Itch: The Novel Preview

Chapter 1: The Hook

Dahlia loved sleepovers as a kid.  She loved cracking the spine of the Clue board, her adrenaline peaking as she scrambled for the figurine of the lady in red, the muffled crashes and bangs as Tom chased Jerry on the television behind her, but most of all, she loved the sweet crunch of carrot sticks, lathered in her grandmother’s homemade hummus, dripping down her lips.  She loved it so much, she didn't mind scrubbing the droppings out of the pink bows on her pajamas.

Dahlia still loved sleepovers at age nineteen.  She loved cracking open a new case of hard ciders, her adrenaline peaking as she sprinted down an alleyway with another stolen street sign for her collection, the muffled voice of a boy who wasn't her boyfriend whispering through the static of the telephone, but most of all, she loved that nobody, not even her mother, was there to stop her from digging her hand deep into a family size bag of Cheetos and licking the dust off of each finger.

"Stop hogging it!" Sawyer nagged, snatching the remote straight out of Dahlia's hand.  "Netflix really does have shit horror movies, doesn't it?"  She scoffed, taking down a swig of Fireball and burping up cinnamon.

"Maybe for your definition of a horror movie," Henry murmured from the corner of the bed, glancing up from his phone, "but some of us actually enjoy films with a plot and developed characters."

"Oh, wow, you enjoy watching films?"  Sawyer jeered, pursing her lips and adjusting her imaginary monocle.  "Please sir, tell me that Pulp Fiction is the 'pinnacle of modern cinema' and that I'm 'not like other girls'?"  She hurled a pillow across the room, hitting the wall behind Henry.

"Please," Henry huffed, applying another layer of Chapstick and smacking his lips together, "if I wanted skinny white boy film buff to psychoanalyze me, I'd just call up Dahlia's boyfriend."

"Okay, you guys are just mad because Theo can actually spell the word 'film'." Dahlia retaliated, throwing back the rest of her drink.

"Don't be so sensitive!"  Sawyer drunkenly swung her arm around Dahlia, her long, dark hair and bright red lipstick rubbing up against the side of her cheek.  She peered down at her phone.  "Why are you stalking Amy's Instagram?"

"Dahlia, seriously?  We've been over this."  Henry rolled his eyes.  "Why would Theo cheat on you with the female antichrist?"

"Besides, you're like, so much prettier than her."  Sawyer chimed, nodding aggressively.  Studying Amy’s page, Sawyer’s sweet, yet misguided words of affirmation lost whatever truth they might have held- Amy Alvarez was stunning.  Her striking green eyes stood out against her sun-kissed skin, surely the result of her summer spent basking in the rays of the Amalfi Coast with her mother’s boyfriend’s cash.  Scrolling down, Dahlia swiped through beach vistas, extravagant breakfasts, and bikini posts to land on the one photo that truly troubled her.  Amy danced freely, blonde highlights peeking through her brown waves, violet glitter glistening against the flash of the camera, highlighting each curve of her body as she smiled with an infectious power Dahlia knew she could never hold- and that’s what scared her the most.

"Not true, but whatever..." Dahlia placed her phone face down on the bedside table.

"You know what," Sawyer stood declaratively, "you should just tell Theo if he keeps leaving you on read all the time, he can say aloha, bitch!"  She stomped her foot and pointed to the door.

"Doesn't 'aloha' mean hello?"  Henry sneered as Sawyer hobbled over to him like a baby deer trying to walk for the first time.

"I meant awoah-ha like bye-bye bish!"  She shouted, sloshing her open Fireball bottle as she army-crawled across the bed to hug Henry.

"All right, I think it's time for bed."  Dahlia sighed.  She and Henry exchanged grimaces as they prepared to lift the deadweight that their roommate had become.  Her phone buzzed against the bedside table.

"Look at that, Pulp Fiction boy lives!"  Henry smiled as Dahlia lunged across the room to answer him.  It wasn't Theo.

"Teddy?"  She furrowed her brows, as Henry mouthed Teddy's name in confusion.  "Woah, Woah, Woah, slow down."  Dahlia removed the phone from her ear and put it on speaker.

"I can't- I'm gonna puke."  Teddy gagged, breathing harshly into the phone.

"Do you need help?"  Dahlia worried, tucking her loose bangs behind her ears.

"You don't- understand..." he huffed, cursing in between breaths, "you have to come get me, please, I can't be alone right now."

