Chapter 21 Pandora
PANDORA
I don’t slam my dorm room door shut, because I’m not an immature brat who takes her feelings out on inanimate objects.
And also because I really don’t need Becky across the hall to come and knock on my door and ask if everything’s okay. It’s two in the fucking morning, Becky, just go to sleep.
The flowers on the table are bleeding again, the pool of blood around the vase growing larger with every day. Soon I’ll only have the skeleton of a flower remaining.
People collect dead flowers, right, and hang them up around the room?
Why the fuck would anyone want dead flowers?
I go into Samantha’s bedroom and lay down on her bed. I kick off my shoes, then reach for her tablet.
Reminder: Tablet is in quiet mode. Consider going to bed.
I tap the message away. Samantha apparently needed reminders about when to sleep. Or maybe that was her asshole parents, insisting she not have a social life past 6 p.m.?
I go to her email again. The inbox is less cluttered now that I unsubscribed her from all the Christian newsletters. No more inspirational speeches to help her get through the day.
She’s probably dead, anyway.
No.
I can’t believe that. There’s no body. If there’s no body, there’s no crime.
Like Zayden.
Nobody has found his body. They can’t, because it’s nothing but ash now. That means Zayden is still alive.
There’s a single new email from Samantha’s older brother.
“You’re breaking Mom’s heart. Call her, please. We’re getting worried.”
Huh. I didn’t know she had a brother.
I do a search for all emails from her brother. He’s really nice, but Samantha never replied to a single one.
That’s weird, right? Why would she not respond?
But she barely responded to the emails from her parents.
Were her parents like Rachel’s, then? Did Samantha hate going home too? I scroll through more and more emails, but all I learn is that Samantha’s family is religious as fuck and her dad is a dick. I already knew that part.
I go back to the newest emails. There’s another one, this time from one of Samantha’s church friends.
“Hey, it’s been a while. This is your roommate, right? Make sure she bathes before she touches anything!”
Yeah, it’s been a while. It’s been over a month.
A full month, and this bitch doesn’t care that Samantha hasn’t reached out? All she did was send a video of me getting bombarded by piss balloons!
Nobody even cares about Samantha.
I’m the only one who does.
I delete the email, then set the tablet aside. Without the glow from the screen, it’s dark in Samantha’s room.
I pull the covers up over myself and try to sleep, but when I turn onto my side I feel my knife digging into my thigh.
I should have cut somebody up after all.
I make a frustrated sound and get out of the bed, grabbing my shoes before heading into my own bedroom. I strip off my clothes and set my charm into its special box on my bedside table. The PJs I pull on are warm, soft flannel that’s so different from the tight dress I’d been wearing for the club.
We need to talk.
No we don’t.
There’s nothing to talk about.
I don’t need to hear them accusing me of being a slut or whatever they were going to do.
I mean, they weren’t going to do that.
I’m pretty sure they weren’t, because if they think I’m a slut they don’t need to show up and drag me away from sex-or-stabbing and they definitely wouldn’t finger me in public. If anything, they’re the sluts.
Also, if this was about me being a slut, they wouldn’t have started going on and on about Zayden and Tate and everybody else who has it out for me.
I claw at my arm, and if my pajama shirt didn’t have long sleeves maybe I’d have scratched myself.
Why am I being like this?
Except I know.
Carly has a new best friend. Reaper was busy.
Asch and River only bothered to show up because they wanted to talk about Zayden or whatever petty problems they have right now and Blaze is sorry, so fucking sorry, that he hurt me but not sorry enough to have not done it in the first place and everybody on campus thinks I’m a monster or a slut or a whore or some fucking weak little victim who’s on the verge of a break down but I’m not.
I’m not.
I’m strong, I’m confident; I’m Pandora Pavone and nothing affects me and if they don’t shut the fuck up maybe I’ll murder them next.
I can start making frat brothers disappear, and maybe then people will take all these missing people seriously.
It’s about Zayden.
