Chapter 21
All my senses are overwhelmed. The thick, too-warm blood drips down my cheeks to my chin and splatters onto my hands.
The smell clogs my nostrils, crawling down my throat until it feels like my mouth is full of it.
Some slips past my lips, staining my tongue, the taste alone making me want to retch onto the carpet.
But there’s nothing in my stomach to give up.
Behind me what feels like a dozen voices battle to be heard, but all of them are drowned out by the screaming.
High-pitched and raw like someone’s been stabbed straight through the gut.
It finally cuts off when a heavy hand slaps down onto my shoulder.
It’s me, I realize. I was the one who was screaming.
“What the fuck did you do to her?” Kai’s voice is louder than the thunder rumbling outside, the storm now at its peak. The windows rattle as the wind whips branches, leaves, and dirt through the air. Angry and raging, like I’ve found a way to bend nature to my own emotions.
“We di—”
“It was her,” Kiki interjects before Carla can finish, her voice almost as loud and harsh as Kai’s.
I blink open my eyes just enough to see Kiki pointing a finger accusatorily at her best friend.
Her eyes are narrowed to slits, her nostrils flaring like those of a bull prepared to charge.
Focusing on them gives me time to try to slow my racing heart—to come down from the spike of adrenaline.
There are a dozen different things I should do.
Try to clean myself off, or better yet, leave while I still can, but I’m glued to the mirror as I watch Carla slowly back away from the twins until she’s trapped in the corner of the room.
“I told her to stop,” Kiki seethes. “I told her it was going too far.”
The moments before the blood crashed onto me are a blur, but pieces begin to seep through the cracks in my memory. The look of panic on Kiki’s face when Carla handed me the eye patches. The urgent hushed whispers behind me before everything went fully dark. A voice I swore shouted “no.”
It seems impossible for Kiki to have sided with me on something.
Especially if it meant turning against Carla.
And if this had happened an hour earlier I wouldn’t believe her at all.
Would just assume she’s trying to get out of facing the consequences of doing something she knew was wrong.
But there’s no denying the fury in her eyes as she glares at Carla like she’s moments from lunging at her.
Or the way Carla, for the first time since I’ve known her, looks scared shitless.
“It was just a joke,” she says with a choked laugh, glancing nervously between Kai and Kiki.
She crosses her arms, running her clawlike red nails along her forearms. Some of the blood must’ve splattered onto her.
The harder she rubs her hands down her arms, the more stained they become.
It doesn’t take long for the blood to coat her until it looks like she’s the one bleeding.
When she goes to rub the back of her neck, she leaves a finger-shaped swipe down her collarbone.
“This isn’t a fucking joke, Carla,” Kai snaps, spit flying from his mouth and onto Carla’s cheek. She winces when it makes contact, but Kai doesn’t stop. “This isn’t funny. It’s cruel.”
“They killed Jose,” Carla spits back, voice feral like a wounded lone wolf.
“She didn’t do anything!” Kai shouts back so loud it makes my ears ache.
Whatever Carla does or says next to justify herself, I don’t make out.
Something solid falls into my lap, breaking free from being tangled somewhere in my hair.
It’s fleshy and cold like a piece of raw meat and is definitely the source of the smell.
A wave of rot washes over me, overwhelming me until I bend over the vanity and gag.
My fingers grip the edge of the vanity for purchase as I hoist myself up.
Spit clings to the edge of my lip, but nothing else comes up.
Not for long, though. I can tell from the way my throat burns that my body has finally found something to throw up.
Blood stains the all-white wood of the vanity as I hold onto it for balance.
The stool I’d been sitting on looks as if it’s been dyed—blood and clumps of whatever fell out of my hair dripping onto the plush white carpet.
I take off as fast as I can, resisting the instinct to clamp a hand around my mouth as the urge to be sick overwhelms me.
If the others notice me bolting out of the room, they don’t do anything to stop me.
I can vaguely hear Kai shouting at Carla, followed by Kiki chiming in immediately after him.
I’m too overwhelmed by the nausea to grasp onto what they’re saying, focusing all my energy on not vomiting onto the carpet.
Once I’m out in the hallway, my mind goes blank.
I know there’s a bathroom somewhere down this hall, but can’t remember which of the various closed doors lead to it.
And based on the way my throat burns and my mouth starts to water, I don’t have time for trial and error.
Instead, I rush down the stairs. I’m weighed down by blood, heavy like I just dunked myself in and out of the hot tub fully clothed.
Still, I move as fast as I can, struggling not to slip as my soaked feet stain the sleek wood floors.
Thankfully, I’m able to make it to the bathroom just in time.
I slam the door behind me, bloody palm prints lining the walls and toilet seat as I collapse onto the ground and empty the contents of my stomach into the bowl.
Every part of me burns. My throat, my lips, my temples. The room rattles from thundering footsteps stomping down the stairs above me, voices shouting out in the hall, but I can’t focus on anything other than getting rid of everything inside me.
“This is bullshit!” I can hear Carla shout before more footsteps come racing past the door, followed by a slam. The sliding door, most likely.
The voices don’t follow Carla outside. Surrounded by silence, I focus on leveling out my breathing.
Regaining control of my trembling body—first my hands, then my legs, until I can lift myself up.
It takes more time than I anticipated, long enough that my joints begin to ache from staying folded around the toilet bowl.
Finally, I’m able to prop myself up against the sink.
The blood still coating my face and body is dried, tacky and stiff with every movement.
I rub at my eyes until I can get a good look at my reflection—and instantly wish I hadn’t.
Wrecked doesn’t even begin to cover it. My hair is gnarled with knots, blood, and whatever those foul-smelling chunks are.
It’s coated on every part of me—from my eyelashes to my flannel to my chewed-up fingernails.
Every inch of skin is stained deep, dark red.
I look like the devil everyone’s always accusing me of being.
I switch on the tap and do my best to wipe down my hands, but just like with the words painted onto our house, red is the hardest to get out. Scarlet water swirls down the drain but my skin is still stained with it—so embedded into me that it’ll probably take hours to scrub it all off.
I never should’ve come here.
The thought hits me like an electric spark, jolting me slightly.
Igniting something in me. Rage. Sadness.
Fear. From the moment I stepped into their room I knew Kiki and Carla had something planned for me.
That they’d do anything to scare me off.
But I never could’ve anticipated this—any of it.
Timothy and his forceful grip and wandering hands.
Carla meeting my deepest pain with casual cruelty.
Blood, dripping off me like water. This night was supposed to be the start of something new with me and Kai—and it was.
I got the kiss I’d dared to hope for. I’ll never regret what happened between us, but I do regret coming here.
If it wasn’t crystal clear before, it is now: All the people in this town want to do is hurt me.
What would it be like to hurt them back for once?
Like earlier with Timothy—how easy would it have been to drive a shard of glass into his neck? Or now with Carla. Just a small push or a bite to her arm—something, anything to let her feel a small piece of the pain I’ve dealt with over the past year.
A scream rips through the heavy silence, pulling me away from that dangerous line of thought.
Guttural as I had been earlier, but louder, more desperate.
I stare intently at my reflection, waiting for my lips to part to match the sound of the screams. To realize it was me all along again.
But my lips don’t move, and the screams don’t stop.
They just get louder.