Until Beth

  Praise for Lisa Amowitz’s debut novel, Breaking Glass:

  “Jeremy’s story is gritty and suspenseful, and at times downright spooky, but his intelligence, tenacity and quick, sarcastic sense of humor brightens the darker moments. The novel is also about hope and a young man who prevails in the face of insurmountable challeges. Breaking Glass is an impressive debut from Lisa Amowitz.”

  —USA Today

  “This book is a suspenseful mystery and you’ll find yourself trying to figure it out before you actually do. There are tons of twists and turns and you won’t put the book down until you solve it all.”

  —Just Jared Jr.

  “Every character has a secret in this intricately plotted YA paranormal mystery that delivers a wild and rewarding ride for teen readers.”

  —ForeWord Reviews

  “Betrayal, addiction, murder…and of course, a ghost…Just when you think you know what’s happening, Breaking Glass punches you in the gut and leaves you breathless!”

  —Jennifer Murgia, author of the Angel Star series & Between These Lines

  “A dark romance that will keep you up at night with its twists and turns, Breaking Glass is a must-read debut. Lisa Amowitz has burst onto the YA scene with this intriguing novel. You’ll be hooked from the first page - I certainly was! The characters are drawn with depth and sensitivity, and the plot is heart-pounding. Don’t miss this one.”

  —Christine Johnson, author of Claire de Lune, Nocturne and The Gathering Dark

  “Breaking Glass was a surprise addition to my reading list for July…definitely a book that will keep you guessing right until the very end. It wasn’t a matter of if I was going to read the book, but when and how much I would like it.”

  —Shelley Romano, Gizmo Reviews, gizmosreviews.blogspot.com

  “From the first page I was hooked. Lisa Amowitz has a writing style that made me feel sad I had social engagements because all I wanted to do was sit down and read this book from start to end.”

  —Emily Trunko, On Emily’s Bookshelf, www.onemilysbookshelf.com

  © 2015 Lisa Amowitz

  Sale of the paperback edition of this book without its cover is unauthorized.

  Spencer Hill Press

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Contact: Spencer Hill Press

  27 West 20th Street, Suite 1102

  New York, NY 10011

  Please visit our website at www.spencerhillpress.com

  First Edition: September 2015

  Lisa Amowitz

  Until Beth/by Lisa Amowitz–1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Description: A teenaged girl starts to see darkness around those about to die and soon finds herself in more danger at a school for the talented.

  The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this fiction: BMW, Coke, Disney Channel, Duke, Facebook, Green Day, Hello Kitty, Janis Joplin, Jell-O, Styrofoam, Q-tip, Vaseline, VW, Yoda.

  Cover design by Lisa Amowitz

  Interior layout by Errick A. Nunnally

  978-1-63392-033-0 (paperback)

  978-1-63392-034-7 (e-book)

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my children, who’ve set out on journeys of their own.

  1

  OUTSIDE THE CAR WINDOW, BARREN TREES VEINED the pale flesh of the horizon. I fingered the Blast Mahoney button on my jacket and tried not to think about that night after the concert, and how Sam Bernstein’s long slow kiss had tasted of cotton candy and popcorn. How he’d pressed the button into my palm and breathed in my ear that he believed in me. That, no matter what, my guitar and me were going places. And I’d believed him.

  That was five months ago.

  I’d been to every one of his favorite indie clubs, every dive bar where he’d ever used a fake ID. I’d posted flyers. Even made a Facebook page. I’d looked until there was no place left to look, but Sam Bernstein hadn’t been seen since.

  After Sam went missing, another teen from the Greater Linford area vanished without a trace. Five kids in five months. The town held candlelight vigils. The police searched in vain. The talk lately was that there was nothing more to be done. Everyone was starting to think Sam and the other kids were dead.

  I wasn’t sure what I thought anymore.

  I glanced at the dashboard clock, shaking off the memory. “Crap. I’m gonna be late. Can’t you drive any faster?”

  Mom had made my brother Carson drive me everywhere since my VW bug went belly up. “Driving Miss Crazy,” he called it.