"Is that Teddy?  Tell him I say aloha, but the hi version."  A drunken Sawyer mumbled into the sheets.

"Jesus Christ,”  Dahlia muttered.  "Teddy, please just tell me what the fuck is going on!”  She shouted in exasperation.

"I'm at the docks."  He sighed.

"Okay."

"They found a body."

"Shit."

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Dahlia and Henry manned each side of Sawyer's inebriated body and dragged her to the back seat of their Volvo, stuffing the empty coffee cups and Subway wrappers into the seat pockets.  Hands trembling, Dahlia put the key in the ignition and flicked on her high beams, lurching out of their long, winding dirt driveway towards the docks.  The three sat in blanketed silence, pushing their darkest thoughts below the surface, suffocating them.  Dahlia's tires ground into the crumbling pavement of Heartwell’s poorly maintained roads as she pressed her foot so deep into the gas pedal, she thought it might snap.  A faint ringing noise that she couldn't quite place seemed to creep up behind her, growing louder as she floored the car up a hill.

"Holy shit, Dahlia, slow down!"  Henry shouted, whipping his head back and forth in a panic.  "It's the fucking cops!  How much did you have to drink?"

"Stop calling me an alcoholic, it's college."  Sawyer murmured into the leather car seat.

"Not you!"  Henry snapped.  "You wanna get us arrested?"

"Enough to fail a breathalyzer."  Dahlia slid to the side of the road, jerking the car into park before even touching the brake.  She tapped her fingers on the top of the dashboard as the blue and red lights nearly rear-ended the car.  She couldn't help but think that this was her karma, not for dropping everything to get Teddy, but for wanting to.

The officer pounded feverishly on the back window, startling Sawyer awake.  Henry narrowed his eyes.  "You've got to be kidding me."

"Henry Walter Andre Lee Lake, what the devil are you doing out right now? And with Miss Dahlia Spencer, who is so obviously driving under the influence?"  The officer challenged, staring down the both of them.  "And don't even get me started on what Miss Hicks is doing drooling into the back seat!"

"But, Mom-!" Henry whined, the siren lights bouncing off the worry lines on his flawless, deep complexion.

"Now you shut your mouth, young man.  I just got a report of a possible murder at the docks, and I am not letting any of you out of my sight, you hear?"  Sheriff Lake tore open the doors, yanking her son and his 'delinquent' friends into her police car.  Dahlia eavesdropped through the bars of the backseat to Henry and his mother's whispered conversation.  "This is the last time I wanna see you hangin' with these two, Henry Lee, the last!  I should have never let you move outta my house to be with them.”

"Our friend is down there; he could be in trouble!"  He pleaded.

"Exactly why you should leave it to your mama and the authorities to help him!"  She scolded.  "You exhaust me…”. Henry let out a heavy sigh and pulled on the strings of his hoodie until everything but his nose was covered in a shell of a periwinkle polyester blend.  Leaning against the window with his knees tucked and his hands retracted into the sleeves, he buried yet another helping of words he would never have the courage to say to his mother deep, deep down inside his subconscious.

Dahlia couldn't stop staring as they approached the scene.  Crowds of neighboring families covering their children's eyes and plastering them to their chests surrounded the previously tranquil town docks as a roaring ambulance plowed through the growing conglomeration of cop cars.  Nearly skidding straight into the water, Sheriff Lake pulled over to a group of her inferiors hounding her as she exited the vehicle.

"Ma'am, we've been attempting to exhume the body from the water, but she’s..."  A man in uniform reported.

"Stay by the car, honey."  She whispered as the Raymonds began tugging their gargantuan lobster boat from the docks.  Henry, Dahlia and Sawyer got out to take a closer look at the pale mass bobbing its head above the water.  The Sheriff hustled towards the team of paramedics attempting to fish out the body.  "She?  So, you got a positive ID on the body?"

"We're trying to, ma'am, but we don't want to corrupt any evidence by further harming the victim."  The man lowered his voice.  "You see, she's bound to the bottom of the dock."

"Bound?  Cook, what's a rope doing preventing a team of trained professionals from retrieving a body?"  She scathed.  "Get your asses back in gear and get her out, you got me?"

"Fishhooks."  Cook wiped the perspiration from the back of his neck.  "Her mouth is pierced and bound by fishhooks."

“Then do it carefully."

"Again, you've gotta be fucking kidding me."  Henry shook his head and tongued at his cheeks as he tried to force the thought of fishhooks out of his throat.  He cautiously eyed his mother's emotionless and procedural facade as she led her team waist-deep into the frigid Maine waters.