I’ll show them Zayden. Dig up all his secrets, make everybody despise him, drag his disembodied corpse through the mud and mutilate it all over again and shower the jurors with his blood and then they’ll know what kind of person he was.
Shit, shit, shit.
That’s not right. That’s not what I’m supposed to do. Zayden is already dead. There is no blood, no corpse.
I go to the desk and turn the light on. My gaze darts around the enclosure until I spot Echo, who’s hiding in one corner.
“Hi,” I whisper to her. With an unsteady hand, I open the enclosure and pull her out.
Echo snaps at me, like a baby snake likes to do, but after one attempted strike she calms down and lets me lay her against my chest. Her cool scales calm me, and I take her to the bed with me.
Thankfully Echo is tired too, because she doesn’t try to slither away from me.
“Do you think they actually care about me?” I ask Echo. “I’m fucking terrible, right? I wanted to stab a random guy because I invited him for bathroom sex and he wasn’t the right person.”
I giggle at myself. Am I really telling a snake about this? She doesn’t care about a random guy.
I don’t care about a random guy.
Stabbing would have been a bad idea though, even for me. Way too public. So many witnesses.
I’d been close to doing it despite that.
If you need to hurt somebody, be smart about it, Daddy used to say.
He probably still says it to Kratos and Ares. Not to Mel, who wouldn’t hurt anyone ever because unlike me, she’s squeamish and thinks there’s no good reason to cause pain ever. That’s why she gets trampled on and why she cries so much and why she needs Kratos and Ares to protect her.
What’s she going to do when they’re off at college and no longer around to keep her safe?
Maybe I need to go home and get through to her. I’ll teach her how to fight properly, even if it makes her cry harder.
Except we’d tried that.
She doesn’t want to be like me.
Nobody wants to be like me.
I’m the crazy psycho bitch who ruins lives.
“Why can’t you be big enough to swallow people whole?” I ask Echo. “Do you think you could eat Becky the next time she knocks?”
I don’t think her name is actually Becky. It starts with a B though. Belinda? Beatrice?
“Maybe you should swallow me,” I whisper to Echo. “That would give everybody something to pity. Stupid fucking Blaze, fighting my battles for me. Like I needed him to beat up Tate. I could have done that too.”
He probably didn’t want me to kill Tate.
I scared him with all that talk of Zayden.
That’s wrong too.
Blaze is like me.
Blaze isn’t judging me. River isn’t judging me. Asch isn’t judging me.
“What the fuck is wrong with me today?” I blink, and I feel something wet on my eyelashes. The mascara must have become runny for some reason. “Why can’t I kill the feelings the way I kill everything else?”
It doesn’t make any sense, except it does, and I hate it, I hate it I hate it!
I curl onto my side and stroke Echo’s head. “I’m so pathetic, huh? Big tough Pandora who can’t even handle one day of pitying looks.”
Pitying looks, and secret giggles as I walked past.
I’d have threatened violence, but I don’t think that would have won anyone over to my side.
The only solution was to get away from the school and dance where nobody would recognize me, where I wasn’t Pandora Pavone but just a single body in the writhing sea.
My phone dings, because unlike Samantha I don’t have a night mode and I don’t care if people text me in the middle of the night.
I open up the text. I frown when I see it’s from Carly.
Carly
I just got back from my movie marathon. Sorry I couldn’t go with you today. Coffee tomorrow?
I mean today. In seven hours. Ish.
I smile at the text and type back.
Pandora
Shh, I’m sleeping.
Carly
What? You could have responded in the morning!
Pandora
Well, I’m awake now. Yeah, I’d love coffee. Should I bring Echo?
Carly
I don’t think snakes drink coffee
Pandora
You don’t know that! Who’s the snake expert?
Carly
Not you, apparently.
Hope you had fun at the club! I’m going to sleep now.
I let out a small, relieved sigh.
Okay. At least one person doesn’t hate me right now.
That counts for something.