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 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 way the ripe, juicy blueberries, plucked fresh from her grandmother’s garden, would burst between her teeth and coat her tongue in tart, sugary goodness. She loved it so much, she didn’t mind that they stained her hands purple.

Dahlia still loved sleepovers at age twenty. She loved cracking open a new case of hard ciders, her adrenaline peaking as she sprinted down an alleyway after her best friends, the muffled voice of a boy who wasn’t her boyfriend whispering thorough the static of the telephone, but most of all, she loved that nobody, not even her grandmother, was there to stop her from digging her hand deep into a family size bag of Cheetos and licking the dust off 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 film,” Henry murmured from the corner of his bed, glancing up from his phone.

“Oh wow, you enjoy watching…films?” Sawyer jeered, pursing her red lips and adjusting her imaginary monocle. “You’re starting to sound like Theo.”

“As if,” Henry huffed, applying another layer of lip balm and smacking his lips together. Dahlia’s face reddened at the mention of her boyfriend’s name.

“Don’t pretend you don’t like the same exact shit,” She threw back the rest of her drink, “Theo and I saw you guys lurking in the kitchen while we were watching Hereditary the other night.”

“Oh, don’t be so sensitive!” Sawyer drunkenly swung her arm around Dahlia, her long, dark brown hair falling against her face. Despite her rather petite frame, Dahlia felt like she had to stiffen her back to hold Sawyer up. She let her whole body weight fall against Dahlia as she peered down at her phone through dark, fox-like eyes, drowning in charcoal eyeliner. “Why are you stalking Amy’s page?”

‘Dahlia, seriously? We’ve been over this.” Henry rolled his eyes. “Why would Theo be interested in the female antichrist?”

“Besides, you’re like, so much prettier than her.” Sawyer chimed, nodding aggressively in an attempt to be more convincing. While Dahlia was rather pretty, she never truly felt it. Her warm green doe eyes, soft coral lips, and long, thick blonde bob were certainly endearing, but she wanted to be captivating.

Studying Amy’s feed, Sawyer’s sweet words of affirmation lost whatever truth they might have held—Amy Alvarez wasn’t just pretty, she 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. Scrolling down, Dahlia swiped through beach vistas, extravagant breakfasts, and bikini posts to land on the phone photo that truly troubled her. Amy danced freely, blonde highlights peeking through her brown waves, violet glitter glistening agains the flash of the camera, highlighting each curve of her body as she smiled with an infectious power Dahlia knew she could never hold. She shut off her phone and placed it face down on Henry’s 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 started to slur her words as she stomped her foot and pointed towards the door like a petulant child.

“Doesn’t ‘aloha’ mean hello?” Henry laughed as Sawyer climbed onto his bed and hobbled over to him like a baby deer trying to walk for the first time.

“I meant alo-ah-ha like bye-bye!” Sloshing her open whiskey bottle onto Henry’s white bedspread, she army-crawled across the bed to hug him.

“Great…” He sighed.

“All right, I think this sleepover’s cancelled.” Dahlia said. 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, film 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. The boy who wasn’t her boyfriend spoke quickly tripping over his words as the connection cut in and out. “Just slow down.” She 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?” She 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, could you please just tell me what the hell is going on?” She shouted in exasperation.

“I’m at the docks.” He sighed.

“Okay?”

“They found a body.”

“Shit.”

        —————————————————————————————————

Dahlia and Henry manned each side of Sawyer’s inebriated body and dragged her to the back seat of Dahlia’s Volvo, stuffing empty coffee cups and pastry wrappers into the seat pockets to make some room for her. Hands trembling, Dahlia dug the key in the ignition and flicked on her high beams, lurching out of their driveway and turning left towards the docks. The three sat blanketed in 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. As she floored her car up a hill, a faint ringing noise that she couldn’t quite place crept up behind her, growing louder and louder.

“Dahlia, slow down!” Henry shouted, whipping his head back and forth in 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 car seat.

“Not you!” Henry snapped.

“Enough to fail a breathalyzer.” Dahlia slid to the side of the road, jerking the car into park before even touching the break. She tapped her fingers on top of the dashboard nervously, thinking this must be her karma— not for dropping everything to get Teddy, but for wanting to. Before she knew it, the blue and red lights nearly rear-ended her car and an officer pounded feverishly on the window, startling Sawyer awake. Dahlia rolled it down and 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 Nicks is doing drooling into the back seat!”

“But, Mom-!” Henry whined, the siren lights bouncing off his flawless, deep complexion.

“Now you shut your mouth, young man. I just got a report of a situation at the docks, and I am not letting any of you out of my sight, you got that?” Sheriff Lake tore open the doors, yanking her son and his ‘delinquent friends’ into her police cruiser. Peering through the bars in the backseat, Dahlia eavesdropped on Henry’s conversation with his mother. “This is the last time I wanna see you hanging with these two, Henry Lee, the last! I should have never let you move outta my house.”