  “The roads are icy.” Carson steered the car in a slow crawl down the twisty road to Linford High. “It’s just a band slam, Beth.”

  “Yeah. And your state championship match next week is just another game.” I tapped my boot against the car floor, knowing how much it annoyed him.

  Carson’s jaw twitched. “Maybe if you put less time into your band and studied for a change, you’d have more going for you.”

  “Maybe you should just shut up.” Ten months my senior, with a lacrosse scholarship to Duke under his belt, he never got calls home about a poor attitude.

  The truth was that, lately, I’d even let my music slip. I tried to keep Sam from my thoughts, but every time the news of another disappearance hit the papers, the wound would split open. Sam had been my friend longer than he’d been my boyfriend. He was my muse, my manager, my coach, my drill sergeant, driving my skills to new heights.

  His absence had ripped a hole in the heart of my music.

  There was a tingling sensation inside my chest, as if my heart had a case of pins and needles, and I wondered if I was becoming immune to the anxiety med cocktail the doctors had had me on since Sam went missing.

  Carson turned into the school parking lot, pulled into a spot, and cut the engine. Scowling, he rubbed at an invisible smear on his fuel gauge.

  Flipping down the sun visor, I looked in the mirror and smoothed the blue-tipped strands of hair that peeked out from under my logger’s cap. The Band Slam competition was in three hours. August Rebellion’s first without Sam on keyboards.

  The scarlet blur of a Linford lacrosse jacket moved between the rows of cars. Weaving around piles of soot-darkened snow, Luke Gleason zigzagged his way across the parking lot, drawing closer.

  “Shit.” I jiggled the door handle. “C’mon. Open this. I’ve got to go.”

  Carson stared at me, a twisted smile on his face. “What’s with you? Give the guy a chance.”

  “I don’t have time for this.” I shook my coffee cup at him. “If you don’t let me out, this latte is going all over your rug.”

  Carson blanched. “Luke’s really into you, is all I’m trying to say.”

  In some past life I’d had a thing for my brother’s best friend, Luke. He was Disney Channel adorable with honey-colored hair that fell in his dreamy eyes, but all Luke ever talked about was Carson and lacrosse, lacrosse and Carson, like he had some kind of man crush. Plus, his breath always smelled like bacon, except when the bacon smell was overpowered by beer fumes.

  “I gathered that after he pinned me under the mistletoe at Shelly’s Christmas party and slobbered all over my dress. Maybe a little too much eggnog?” But not enough to drown out the eau de bacon, I almost added.

  “Sometimes Luke gets kind of carried away. But he’s a good guy.” Carson paused, eyeballing me. “It’s been five months since Sam, Beth.”

  The pins and
needles rose to my throat. I tried and failed to swallow them down. The latte sloshed around in my stomach.

  “I’m well aware of how long it’s been. Every single second.” I pantomimed tipping my cup sideways and leaned on the door handle. “Open this damn door, now, or say goodbye to the pretty rug.”

  Carson’s Achilles’ heel was the fourteen-year-old BMW he’d saved up to buy. Threatening its wellbeing was the quickest way to get the temporary upper hand with my brother. Key word: temporary. But satisfying.

  Carson shrugged. The handle gave way and the door opened. The latte and I nearly tumbled into a snow bank. I righted myself and opened the back door to retrieve my guitar. “Thanks for the ride. A pleasure, as always,” I said through clenched teeth. “Can you pop open the trunk?”

  Raw wind stabbed at my cheeks and shoved my guitar against my thighs. Luke sauntered over, swishing the windblown hair from his eyes with his trademark neck twitch.

  “Hey. Let me help with that,” he said, reaching inside the trunk for my amp.

  I grabbed it first. “It’s okay. I’m used to lugging this thing around.” As I struggled with my things, the winter-gray sky darkened and the ground lurched under my feet. I set down the guitar and amp and leaned against the car.

  Luke frowned at me and scratched his head. “You okay, Beth?”