"Hey, Dahlia..."  Sawyer nodded behind her.  Dahlia's eyes darted around the scene frantically until she met his.

"Teddy."  She exhaled, burying her head in his chest. Goosebumps tickled up his arms as her quiet, quivering breaths brushed his skin through his sweater.  "You okay?"  She broke from their embrace and he drew his thick blond hair back over his head.

"Yes, I just... I've never seen one before."  Teddy's hands twitched as he swallowed and fixed his round glasses to his face.  "A dead body."

"How exactly did you get down here?"  Henry pried, holding up a sobering, yet still staggering Sawyer.

"He's a richie rich, that's how!"  She teased, pointing at the expensive watch that rested on his wrist, the name of which Dahlia was sure she’d never be wealthy enough to know. "Just like everyone else who lives on the hill!"  Teddy's face reddened as Henry looked up the road towards the set of estates facing the ocean- the last one on the left must be his.  Parked outside the large, white mansion, between the fluffy hydrangeas that lined the driveway, sat the beautiful vintage convertible that Teddy loved to cruise through the town during the summer months.  The creamy white exterior shined brighter against the dark maroon seats that always called to him from his bedroom window as he watched Dahlia slide into the passenger side with ease- each and every time he called.  It was with the same ease that she fell into his arms and hadn’t let go since they arrived.

"I heard shouts, whimpering down by the water."  Teddy struggled to reminisce.  “I came out to see what was going on, I- I thought it was just a hurt animal or something at first, and then I saw-"

"We've got her!"  Sheriff Lake shouted, gesturing Officer Cook and the others to come over.  A wave of silence fell through the rambunctious onlookers as they stood on the tips of their toes for a chance to catch a glimpse of the body.

"God-" Dahlia gagged, digging her nails into Teddy's forearm as paramedics dragged the body out of the water, letting the fishhooks tear through her blue cheeks.  Blood bubbled down the sides of her face, coating her chin.

"Clip the line, clip the line!"  Sheriff Lake screamed, enraged.  "I told you to be careful!"

"That's too much blood."  Henry discerned, stepping closer to the body.  Dahlia peered over at the victim, breathless as worry bore a hole through her stomach.

"I know who that is."  She gulped, her feet seemingly propelling themselves on their own toward the body.

"Dahlia, honey, stay back, you can't be here."  Sheriff Lake whispered.

"Miss, this is a closed crime scene, do you need someone to escort you out?"  Cook reached for his handcuffs.

"It's Amy Alvarez."  Dahlia panted.  "The body is Amy, she... just look at her tattoo."  Sheriff Lake pulled up the victim's shirt, revealing a tattoo on her hip.  She cleared her throat and read aloud.

"'Dearly Beloved’.  What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I did the tattoo for her,” Dahlia swallowed and caught her breath, “it’s the Old French root for her name.”  She remembered the appointment well.  She’d begun doing stick and pokes back when she first started at Heartwell State, advertising her services on Instagram to make some extra money and simultaneously forcing Sawyer to be her canvas for the first few posts.  In her defense, her tattoos were “fucking cool”, as Sawyer put it, while she etched a black widow into her upper thigh.

Dahlia was dating Drew Kelley at the time, the son of the dean, Alpha Tau legacy recruit, starting striker of the H.S.U. soccer team, and one hell of a gorgeous catch.  He had asked if a girl who was talking to one of his buddies, Amy Alvarez, could get a small piece done that day for double the price.  Whether she did it for the money or Drew’s glittering grey eyes, there was no going back once she accepted the cash.  The minute he saw her, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her, and that was when Dahlia knew she had suddenly become nothing to him.

Sheriff Lake sighed, sliding out her notepad as coroners and officers shuffled between them.  "Jesus.  Any idea who would do this to her, hun?"

"We really weren't that close, Ms. Lake."  Dahlia shook her head, trying to suppress the twinge in her stomach.

"Ma'am, we got the fishhooks out!"  A paramedic shouted, hovering over Amy, hands covered in blood.

"I'll need to ask you more questions later, Dahlia."  She tucked her notepad into her belt and approached Amy's body as the paramedic pried open her mouth.  "Any apparent cause of death?"

  "No ma'am, but we-."  He stopped suddenly.

"We what?"  Sheriff Lake threw her arms in the air.  "You people are truly incompetent."

"The victim is missing her tongue."