“Our friend is down there—he could be in trouble!” He pleaded.

“Exactly why you should leave it to your mama and the police to help him!” She scolded, “You exhaust me…”. Henry released a heavy sigh and pulled on the strings of his hoodie until everything but his nose was covered in a shell of periwinkle polyester. 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 grisly scene. Surrounding the usually tranquil Raymond Wharf were crowds of neighboring families covering their children’s eyes and plastering them to their chests, 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 hastily exited the vehicle.

“Ma’am, we’ve been attempting to exhume the body from the water, but she’s…” A man in uniform trailed.

“Stay by the car, honey.” She whispered as Jack Raymond and his father, Ralph, began tugging their gargantuan lobster boat from the docks. They held solemn looks on their faces as their family’s wharf turned into a morbid circus of police officers and curious onlookers. Joining them, 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?”

“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, and the group could sense there was something wrong. “You see, she’s bound to the bottom of the dock.”

Bound? Cook, what’s a little rope doing stopping a team of trained professionals like yourselves?” She scathed. “Get your asses back in gear and get her out, you got me?” She turned away from him and began stalking back towards her car.

“Fishhooks.” Cook spat, wiping perspiration from the back of his neck. “Her mouth is bound with fishhooks.”

“Well, then… do it carefully.”

Exchanging uneasy looks, the three roommates knew that whatever was about to unfold before them wouldn’t be slept off with their hangovers. Henry chewed the inside of his cheek as he tried to force the thought of fishhooks out of his head. With an emotionless and procedural facade, his mother led her team waist-deep into the frigid Maine waters to retrieve Jane Doe.

“Hey, Dahlia…” Sawyer nodded behind her. Dahlia’s eyes darted around the scene frantically until she met his.

“Teddy.” She exhaled, locking eyes with him as goosebumps tickled up her arms. “You okay?” Yes, I just… I’ve never seen one before.” Teddy’s hands twitched as he swallowed and fixed his round glasses to his face. His dark blond hair was unusually disheveled, and his cable-knit sweater was bunching this way and that.

“Why exactly are you down here?” Henry pried, holding up a sobering, yet still staggering, Sawyer.

“He’s a richie rich, that’s how!” She teased pointing on 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 on the hill!”

Teddy’s face reddened as he glanced up the road towards the set of estates facing the ocean—the last one on the left was his. Parked outside the large, white mansion, nestled between the fluffy hydrangeas that lines the driveway, sat the beautiful vintage convertible that Teddy loved to cruise through the town during the warmer months. Its creamy white exterior shined bright against the dark maroon seats that always called to Dahlia from her bedroom window. As he flashed his old Hollywood smile and warm brown eyes, Dahlia would slide into the passenger side with ease—each and every time he called.

“I heard shouts, whimpering down by the water.” Teddy struggled to form coherent words. “I came out to see what was going on, I… I thought it was 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, realizing she was digging her nails into Teddy’s forearm. Dragging the body out of the water, the paramedics gasped as the fishhooks began to tear through her blue cheeks. Blood bubbled down the sides of her face, coating her chin and disappearing into the water.

“Clip the line, clip the line!” Sheriff Lake screamed, horrified. “I told you to be careful!”

“That’s too much blood.” Henry frowned, stepping closer to the body. Dahlia peered over at the victim, breathless, as suddenly, realization bore a hole through her stomach.

“I know who that is.” She gulped, her feet seemingly propelling themselves forward on their own.

“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 fuchsia butterfly tattoo on her hip.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I did the tattoo for her,” Dahlia swallowed and caught her breath, “her name is written around the wing on the right side.” Sheriff Lake looked closer, and sure enough, there it was. Delicately guiding Dahlia away from the waterlogged corpse, she slid out her notepad and sighed. “Jesus. Any idea who would do this to her, hun?”

“We really weren’t that close, Ms. Lake.” She shook her head, trying to suppress the twinge in her stomach as the coroners brought Amy’s body towards the ambulance. Advertising her services on Instagram to make some extra money for schoolbooks, Dahlia had begun doing stick and pokes back when she first started at Heartwell State. She’d forced Sawyer to be her canvas for the first few posts, but, in her defense, her tattoo’s were “fucking cool” according to her best friend’s accolades as she etched a black widow into her upper thigh.

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

“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.” Approaching Amy’s body, she tucked her notepad into her belt and watched with a grim skepticism as the paramedic pried open her mouth under Cook’s supervision. “Any apparent cause of death?”

“No, ma’am, but we-“ He stopped suddenly.

“We what?” Sheriff Lake threw her arms in the air. “How hard is it to get one competent officer around here?”

“The victim is missing her tongue.”