  I rubbed at my temples. Zero sleep, too much coffee, and competition jitters were canceling out my meds. “Just nerves, I guess. Gotta run. I’m late for set-up. See you, Luke.”

  I hefted the guitar and amp and struggled across the parking lot, cursing myself for not accepting his help.

  “No prob. See you later, babe,” he called after me with a wave.

  Babe. In a pig’s eye, he’d see me.

  My bandmate and best friend, Shelly Brandt, scrambled toward me over the snow piles, all striped tights and spindly legs under an obscenely short plaid skirt. She reached me, flushed and breathless. “Hey! This is it! You ready?”

  Carson, who had not lifted a finger to help, was out of the car and gesturing for Luke to hurry. I exhaled, winded from hauling the heavy amp. “Yeah. All set.”

  Shelly took my guitar, glancing at Luke’s and Carson’s receding figures. “You and Carson have another fight?”

  “I so need my own car. The idiot thinks he can pimp me out to his friends.”

  Shelly laughed. “You are pure evil, Collins. Luke Gleason is really cute, though. Maybe it’s time you—”

  “Don’t go there, okay?” I muttered as we entered the building through the gymnasium entrance. “I think it’s because Carson’s sick of driving me everywhere. He wants to outsource.”

  We pushed through the double doors to the gym. Rows of chairs had been set up to face a raised platform stage. The overhead lights were headache bright. The other band members were already there, shifting mic stands around. I shivered even though the gym was stuffy and hot. “Got any food in your bag?”

  Shelly rummaged around in her bag again, this time pulling out a crushed package of crackers. She studied me as I ripped the package open, her head tilted. “You’re a lousy actress, Beth. You’re not fooling me for a second. Do you want to talk or not?”

  As if on cue, Andre Serrano, our drummer and Sam’s best friend, strolled up the aisle between the chairs, followed by Brett Davis, the new keyboard player. Andre planted a kiss on Shelly’s nose. I couldn’t get myself to look Brett in the eye. “Talk about what? That I’m nervous as shit about this slam? Last year we won but we still had—”

  Shelly finished for me. “We still had Sam.”

  I still had Sam.

  “Beth.” Shelly placed her hand on my shoulder. My breath caught as my gaze wandered to Brett. He was slim and lithe, with a mop of brown curls. In the light’s glare he could have been—

  It hit me like a punch in the stomach—a memory of Sam striding toward me last year, wavy brown hair framing his face, his dark-lashed gray eyes crinkled up in a smile.

  Suddenly I couldn’t stay. I dropped the crackers and ran from the gym, combat boots clonking against the hard wood.

  Outside, I gripped the rail for balance and gulped in the cold air. Music was how we met. How we related. How we loved. Sam drove me to play better and better.

  With him gone the music was all bottled up, twisted inside me like a gnarled tree root. Shelly wanted me to accept that Sam was gone and move on.

  Our fight that last night had been stupid. We’d argued about the band, and where our relationship was going, while in the dark of Sam’s idling car, my chest had prickled with a strange tingling sensation. Thinking back, I knew now that it had meant something. Something ominous. But I’d said nothing.

  Instead, I’d gotten out of the car, slammed the door and watched Sam drive away, never to be seen again.

  2

  ANDRE BURST THROUGH THE GYM DOORS, AS bare-shouldered as always, graceful tattoos coiling up one of his muscled brown arms. Though his breath came in misty puffs, his hands were warm when he took my cold ones in his.

  “Come inside, Beth,” he said, a hint of a smile in his dark eyes. “You’re gonna freeze your ass off out here.”

  At Andre’s touch I felt my tension ebb, and the sob that was trapped inside my ribs dissolve. Andre, respectfully distant, was always just close enough when I needed him. I pressed my head against his chest and let him hold me.

  “Not a day goes by when I don’t feel it, too,” he murmured. Andre was the only one who understood what it was like to breathe when your lungs were gone. Sam had been his best friend, the rock he could hang on to when things at home got to be too much for him. “But standing here in the cold isn’t going to bring him back. Besides, it’s time for the sound check.”

