

          She bolts out of the room, with Isla following her and calling out her name, but, once he hears the front door slam, he knows it's too late. They pushed her too far, in a way Chase could never do, and they threatened to break her trust in one of the few people she actually cared about in that entire group.

          You can't do something like that to someone and expect them to shrug it off, especially when that person is Rhiannon Ford. She's complicated, far beyond anyone's solving capacities.

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          TO SAY THE REST OF THE NIGHT IS AWKWARD WOULD BE AN UNDERSTATEMENT. Isla is so pissed off it's almost as if there was smoke coming out of her ears and she shoots murderous glares at anyone who dares ask her any questions—be it of whatever nature, even if it's just about the bottle of Cabernet that isn't in the apartment.

          Rowan eventually finds out she and Rhiannon had bought two bottles, but the latter somehow managed to drink one of them all by herself prior to coming to the apartment and made sure to take the remaining one with her after she left. At least she's not driving, as Isla gave her a ride here, but those streets might not be entirely safe for someone who's far from sober. The dark alleys, along with the fog, could very well be her demise, and Rowan's chest tightens just by thinking about it.

          He tries to distract himself, but, with these people, that's nearly impossible.

         "So, where's your friend?" Chase asks. "She seemed to be in a rush."

          "It's no big deal," Isla replies, stabbing a Brussels sprout so hard Rowan even fears she might be picturing it as Chase's face. "We might have found out one of the few people she trusts could have done something awful and illegal, so she's not having a great night."

          "Wait, what? What's going on?"

          "Hailey Hobbes." Isla scowls. "That's what happened."

          Natalia knits her eyebrows together. "I thought we had brushed that off. They used to be really close back in the day."

         "Except they weren't when Taylor started receiving threats via text messages, went missing, and got killed." Joanna holds her breath. "I don't know how we managed to let that slip past our radar, but all passages about The Leviathan are about her. Thomas Hobbes. Those passages are scary, guys, and it just shows . . ." She takes a deep breath. "It just shows Taylor was terrified of her. I know Hailey might not seem like the nicest person ever most of the time, but I never thought . . ."

         "Maybe it's not like that," Micah says, fidgeting. Always trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel, this one. "Maybe you read too much into it. Taylor could be kind of dramatic sometimes, but, even if she was scared, that doesn't necessarily mean—"

          "It's the most we have so far." She sets down the silver cutlery, leaving those poor Brussels sprouts alone. She has barely touched her food and they all spent the past fifteen minutes watching her push it around the plate with her fork. "Whatever it means, we need to look into it."

          "Yes, because Hailey is definitely going to tell us she spent weeks threatening her ex-friend and then went to Maine just to kill her," Natalia coldly says, and Isla doesn't find the energy to fight back. "Didn't you say Rhiannon talked to her about those texts? What was her reaction?"

          "I have no idea, but Rhiannon trusts her enough to believe she's innocent. I think I . . . I do, too. That's not the type of person Hailey is."

          "Everyone has a villain inside of them," Joanna states. "Even you. Even us. Whatever dirt Taylor had on who hurt her . . . it was enough to anger them enough to make them do what they did."

          "Trust me, that wouldn't be Hailey's M.O.. When she wants to do something, she steps forward and does it, without feeling the need to hide behind a burner phone. Can we please look into this before jumping to conclusions? They saw their professor dead at the bottom of a staircase and nearly died in a fire a month ago—"

          "She could have pushed McCall, too," Chase mutters. "She hated the guy."

          "There was only one person there who didn't hate him. Maybe two. Besides, Hailey is all growl when it comes to physical altercations." She looks around the table. "I've been thinking; we should go to the gas station." Chase dramatically rolls his eyes and Rowan kicks him under the table. "KJ might know something that helps us put the puzzle pieces together. Maybe he knows something that will help us figure out what happened to Taylor during her last days."

          Chase tries to argue KJ won't be of any help, that he won't help anyone unless there's anything going on for him, which might be why he chose to be on Taylor's side before she left Vofield. However, that's music to Natalia's ears and she forces everyone to finish their dinner as quickly as possible so they can take care of it.

          Once they get into Micah's Jeep, Chase lets them know he won't be joining them for obvious reasons. Natalia is kind enough to remind him he's a coward for not facing his ghosts as he should, but he shrugs, gets into his own car, and drives away into the night. Micah sighs, inserts the key into the ignition and heads the opposite way.

          The fluorescent lights of the gas station are reflected in the night sky, toning it in unnatural shades of green and red, and Rowan leans forward, his head resting between Micah and Natalia's arms. They all stay quiet, examining their surroundings, and quickly realize they're all alone, along with the employee standing inside the convenience store, behind the counters.

          "So," Natalia murmurs. "Who's going?"

          "I'll go," Rowan offers, having already unbuckled his seat belt, and Isla gives his wrist a gentle squeeze, showing some ambivalence about letting him go. He wouldn't ask her to come with him, after what happened back at the apartment, and would much rather know she's safe inside the vehicle. "Do you want to come?"

          "Absolutely." Natalia unbuckles her seat belt and opens the door, letting the frigid night wind enter the car, and everyone shivers. "Race you to the door?"

          "Be careful," Micah asks, grabbing her wrist, and she tilts her head back, leaning forward to briefly kiss him, like Peter Parker and Mary Jane. Moments later, she and Rowan are walking outside, their footsteps echoing behind them, and she deeply inhales before pushing the door open with her shoulder.

          Rowan's heart is hammering against his chest. This can either go extremely well or seriously wrong.