  And just like that, I felt better. Andre’s touch, as I called it to myself, had the power to calm me. It wasn’t attraction. Andre and Shelly had been together even longer than Sam and I. It was shared pain. And somehow, Andre had the ability to take mine away. I was in too much pain to wonder what he did with his own.

  Squeezed into a black satin bustier over a cobalt tulle skirt and black fishnets, I waited in the wings backstage. I couldn’t see past the glare of the lights, but judging from the crowd’s roar, the whole town had shown up for the Band Slam Semi-Finals. August Rebellion was pitted against eight other bands. The winner wouldn’t be chosen until the Grand Finale next week.

  At last, our turn came and I tried to kick it into gear. I belted out Blast Mahoney’s “Like Never,” hoping to incinerate my nerves with the screaming licks of my guitar. Shelly scorched on bass. Andre hammered the beat. We sounded good, but inside I was hollow, the keyboard chords ringing in my ears. I wanted them to be Sam’s notes. And they weren’t.

  When it was over the crowd went nuts. Long-time Slam tradition required the audience to throw random junk at their favorite band. They flung crazy stuff at us—coins, confetti, flowers, rubber chickens. Even someone’s bra and underpants landed on the stage. I figured, as far as the crowd was concerned, we’d rocked the house.

  When the spotlight dimmed, I glimpsed Luke and Carson standing on their chairs and pumping their fists. My chest tingled and I felt the roots of my hair, as if I was about to be struck by lightning. I had to get out of there.

  Pushing past the kids who crowded the backstage, I fled to the dressing room behind the auditorium.

  A boy with a halo of blond curls and mirrored sunglasses slouched against the door.

  “Hi,” he said, walking up to me, hand extended. “I’m Vincent Rousseau. Your bandmate Andre asked me to come to the Band Slam tonight to hear you play.”

  “What? Andre didn’t tell me anyone was coming.” Shivering in my skimpy costume, I scanned the empty corridor. The next band, Wails from the Crypt, was already tuning up. My phone was in the dressing room drawer. If Vincent Rousseau planned to kidnap me, no one would hear my screams.

  “What do you want?”

  The boy’s surprisingly deep voice was colored by a trace of an acc
ent. French, I decided, from the way he emphasized the second syllable in his first name—Vin-cent. I couldn’t help but notice how his dusky skin contrasted pleasingly with his mop of bright curls. “I’m a scout for a high school residency program for talented youth. Andre speaks very well of you.”

  I twirled a strand of damp hair. “Huh? Where is this program?”

  “We’re allied with many colleges nationwide.”

  “Yeah? Never heard of something like that. Does it have a name?”

  “HSTYP, or High Step as we call it. Your friend Andre thought you’d be a good candidate.”

  “Oh, did he?” I glared at the poor guy. I was in a crummy mood and had no problem taking it out on him. “I’m not leaving Linford.”

  “No matter, then,” said Vincent Rousseau, shrugging. “I am just a student at one of the local affiliates. I will leave you with my card in case you have a change of heart.” He smiled again, and despite myself, I felt my guard slip just a notch. Still, I wasn’t sure if I could trust someone who wore mirrored sunglasses indoors in the middle of winter.

  “Look, I’ve got to change,” I said, taking his card. “It was nice to meet you—Vincent.”

  I was pretty sure I didn’t mean it, but if Vincent cared, he didn’t show it. He smiled broadly and said, “It’s been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Bethany Collins.”

  I shook my head and watched him go. Strange guy. But polite. And oddly hot. I was going to have to chew out Andre for his well-meaning but lame attempt to shake me from my gloom. But first I had to get out of my ridiculous get-up.

  Fumbling for the dressing-room key I’d stuck inside my bustier, I pushed open the heavy door. It swung inward with surprising force.

  I turned and a bouquet of flowers was thrust in my face. Behind it, Luke twitched the hair from his eyes. “You guys brought down the roof, babe.”

  “Luke! You scared the crap out of me.”

  He glanced down the hall. “Hey, sorry. Who was that guy?”

  “Just a kid from some music school—uh—somewhere.”